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Two viral videos featuring transgender youth are at the center of a national debate
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and now Meta's oversight board ruled Wednesday that both videos can remain on Facebook and Instagram
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The original post drew mixed reactions, with some viewing the post as personal opinions
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and others arguing they constitute harmful misinformation. In its ruling, the board said a majority of members agreed with Meta's original choice to keep the content up
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What are you doing? Why are you in the girls bathroom? I'm a transgender
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The first video posted last May by Peyton McNabb shows her confronting a transgender woman in a campus bathroom at Western Carolina University
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McNabb is now a well-known advocate for excluding transgender girls and women from female sports
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a movement she joined after being injured in a high school volleyball match against what she claimed was a transgender athlete
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I'm sorry you feel that way. Yeah, I pay a lot of money to be safe in the bathroom
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Me too. She later shared on X that she was removed from her sorority
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for violating their anti-bullying policy over the video. The second video reviewed by the board shows a transgender girl
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winning a 200-meter race as the crowd boos. Both videos were amplified by libs of TikTok The main point of contention in both videos involves misgendering which is using pronouns or gender terms which don align with a person identity
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While advocacy groups consider this language harmful, the oversight board says the post did not rise to the level of violence or harassment
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The board wrote in their decision, transgender women and girls' access to women's bathrooms and participation in sports are the subject of ongoing public debate that involves various human rights concerns and that a high threshold must be met before removing such speech
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The decision comes amid growing internal tensions at Meta. Earlier this year, employees were vocal about a sweeping update to Meta's content moderation policies
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Those changes now allow language that was previously banned, including statements framing LGBTQ plus identities as mental illness
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Leaked training materials obtained by The Intercept show examples of phrases that moderators could allow
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The same day it released its rulings, the Oversight Board issued a press release urging Metta to reassess those January policy changes
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and to assess how they might impact LGBTQ plus immigrants and other marginalized communities
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With Straight Arrow news, I'm Kennedy Felton. Download our app or visit san.com for more
