Social Media Suspends Senate Candidate for Stance on Women’s Sports

Twitter temporarily suspended Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)—a candidate for U.S. Senate—after she dared to tweet that women’s sports teams should be reserved for biological females.

In the suspension-worthy post, Hartzler wrote, “Women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women,” in which she reportedly referenced University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas—a biological male who identifies as female—and referenced the athlete’s biological name, Will.

A spokesperson for Twitter told The Hill the lawmaker’s account was temporarily locked because she transgressed the social media company’s hateful conduct policy against harassing or violent messages targeting groups or individuals based upon their identity, gender or sexual orientation.

“This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” the Twitter representative told the outlet. “The account owner will need to delete the violative Tweet and spend 12 hours in read-only mode before regaining full access to their account.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, Hartzler’s campaign said the Senate hopeful would not delete the tweet. Consequently, it appears Twitter has removed the post from her account, stating it “violated the Twitter Rules.”

Hartzler’s campaign, which released an ad in February proclaiming the same message as her violative tweet, described the temporary suspension as “shameful, utterly ridiculous, and a horrible abuse of censorship by big tech giants to stifle free speech.” {eoa}

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