WASHINGTON, D.C. — Independent Women applauds Meta after its independent Oversight Board ruled that two posts under intense scrutiny about trans-identifying individuals did not violate the platform’s hate speech rules because they did not directly attack people based on their gender identity. This decision is now binding, upholding Meta’s decision to keep the posts up on the platform. This ruling marks a major win for open dialogue around biological truth that there are two sexes — female and male — and advocacy for women-only sports and spaces on Meta’s platforms.

The Washington Post published a story this week about the Oversight Board’s decision and the January 7th shift in Meta’s hateful conduct policy, citing Independent Women’s influence, following months of action and outreach calling for the Meta Oversight Board to allow for open and free dialogue around women’s sports and spaces and sex-based speech — anything to the contrary would harm women.

Beth Parlato, senior legal advisor at Independent Women, issued the following statement:

“I applaud Meta’s Oversight Board for reaffirming protected free speech by declining to censor content that reflects truth. This decision marks an important step in upholding constitutional principles and ensuring our viewpoints and advocacy for women-only sports and spaces aren’t silenced. I urge Meta to continue to resist the Left’s pressure to suppress speech, and to stay the course in promoting fairness and open debate across its platforms.” 

“Speech cannot be censored or taken down from online platforms just because it is offensive to a group of people,” said Victoria Coley, Vice President for Communications at Independent Women. “You can not change biology. And you can not change the reality of sex — some men are not women. 

Coley added: “There is global evidence that conflating sex with gender identity is of public concern and that overwhelmingly women believe they have a right to women’s spaces and sports. In the United States, 15 states have laws defining sex based words like ‘woman’, and more than half of all states have laws on the books that protect women’s sports for women-only, President Trump prioritized executive orders within the first days in office to keep men out of women’s sports and reestablish biological reality by defining ‘sex’. Even the U.K. Supreme Court just delivered a landmark ruling defining ‘woman’ on the basis of sex.”

The Oversight Board’s summary of the case states that trans-identifying males’ “access to women’s bathrooms and participation in sports are the subjects of ongoing public debate that involves various human rights concerns. It is appropriate that a high threshold be required to suppress such speech.”

Background on Independent Women’s leadership to pressure Meta to allow for dialogue:

  • Independent Women announced that Meta was considering a monumental policy change to ban speech promoting women’s sports and spaces to drive public attention to the issue
  • Following the announcement, Independent Women established the Meta Oversight Board Comment Drive to submit personalized comments on behalf of women and men across the country about the consequences of censoring the truth
  • In addition to driving more than 730 public comments to the Oversight Board, Independent Women filed two official comments, one signed by Independent Women President Carrie Lukas, and the other signed by Riley Gaines, Paula Scanlan, Amie Ichikawa, and Payton McNabb—all of whom have been directly impacted by men in women’s sports and spaces—urging Meta to continue to allow posts that are critical to women’s advocacy efforts and the flourishing of public debate.
    • Meta’s Oversight Board was considering removing two videos that abided by Meta’s Community Standards: the first, of a trans-identifying male in a women’s bathroom, who asserts a right to be there, taken by Independent Women Ambassador Payton McNabb, and the second, of a male winning a women’s athletic competition, upsetting many participants and their parents.
  • Independent Women published op-eds addressing the need for sex-based speech to continue:

Direct media inquiries and booking requests to [email protected]. 

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