Spanish politician suspended by Twitter for saying ‘men can’t get pregnant’

Spain’s Vox Party member Francisco Jose Contreras was locked out of his Twitter account for 12 hours for violating the platform’s hate speech policy over his comment that “a man cannot get pregnant”.

Contreras, also a member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain, stated that men have “no uterus or eggs” and hence they can’t get pregnant. His comment was in response to an article published in the news website El Mundo, which discussed a transgender man announcing they have given birth to a child.

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Soon after Twitter’s action, the 57-year-old wrote a post on Facebook that read, “You can see this is already fascist biology. Next time I’ll try 2 + 2 = 4.”

According to Twitter, Contreras violated its policy against posting material that threatens or promotes violence against others based on their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender.

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Contreras suspension was followed by his supporters sharing a hashtag ‘#AManCannotBePregnant’ on Twitter. They also supported him on Facebook and claimed that Twitter’s censorship was worse than the Spanish Inquisition.

The microblogging site previously disabled the Vox Party’s official account for 24 hours during regional elections in January this year, after it linked high crime rates with North African immigrants in a post.