Elon Musk said he uses the pronouns someone prefers, but would not enforce that policy on Twitter.
LGBTQ activists criticized Elon Musk on Thursday after the Twitter owner said he would allow users to misgender people on the social media site at will.
In a tweet on the first day of Pride Month, Musk said that he personally uses the pronouns someone—including a transgender person—prefers because it is good manners, but that he would not enforce that policy on Twitter.
Musk made this remark in response to a complaint from Jeremy Boreing, co-CEO of the conservative website The Daily Wire. Boreing, who wanted to distribute a video opposing transgender rights but had Twitter terminate a corresponding distribution agreement, stated that he considered it a matter of freedom of expression not to be allowed to use pronouns other than those used by transgender people.
“It’s definitely allowed,” Musk told Boreing. “Whether you agree to use a person’s preferred pronouns or not, not doing so is rude at best and certainly doesn’t violate any law.”
Musk said Twitter employees who told Boreing otherwise made a mistake.
In the culture wars online and offline, the use of pronouns other than one’s preferred one is a common means of harassing transgender people. Twitter banned this practice as part of its rule against degrading behavior or other hateful content until April. Then, the company’s new management under Musk quietly changed the rule without official announcement. The rule had been in effect since 2018.
Musk’s recent statement sparked criticism from LGBTQ organizations, who said the new policy opens the door to harassment of transgender people.
“Twitter was once a place where many marginalized people, including LGBTQ people, found community and has now become hostile,” said Laurel Powell, a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, in a telephone interview.
“What we’re seeing here isn’t really about censorship or discrimination against ideas. It’s about what kind of company Twitter wants to be and what kind of world it wants to create,” she said.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said Musk’s tweet was disappointing.
“This will only lead to an increase in the hate speech that has harmed our community on social media,” he said in a statement.
Heng-Lehtinen said lives could be at risk, citing a 2020 survey by the Trevor Project, an organization focused on suicide prevention. Transgender and nonbinary youth who reported that all or most people in their lives respected their pronouns were half as likely to attempt suicide as those whose pronouns were not respected, according to the survey.
Musk has taken an anti-transgender stance in the past. In tweets, he mocked transgender people and accused transgender advocates of contradictions. Last month, he participated in a Twitter event to launch the Republican presidential campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has signed several laws restricting LGBTQ rights. A year ago, one of Musk’s children filed a petition to change her name and officially recognize her gender as female, as she did not want to be related to Musk in any way.
Musk explained his current thoughts in his tweet on Thursday.
“I would like to note that I personally use a person’s preferred pronouns, just as I use a person’s preferred name, simply for the sake of good manners,” he said.
“For the same reason, however, I reject rude behavior, exclusion, or threats of violence when the wrong pronoun or name is used,” he added.
GLAAD, the LGBTQ media organization, said Twitter’s previous rule was designed to protect people from harassment and to reassure advertisers who did not want their ads to appear in connection with bullying.
“Elon Musk continues to do everything he can to make his already ailing website less safe for users and even less attractive to advertisers,” the organization said in a statement.
