Hundreds of gender-critical accounts were blocked by X this week

Hundreds of gender-critical social media accounts on X (formerly Twitter) have been temporarily blocked. One affected account user condemned this measure as “absurd”.

In recent days, people have claimed their accounts have been suspended, many of them directing their criticism at the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed champion of free speech.

Not only gender-critical users were affected. A supporter of former President Donald Trump wrote that his account had been blocked because of an offensive meme featuring Joe Biden and the First Lady.

“Is X going to start censoring Americans again just before the presidential election like they did in 2020?” they asked.

Shelley Charlesworth of the gender critical account Transgender Trend was also banned. She claimed that the ban caused her to lose all of her previous followers.

Charlesworth told the Daily Mail her account was suspended without explanation, adding that the platform had been useful for discussing her views on gender and “it’s really worrying that there are people who want to stop me from speaking my mind.”

Ann Sinnott, a heterosexual woman who is one of the founders of the controversial LGB Alliance, also had to temporarily close her account. She told the Mail that she was not an “extreme person” and said it was “absurd” for people to be “punished” without explanation.

Sinnott resigned from Cambridge City Council in 2018 because it brought its policies into line with the Equality Act 2010 and clarified that trans women could use women’s toilets.

The suspensions follow a clash between Doctor Who Star David Tennant and anti-LGBTQ+ Tory figurehead Kemi Badenoch.

At the British LGBT Awards on Friday (June 21), Tennant attacked the Equalities Minister, saying he wished she would “shut up”.

She responded with a series of right-wing clichés and described him as a “rich, left-wing, white celebrity”.

Some X users linked the two events together, with one person writing, “A lot of big accounts were banned yesterday. Especially gender-critical ones,” and another commenting that this happened “after the whole David Tennant debacle.”