What do LGBTQ+ advocacy groups say about intentional misgendering?
Executive summary
LGBTQ+ advocacy groups describe intentional misgendering as a harmful, targeted form of harassment and a tool of discrimination that contributes to real-world harm and mental-health impacts for transgender and nonbinary people, and they urge institutions and platforms to prohibit it explicitly [1] [2] [3]. Major organizations also press social media firms and lawmakers to treat repeated, deliberate misgendering as actionable misconduct rather than protected speech, while acknowledging legal and policy debates about enforcement [4] [5].
1. Advocacy groups define intentional misgendering as harassment, not mere rudeness
GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and allied organizations frame targeted misgendering and deadnaming as deliberate acts used to express contempt and to harass transgender and nonbinary people, calling for clear prohibitions in platform policies and institutional rules because the practice functions as a modality of anti‑LGBTQ hate [2] [4] [6].
2. Campaigning for explicit bans on platforms and in policy is a central strategy
GLAAD’s Social Media Safety Index and related reports repeatedly recommend that companies adopt expressly stated policies prohibiting targeted misgendering and deadnaming, and they publicize platform rollbacks or progress—praising TikTok and Snapchat for explicit prohibitions while criticizing others for weakening protections [2] [6] [7].
3. Organizing and public pressure follow from concrete incidents
Advocacy groups routinely condemn high‑visibility episodes of intentional misgendering—whether on social media, in political spaces, or in health and education settings—using those incidents to mobilize policy change and public outrage; HRC’s guidance, for example, urges allies to interrupt intentional misgendering and treat it as transphobic behavior to be called out [8] [1].
4. Health and safety arguments ground the advocacy case
Beyond moral and civil‑rights language, groups point to research linking misgendering to negative mental‑health outcomes for trans and nonbinary people; public‑health and peer‑reviewed studies cited by advocates document that repeated misgendering—intentional or not—correlates with worse psychological wellbeing, reinforcing calls for protective policies [3] [9].
5. Legal and institutional approaches vary and are contested
Advocates push for legal and workplace protections, and some scholarly and advocacy writings argue that deliberate misgendering can meet legal standards for hostile or discriminatory conduct; at the same time, there are ongoing debates about how speech rules intersect with First Amendment protections and when regulation is legally viable, a tension highlighted in legal scholarship that contends deliberate misgendering is objectively hostile but must be balanced against free‑speech doctrines [5] [10].
6. Enforcement and consistency remain core concerns for advocates
Groups like GLAAD monitor platform behavior year to year, warning that rolling back protections leads to measurable increases in online hate and offline harms, and they press platforms to adopt consistent rules, transparency about enforcement, and moderator training to address intentional misgendering [4] [7] [11].
7. Opposing views and political contexts are acknowledged by advocacy organizations
While advocacy groups treat intentional misgendering as discrimination, they also operate in a polarized political field: some state laws and bills explicitly allow or protect acts that advocates call intentional misgendering (HRC’s press response to HB 361 is an example), and platforms or commentators invoke free‑speech arguments when resisting or rolling back restrictions—dynamics advocates name as part of a broader anti‑trans legislative and cultural push [12] [2] [13].
8. Practical recommendations from advocates focus on prevention and redress
The prescriptions advanced by HRC, GLAAD and allied organizations include explicit policy language banning targeted misgendering and deadnaming, mandatory cultural‑sensitivity training for moderators and staff, better reporting and enforcement mechanisms on platforms and in institutions, and public education to shift norms away from using misgendering as a tactic of harassment [1] [11] [2].