YouTube pulls, then re-posts, GOP group’s anti-Beshear trans surgery ad for ‘hate speech’

A GOP group’s video advertisement that seeks to tie Gov. Andy Beshear to support for allowing minors to undergo gender reassignment surgery was removed from YouTube over the weekend for violating the website’s hate speech rules. On Monday, it had been re-posted.

The ad comes from Kentucky Values, a group affiliated with the national Republican Governors Association (RGA). It began airing statewide last Friday.

Beshear has clarified in recent weeks that he does not support allowing gender reassignment surgery for transgender youth. He has never said that he supports the practice, and emphasized that in a recent television ad of his own. Leaders in the state’s LGBTQ-led push against Senate Bill 150 have stated that they had no issue with a ban on the practice, noting that it did not occur in Kentucky before the ban.

“Andy Beshear has always opposed gender-reassignment surgeries for minors — which do not happen in Kentucky,” Alex Floyd, a Beshear campaign spokesperson, said.

However, Republicans say that his veto of Senate Bill 150, which included among several other provisions a ban on the practice, is proof that Beshear does support gender reassignment surgeries for minors.

Courtney Alexander, RGA’s national press secretary, said the ad is accurate and when it was down called the incident “another example of big tech covering for Democrats and silencing the truth.”

Alexander celebrated the ad’s return to the platform and said RGA will “continue to ensure Kentuckians know just how wildly out of touch Andy Beshear is with Kentucky values.”

It is unclear which part of the ad violated YouTube’s hate speech policy, which is broadly defined to prevent content that the site believes “incites hatred or violence” against certain groups.

“We consider content hate speech when it incites hatred or violence against groups based on protected attributes such as age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status,” the site’s hate speech policy reads. “This policy also includes common forms of online hate such as dehumanizing members of these groups; characterizing them as inherently inferior or ill; promoting hateful ideology like Naziism; promoting conspiracy theories about these groups; or denying that well-documented violent events took place, like a school shooting.”

The site removes “tens of thousands of videos and channels each quarter” that violate their hate speech and harassment policy.

The ad blasts Beshear by tying him to what it calls “the radical transgender agenda,” which it states is “bombarding our children everywhere we turn.”

It states that Beshear’s actions relative to trans rights are “sick but true.”

“Beshear supports allowing young children to undergo permanent gender-changing surgery. Beshear even vetoed a bill to ban doctors from performing sex change surgery — even chemical castration on underage kids. It’s sick, but true,” the narrator says.

Though the full 30-second ad has been removed because of the hate speech element, the 15-second version of the ad remains up on YouTube. That version does not contain the portion of the ad referring to “chemical castration.”

Beshear’s race against Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron for re-election is expected to be tightly contested. Groups like the RGA and the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) have already poured millions of dollars into the race. The most recent public polling has Beshear up anywhere from 10 to 4 points over Cameron, though Cameron’s campaign has yet to air an advertisement of its own.

Beshear’s campaign was already using the incident to rally support on Sunday afternoon. In a mass text asking for donations, the campaign sent a screenshot of YouTube’s message on the video regarding its hate speech policy.

“National Republicans are telling such heinous lies about Andy and their latest attack ad was pulled off of Youtube for violating hate speech rules,” the message reads. “This is what Andy is up against, and we need your help to fight back.”

One Republican operative in Arizona suggested that the temporary removal of the video constituted “election interference” on YouTube’s part.

“The Republican Governors Association launched a new ad Friday exposing‘s ‘radical agenda of allowing young children to undergo permanent gender-changing surgery.’ YouTube has already erased the ad (because) of ‘hate speech.’ Election interference,” Brian Anderson asked in a tweet.