Meta continues using transphobic company language despite its Oversight Board’s warning

Social media companies create hate speech policies to set boundaries for what users can say on their platforms, seeking to reduce bigotry and violent rhetoric. But the policy page of one major tech company, Meta, features something unexpected: an anti-trans term that company advisors already recommended it remove.

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The company, which runs platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, rewrote parts of its hate speech policy in January 2025, creating new allowances for “discourse around transgenderism and homosexuality.”

At the time, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups panned the changes. But many also criticized the company’s explicit use of the word “transgenderism,” which is widely viewed as a term that seeks to delegitimize trans identity and present it as a fringe ideology.

Meta’s Oversight Board, established in 2020 to review controversial content decisions, recommended in April 2025 that the company remove the term and instead refer to “gender identity and sexual orientation.” The term “transgenderism” has been widely adopted by anti-trans figureheads, including members of the Trump administration.

Related: Meta Oversight Board rules anti-transgender videos don't violate hate speech rules

Related: Meta has guidelines to protect against anti-trans content. GLAAD says the company is ignoring them

Related: Rise in anti-LGBTQ+ content on Meta platforms since rollback of protections: GLAAD study

However, recommendations from the Oversight Board are non-binding and rely on the company for implementation. So far, Meta has dragged its feet on removing the term.

“To ensure Meta’s content policies are framed neutrally and in line with international human rights standards, Meta should remove the term ‘transgenderism’ from the Hateful Conduct policy and corresponding implementation guidance,” the recommendation read.

But the company has stalled on any such changes for a year now. In a March 19 company report, Meta announced that it was still “assessing feasibility” regarding the proposed rephrasing “to provide clarity … about what we do and do not allow, even if it includes potentially offensive terminology.”

Meta did not respond to an email request for comment from The Advocate regarding its decision-making timeline or the factors behind its decision.

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are still waiting to see the changes reflected in the company’s policy, which exists to protect users from harmful speech. That includes GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization.

“Meta may believe it can continue to flout the basic best practices of social media platform trust and safety,” a representative for the organization wrote in an email to The Advocate. “Its customers, creators, and advertisers should be aware that it is engaging in anti-LGBTQ hate and blatantly ignoring the recommendations of its own advisors.”

Related: GLAAD demands Mark Zuckerberg public statement on Facebook’s anti-trans content moderation failure

Related: GLAAD urges action over Meta’s ongoing neglect of moderating anti-trans hate

Meta has a checkered past around content moderation, including around LGBTQ+ issues.

In April 2024, the company’s Oversight Board ruled that two posts a conservative influencer shared targeting and mocking trans people did not violate its policies for bullying or harassment. And, in a June 2026 study, GLAAD found that users encountered more anti-LGBTQ+ content on Facebook after the company adopted looser policies around discussing LGBTQ+ issues.

The GLAAD spokesperson told The Advocate that allowing for anti-trans rhetoric and terminology to proliferate on Meta platforms only puts trans users in harm’s way.

“By employing such dehumanizing language in its own Community Standards, Meta is putting LGBTQ people at greater risk of hate and harassment,” they wrote. “Research consistently links dehumanizing rhetoric targeting marginalized groups to real-world harm, including physical violence.”

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.