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Sex-Based Speech is not harassment.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) has almost 4 billion active users and moderates content based on Community Standards. Its “Bullying and Harassment” Community Standard generally requires removal of targeted bullying against children and bullying that the victim specifically asks to be removed. This means that videos of trans-identifying men entering women’s sports and spaces, or generally identifying these males as males, is allowed on Meta platform. And for good cause. Frank discussion about and the visualization of trans-identifying males in women’s sports and spaces has been crucial to protecting women, and preserving truth itself.

But all that may change.

Meta’s Oversight Board is considering removing two videos that currently abide by Community Standards: one of a trans-identifying male in a women’s bathroom, who asserts a right to be there, and another of a male winning a women’s athletic competition, upsetting many participants and their parents. We believe these two videos are here and here. 

In this removal process, the Oversight Board is considering “policy recommendations” that would better consider “the rights of transgender people, especially for access to single-sex spaces and participation in sporting events.” The Oversight Board’s removal decisions are final. Its policy recommendations are not final, but extremely influential to changing Meta’s Community Standards.

The stakes could not be higher. If truthful, real-life discussions about biological sex are banned from Meta, the uniqueness of womanhood, not to mention the progress of women, will be eroded. A speech-prohibitive policy would cripple any large-scale movement to protect women’s sports, domestic abuse shelters, prisons, or overnight camps. But censoring the truth has consequences far beyond this. Threatening the reality of sex works to dissolve the very fabric of our society.

Independent Women’s Forum plans to submit comments on behalf of women and men across this country who wish to speak honestly on this topic. Use this form to tell Meta why this speech matters to you, this country, and our future generation. 

The Left will say that leaving these sorts of videos up threatens lives. That’s dangerous and false, but it’s incredibly weighty. The trans-identifying population is online and does have a high suicidality rate, and Meta is cognizant of that. Those in favor of women, truth, equal dignity, civilization, speech, inner peace, and happiness must be equally serious.

To that end, the best type of comment could address, for example:

• How sex-based speech (including videos) protects women;
• How sex-based speech informs the public to best accommodate both trans-identifying individuals and women in tandem;
• How censorship of sex-based speech would cause harm in ways the Board may not be thinking about;
• How sex-based speech is not harassment;
• How social transition ultimately harms many trans-identifying individuals; or
• That Meta would lose credibility as an organization for taking such an extreme position.

While comments should recognize the enormity of the consequences, be compassionate, persuasive, and thoughtful in your entries.

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This article was published by the Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.