Elon Musk Mocked Gender Pronouns, So LGBTQ+ Twitter Roasted Him

For some unexplained reason, Elon Musk can't wrap his head around pronouns.

Earlier this week, the clearly bored billionaire logged onto Twitter and chose violence. He shared a meme making fun of people who list their pronouns in their social media bios. 

People who list their pronouns do so to indicate how people should refer to them. Many cisgender allies list their pronouns to support transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary people and normalize the practice of asking how one would like to be referred to. 

Musk's "joke" here is that people with their pronouns in their bio are oppressive and revel in the bloodshed it causes. "Joke" is used loosely here since there's no punchline, but it seems to be a jab at the fabled "social justice warrior" types who want to make free speech illegal or something. 

In reality, using someone's correct pronouns is really just a simple sign of respect. People who refuse to use them or make a big deal about the alleged mental gymnastics it takes to switch the "he" to "they" in their heads invalidate many LGBTQ+ folk's identities and existence. 

It's unclear why Musk posted the meme at all, but it unleashed an avalanche of transphobia in the comments below it. We won't be sharing any of those here, but you can click on the tweet and take a look yourself.

Then came the critiques. Publication Clean Technica shared their thoughts on the meme, breaking down why it's harmful towards transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer people. 

"Marginalized groups need our help, not signals that they and those who support them are bad," writes Jennifer Sensiba. "Our support can save lives, especially when you consider the high suicide rates among transgender people. Those suicide rates aren’t caused by them being defective people; they’re caused by a feeling that they don’t matter. Studies have shown that the greater a transgender person is included and validated, the lower the suicide rates are."

Musk clapped back at that article. "I absolutely support trans," he tweeted. "But all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare."

The Twitter roast instantly started cooking, many pointing out the aesthetic value of his son's name (which is X Æ A-12 Musk btw):

To prove he wasn't transphobic, Musk then responded with some Tesla statistics claiming that his company scored 100/100 in "LGBTQ+ equality" on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. 

A former HRC employee shut that rebuttal down as well:

Period, Charlotte!

Unfortunately, Musk's stance isn't surprising. Earlier this summer, he tweeted "Pronouns suck" and stirred up so much controversy that his wife Grimes, who identifies as gender-neutral, replied to the tweet with a plea. "I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a [c]all. I cannot support hate. Please stop this. I know this isn’t your heart."

He quickly deleted the tweet, but it seems he doubled down on his contempt of pronouns. 

Weird hill to die on but go off, sis.