(LifeSiteNews) — Elon Musk has responded to criticism over the reintroduction of the “misgendering” rule on his platform X, formerly Twitter, saying that the change was due to a Brazilian court ruling and only applies in the South American country.
As LifeSiteNews reported last week, X had quietly reintroduced its policy of punishing users for “misgendering” or “deadnaming” someone, shadowbanning posts using accurate pronouns when referring to people suffering from gender confusion.
READ: X/Twitter reintroduces ‘pronoun’ policy, now shadow-bans posts for ‘misgendering’ or ‘deadnaming’
After several high-profile personalities complained about the policy change on X, Musk responded to a post by podcaster Tim Pool, who threatened to terminate “all ad spend commitments and verified accounts over X reinstating the misgendering policy.”
“Turns out this was due to a court judgment in Brazil, which is being appealed, but should not apply outside of Brazil,” the X owner wrote.
Turns out this was due to a court judgment in Brazil, which is being appealed, but should not apply outside of Brazil
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2024
One day before, Musk tried to justify the policy change by stating that it would only apply to “repeated, targeted harassment of a particular person.”
Shortly after Musk’s response to Pool, the X policy page on “Abuse and Harassment” was updated to include the preface “Where required by local laws” under the section “Use of Prior Names and Pronouns.”
The paragraph now reads:
Where required by local laws, we will reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition. Given the complexity of determining whether such a violation has occurred, we must always hear from the target to determine if a violation has occurred.
If other countries were to ban “misgendering,” the rule would likely be enforced in those countries as well.
Musk’s reference to a Brazilian court case likely refers to a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court from August 2023, in which the judges ruled in a 9-1 decision that what it deemed “hate speech” against LGBT-identifying individuals is punishable with prison time.
READ: Brazil’s Supreme Court rules anti-LGBT speech is punishable with prison time
The court likened “homophobia” and insults toward the so-called “LGBTQIAPN+ community” to racism, which already carries sentences of prison time and fines.
Twitter initially banned “misgendering” and “deadnaming” as so-called “hateful content” in 2018. In April 2023, after Musk had acquired the company, the ban was reversed.