X quietly revived anti-misgendering policy that Musk dropped last year

Enlarge (credit: paul mansfield photography | Moment)

Last April, Twitter quietly edited its abuse and harassment policy to no longer explicitly ban deadnaming (calling transgender people by a former name) or misgendering (purposely using non-preferred pronouns or gender labels).

Twitter's decision came after Elon Musk suggested that his own tweets might violate the long-standing policy, which was first enacted in 2018. And that seemed to be that—until last month, when the platform, now called X, just as quietly reinstated a version of the old policy.

In a section labeled "Use of Prior Names and Pronouns," X's updated policy confirms that X will "reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition."