An American Christian magazine's Twitter account has been suspended following a statement saying that Biden's transgender nominee is a man who believes that he is a woman.
Twitter suspended The Daily Citizen's account after the latter's tweet on Jan. 19 describing Rachel Levine, Biden's nominee for assistant secretary of health and was born Richard, as "a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman." The statement includes a link of an article about his nomination, The Christian Post reported.
This resulted to having the magazine's account locked out by the social media organization, saying that the former's tweet is in violation of the latter's rules prohibiting "hateful conduct." The publication reportedly appealed but was told that the account will remain in suspension unless the tweet is deleted.
"Hi The Daily Citizen, your account, @FocusCitizen has been locked for violating the Twitter Rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Please note that repeated violations may lead to a permanent suspension of your account. Proceed to Twitter now to fix the issue with your account," Twitter said in its email to The Daily Citizen.
The magazine replied to the social media company saying that other media outlets have reported about Levine's nomination and stated in their reports that he was born a man and remains such but believes that he is a woman. The Daily Citizen also contended that it did not promote violence.
"As a Christian organization, we would never do so. We simply explained to our readers the appointment and defined what transgender women are - those born male who believe they are a woman, regardless of whether they have had opposite-sex hormones or surgeries. We believe Twitter's blocking of this tweet and lockdown of our account discriminates against Focus on the Family's The Daily Citizen on the basis of our religious affiliation," the publication stated.
Twitter dismissed The Daily Citizen's appeal insisting on the magazine's violation of the rules for its users.
The social media company's censorship goes beyond religious or philosophically conservative accounts.
In 2018, Twitter permanently suspended Canadian journalist Meghan Murphy after tweeting that "men aren't women." Days after, the social media giant updated its policies forbidding users from "dead-naming" or tweeting a transgender person's birth name and using biologically correct pronouns of people who identify as transgenders.
Transgender advocates says that using "he" to describe a man who identifies as a woman is "misgendering."
Trans-activists, on the other hand, said that dead-naming and misgendering translate to "abuse" and "violence."
Murphy wrote that while the social media site permits death threats and graphic pornography on its platform, which she said she had reported, Twitter does not allow her "to state very basic facts, such as 'men aren't women'."
"This is hardly an abhorrent thing to say, nor should it be considered 'hateful' to ask questions about the notion that people can change sex, or ask for explanations about transgender ideology," the journalist further said.
The Daily Citizen is a publication of the Focus on Family, a global Christian ministry. The magazine revealed that in October 2020, Facebook censored its article about mask wearing, Premier Christian News wrote.
