A Congressional staffer, or someone with access to their network, has repeatedly modified Wikipedia articles to insert transphobic slurs, prompting the second month-long lockout for the Congressional IP address in less than a month.
One Wikipedian speculates that the vandal is a "puerile male intern/staffer desperate to become the House's very own Jester."
One of the edits was to an article about the TV show Orange is the New Black. The article on the show noted actress Laverne Cox as the first ever "real transgender woman" to play in a women-in-prison narrative. Someone using the Congressional IP address changed the description of Cox, describing her as a "real man pretending to be a woman."
In an article about transphobia, the same Congressional IP address added a sentence reading: "Vice magazine cofounder Gavin McInnes desribes [sic] transphobia as a perfectly natural response to someone pretending to be something that they are not," referencing an article by McInnes.
The addition was deleted three minutes later. The Congressional user defended the edit on the talk page, saying that the article was "too pro-trans" and needed to be more neutral. "I don't see how disagreeing with the concept that transphobia is a negative thing is considered 'hate speech,'" wrote the Congressional user. "The whole concept of 'transphobia' is being promoted to trivialize the experiences of real women (or 'womyn-born-womyn' as some people call us)."
Congressional staffers banned again from Wikipedia after “transphobic” edits
