Transwoman accuses Twitter of being 'Orwellian' over gender posts

Kristina Harrison(Photo: Twitter/Kristina Harrison)

A transsexual says she was told to delete posts from Twitter in which she argued that the sex of transwomen should still be regarded as male regardless of whether they identify as female.

The Times reports that Kristina Harrison, 53, was given 12 hours by Twitter to remove the offending tweets or else be suspended from the social media platform. 

The NHS worker, who underwent gender reassignment from male to female 21 years ago, disagrees with the popular slogan that 'transwomen are women' and said on Twitter that it should not be considered an insult to say that the sex of transgender women is male. 

'Sex is relevant to this debate, whatever your gender identity. Sex & gender are not the same. Your sex is male. It's not a insult, it's not automatically hateful to state it in these discussions, it's part of biological reality that matters in so many ways in a sexist world,' she reportedly tweeted.

'Calling you male is factual, relevant, indeed essential in this debate. It's about correctly sexing you rather than so-called 'misgendering' you. Why in any case should the women here respect your pronouns while you support the erasure of their sex-based rights?' 

She told The Times that Twitter's policy on gender posts was 'sexist, absurd and Orwellian' after it threatened to suspend her account over the tweets.

A recent poll by the Fairplay for Women campaign group found that only one in five Brits (19 per cent) agrees with the concept that transwomen are women.

Twitter recently changed its policy on hateful conduct  to include bans on 'misgendering' - when a trans person is referred to by their birth gender - and 'deadnaming' - in which a transgender person is referred to by their birth name instead of chosen name.

'We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category,' Twitter states.

'This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.'