X quietly reinstates ‘misgendering’ rules a year after Musk ended policy

Published February 29, 2024 4:11pm ET



X reversed its policy on allowing users to “misgender” people, a policy apparently at odds with owner Elon Musk’s stated goal of prioritizing free speech on the platform.

X added a section titled “Use of Prior Names and Pronouns” to its policies on abusive behavior sometime in late January, according to the Wayback Machine. The change, reported by Ars Technica, states that X will “reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition.”

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