Babylon Bee suspended on Twitter for calling Rachel Levine a man

Twitter suspended the account of conservative parody website The Babylon Bee after it tweeted out a headline that deliberately misgendered Rachel Levine, the U.S. Assistant Health Secretary.

The Big Tech platform says the company acted in violation of its hateful conduct policy and that in order to regain account access, the company must delete the Tweet in question. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon has indicated that he will not delete the original message.

The headline that prompted the lockout was, "The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year is Rachel Levine."

"They could, of course, delete the tweet themselves. But they won't. It's not enough for them to just wipe it out. They want us to bend the knee and admit that we engaged in hateful conduct," tweeted Dillon. 

Levine, a transgender woman (biological man), was recently named one of USA Today's women of the year. The 64-year-old has, since her appointment into the Biden administration, led 6,000 members of the federal public health service at the Department of Health and Human Services during the last several months of the pandemic.  

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Twitter account was also recently flagged for misgendering Levine. "Rachel Levine is a man," wrote Paxton on Thursday, following the release USA Today's list. Twitter flagged the post for "hateful conduct" but has left it accessible in the name of public interest.