Twitter Denies Babylon Bee Appeal After Account Lockdown over Rachel Levine Joke

Twitter denied the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee’s appeal on Wednesday after it had its account locked down over a joke calling transgender HHS assistant secretary Dr. Rachel Levine a “man.”

“Twitter has denied The Babylon Bee’s appeal. They wrote, ‘Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision,’” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon announced on Wednesday.

The Babylon Bee’s unforgivable offense was to post an article on Sunday mocking USA Today for recently declaring the biological male Rachel Levine a “woman of the year.”

“The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year is Rachel Levine,” read the headline.

Twitter then locked the site’s account for 12 hours on the condition they delete the tweet, alleging it violates the platform’s “hateful conduct” policy.

“We’re told our account will be restored in 12 hours, but the countdown won’t begin until we delete the tweet that violates the Twitter Rules,” Dillon said at the time. “We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.”

Twitter also censored Fox News host Tucker Carlson for posting screenshots of tweets from the Babylon Bee calling Levine a man.

If you want to know who holds the power in a society, ask whom it is you are not allowed to criticize.

Rachel Levine

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On February 25, 2021, Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is a physician by training, questioned Levine vis-à-vis her support for dangerous medical procedures for minors identifying as transgender – procedures designed to prevent the youngsters from going through what Levine called “the wrong puberty.” Specifically, Levine has advocated for allowing minors to receive hormone blockers as well as genital-mutilation surgeries whose physical effects are irreversible. After Paul pointed out that genital mutilation is viewed as “a violation of human rights” almost everywhere in the world, and that “80 to 95 percent of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria” snap out of it “by late adolescence” if left alone, he asked Levine: “Do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?” Levine replied evasively: “Well, Senator thank you for your interest in this question. Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Health, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.”

Senator Paul then tried again: “Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia?” In reply, Levine repeated the obviously rehearsed “thank you for your interest” remarks almost verbatim.

To learn more about Rachel Levine, click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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