Last year, Twitter permanently banned Canadian feminist journalist Meghan Murphy after she confirmed the identity of Jonathan Yaniv, an activist accused of sexual harassment who claims to identify as a woman under the name “Jessica.” Canada had a publication ban on Yaniv’s name, but the ban was lifted earlier this month. The truth has come out about Yaniv, and it isn’t pretty: he appears to have a fascination with women putting in tampons; he has allegedly harassed at least one 14-year-old girl; he tried to force women in waxing studios to wax his private parts and filed human rights complaints against them when they refused; and he tried to orchestrate an event to have 12-year-old girls topless in a pool without parent supervision.
Now Murphy is speaking out, condemning Twitter for banning her to protect Yaniv. She sued Twitter early this year.
“Twitter is in the business of protecting predators and silencing women who try to hold those predators accountable,” she told PJ Media in an interview Thursday. “Twitter should be humiliated. They allowed this predatory man to have me permanently suspended from Twitter just for acknowledging that he was the one responsible.”
Murphy insisted that her confirmation of Yaniv’s identity — not even an attack against him — was the tweet that got her permanently banned. “Twitter executives have gone on the media saying, ‘She was harassing trans people.’ That’s an outright lie.”
Twitter suspended Murphy for many tweets before permanently banning her. On November 15, 2018, Twitter required her to remove a tweet saying, “Men aren’t women,” and another saying, “How are transwoman not men? What is the difference between a man and a transwoman?” She called out the company on the “f**king bulls***,” asking, “I’m not allowed to say that men aren’t women or ask questions about the notion of transgenderism at all anymore? That a multi billion dollar company is censoring BASIC FACTS and silencing people who ask questions about this dogma is INSANE.” That got her blocked again.
Murphy had also been suspended for criticizing Lisa Kreut, a biological man born Ryan Kreut who identifies as a dominatrix and has engaged in activism against trans-critical people. It wasn’t until she spoke out against Jonathan Yaniv that she got permanently banned, however.
Despite the publication ban on Yaniv’s name, a blogger had discovered the dirt on him. That blogger tweeted her information out, asking for confirmation that the person involved was Yaniv. Murphy responded, “Yeah it’s him,” including a picture of Yaniv leaving a review for a waxing studio — using a male profile. Twitter permanently banned her for that tweet, supposedly because she had “misgendered” Yaniv.
Rather than delving into the claims against Yaniv, Twitter banned Murphy.
“I didn’t say anything judgmental or rude about him,” she told PJ Media.
After the ban, Yaniv bragged about getting her kicked off the platform, both on Twitter and in a meeting of the city council of Langley, British Columbia.
This is the person who has been harassing #MeghanMurphy, admitting at a city council meeting to being responsible for her Twitter ban, and asking that she be prosecuted for hate crimes: pic.twitter.com/A9n7UG1UJw
— Benjamin🛤Boyce (@BenjaminABoyce) December 18, 2018
So what dirt had the blogger uncovered? Thanks to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, the publication ban was lifted this month and The Post Millennial has published multiple stories revealing Yaniv’s exploits.
The activist is most infamous for using Canada’s pro-transgender laws to force Brazilian waxing studios to perform their services on his very male private parts. Yaniv would compel unwilling female business owners and employees to perform the service on his body. If they refused, he would threaten to file a human rights complaint — but would offer to settle for a sizable sum of money.
Yet this is the tip of the iceberg. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Rumpel accused Yaniv of sexually harassing her in a long list of messages on ASK.FM. She filed a child exploitation report against him, The Post Millennial reported. In the messages, screen capped and posted in video form at The Post Millennial, Yaniv asked Rumpel personal questions about using tampons and fantasized about her chest moving up and down.
He seemingly has a long history of sending private messages focused on tampons and teenage girls.
Just this week, Yaniv appeared at a Township of Langley Council meeting, requesting an “All-Bodies Swim” event at civic pools ‘for people aged 12+ where these events will be restricted to LGBTQ2S and all individuals will be permitted to be topless (at their leisure), in compliance with the laws of Canada and where parents and caretakers will be prohibited from attending these events as it’s considered safe and inclusive.”
This news has unleashed a torrent of criticism, with people accusing Yaniv of orchestrating the event to ogle at young girls. Indeed, the request for toplessness and the exclusion of parents are big warning signs.
Notably, Yaniv requests that 12 be set as the minimum age for participation in the ‘all-bodies’ swim, but does not give an upper age limit. She also specifically notes that toplessness should be allowed and that parents should be banned from attending. https://t.co/8v5GXhPKFy
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 23, 2019
Even transgender activists have attacked this provocateur. “This person is the walking, talking, living, breathing embodiment of what people fear when it comes to trans people,” noted transgender YouTube star Blaire White.
Transgender activists like White argue that provocateurs and accused predators like Yaniv give them a bad name. Most people who identify as transgender are not provocateurs or predators, they say. Even so, changing the basic rules of society to allow biological men to enter women’s spaces will open the door to predators.
Murphy summarized and then rejected the argument. “Don’t blame a few bad eggs. These guys are predators, it has nothing to do with transgenderism,” she summarized.
“I agree that it has nothing to do with transgenderism. That’s not the point,” she replied. “Men are perpetrators of violence against women and girls for the most part — not all men, of course, but some. There are very good reasons why men are not allowed access to places where women and girls are vulnerable, shelters for women victims of rape, homeless shelters, prisons.”
“It doesn’t matter if that man identifies as transgender or not, there is still the potential for something bad to happen,” Murphy explained.
“It’s not possible to change from man into a woman. This whole idea is based on a lie and a delusion. Nobody can prove that there is a difference between a trans woman and a man. What’s changed? You’ve declared that something is different,” she said. “If any man can identify as a woman, what’s stopping any man from abusing a woman in a woman’s space?”
“I don’t think that most people are identifying as transgender for this purpose but it’s obviously a very real possibility,” Murphy noted.
Trans-critical feminists like her have long warned that acceptance of transgenderism would make women vulnerable in this way, and she considered Yaniv proof of her arguments. “We said this would happen and everybody vilified us and called us TERFs [a slur] and bigots.”
Yet Yaniv’s case also illustrates another warning — perhaps even more terrifying. In her lawsuit, Murphy warned, “This is also, it should be pointed out, a key problem with allowing men to ID as female, change their names, IDs etc. They can leave behind these kinds of pasts (and likely continue to predate on women and girls, where that abuse will be reported as perpetrated by a ‘woman’).”
“That seems to be happening,” she told PJ Media. “Men who are perpetrators of violent crime and sexual assault and pedophilia are suddenly transitioning and changing their names, and no one is allowed to use their old name because of violence, somehow.”
Yet Murphy was not the last person that Yaniv got suspended from Twitter. Just this month, he got Canadian free speech activist Lindsay Shepherd permanently suspended from the platform. Yaniv had mocked Shepherd for being “loose” after having a 10-pound baby (even though she had a C-section and a 6-pound 10-ounce baby. He also mocked her for a reproductive abnormality. Finally responding, she said, “At least I have a uterus, you fat ugly man.”
She deleted the comments, but was suspended, anyway.
“I think they must know what’s going on,” Murphy told PJ Media, referring to the news about Yaniv. “It’s weird that Yaniv wasn’t banned for what he said to Lindsay.”
Twitter owes both Murphy and Shepherd an apology, yet it seems the women are unlikely to get one. The company did not respond to requests from comment from PJ Media. Twitter has a long history of suspending women who report transgender harassment and voices that are critical of transgender activism.
It seems Twitter is indeed protecting a predator and suppressing the women who try to expose him. The company needs to explain itself, or reverse the suspensions of Murphy and Shepherd.
Those interested in reading about or financially supporting Meghan Murphy’s lawsuit should visit this page.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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