Speech / S6
Repeated misgendering
The person repeatedly refers to a named transgender public figure by their former pronouns and name in public posts, with no threats and no contact with the figure.
What we score
What can the state do to the author because of the posts?
Default assumptions: Unless a vignette says otherwise, the person is a 30-year-old citizen of sound mind with no criminal record, acting alone, on their own behalf and not for profit, in an ordinary residential area. Where subnational units (states, provinces, cantons, Länder) make their own law, each unit is scored and the result is weighted by population. 'The state' includes police, prosecutors, courts, regulators, tax authorities and anyone acting on their orders, including platforms obeying takedown orders.
Score anchors
Both the law score and the practice score use these anchors. Half points are used when a country sits between two of them.
| Score | What it means for this vignette |
|---|---|
| 10 | Nothing. |
| 8 | Takedown or platform pressure only. |
| 4 | Civil liability (harassment, discrimination or defamation suit) for the posts. |
| 3 | Administrative fine or regulator sanction. |
| 2 | Criminal offence (harassment, hate speech, malicious communications): fine or under 1 year. |
| 1 | Criminal offence: 1 to 5 years. |
| 0 | Over 5 years. |
Evidence used: Harassment, malicious-communications and hate-speech provisions as applied to gender identity; self-ID registry offences (e.g. 'deadnaming' fines); reported cases.
How each country scores
| Country | Law | Practice | Process | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 10 | 10 | 0 | 10.0 | No US law penalises misgendering a public figure in public posts. Harassment statutes need targeted contact or threats, and anti-discrimination law covers employment, housing and public accommodation, not a private person's posts. Viewpoint-based penalties on demeaning speech are unconstitutional (Matal v. Tam). A transgender public figure could not win a defamation claim, because the use of a pronoun is opinion and not a false statement of fact. |
| Czechia | 4 | 9 | 0 | 7.0 | Misgendering is not a criminal or administrative offence, and Czechia has no self-ID registry offence. The figure could in theory bring a civil personality-rights action (Civil Code §§ 81-82, 2956) seeking an end to the interference and compensation, but no such judgment was found. Hate-speech offences (§§ 355-356) require defamation of, or incitement against, a group, not misgendering one person. |
| Netherlands | 4 | 9 | 0 | 7.0 | Art. 137c Sr protects only race, religion, sexual orientation and disability, and art. 137d adds sex, so gender identity is not covered and misgendering is not a crime. Stalking (art. 285b) requires systematic intrusion into privacy and doxing (art. 285d) requires spreading personal data, and neither fits public posts about a public figure. The realistic exposure is a civil tort claim (art. 6:162 BW) under the art. 8/10 ECHR balancing test. No reported Dutch prosecutions for misgendering were found. |
| Denmark | 4 | 9 | 0 | 7.0 | No Danish law covers misgendering. § 266 b protects groups (including by gender identity), not a named individual, and the honour offence in § 267 (fine or up to 1 year, private prosecution) needs a statement 'suitable to violate someone's honour', which no court has found misgendering to be. The figure could at most try a private defamation action; I found no reported case. |
| Singapore | 2 | 8 | 0 | 5.6 | Protection from Harassment Act s3 makes insulting communications intended to cause distress an offence (fine up to S$5,000 or 6 months), and s4 fines insulting communications likely to cause distress; deliberate repeated deadnaming could be charged under either. Since 29 June 2026 the Online Safety Commission can also order online harassment taken down or the poster's account restricted. No prosecution or OSC order for misgendering has been reported. |
| New Zealand | 1 | 8 | 0 | 5.2 | Misgendering is not itself an offence, and the Human Rights Act's hate-speech provisions do not cover gender identity. Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 s22 punishes posting a digital communication intended to cause, and causing, 'serious emotional distress' to a victim (max 2 years or a $50,000 fine), with repetition a listed factor; the District Court can also order takedowns. No case applying s22 or the HDCA civil regime to misgendering of a public figure was found, so in practice the realistic outcome is a Netsafe complaint or platform action. |
| Ireland | 1 | 7 | 0 | 4.6 | Misgendering is not itself an offence. Since 2023, harassment under Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 s10 expressly covers persistently 'communicating with or about a person' in a way that seriously interferes with their peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm, max 10 years (s10A adds a hate-aggravated version covering gender); Coco's Law s4 (2020) covers grossly offensive communications about a person with intent to cause harm, max 2 years. No court has applied these to misgendering posts, and no such prosecution has been reported. |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 7 | −0.5 | 4.5 | Misgendering is not itself an offence, but Communications Act s127 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (course of conduct, max 6 months for the basic offence, plus a civil claim) can be applied to repeated posts about a named person. In Scottow v CPS [2020] EWHC 3421 (Admin) the High Court quashed a s127 conviction for calling a trans activist a man online, calling the prosecution a 'grossly disproportionate' interference with free speech. Police still sometimes investigate or record non-crime hate incidents, but charges for misgendering alone are now rare. Scotland's 2021 Act requires threatening or abusive conduct plus intent. |
| Mexico | 3 | 6 | −0.5 | 4.3 | When the trans figure is a politician, misgendering can be 'violencia política en razón de género'. In 2022 the electoral tribunal (TEPJF) found Deputy Gabriel Quadri liable for calling Deputy Salma Luévano 'señor' and for transphobic tweets. It ordered a public apology and two courses and entered him in the national registry of sanctioned persons, and the Sala Superior confirmed the ruling. These are administrative sanctions. For non-politicians, a complaint to CONAPRED (LFPED) or under CDMX Penal Code art. 206 (harassing a person on grounds of identity, on complaint) is possible but rarely used. |
| Switzerland | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3.6 | Art. 261bis covers sexual orientation but not gender identity, so misgendering a group or person is not hate speech. A named figure could file a complaint for insult (Art. 177, monetary penalty up to 90 daily units) if a court finds misgendering an attack on honour, which is legally uncertain, or sue under Art. 28 Civil Code (personality rights) for an injunction and damages. We found no criminal conviction for misgendering in Switzerland. |
| Germany | 3 | 4 | −0.5 | 3.1 | Under § 13(1) SBGG, nobody may disclose a person's former name or gender without consent after a legal change. § 14 SBGG makes doing so with intent to harm an administrative offence with a fine of up to €10,000. Civil courts grant injunctions against misgendering: LG Frankfurt barred Rome Medien from calling a trans activist a 'man', on pain of up to €250,000. Criminal insult (§ 185 StGB) has been used for abusive posts about trans politicians, but there is no reported conviction for misgendering alone. |