Gender Identity Debate Videos

UPDATED

AUG 29, 2024

2024-046-FB-UA, 2024-047-IG-UA

Today, August 29, 2024, the Oversight Board announced that it has selected a case bundle from two user appeals about content posted to Facebook and Instagram. The first piece of content is a video showing a transgender woman being confronted for using the women's bathroom. The second piece of content is a video of a transgender girl winning a female sports competition in the United States, with some spectators vocally disapproving of the result.

Meta determined that neither video violated our policies on Hate Speech or Bullying and Harassment, as laid out in our Facebook Community Standards and Instagram Community Guidelines, and left both pieces of content up.

Under our Hate Speech policy, Meta removes any calls for exclusion of members of a protected characteristic group. We generally allow people to criticize concepts because we want to allow discussion about the ideas, institutions, and policies that are a central part of any society or cultural community.

In both cases, even if the content included a call for exclusion, we determined that the posts should nonetheless be allowed upon escalation in our content review process, given their newsworthiness. Transgender people’s access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is the subject of considerable political debate in the United States.

While under our Bullying and Harassment policy Meta removes any attacks targeted at a private individual, in both instances we determined there is no explicit call for exclusion present in the posts.

We will implement the board’s decision once it has finished deliberating, and will update this post accordingly. Please see the Board's website for the decision when it issues it.