Why was Meghan Murphy banned from Twitter? Feminist slams platform's policy against misgendering
Meghan Murphy, a renowned Canadian writer, was permanently suspended from Twitter in November 2018. During her appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, Murphy revealed why she was banned from the social networking site.
Apart from being a writer, Murphy is also a journalist, and founder of Feminist Current, a feminist website and podcast. In her writing and speeches, Murphy has often criticizes third-wave feminism, male feminists, the sex industry, exploitation of women in mass media, censorship, and gender identity. She has over 7,000 followers on Instagram. Murphy's Twitter ban came after she referred to a trans woman online, as “him”. A petition was later launched on Change.org to reinstate Murphy on Twitter. However, it barely reached 10,000 signatures. Some other personalities who have been banned from using various social media platforms include Naomi Wolf, Aubrey Huff, Donald Trump and Darren Till.
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Why Meghan Murphy faced Twitter ban
The description on the Change.org petition read: "Over the course of a few weeks, Meghan Murphy was repeatedly locked out of her Twitter account for statements and valid questions such as these: 'Men aren’t women. How are transwomen not men? What is the difference between men and transwomen?' Ultimately, Murphy's Twitter account was permanently suspended on the evening of Friday November 23rd because of her reference to claims made by a transwoman 'JY', who made 16 human rights complaints against women who refused to give her a 'Brazilian wax'," The service was reportedly only offered to women but JY still had her male genitals. Murphy further explained that after her Twitter account was suspended, she was eventually banned for life due to tweeting the statement: “Yeah it’s him." Her statement was in reference to JY, or Jessica Yaniv, previously known as Johnathan.
The petition further added: "JY dropped the case against the aestheticians when comments online were discovered which alleged that he was a pedophile and sexual predator." According to the petition, because Murphy's tweet referred to JY using a male pronoun instead of a female pronoun, Twitter claimed this violated their new policy against 'misgendering', a policy that was allegedly not in place when Murphy posted her tweet. Murphy’s account currently remains locked despite her continued efforts to request re-possession of her account on the platform. On February 11, 2019, Murphy reportedly filed a lawsuit against Twitter to get the ban lifted.
What did Meghan Murphy tell Joe Rogan?
On August 20 Murphy appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast to have a 2 hour and 47-minute long conversation with the host where she recounted how the ban against her came about. She began by describing herself as the “loudest feminist voice in Canada" before the ban. She said that she began speaking about gender identity legislation around 2016 as the liberal government started pushing its agenda.
It was while she began tweeting around the topic and asking questions about the topic that her account was suspended. Her tweet asking, “What’s the difference between a man and trans woman?” was "locked down," she claimed. She said that she simply was trying to get an explanation and not trying to be rude. She went onto give her own opinion on gender identity, adding that the laws are not progressive, and rather come across as weird and nonsensical, which in turn impacts women negatively. Murphy was again suspended for tweeting the statement, “Men aren’t women.” Rogan replied with, “We are literally, like, denying biology," referring to Twitter regulations. Murphy claimed that she was never contacted by anyone from Twitter and no one informed her that she had broken their rules. Rogan added that the platform justified their decision by stating that after Murphy deleted the tweet, she re-uploaded a screenshot to continue the debate.