loading . . . LinkedIn’s Allowance of Hate Speech Pax Ahimsa Gethen shares a personal account of hate speech on LinkedIn after a quiet policy change which allows users to misgender trans people freely.
_LinkedIn headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.__Photo_ _by LPS.1, CC0 1.0 (public domain)._
by Pax Ahimsa Gethen
As a Gen Xer, I’m more than old enough to remember a time before social media. While I appreciate that these online networks have provided trans people with much-needed access to information and community, the amount of vitriol we’ve endured online is one of the reasons I’ve withdrawn from many major platforms.
Having dropped Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all by 2023, Mastodon and LinkedIn are the only remaining social media websites I visit regularly. When I first signed up in 2008, I used LinkedIn for networking and updating my résumé. But in recent years, I’ve been reading and posting there more actively, keeping informed about the work of colleagues and sharing links to my own work to a wider audience.
As this increased activity has been mostly since I began my gender transition in 2013, I’ve been alert to issues affecting fellow trans users of the platform. Name changes have been an ongoing concern, especially for those who have not yet had a legal name change or lack the means to access this process. Getting a verification badge on LinkedIn is difficult if your legal ID does not match your displayed name. (Verification through a participating employer is another option, for those who have one.)
Beyond this systematic indignity, trans LinkedIn users have gradually been subjected to the increasing number of transphobic posts and comments flooding social media. These range from subtle micro-aggressions and misgenderings to blatant hatred and threats. Such posts can be reported, but moderation is light, making it unlikely anything short of a serious, personal threat will be taken down by the moderators.
The site’s tolerance for transphobia made the news in late July, when the nonprofit Open Terms Archive reported that LinkedIn quietly removed “misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals” from its list of examples of prohibited conduct. The platform also removed race and gender identity from examples of inherent traits under its “Harassment and Abusive Content” guidelines. These changes were reported in outlets including _The Advocate_, _PinkNews_, and _Engadget_ _._ Though a LinkedIn spokesperson told some of these outlets that __ their underlying policies hadn’t actually changed, this assurance seems dubious at best.
This month, I had the opportunity to put LinkedIn’s moderation to the test myself, when I encountered a user engaged in repeated, deliberate misgendering and other hate speech against trans women. This user, a cis woman, was commenting on a thread by a trans woman supportive of trans inclusion at a London swimming facility. Though I rarely confront blatant transphobes directly nowadays, I feel an obligation as a transmasculine individual to speak up when my trans sisters are being attacked.
In the comment I replied to, the transphobe had scolded other commenters for comparing transphobia to racism, saying “All of you are desperate to compare yourselves to ethnic minorities”. I replied at this point, identifying myself as a Black transmasculine person, pointing out the significant harm caused by both racism and anti-trans discrimination, and linking to an essay I’d written that addresses several glib talking points about trans women.
After another back and forth, her comment that I finally reported to LinkedIn was this:
> _and yet, you don't support actual women and you'll throw us under the bus in order to pander to men._
>
> _I think you should stop policing women and telling us to accept that men are "just as much women" as we are._
>
> _You may despise having been born a woman. Seek therapy for that instead of being heinously misogynistic._
Below is a screenshot (with the user’s information and image redacted) as well not only for confirmation, but because this comment is no longer visible to me on LinkedIn since I filed the report.
After choosing the Report option, I was prompted to “Select our policy that applies”. I chose “Hateful speech” as the best fit for this user willfully misgendering me and telling me to seek therapy for my presumed self-hatred. The following screen confirmed my selection, and defined Hateful speech as “Attacks or incitement of violence against individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived traits, or any other speech that promotes hatred”.
As I predicted, a few hours later I got a message saying, “A member of our Trust & Safety Team reviewed the comment and found it does not go against our Professional Community Policies.”
Revisiting the thread, I noted that before I had weighed in, another commenter said that he had blocked the transphobic user after reporting her for this comment:
> _the "bigger picture" is that we are rather repulsed by men pretending that they are women. That they understand our experiences. We, as women, are permitted to dress and look as we wish: we are still women. These men are not permitted to infiltrate our biology and our spaces._
As the above comment is still visible to me as of this writing, I assume LinkedIn didn’t find this blatant hate speech to be in violation of their “Professional Community Policies” either.
The experience I shared here is anecdotal, but I don’t expect other trans folks reporting misgendering will get better results any time soon. As pointed out in _The Advocate_ article on the policy changes, LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, a corporation that appears to be going the way of Meta and Google in backtracking on DEI support in order to curry favor with the far right. In a related article, a GLAAD report shows a dramatic decline of protections for LGBTQ people on social media over the past year.
As access to LinkedIn is considered vital to many folks in our community, I am not calling for a boycott of this platform at this time. I do want to spread awareness of the harm their permissive moderation is causing, and I call on those with influence to find a way to improve moderation so our authentic identities are taken seriously.
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_Pax Ahimsa Gethen_ _(they/them) is a queer agender writer and editor. They live in San Francisco with their spouse Ziggy._ https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/linkedin-allowance-hate-speech
