Elon Musk Called Out For New X Policy On Preferred Pronouns

Elon Musk, chief executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 16, 2023. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

X owner Elon Musk is being called out for a new policy on his social media platform that reduces the visibility of users who do not use another person’s “preferred pronouns” in posts.

The new policy came to the surface when Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik posted it and called out to Mr. Musk in an X post to clarify the move.

“In all seriousness @elonmusk can you please clarify this? Why the change?” she posted.

When Mr. Musk took over Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X a year later, he dumped the platform’s Uses of Prior Names and Pronouns policy.

That policy suspended users who misgendered X transgender users and engaged in a practice called deadnaming—using a transgender person’s birth name rather than their newly adopted one based on their gender identity.

But a new policy, posted by Ms. Raichik, states that X “will reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully used different pronouns to address someone other than what the person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition.”

It continued: “Given the complexity of determining whether such a violation has occurred, we must always hear from the target to determine if a violation has occurred.”

Mr. Musk did respond to Ms. Raichik—saying in a post on his own X platform that the policy would only apply when the misuse of preferred pronouns was used as “repeated, targeted harassment of a particular person.”

His response only ended up igniting a hailstorm of angry criticism directed at him, including from Ms. Raichik and even drew LGBT organizations into the debate.

“Using the correct sex-based pronouns for someone is “harassment?” We’re being forced to lie. What about harassment in general?

He said some accounts repeatedly targeted and harassed specific individuals obsessively.

“What constitutes ’repeated‘ and ’targeted’ and why do only one group of people get this special treatment?” responded Ms. Raichik in an X post.

In a Mar. 4 report that touched on the controversy, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD) used the word “curiously” in reporting that X had “quietly re-introduced” a misgendering and deadnaming policy.

Since then the group and others have reported that X equally as quietly added the preamble “where required by local laws” to its new pronoun policy.

GLADD  called the added caveat “yet another twist” in the controversy, then blasted Mr. Musk as a “far-Right hate-driven extremist” acting out of desperation to save his investment in X.

“His many changes to the platform have proved to be disastrous for business with revenue plummeting, as creators and advertisers, and users in general, continue to flee the platform,” the group said.

Others who reacted with outrage to the newly imposed pronoun policy included Tim Pool, host of the ultra-conservative Culture War Podcast. He vowed to cease advertising on X over it.

“I will be terminating all ad spend commitments and verified accounts over X reinstating the misgendering policy,” he said in a March 1 post on X.

In a separate post, Mr. Pool said he had just deleted a 25,000 ad campaign on X and that “we were planning $200,000 for March.”

Dozens congratulated both Ms. Raichik and Mr. Pool for “taking a stand on the issue.”

In a follow-up post, Mr. Musk blamed the new policy on a court case in Brazil.

“Turns out this was due to a court judgment in Brazil, which is being appealed, but should not apply outside of Brazil,” he posted.

While some thanked Mr. Musk for the clarification, many questioned why he was instituting a new policy for an American company over a foreign court ruling.

Others quipped that his “Woke CEO” put the policy back in place while Mr. Musk was “away from the office.”

Chris Elston, better known as “Billboard Chris,” a global advocate who wears a sandwich board in his protests of gender ideology, told The Epoch Times he was satisfied with Mr. Musk’s explanation.

“I think he’s just trying to follow the law,” he said. “X is not just in the USA.”

According to a Jan. 2024 report by Statista, a German-based data consultant, out of X’s 415 million monthly users, 95 million were from the United States.

Brazil, it reported, is one of the largest users of X outside of the United States—accounting for 25 million monthly users.

Before Mr. Musk’s last post on the issue, Mr. Elston was also among those to sharply criticize him for implementing the policy.

“You speak a lot about the mind virus which has infected the West. Nothing represents that more than gender ideology where authoritarians expect us to lie to affirm a delusion that people are the opposite sex.

“Now we’re going to be penalized for telling the truth? It’s absurd,” he wrote.

Controversy over X’s new preferred pronoun policy is part of a broader, growing debate over government-compelled speech and its infringements on First Amendment rights, say experts.

Aaron Terr, director of Public Advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told The Epoch Times that some confusion misgendering someone automatically constitutes a violation of someone’s constitutional rights against discrimination.

“First Amendment speech can’t be prohibited just because others find it offensive or even hateful,” he said.

Mr. Terr also said that government-imposed laws forcing people to use preferred pronouns are a modern example of what is protected against under the longstanding Compelled Speech Doctrine.

It was established in a 1943 Supreme Court ruling that public school children couldn’t be forced to stand, salute the flag, or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Maybe two decades ago, pronouns weren’t something that people really thought about and just kind of was just a mundane convention of conventional language.

“Today, they do potentially carry an ideological message, depending on how people use them,” Mr. Terr said.

Ultimately, government-imposed pronoun use mandates, he said, cannot legally be used to force individuals to speak against their conscience.

He said that includes the freedom under constitutional laws not to use someone’s preferred pronouns under Title VII, which applies to the workplace, and Title VII, which applies to public school.

Mr. Terr pointed to the December landmark Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Virginia school teacher who was fired for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a student over those that correspond with their biological sex.

That said, Mr. Terr added deliberately misgendering someone can constitute a violation of someone’s constitutional rights, as long as it can be proven to be a “larger part of harassment.”

He also said it was important to distinguish between public laws and private policies.

“X is a private platform. They can have stricter rules about what speech is allowed than what the government would be able to prohibit,” he said.

“So, there’s no issue there from a First Amendment standpoint.”

As part of the contemporary clash, conservative lawmakers are starting to target amendments the Biden administration has led to Title VII and Title IX to make it a constitutional violation not to use someone’s preferred pronouns.

In November, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a Bill called the Safeguarding Free Speech Act.

Under the legislation, federal agencies would be prohibited from forcing any employee or contractor to use personal pronouns that contradict an individual’s biological sex.

A spokesperson for Mr. Cruz told The Epoch Times the Bill was recently referred to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The Epoch Times made repeated attempts to reach Mr. Musk through X’s press department and only received the messages: “Busy now, please check back later.”