The House of Representatives has earned itself a new ban from being able to edit Wikipedia. The new ban stems from edits that were made to the entry for the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. The edits took a markedly anti-trans tone.
Edits to the page centered around the character of Laverne Cox, a transgendered member of the cast. According to Rawstory, the edit was from a “real transgender woman” to “real man pretending to be a woman.”
This is the third time that the House has been banned from making edits to Wikipedia this summer alone. All of the bans have stemmed from anonymous users on Congressional IP addresses making disruptive edits to pages. Often the edits have been on par with usual internet trolling. They have however, like in this instance, strayed into hateful territory.
The anonymous troll tried to convince other editors that they were acting to perform official business.
“There’s nothing illegal about editing Wikipedia to promote official business that has been explicitly authourized [sic] by the Representative,” said the anonymous user.
After they were banned the anonymous user parted with the following:
“Blocked because I disagreed with the trans-lobby? These days, If I complain about a man using the womyn’s restroom then I’m considered transphobic and get called a TERF. This has been happening a lot lately here in the halls of Congerss. If feeling uncomfortable about some creeper coming into the same bathroom as me is considered transphobic, then why is transphobia considered a bad thing? I wouldn’t be surprised if the Admin who banned this IP is trans. If she is a real woman, then she should should be following real Feminists like Julie Bindel, not sellouts to the trans lobby like Anita Sarkeesian. People need to understand that transgenderism is being promoted by the Patriarchy to diminish the experiences of real womyn.”
Follow @congressedits to track changes from congressional IP addresses in real time.
Joshua is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. You can follow him on Twitter @Joshual33.
