Video platform Vimeo has censored Dead Name — a documentary about parents struggling to protect their children from life-altering medical interventions on their gender — over so-called “hateful conduct.”
“The film is subtly explosive but I can tell you unequivocally there is no hate speech, there is nothing hateful,” filmmaker Taylor Reece told the Daily Signal. “All these people talk about is how much they want to protect their children.”
The filmmaker added that transgender activists had targeted Vimeo, calling on the video platform to ban the documentary. Reece said Dead Name was up for only 34 days before it was removed.
Vimeo confirmed to the Daily Signal that it did, in fact, remove the documentary, citing “discriminatory” and “hateful content.”
“We can confirm that Vimeo removed the video in question for violating our Terms of Service prohibiting discriminatory or hateful content,” the video platform said. “We strive to enforce these policies objectively and consistently across our platform.”
The company added that “Vimeo’s global Trust & Safety team uses a number of tools and methods to moderate our platform of harmful, hateful, and misleading content in accordance with our Acceptable Use Policy.”
“In addition to conducting regular account reviews and closely monitoring repeat infringers, our T&S team evaluates every video flagged by our users,” Vimeo said. “In the event we determine that an account has uploaded content that violates our terms, we will take appropriate action including content removal and, potentially, account termination.”
Vimeo defines “hateful and discriminatory speech” as any expression “directed to an individual or group of individuals based upon personal characteristics of that individual or group” that “conveys a message of inferiority or contempt,” which “would be considered extremely offensive to a reasonable person.”
The list of characteristics includes race, color, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, as well as gender identity.
“Parents are living in the Twilight Zone, they are beside themselves and don’t know what to do about it,” Reece said. “This film is an attempt to force a conversation, not just in Republican legislatures, but around the country.”
“In the transgender world, the name is the first thing that most of these children shed,” the filmmaker added. “The erasure of who they are, their name, their history, their identity, it erodes little by little until it becomes a physical manifestation — like double mastectomies.”
Reece went on to say that “unless you are the parent of that child, you have no idea what this journey actually is.”
Vimeo did not respond to Breitbart News’ inquiry as to how exactly Dead Name violated its policy against “hateful conduct.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.