Turning Point USA founder and executive director Charlie Kirk slammed Twitter on Tuesday after he was suspended for posting a tweet in which he referred to President Joe Biden’s Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, a transgender individual born a biological male, as “he.”
“When I sent the tweet, I took great care to ensure that it was completely factual and accurate. Now, Twitter wants me to admit that the tweet was hate speech and they’ll allow me to communicate with my 1.7 million followers,” Kirk told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In other words, they want me to admit to a lie for saying something true.”
Kirk’s tweet, now deleted for violating Twitter rules, referred to Levine as “he” and used quotation marks around the words “transitioned” and “Rachel.”
“Richard Levine spent 54 years of his life as a man. He had a wife and family,” Kirk tweeted. “He ‘transitioned’ to being a woman in 2011, Joe Biden appointed Levine to be a 4-Star Admiral and now USA Today has named ‘Rachel’ Levine as a ‘Woman of the Year’ Where are the feminists??”
A screenshot of a Twitter message to Kirk’s account provided to the DCNF shows the tweet was deemed in violation of Twitter’s policy on “hateful conduct.” The policy prohibits the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
Satirical news site The Babylon Bee was locked out of its Twitter account Sunday for dubbing Levine its “Man of the Year” in a March 15 tweet, and Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks was suspended in October 2021 for calling Levine “a man.”
“[T]his is obviously not about facts or truth or science. It’s about ideology. It’s about ensuring that their vision for the future of America isn’t challenged by effective voices online,” Kirk told the DCNF. “It’s about silencing dissent. And ultimately it’s about submission. We cannot give them what they want.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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