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Comment by stonogo | Hacker News Reader

Meghan Murphy was banned from Twitter for deliberately misgendering trans people. She's on record saying that she has no problem with people having reassignment surgery etc, but then she built up a long track record of calling trans women "him" or using a name they've changed away from as a personal attack, and that's not a defensible "opinion" according to Twitter's terms of service.

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But you can insult conservatives by calling them Nazis and that’s ok on Twitter. You can call Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” or a “House N—“ and that’s ok. But using a different pronoun as a political statement — that’s where the line is?

Twitter's terms of service differentiate between calling someone a mean name once and establishing a pattern of harassment. The line is somewhere in there, apparently. Insulting people is not against the terms of service. Harassment is. It's not clear it's even possible to harass Clarence Thomas on Twitter as he doesn't seem to use the platform.

That's why I originally posted; it's not like Meghan Murphy posted one unkind thing about one person and suddenly found herself banned. It was a protracted pattern of behavior (at odds with her own stated beliefs, no less). So, the original statement that she was banned for "stating her opinion" is disingenuous at best and outright false at worst.

What an absolutely bizarre stance, that people calling you by the wrong name is harassment.

Where does this stop ? is calling Putin or some other pollitican a dictator harassment ? it's a name he almost certainly won't like. I can construct dozens of much more ridiculous examples. What's the difference between this and the pronoun thing ?

I don't think it is bizarre, it is a pretty clear effort at highlighting the fact that you are a transitioned trans person in an effort to hurt you and let all of the people seeing the message know what's up, and harass further.

It doesn't seem very complex. It is very different from calling Putin a dictator, that seems clear!

I feel like she knows what she's doing, or she wouldn't bother doing it.

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