Americans are having a huge fight over the meaning of free speech. On the one hand there are sane people who believe the old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,” and on the other hand there are the people who claim that any criticism directed at the “right” sort of people is violence and should be suppressed and/or punished.

First things first: speech is only violence if certain people are targeted. You know the drill: if you are in a “protected” class you are free to say and do what you want. Throw any accusation, doxx any person, set mobs on people. All that is called “holding people accountable.”

Criticizing the protected, though, is a literal call to violence. It is terrorism. It violates people’s safety. It is “stochastic terrorism.” To call it a double standard is far too kind. It is simple totalitarianism: comply or else.

In the US, though, the penalties tend to be social ostracism. Not that this is OK, and once ostracism reaches a certain point it becomes impossible to make a living. But you are not thrown in jail unless you commit a crime, which gets labeled a “hate crime.” I can insult anybody I want and not go to jail.

It’s not that way everywhere in the West, and if the Left gets its way it won’t remain that way here.

An interesting case has popped up in Norway that both reveals what is at stake, and also how the “intersectional” hierarchy works. It also demonstrates why gays should lop off the letters in their clique after LGB. Because gays are falling fast in the intersectional hierarchy, and soon will be labeled as privileged as white women. And become targets of hate because of it.

A Norwegian film maker, who is a lesbian activist herself, is facing jail time for saying the wrong thing on Facebook. On her own Facebook page. She knew she was violating hate speech laws but felt compelled to take a stand for both sanity and for free speech.

In Norway, a filmmaker is facing up to three years in prison on criminal hate-speech charges for saying that a man cannot become a lesbian.

Tonje Gjevjon, a lesbian filmmaker and actress, was informed on Nov. 17 that she was under investigation for a post on her Facebook page that read, “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.”

The post was in response to a prominent Norwegian trans activist, Christine Jentoft, who is a transgender biological male who identifies as a “lesbian mother” and a “gaymer.” Jentoft had previously accused another woman, Christina Ellingsen, of transphobia for a similar claim. Ellingsen is also under investigation and faces three years in jail if found guilty, as reported by Rebel News.

Gjevjon has said that she intentionally posted her Facebook message to draw attention to Norway’s hate speech laws, which were amended in 2020 to add “gender identity and gender expression” under protected categories from hate speech, Reduxx reported.

“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.”

If she had said that in 2019 nobody would have blinked an eye. Saying it in 2022 could land her in jail.

Gjevjon has previously spoken out on controversial topics surrounding gender and women’s rights, including confronting Norway’s minister of culture and reality, Anette Trettebergstuen, claiming that misconstruing gender identity and biological sex has “harmful” and “discriminatory” implications for women, especially lesbians.

“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?” Gjevjon asked.

“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,” Trettebergstuen replied.

A Minister of Culture and Reality? Are you kidding me? And to have somebody unironically claim not to inhabit the same reality as literally every person on Earth until 5 minutes ago?

Yes. And if you think this stops in Norway you are sadly mistaken. For years Canada has had Human Rights Commissions empowered to punish people for saying the wrong thing, and the entire EU is pushing for harsh censorship laws that would ban speech that violates their Narrative. It is the rule, not the exception.

The United States appears to be a bastion of freedom compared to these countries, despite the full scale attack on free speech we suffer every day. Jail, so far, is a bridge too far.

But for how long? The FBI opened files on parents criticizing school board members, using provisions of the Patriot Act to go after them. A father whose daughter was raped was the subject of a witch hunt, and he is not alone.

We are far down the path that other Western countries have taken, and it is long past time that we band together and convince our friends and neighbors that this not benign, compassionate care for the downtrodden. Because it isn’t.

Perhaps the rousing of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual civil rights group will be a result of this transformation. They still have some cultural clout that White males lost long ago, and are in a position to fight back.

It would be ironic indeed if people who not long ago were on the vanguard of the Left became vital allies in the fight from preserving a basic American tradition. I would welcome their help.