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Twitter Removes Policy Forbidding ‘Misgendering’ or ‘Deadnaming’ Transgender Individuals

April 21, 2023

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Social media platform Twitter has removed its Policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals” following a series of conservative accounts suspended for “violating” its rule.

The term “Deadnaming” is used by the LGBTQIA+ community to describe a person’s given name being used after they have begun identifying as another gender (under a new name.)

Since 2018, the Twitter policy has designated using a person’s given name after transitioning or intentionally “misgendering” as a form of harassment agaisnt transgender individuals.

However, on Monday, Twitter announced that it would only place warning labels on tweets deemed “potentially” violating its rules against hateful conduct.

In the new policy update, Twitter also deleted the line against “deadnaming” from its rules.

Under Twitter’s previous Policy, tweets deemed in violation of such rules were removed, and in many cases, accounts were locked or suspended.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), responded angrily to Twitter’s policy change:

“Twitter’s decision to covertly roll back its longtime Policy is the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike. This decision to roll back LGBTQ safety pulls Twitter even more out of step with TikTok, Pinterest, and Meta, which all maintain similar policies to protect their transgender users at a time when anti-transgender rhetoric online is leading to real world discrimination and violence.”

In the wake of the horrific Nashville shooting, where the shooter was revealed to be transgender, reportedly targeting Christians, many left-wing outlets criticized those who “deadnamed” the culprit, who killed six people, 3 of them children.

As The Daily Fetched reported, CBS News executives even sent out a memo telling staff to refrain from mentioning the shooter’s gender identity.

Interestingly, Twitter’s policy change came as president Donald Trump posted an article from The Federalist on his popular Truth Social platform titled, “Twitter Cannot Be Saved. It’s Time For Free Speech Proponents To Let It Die.”

The article, written by The Federalists’ Sean Davis, details his experience of being banned from Twitter after reporting that the Nashville shooting carried about a Transgender, and also highlights that the incident came just days ahead of the “Trans Day of Vengeance,” an event planned by an outfit called the Trans Radical Activist Network.

Davis wrote:

Well, it happened on Monday at a quiet Christian school atop a hill in the middle of Nashville. And by Wednesday afternoon I was banned by Twitter from accessing my account for reporting on the shooting, for reporting on the Trans Day of Vengeance which may well have inspired the cold-blooded murderer, and for sharing a link to a news story from The Daily Wire, another conservative news outlet based in Nashville.

Twitter claimed my reporting violated Twitter’s terms of service and that I had personally threatened, incited, glorified, or expressed a desire for violence. Such a claim isn’t just false; it’s defamatory. Twitter published a notice on my feed (which I can no longer even access) stating I violated its rules. Again, such a claim is false and defamatory. Twitter has a right to ban me for whatever reason it wants, but it doesn’t have a right to viciously lie about me.

Ella Irwin, the head of Twitter’s Orwellian “trust and safety group,” claimed on Twitter on Wednesday that the tech company wasn’t banning accounts for reporting on the Trans Day of Vengeance. Instead, she claimed, the company was merely trying to remove scheduling and logistics information for the event, lest people gather and commit violence. She claimed no accounts were being banned or punished for reporting on the event. That is also false. (I would include links to Irwin’s tweets so you can read them in full context, but unfortunately, I’m banned from accessing the service, so you’ll have to take my word for it or search for them yourself).

Irwin and others cling to the facade of safety: We’re only doing this so as not to inflame people, lest they join the Trans Day of Vengeance event. Let’s be clear about this rationale: It is a lie meant to suffocate both the facts and those precious few of us who dare to report them. It is no different than banning reporting of the Holocaust for fear it might incite someone to launch a new one, or banning police and accusing them of murder because they posted a wanted poster with the picture of a murderer on the loose.

It appears Twitter has not sorted out all its problems yet.

However, if Conservatives continue to hold Musk’s feet to the fire, his work in rebirthing the platform into a public square based on free speech could soon be a reality.

Twitter, becoming a “free speech” platform, still appears to be a work in progress.