‘The Babylon Bee’ Banned From Twitter After Transphobic Tweet About Rachel Levine

Conservative satirical news site The Babylon Bee received a temporary ban from Twitter for a transphobic tweet referring to U.S. assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine as “The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year.”

The tweet came in response to Levine, who was also the first openly transgender woman to hold a U.S. government office requiring Senate confirmation, being named one of USA Today’s Women of The Year.

As part of her feature interview for the honor, Levine said memorably, “you have tremendous worth just for who you are, no matter who you love, no matter who you are, no matter what your gender identity, sexual orientation or anything else, and to be, be true to that, and then everything else will follow.

A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed the Bee‘s tweet violated its rules. The Babylon Bee‘s CEO Seth Dillon shared what might have been the alert Twitter sent the Bee’s account, which also mentioned they found the Tweet in violation of their policies regarding “hateful conduct.”

Dillon also stated in the thread that the ban is temporary once the tweet is removed, and wrote “we’re not deleting anything.” Even though he’s whining about free speech and censorship, Dillon can share Babylon Bee headlines to his 160,000 followers from his verified personal account and has been.

It seems that transphobia and gender-critical language is becoming much more mainstream again in reaction to minor instances of progress and visibility transgender people have attained in recent years. Along with conservative media and pundits currently latching over perceived issues such as trans athletes in sports and situations like what Levine is dealing with, there are also new laws in Republican states that are attacking LGBTQ rights on many fronts.