Further protections for women and girls

30 Jan 2026 11:14 AM

Consultation responses support new hate crime regulations.

Women and girls will have greater protection against hate crimes under legislation laid in the Scottish Parliament by Ministers recently.

The regulations, if agreed by MSPs, will designate ‘sex’ as a protected characteristic under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. There are protections in the Act for individuals’ rights in respect to freedom of expression for the new stirring up hatred offences. Hate crime is behaviour that is both criminal and rooted in prejudice and can be verbal, physical, online or face-to-face.

This will make it a specific criminal offence to stir up hatred against women and girls, as well as men and boys, because of their sex. The regulations will also allow courts to treat crimes motivated by hatred of someone's sex as aggravated offences, which are considered more serious – including when passing sentence following conviction.

A consultation was held on the draft regulations, with 309 out of 365 responses supporting adding the characteristic of sex to both the stirring up of hatred offence and the aggravation. The final regulations now laid for MSPs’ scrutiny are largely unchanged from the draft.

The change will mean that women and girls have the same legal safeguards available under the Act to groups targeted by hate crime because of their age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance recently said:

“These regulations will significantly strengthen legal protections for women and girls from offences motivated by prejudice and hatred because of their sex and they will ensure that Scotland’s justice system can respond appropriately.

“The changes will mean women and girls have the same protections as victims who are targeted because of a specific characteristic, such as age, religion or disability. Men and boys will also be protected, however, we know that women and girls suffer significantly more from threats, abuse and harassment based on their sex, so they are likely to benefit most from those new protections.

“The vast majority of responses received during the consultation on these proposals supported adding the characteristic of sex to both the stirring up of hatred offence and the aggravation.

“The regulations will come into force on 5 April 2027, giving Police Scotland the necessary time to update training and guidance and ensuring they are operationally ready for the change.”

Background

As required by law, the draft Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) to enact the change was laid in Parliament for views to be offered. A public consultation on the draft SSI ran from 28 August and 17 October 2025 and the responses helped to inform consideration of the final SSI The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 (Characteristic of Sex) (Amendment and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 .

Consultation responses and analysis

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act was implemented on 1 April 2024. It introduced new offences for threatening and/or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred against a group of people who possess, or appear to possess, characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. These new offences have a higher threshold for a crime to be committed than the long-standing offence of stirring up racial hatred, which has been in place since 1986. The regulations define sex as “biological sex”.

In hate crime law, an offence can be aggravated based on what the offender believes about the victim’s identity, even if that belief is wrong. This already applies to existing protections, such as homophobic or Islamophobic abuse directed at someone who does not belong to that group. The same principle would apply where abuse is based on perceived sex, regardless of the victim’s actual sex.

Reporting hate crime – Police Scotland