Twitter, the social media site owned by Elon Musk, has quietly removed a policy that protected transgender individuals from targeted misgendering and deadnaming. The policy was implemented in 2018, prior to Musk’s acquisition, and prohibited “targeted harassment, including repeated slurs, tropes” or content intended to dehumanize protected categories.
The change to Twitter’s hateful content policy has been met with criticism from the LGBTQ+ nonprofit GLAAD, which described the move as “the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike”. GLAAD CEO and president Sarah Kate Ellis stated that “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.”
The removal of this section referring to deadnaming ignores the impact that targeted harassment has on the well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals. Targeted misgendering and deadnaming have been identified by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a form of hate speech that denies the existence of trans people and rejects their recognition and respect.
This decision also puts Twitter behind other social media companies such as TikTok and Pinterest, which have explicitly banned misgendering, deadnaming, misogyny and the promotion of ‘conversion therapy’ practices. Similarly, Meta, the owner of Facebook, has publicly stated that it prohibits “violent or dehumanizing content directed against people who identify as LGBTQ and remove claims about someone’s gender identity upon their request.”
Since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, the platform has seen a major rise in anti-trans rhetoric, and offensive comments against Black people have also increased significantly. Musk has posted several anti-LGBTQ+ tweets in the past, which has led some to predict that Twitter’s hateful conduct policy would be changed in the future.
This decision to remove protections for trans individuals from Twitter’s hateful content policy further endangers the LGBTQ+ community on the platform. Social media companies have a responsibility to maintain safe environments for all users, and Twitter’s failure to do so puts them at odds with their competitors.