Transgender activists, and their allies, are outraged after Twitter’s Terms of Service removed restrictions on “dead naming” and gender misrepresentation.
The policy was implemented in 2018, before Elon Musk, a tech billionaire, bought the platform for $44 Billion. Musk said on Sunday that declaring preferred pronouns was “virtue signaling” and could be used by bad people as a shield.
Two days later the policy was revised to include gender-neutral language.
Sarah Kate Ellis told Associated Press, GLAAD’s president, and CEO, that a change in policy could lead to violence towards transgender people.
“Twitter’s decision to covertly reverse its long-standing policy is just the latest example as to how unsafe it is for both users and advertisers,” said Ellis.
She added, “This decision to roll back LGBTQ safety puts Twitter further out of line with TikTok and Pinterest who all maintain similar policies for their transgender users, at a moment when online anti-transgender slurs are leading to discrimination and violence in the real world.”
Other Twitter users have attacked Twitter through their tweets.
“Twitter lifted its policy on targeted misgendering, and now the freaks are out misgendering every trans person and deadnaming them as an accomplishment. “It’s not about freedom of speech; it’s about bullying people for who they are,” stated activist Alejandra Carraballo.
Nora Benavidez, an attorney, tweeted: “Musk’s every decision is bad for safety, free speech, and business.”
This is exhausting. “Every day, something happens that shows how people hate trans people and do not care what happens to them. It’s f***ing frightening and overwhelming,” said one user who identified as bisexual.
One other source called the policy shift a “genocidal act.”
Some public schools have amended their policy to include “slurs” such as dead-naming or misgendering and have threatened to suspend any students who do not follow the new rules.
Find out more about Twitter’s Elon Musk.
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