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A Norwegian actress and female lesbian filmmaker, Tonje Gjevjon, is reportedly facing three years in prison on charges of criminal hate speech for saying that a man cannot be a lesbian.
Gjevjon posted on her Facebook page, "It’s just as impossible for men to become a lesbian as it is for men to become pregnant. Men are men regardless of their sexual fetishes."
She was speaking out against a prominent Norwegian activist, Christine Jentoft, a transgender female who often refers to herself as a lesbian mother.
According to Fox News, Gjevjon said she wrote the Facebook post intentionally to draw attention to Norway’s hate speech laws, Fox News reports.
However, on November 17 this year,
Gjevjon was informed that she was being investigated for the Facebook comments.
According to Fox News, it seems that Gjevjon’s comment is being investigated under a 2020 amendment to Norway's penal code that included “gender identity” and “gender expression” under-protected categories from hate speech.
The penal code provides that people found guilty of hate speech face either a fine or up to one year in prison for private remarks and a maximum of three years for public comments.
Jentoft, also previously accused another woman identified as Christina Ellingsen, of transphobia for a similar claim. Ellingsen is also under investigation and if found guilty faces three years in jail.
Women’s rights activists, including the Women’s Declaration International Norway, which Ellingsen represents, claim that the amendment to the penal code undermined free speech and expression in Norway.
This is not the first time that Gjevjon has taken a stand on contentious issues relating to gender and women’s rights.
Last year, she confronted Norway’s Minister of Culture and Reality, Anette Trettebergstuen stating that misinterpreting gender identity and biological sex has "harmful" and "discriminatory" implications for women, especially lesbians.
Gjevjon asked, "Will the equality minister take action to ensure that lesbian’s human rights are safeguarded, by making it clear that there are no lesbians with penises, that males cannot be lesbians regardless of their gender identity, and by tidying up the mess of the harmful gender policies left behind by the previous government?"
Trettebergstuen, the Culture minister responded by saying, "I do not share an understanding of reality where the only two biological sexes are to be understood as sex. Gender identity is also important.”
According to the Fox News report, the first gender identity-related discrimination charge in Norway was filed in 2018 about a transgender woman who claimed that she was prohibited from taking a shower in the women’s locker room of a sports facility, according to female-led news organization Redux.
Norway, as one of the most liberal countries in Europe for LGBTQ persons, even permits people to legally alter their gender without a medical diagnosis.
Society and Culture
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