Twitter has slapped Minnesota Family Council with a temporary suspension for referring to Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s nominee for Assistant Health Secretary, as a “man who identifies as a woman.” Although this statement is undeniably true (Dr. Levine, originally Richard, changed his name to “Rachel” in 2012), Twitter appears to believe that this tweet is hate speech.
Let’s be clear: Rachel Levine is a man who identifies as a woman. There is no process by which a man can become a woman. Thus, saying that a transgender-identified person has not changed their biological sex is not ill will but simple fact. God’s beautiful creation means that each of us is male or female, and we must affirm this truth even as we respond compassionately and with Christlike love to people going through gender dysphoria.
Here’s the full text of our appeal to Twitter:
Over the weekend, our Twitter account was suspended for allegedly violating Twitter’s rules and we have been informed that in order to reactivate our account, we must delete a tweet in which we refer to Dr. Rachel Levine as a man who identifies as a woman. This was simply an acknowledgement of biological reality. Dr. Levine identifies as a woman, something that we acknowledged in our tweet, but this does not change the fact that he is biologically male.
We believe that truth matters and that the words we use ought to reflect the truth. Because of this, we use words that align with the reality of biological sex. This is not done out of ill will but out of a sincere commitment to the truth. As such, we consider the decision to suspend our account to be erroneous and ask you to reconsider this action.
Below are the screenshots showing Twitter’s action and our response.
Twitter’s initial notification that we had “violated the Twitter rules.”
Twitter’s request that we remove the tweet referring to Dr. Rachel Levine as “a man who identifies as a woman.”
MFC’s Pending Appeal to Twitter
Update 1/28: This morning, Twitter unlocked our account and restored the tweet which they had taken issue with. Follow Minnesota Family Council on Twitter here.
