Elon Musk will sue Australia for ordering X to remove a hateful post by an anti-trans activist

As Elon Musk’s X social media platform continues its descent into acrimony, disinformation and conspiracy theory, the billionaire owner is doing everything he can to keep users from fleeing — at least the hateful ones.

Musk is going to bat for Canadian anti-trans activist Chris Elston – known among far-right fans as “Billboard Chris” – after Australia’s eSafety commissioner ordered X to take down an odious screed authored by the conservative online provocateur. 

Related:

Elon Musk shamed for protecting an alt-right cartoonist while letting transphobia flourish on X

Accounts that have named the cartoonist have been locked, despite the fact that trolls constantly deadname trans folks on the site.

ESafety Commissioner Inman Grant issued a notice to X on March 22 giving the platform 24 hours to remove the offending post.

Global perspectives delivered right to your inbox

Our newsletter bridges borders to bring you LGBTQ+ news from around the world.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Elston’s rant slammed the appointment of Australian trans activist Teddy Cook to a World Health Organization panel on health care for trans and gender diverse persons, misgendering Cook and using disparaging terms. 

In a statement, X claimed Elston’s hateful post was free speech.

“Earlier this week, X was ordered by the Australian E-Safety Commissioner, subject to an approximately $800,000 AUD fine, to remove a user’s post,” X’s Global Government Affairs team wrote.

‘The post had criticized an individual appointed by the World Health Organization to serve as an expert on transgender issues. X is withholding the post in Australia in compliance with the order but intends to file a legal challenge to the order to protect its user’s right to free speech,” the statement said. 

Following a complaint by Cook, eSafety Commissioner Grant flagged Elston’s harangue, explaining that “an ordinary reasonable person in the position of the Complainant would regard the Material as being offensive.”

“This is because the material singles out the Complainant to personify the poster’s contempt for transgender identity as well as equating transgender identity with a psychiatric condition.”

He continued, “This statement is deliberately degrading and suggests that all transgender people – and in this case the complainant in particular – have something that is ‘wrong’ about their psychology owing to their gender identity.”

In reply to the commission’s actions, Elston posted yet another hateful diatribe to X, again misgendering Cook: “I do not hold that woman in contempt for her transgender identity, because I maintain that gender identities do not exist. We are called males and females, and that’s that.”

Elston earned his moniker in 2020 when he paid for a billboard in Vancouver, British Columbia that read “I ❤️ J.K. Rowling” in support of the Harry Potter author’s transphobia. It was vandalized and removed within hours.

Since then, Elston has spread his message of anti-trans hate in online attacks and at protests denouncing “gender ideology”.

Last summer he organized a failed rally harassing LGBTQ+ youth organization Rainbow Room in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, claiming the group’s meeting was a “youth indoctrination event” and “groomer central” 

“There’s no such thing as a queer kid, OK?” Elston said at the event, which attracted hundreds of counter-protesters. “They’re just kids. Queer theory is this radical left ideology that wants to take everything that we’ve considered normal and traditional and destroy that, and take everything that’s depraved and perverted and normalize that instead.”

Soon after buying Twitter, Musk rolled back the platform’s moderation guidelines, excising language that addressed “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”