That same day, YouTube also removed a June 2, 2019, episode of Owens’ show featuring Wall Street Journal writer Abigail Shrier, who wrote a book that made dubious claims about trans youth.
During that episode, Shrier compared being trans to having an eating disorder, and Owens compared it to having schizophrenia. Owens said, “And people don’t cater to anorexics in the same way that we don’t have people catering to people that have schizophrenia. Of course, we acknowledge that there are people that are schizophrenic, but imagine a world where society had to bend to what that schizophrenic was seeing or hearing.”
Later in the video, the two described some best practice health care for trans kids as “child abuse,” and Shrier said some parents who affirm their trans kids “have Munchausen syndrome-by-proxy: people who are passing on diseases to their children.”
The video earned nearly 430,000 views before being taken down.
YouTube has previously removed similar videos
In June, YouTube removed a video from the anti-LGBTQ group Heritage Foundation of a half-day summit it co-hosted in 2019 for violating the platform’s hate speech policy. The summit featured panelists who said that being trans is a mental illness. Right-wing outlet The Federalist wrote that YouTube said the video violated the policy prohibiting claims that “groups are physically or mentally inferior.”
Heritage then posted a video about the removal on YouTube that included clips of the original, such as that trans people have “other psychological issues that cause them to behave as a transgender. They’re not born transgender.”
In November 2019, YouTube removed a 2017 video from Heritage’s media outlet The Daily Signal featuring Michelle Cretella of the extreme anti-LGBTQ group American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), reportedly because she said, “See, if you want to cut off a leg or an arm, you’re mentally ill, but if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you’re transgender.” Axios reported, “Sources say that the tech giant offered to re-list the video, but only if ... The Daily Signal removed the transgender reference by the doctor. Heritage sees that either-or choice as censorship.”
ACPeds is a small and misleadingly named anti-LGBTQ extremist group of physicians. It broke off from the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics after that organization began supporting the right of same-sex couples to adopt children and provide foster care.
Other videos comparing being trans to mental illness remain on YouTube
Media Matters has identified several other YouTube videos that compare being trans to having a mental illness, similar to videos that the platform has removed for violating its hate speech policy.
Owens hosted an “ex-trans” activist on her show who called being trans a “psychological disorder”
Another episode of The Candace Owens Show features “ex-trans” activist Walt Heyer, who makes frequent appearances and works with with anti-LGBTQ groups and right-wing media. He was also in the Heritage Foundation video that YouTube removed.
During the episode, Heyer called being trans a “psychological disorder” and repeatedly denied that most adult trans people are actually transgender, claiming they really have “a sexual fetish disorder”: