US: Anonymous Capitol Hill staffer makes transphobic edits to Wikipedia articles
An anonymous user with an IP address from the US House of Representatives made transphobic edits to Wikipedia articles over past days before being banned by the site.
Business Insider investigated the changes using the Twitter account @congressedits.
The account tracks changes made to Wikipedia articles by Congress via Capitol Hill IP addresses.
The news source found over a half dozen edits to articles on transgender topics since Monday.
According to Business Insider, one edit was found on a page about Camp Trans, a protest event that fights against the exclusion of trans women from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
The edit said that the Michgan’s Womyn’s Music Festival was hosted by “real women,” suggesting Camp Trans is not.
The Raw Story also reported changes were made to Orange Is The New Black’s Wikipedia page.
Those changes stated Laverne Cox is a “real man pretending to be a woman.”
The IP address is shared among many House of Representive staffers, making it impossible to know whether the edits are from one user or multiple users.
According to The Raw Story, Wikipedia has blocked edits from the US House of Representative’s IP address for one month.
This is the third time this summer the site has blocked the IP address.
