Twitter rationalized the rules change by explaining its research has shown “some groups of people are disproportionately targeted with abuse online.” Those groups include “women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.”
(Tré Goins-Phillips – Faith Wire) Executives at Twitter have decided it’s time to bar people from “misgendering” or “deadnaming” those in the transgender community.
“Misgendering” is the practice of referring to an individual with the pronouns — he, she — that do not correlate with said person’s chosen gender identity, such as calling Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner) “he” instead of “she.”
“Deadnaming” is when someone uses a transgender person’s former name, like Bruce, instead of their new name, like Caitlyn.
Twitter updated its “hateful conduct policy” to ban such blunders in late October, though the rule is just now garnering national attention.
The policy reads, in part:
We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanise, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.
Research: