Follow the Stack · Grievance
LGBTphobia
Statements, policies or actions targeting LGBTQ+ people, including transphobia.
12 documented facts
LinkedIn removed "misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals" from the examples of prohibited conduct in the Hateful and Derogatory Content section of its English-language Professional Community Policies, and removed "race or gender identity" from the examples in its harassment policy, without announcing the change. The edit was flagged by the nonprofit Open Terms Archive. GLAAD called it an "overt anti-LGBTQ move".
“misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals”
Response: LinkedIn said it regularly updates its policies and that "personal attacks or intimidation toward anyone based on their identity, including misgendering" still violate its harassment policy and are not allowed on the platform.
Blog post opposing Pride Week material on gender identity and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance meetings for primary pupils (grades 3-5) at the Copenhagen International School, calling the Pride Week activities "overt indoctrination" and the meetings "outright creepy". He reported that the school dropped the remaining Pride Week material for the semester after parent feedback.
“There's simply no responsible explanation for having kids as young as eight, or even as old as 11, in lunch and recess meetings with CIS staff to discuss gender and sexuality on school campus.”
Removed "gender identity and expression" from the list of protected attributes in its public hate speech policy, between January 29 and February 6, 2025 according to archived versions of the page reviewed by The Advocate. The revised list grouped "Sex, Gender, or Sexual Orientation" without mentioning gender identity, and an example describing a protected group's status as "just a form of mental illness that needs to be cured" was also removed. The change was first reported by User Mag.
Response: A YouTube spokesperson described the changes as "regular copy edits to the website" and said: "Our hate speech policies haven't changed".
Deleted the trans and nonbinary chat themes from Messenger, introduced in 2021 and 2022, in the same week it changed its hateful conduct rules to allow allegations that LGBTQ+ people are mentally ill. The blog posts announcing the themes were also no longer online.
Response: Meta did not respond to 404 Media's request for comment and declined to comment to Platformer.
Updated its Hateful Conduct policy for Facebook, Instagram and Threads to explicitly allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality based on gender or sexual orientation, while such insults remain prohibited for other protected characteristics.
“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality”
User Mag reported that Instagram had for months hidden search results for LGBTQ-related terms and hashtags such as #lesbian, #gay and #trans for teen accounts under its "sensitive content" filter. Meta lifted the restriction after being contacted.
Response: Meta said: "These search terms and hashtags were mistakenly restricted" and that it does not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under its policies.
In an interview with Jordan Peterson released on 22 July 2024, referred to his transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson by her former name, said he had been "tricked" into consenting to puberty blockers, described his child as dead, and said he had vowed to destroy the "woke mind virus".
“My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
Response: Wilson told NBC News that Musk had not been tricked and knew what he was doing when he consented to her treatment: "He was not by any means tricked."
As CEO of Tumblr owner Automattic, publicly argued with a banned transgender Tumblr user over the moderation decision on Tumblr and other platforms and shared private details of her account, including private account names. The user had been banned after posting that she hoped Mullenweg "dies a forever painful death". The dispute drew community-wide outcry and accusations of transphobia.
Response: Mullenweg said the user was banned for posts threatening violence against Tumblr staff, not for her transition photos, and that trans people on staff were not protesting the decision.
Announced that the words "cis" and "cisgender" are considered slurs on Twitter (now X), with repeated targeted use punishable by at least temporary suspension.
“The words "cis" or "cisgender" are considered slurs on this platform.”
Removed from its hateful conduct policy the rule, in place since 2018, that prohibited "targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals".
Response: Twitter did not immediately respond to AP's request for comment.
A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that TikTok restricted ("shadow-banned") LGBTQ-related hashtags in several languages, including "gay" in Arabic, Russian, Estonian and Bosnian, "I am gay" and "I am lesbian" in Russian, and "transgender" in Arabic. TikTok acknowledged restricting some LGBT hashtags in some countries as part of its "localised" moderation.
Response: TikTok said some terms were partially restricted due to local laws, others because they were mainly used to search for pornographic content, and that some English phrases and some compound phrases in Arabic had been moderated by mistake; it denied practising censorship.
Donated $1,000 in support of California Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage. The donation became public in 2012 and led to his resignation as Mozilla CEO in April 2014, less than two weeks after his appointment was announced.
Response: In 2012 Eich confirmed the donation, said Mozilla had nothing to do with it and declined to discuss Proposition 8. He stepped down as Mozilla CEO and from the Mozilla Foundation board on April 3, 2014.