Meta, the parent company behind Facebook and Instagram — platforms with a combined 4 billion active users — is considering suppressing the truth that “women” exist. I’ve told Meta that’s not OK.
As the president of Independent Women’s Forum, I’m proud to lead an organization that stands for women’s freedom, opportunities, and well-being. Central to this is defending the reality of biological sex.
However, in response to videos showing men in female bathrooms and winning female sports, Meta’s Oversight Board, which makes binding decisions on what content is allowed on Facebook and Instagram, could end our advocacy efforts on its platforms. It recently announced it may ban these videos, which identify men as men, calling this truth “harassment.”
Independent Women’s Forum is deeply involved in this debate, including through our ambassadors, such as Riley Gaines and other women who have personally been affected by males entering female competitions and spaces, ranging from locker rooms to prison cells.
These stories are real. Paula Scanlan, a survivor of sexual assault, was forced to change and shower alongside Lia Thomas, a 6 foot, 4 inch tall, fully intact male, 18 times per week as a member of the University of Pennsylvania womens swim team.
Amie Ichikawa, a former inmate who now provides reentry services for incarcerated women, receives daily phone calls from women in the California state prison system who are actively suffering physical and psychological abuse by males allowed to self-identify into female facilities.
Then there’s Payton McNabb, whose dream of playing collegiate sports was ended when a male player on the opposing womens volleyball team spiked a ball in her face, causing her neurological damage and partial paralysis. Payton’s story, which was caught on video, was critical in changing the law in North Carolina to protect female athletes from the same senseless injuries.
We constantly hear from women across the country who seek our help to protect the notion that women exist as biologically distinct from men. Telling their stories is vital to protecting their rights. However, Meta’s plans would stifle our advocacy and label these women bigots for daring to speak up and share their experiences.
Though Meta’s Oversight Board is a cast of international elites, prohibiting the truthful recognition of sex would be deeply unpopular. Only a quarter of people in the United States support allowing male athletes to identify as women to participate in female sports, a number that has dropped significantly from the third who thought so just two years ago. Videos, such as the ones under review, have been pivotal in shifting public opinion, which is why one side of the debate — the one that’s losing support — wants Meta to use censorship to remove that truth from public discussion for its billions of users around the world.
Meta has a decision to make. Should it stifle videos that call out the truth, given that some people might not like it? No, there’s a better way.
The women who are posting and sharing these kinds of videos are not asking for transgender activists to be silenced by Meta. Those who believe men should be in female locker rooms and sports are free to say so.
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In preemptively short-circuiting the public discussion by removing videos as some are urging the board to do, Meta would be censoring the view of the majority of people in the U.S. and diminishing the ability of all our citizens to examine a contentious problem and come to their own conclusions. It would be harming women, who deserve to say, out loud, that it’s deeply regressive to face unfair competition and unnerving to confront penises in their locker rooms.
Let’s keep these conversations going — because when free people are allowed to speak and debate ideas, the truth is more likely to emerge.
Carrie Lukas is president of Independent Women’s Forum.