Mick Hartley

We heard the other day about the cult-like world of Tumblr, where young girls are encouraged to join in the trans fun and, putting behind them their horrible white cis-het privilege, take the leap into a brave new world of medical intervention and gender woo. Well, seems like TikTok's not much different:

Months after partnering with Stonewall and weeks after being accused of “brainwashing” children into trans surgery, a prominent video-sharing service has banned from its platform the “deadnaming” and “misgendering” of individuals who identify as transgender or non-binary.

On Tuesday, February 8, TikTok updated its Community Guidelines to instruct users not to “post, upload, stream, or share: Content that targets transgender or non-binary individuals through misgendering or deadnaming.” To misgender is to use pronouns based on an individual’s sex, rather than declared gender identity. To deadname is to use the name the individual was known as prior to declaring a gender identity.

The change in policy came as part of what TikTok calls an effort to combat “hateful” ideologies.

Another recent change on the platform was the addition of a feature allowing users to add preferred pronouns to their profiles.

In 2020, TikTok signed a partnership with Stonewall, the UK’s embattled queer and transgender charity. Stonewall has influenced hate crime law in England and Wales, and its Diversity Champions scheme has vetted the policies of over 850 organizations in the UK, including the Ministry of Justice, city councils, police departments and institutions of higher learning. The organizations pay thousands each for Stonewall’s guidance, and costs taxpayers at least £600,000 annually.

In late December, the Daily Mail announced that TikTok has been drawing heated criticism from campaigners who say the video-sharing platform allows transgender-identifying influencers to ”brainwash” children by promoting hormonal and surgical modification of sex-based features as “cool.” Critics point to the example of 18-year-old transgender-identifying fashion model Alex Consani, who suggests in a video that has gotten over 2.3 million views that followers are “one estrogen pill away from a glow up.”

Stephanie Arai-Davies of Transgender Trend said at the time that TikTok is “hugely influential and it’s full of videos that portray medical transition as cool and edgy. Gender is seen as the new rebellion.”

Kate Harris of the LGB Alliance said: “It’s no coincidence that the growth of TikTok coincides exactly with the exponential growth of children presenting with gender dysphoria.”

Now TikTok’s new prohibition against “misgendering” and “deadnaming” have made expression on the platform of views opposing the gender identity industry more difficult.

From that Daily Mail piece:

More than a quarter of British TikTok users are aged between 15 and 25, and children aged between four and 15 who sign up spend an average of 69 minutes on the app each day, according to TikTok’s own data.

Analysis by The Mail on Sunday shows that videos with the hashtag #Trans have been seen more than 26 billion times. 

TikTok signed a partnership earlier this year with Stonewall, the controversial lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights charity, to promote this material.

One popular transgender TikTok influencer, Bella Fitzpatrick, raised £20,000 from followers in less than three months to fund private gender-reassignment surgery. 

The 19-year-old has 700,000 followers and explains the process of transitioning, including her experience of bypassing NHS waiting lists.

Another is Alex Consani, 18, who has more than 680,000 followers. She went viral five years ago when, aged 12, Cosmopolitan magazine featured her life as a trans model…..

A channel featuring influencer Jaison Jowett shows the process of transitioning and carrying out reassignment surgery.

One video includes the caption ‘Heal with me after top surgery!’ – a reference to a reconstructive chest operation.

Another video begins with the words ‘I used to be a good Christian kid’ before showing the transformation to a ‘trans, gay atheist who loves tattoos and chaos’.

Last night, Kate Harris, of the LGB Alliance, which opposes Stonewall’s policies on transgender issues, said: ‘Our major concern is that millions of impressionable children are watching these online influencers….

Ms Harris described some of the videos as ‘deeply frightening’, adding: ‘The message is so often, “Don’t involve your parents.”

‘What these videos would lead a generation of children to believe is that it is easy to change sex and that it is the answer to all of your problems.’