Twitter is currently a gendered land-mine in response to the unveiling of Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover. In response, a new Twitterbot is reminding people to use the correct pronouns to describe Caitlyn.
Jenner’s first photo shoot as a woman has sent Twitter bonkers. It seems everyone has an opinion about the cover and Caitlyn Jenner’s new look. The hashtags #CaitlynJenner and #CallMeCaitlyn have been trending since Monday.
She has been mentioned more than 1.5 million times in the past 24 hours. Jenner has also become the fastest person on Twitter to reach one million subscribers, overtaking President Obama. Her first tweet has been retweeted over 250,000 times.
I’m so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can’t wait for you to get to know her/me.
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) June 1, 2015
Unfortunately, some people are still using the incorrect pronouns to refer to Caitlyn. To fix this problem a Twitter bot has been created which reminds people that Jenner is a she, not a he. So far @she_not_he has politely corrected 1,712 accounts.
Caitlin Dewey, the creator of @she_not_he, told The Washington Post: “Misgendering,” isn’t just a style error in violation of AP’s own rules — it’s a stubborn, long-time hurdle to transgender acceptance and equality, a fundamental refusal to afford those people even basic grammatical dignity. In fact, almost any time a transgender person is in the news, online errors like this run rampant.”
“I don’t want to overstate the importance of what was basically a Twitter stunt, of course,” added Dewey.
But this bot does show the people of the internet that there are ways of combating Twitter ignorance without crucifying people. Here are some of the tweets:
.@mk_writes Beepbopbeep! It’s she, not he. — She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@DanRiehl Beepbopbeep! It’s she, not he.
— She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@jennifermelrod *Alarm sounds* It’s she, not he. — She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@LetItGo_space *Alarm sounds* It’s she, not he.
— She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@GarrickSprockel Booooop! It’s she, not he. — She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@dcasonogil Beep beep! It’s she, not he.
— She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
.@ernie_boy20 Click, whirrrrrr. It’s she, not he.
— She not he (@she_not_he) June 2, 2015
