Elon Musk has determined “cis” and “cisgender” to be slurs that violate Twitter’s harassment policies. As such, any account engaging in harassment of users via the usage of “cis” or “cisgender” will be subject to a temporary suspension.
Musk said temporary suspensions will be the minimum penalty, leaving the door open for greater punitive measures.
The responses to Musk’s stance on the “cis” and “cisgender” labels have been mixed.
“If that’s a slur why don’t you ban the use of the N word on here and make it fair for everyone and just eliminate all slurs,” one user asked. Their comment did not receive a response from Musk.
However, Musk did reply to a Twitter user who thanked him for the policy update and linked to reading that connects the origins of the “cis” label with German sexologist Volkmar Sigusch and pedophilic thought processes.
“Yup, the contemptible creep that manufactured the term ‘cis’ has serious problems. Ignore him,” Musk said.
Many people called out Musk for his policy on “cis” and “cisgender” seemingly contradicting his “free speech absolutist” stance and repeated instances of arguing in favor of free speech.
“Whatever happened to ‘free speech absolutism’ you hypocrite?” one user wrote. “Now we’re banning words you don’t like (which are completely acceptable in the medical world)?”
“Bit confused on this one,” another user said. “The Oxford English dictionary lists it as not a slur. Are we getting a dictionary according to Elon/Twitter published somewhere?”
Others, however, did not question Musk’s position.
“I agree!” one user said in reply to Musk’s tweet. “I’m a women not a ‘cis’ these people don’t get to relabel me just because they want to relabel themselves.”
Some users saw Musk’s stance as politically motivated.
“But when people on the right call those who they don’t ageee with, ie independents and liberals every name in the book, that’s perfectly ok,” a user tweeted. “No sanctions then. Ok, got it.” The user’s tweet scored over 100 likes.
This wouldn’t be the first time Musk weighed in on a controversial topic; he recently shared a Daily Wire documentary exploring transgender healthcare, which divided Twitter users similarly to how his stance on “cis” and “cisgender” has. And while it’s uncommon for the face of a company to loudly tackle divisive topics, Musk has made it clear he’ll say what he wants to say, regardless of the consequences.
