Online Censorship of Intersex and Transgender Culture
By Cynthya BrianKate
Bloggers in China using MSN Spaces to write their web journals find that any references in subject lines to
“democracy,” “freedom,” “human rights,” “student movement” and several other words are automatically
replaced with blank space. This has generated worldwide criticism. What hasn’t received much attention
is that they already do the exact same thing in this country. MSN, AOL and Yahoo have engaged or still
engage in this kind of censorship, as well as some smaller internet networks.
In Spring 2002, transgender activists had to protest MSN because search engine MSN.com blocked
searches on transgender issues. If you tried to look up “transsexual” or “intersex” (as in people who are
biologically in between male and female) you received an error message saying “this word cannot be
searched because it might return adult content.” Underneath this, however, users were told “click here for
more information,” which sent them to sex search site nightsurf.com, with results like "Sexy TransSexual"
and "Chix with Dix." A campaign led by a coalition of activists, forced Microsoft to quietly reinstate
access to searches on the word “transsexual” by May 21st 2002 likewise on searches under “intersex”
within a month later.
Although MSN had to back down regarding their search engine they still censor access to resources on
intersex and transsexual issues through their email list service.
In June 2004, I logged onto MSN Groups (http://groups.msn.com) to find an intersex email list I used to be
on, and was blocked from searching for it. Instead of any results, I received the message “Unable to
complete. The group description you entered cannot be used. Please enter an alternate description.” Google
results for intersex groups on MSN Groups will often lead to messages such as: “This Group is
Unavailable. This group has been disabled for administrative purposes.”
I emailed MSN in full detail and received the reply, “In order to provide an environment that is clean and
safe for everyone to enjoy, we have added a very thorough profanity filter, which may have been triggered
by language you were using. We suggest you rephrase your search question.” Thsi means that to MSN,
some peoples’ genders and identities are “dirty” words. Even after members of Intersex Society North
America (www.isna.org), Bodies Like Ours intersex group (www.bodieslikeours.org) and a Michigan
branch of the Metropolitan Community Church (www.ufmcc.org) contacted MSN telling them of the harm
this kind of filtering does to intersex people, the policy still stands.
While the policy affects intersex people and transsexuals, it goes deeper, it’s about censoring any word that
even looks like sexual content, and it is arbitrary and inconsistent. MSN Groups blocks searches not only
for “transsexual” or “intersex” but also “safe sex,” which harms people trying to find information on how
to avoid getting AIDS.
When I helped publicize the 2002 MSN campaign, reporter/activist Gwen Smith (www.gwensmith.com)
told me that in 1994 AOL intentionally blocked users from identifying as “transsexual,” “transvestite” or
“transgender” because AOL considered these identities ”vulgar.” Smith was instrumental in getting the
policy overturned.
AOL, however, still seems to block words containing “sex” in chat room titles, even though this includes
“intersex,” “transsexual” and “safe sex.” At the height of insanity is the banning of “breast,” even when
discussing “breast health” or “breast cancer.” A breast cancer survivors’ group successfully challenged
these policies.
When I called AOL’s Community Action Team, a representative responded, “The breast cancer thing is a
legitimate concern, but I don’t know about those other things.” I replied that “both are protected
minorities;” but he retorted, “If you walk into a restaurant without shoes they have the right to kick you
out.” I reported him to a supervisor, who apologized and said AOL is “GLBT friendly,” though last time I
used AOL nothing had changed.
Yahoo’s email groups service, groups.yahoo.com, uses filters similar to MSN‘s, though theirs seem to
mainly target words containing “sex.” When bio-informatics designer and intersex activist Sophia
Siedlberg tried hosting an email list on Yahoo for her group Salmacis Intersex Support and Advocacy , she
found even clinical terms about biological sex were treated like porn. She says, “I am…angry with them
over…how they "edit”…introductory pages. …The statement I had written, which was purely medical,
omitted words that could be "Construed as offensive." One example was "Variable sex differentiation and
metabolic/endocrine disturbances." This had to be changed because it was considered "Pornographic.”
Siedlberg had to remove medical information from the Salmacis introductory page and ultimately moved it
off Yahoo Groups altogether. This was not a pornographic email list, but a needed group for people whose
genitalia have been mutilated by doctors for being “too ambiguous.”
In 1999, Gwen Smith, founder of Transgender Day of Remembrance (an event to bring awareness to the
issue of violence and murder directed against transgender and gender-nonconforming people), was blocked
from listing her website, Remembering Our Dead (www.rememberingourdead.org), on findlink.com. She
received the message that her site had been “rejected because of language.” The message continued, “The
following words were found which rejected this site: (Transvestite). Remove the words that rejected the site
and resubmit it. We spider all sites on a routine basis. If bad language is found, the site submission will be
terminated and any webpage submitted from the base URL will be rejected from then on.”
In effect, findlink.com listed an entire identity category as “vulgar” just for existing and not hiding
themselves. In writing to findlink.com, Smith cited the American Heritage Dictionary, which lists
“transvestite” as “a person who dresses and acts in a style or manner traditionally associated with the
opposite sex” and pointed out “nowhere in either definition, you will note, is there any mention of graphic
or vulgar behavior.”
We can refuse to host our websites on networks lacking respect for diversity. We can refuse to use MSN to
post our blogs. We can protest internet service providers when they censor. We can band together and
pressure the networks until they back down. We can do what the censors don’t want us to, which is to
speak our minds everywhere.
Cynthya BrianKate is an Ann Arbor-based activist working on several
issues including gender/transgender.