The left is scared of female athletes, and they should be. That’s the only explanation for why Facebook decided to censor an ad explaining how the Equality Act would destroy women’s sports.
American Principles Project PAC, an organization dedicated to campaigning on pro-family social issues, recently began a $4 million ad campaign dedicated to exposing candidates Gary Peters’s and Joe Biden’s support for policies that would allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and push children into dangerous sex-change surgeries or treatments. One ad focused on the politicians’ support of the Equality Act, a key push from Democrats that would forbid any disparate treatment based on biological sex and make it illegal to keep men out of women’s sports teams.
Last week, however, Facebook abruptly censored the ad. After outcry from left-wing groups, including Media Matters, GLAAD, and others labeling the ad “hate speech,” Facebook decided to censor it using a brand-new category it had just created: “missing context.” It said the ad was misleading and must be removed.
Trans Ad Resonated with Most Americans
Facebook didn’t take down the ad because it misled viewers. No fact-checker has found anything inaccurate in it. In fact, PolitiFact’s review of the ad, allegedly the basis for the censorship, found no false claims. The checkers were only able to say they couldn’t fact-check the ad’s prediction. This is an odd claim, since PolitiFact frequently fact-checks future events, such as saying Biden will never ban fracking, or claiming mail-in voting won’t lead to fraud in November.
The real reason Facebook removed the ad is that the American people agreed with it. It didn’t contain anything false; it merely highlighted truths that leftists inside Facebook don’t like and that move public sentiment against the left’s preferred candidates. Before it got taken down, the ad had more than 1 million impressions. Threatened by an effective, persuasive, and truthful conservative ad, Facebook allowed political censorship over facts, handing left-wing activists and politicians an election-year gift in the process.
The American people overwhelmingly agree that men don’t belong in women’s sports. In a 2019 survey of likely voters nationwide, Heritage Action asked, “Do you think transgender biological males should be permitted to play high school and amateur sports on female teams?” Sixty-two percent of respondents said no, while only 25 percent were in support.
American Principles Project polling shows the same. This summer, in a poll of 10 key swing states, respondents were asked, “Should boys and men who say they identify as transgender be allowed to compete in girls’ and women’s athletics?” The combined result from all 10 states was only 23.5 percent in support and 76.5 percent opposed.
This won’t surprise anyone outside Silicon Valley, of course. Most parents have seen news like the Connecticut high school track meet where two biological males placed first and second in a girls’ event, breaking the girls’ state record for the 100-meter dash.
As parents ourselves, we do not want to see our daughters put in thousands of hours of training only to be outrun by a biological male, and we aren’t alone. Only the political and cultural elite could sacrifice women’s accomplishments on the altar of unscientific gender ideology.
The Left’s Hypocrisy Is on Display
These are the elites who have infiltrated Facebook, and they refuse to allow facts that threaten their worldview. If ads start to connect the dots and show that even “moderate” leftists believe in this extreme gender ideology, the supermajority of reasonable Americans will realize how out-of-touch the country’s ruling class is — it might even get voted out. The lefty brass at Facebook couldn’t have that.
This debacle isn’t just about free speech; it’s about a key weakness of the left. Democrats are between a rock and a hard place. They have to toe the party line of the far left, which dictates that men can be women — feminism be damned. They also have to get elected, however, which means they can’t publicly embrace the very issues that define the far left: extremism on social issues, “defund the police,” and socialism.
That means a delicate balancing act. The left shouts to the nation’s swing voters that they’re moderate while whispering to their activist wing that they’ll open women’s sports teams to anyone who claims he’s a woman. They can’t tolerate any piece of information that exposes their hypocrisy.
In the face of censorship, conservatives shouldn’t back down — they should double down. This debacle shows the left is on the ropes, and social issues are a gaping hole in their armor. Conservatives shouldn’t run scared from those issues as they have too many times in the past.
Instead, they should push hard for legislation such as the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, introduced last week by Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., to ban federal funds for athletic programs that allow men onto women’s sports teams. We need fewer made-for-TV hearings from our leaders and more bold legislation like this that takes ground back from the left. It’s common sense and a political no-brainer.
We know the cultural and social extremism of the left on issues such as infanticide, transgender ideology, and the family could be their political downfall, and the left knows it too. If Facebook thinks the truth about the Equality Act is convincing enough to shut it down, conservatives should speak up all the more.
Bullies attack when they feel weak. It’s time we fight back.
