Twitter Suspends Pro-Family Think Tank Leader for Opposing 'Surgical Mutilation of Children' with Gender Confusion

Steve Warren
12-17-2021

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Social media giant Twitter suspended the account of a policy director at a pro-family think tank late Tuesday for calling on state governors to "prohibit the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of children with gender dysphoria."

Jon Schweppe is the director of policy and government affairs at the American Principles Project (APP). The APP is a nonprofit that works to defend the American family in politics.

Schweppe had tweeted: "Now we hope that governors will likewise be emboldened to continue the fight against the evil gender ideology being forced on America's children by joining Arkansas and Tennessee in banning the chemical castration and surgical mutilation of minors suffering from gender dysphoria."

Twitter claimed the tweet violated its policy against "hateful conduct" and suspended him. 

The APP posted screenshots of Schweppe's tweet to their account, and Twitter's response. 

Twitter's "hateful conduct" policy states, "You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."

Schweppe appealed the suspension to Twitter, but was denied. He was forced to delete the tweet in order to return to the platform.

His now-deleted tweet was in response to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's statement that she would propose a bill to ban transgender persons who were born with male DNA from participation in female school sports leagues. The proposal will be considered during the legislative session in January. 

In response to Twitter's censorship of his colleague, APP President Terry Schilling blasted the platform for its "woke censors" who think that trying to protect children should be considered as "hateful, violent speech."

"Our would-be dictators in Silicon Valley continue to illustrate that they live in a completely different reality than the rest of America," Schilling said in a statement. "Throughout most of the country, there would be little controversy in saying that children should not be the subject of procedures that sterilize and mutilate their young bodies. In fact, advocating on behalf of those procedures would be considered hateful."

"But in the screwed-up world of Twitter's woke censors, trying to protect young kids actually constitutes hateful, violent speech," he continued. "Inside their impenetrable, left-wing bubble, they cannot imagine how any reasonable person would hold these views. Instead, the only acceptable position for them is that children with gender dysphoria should be pushed into a dangerous, irreversible program to 'change' their sex."

"It is terrifying that people with such views hold so much power over our national discourse," Schilling noted. "This cannot be allowed to continue. Republicans in Congress must commit to reining in the unaccountable influence of Big Tech should they regain the majority next year. Our future as a free society depends on it."

Conservatives have long been upset at how much Big Tech (Facebook, Twitter, Google and others) has been censoring their messages and de-platforming them. 

That debate grew to a crescendo in the heated political atmosphere leading up to the 2020 election. As CBN News reported, Twitter eventually even banned the sitting President of the United States, Donald Trump, from its platform claiming "risk of further incitement of violence" following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

As CBN News reported last March, Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and Google's Sundar Pachai all faced angry calls from Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to do even more censoring of what they label "misinformation." 

When their turn came, some committee Republicans blasted Big Tech's silencing of conservative ideas and voices.

U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) stated, "Your companies had the power to silence the president of the United States, shut off legitimate journalism in Australia, shut down legitimate scientific debate on a variety of issues, dictate which articles or websites are seen by Americans when they search the internet."

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of
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