A Norwegian woman could spend up to three years in prison for saying that men are not able to be lesbians.
On November 17, Tonje Gjevjon was told that she was being investigated by the police over hate speech because of a Facebook post that criticized men who said they were lesbians.
EXCLUSIVE: A Norwegian woman is facing criminal charges for stating men can not be lesbians.
Tonje Gjevjon is the second woman in the country to be investigated for criminal "transphobia" in 2022. She faces a potential prison sentence of three years.https://t.co/L2qBNMcj8k
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) December 13, 2022
Gjevjon is a lesbian artist who has faced intense pushback for standing up for women. In her post, she also criticized transgender activists who try to prosecute women who are against gender ideology.
“It’s just as impossible for men to become lesbian as it is for men to become pregnant,” Gjevjon wrote. “Men are men regardless of their sexual fetishes.”
In the post, translated on Facebook, Gjevjon wrote, “men with fetishes have been protected as a vulnerable minority through the foolish and constructed concept of gender identity is koko. [sic]”
Gjevjon said she posted her Facebook message on purpose to bring attention to Norway’s hate speech law. The law was changed in 2020 when the parliament in the country voted to make hate speech against people who identify as transgender illegal. Gjevjon is also not the first to be confronted with charges over saying men cannot be mothers or lesbians.
Last year, Gjevjon asked Anette Trettebergstuen, a politician in the Labour Party, what she was going to do to safeguard women and girls’ rights. She also asked if she thought that men could be lesbians.
“I believe it is absolutely necessary to place biological sex as the basis in all contexts where sex has legal, cultural, or practical relevance, and that equating sex with gender identity has harmful, discriminatory consequences for women and girls – especially lesbians,” Gjevjon said in her question.
“Will the Equality Minister take action to ensure that lesbian women’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?” She asked.
Trettebergstuen replied, “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.”
Gjevjon has also described being pushed out of the art community over her views, even though she was a prominent member of the music and art establishment for over 15 years.
“I have stated that women are female, that lesbians do not have penises, that children should not be responsible for decisions they do not have the capacity to understand the scope of, and that no-platforming is harmful to democracy. For these opinions I have been canceled several times,” Gjevjon wrote in Klassekampen, a Norwegian oulet.
“I was not prepared for the extent of how queer organizations, politicians and activists would demonize a lesbian artist who was not in step. Trans activists contact people I work with, portraying me as hateful and warning against being associated with me,” she said.