If you think you had a busy Monday today, then let me tell you about a friend of mine who just put all of our hard work to shame. After Caitlyn Jenner introduced herself on the cover of Vanity Fair this morning, she was far from the only one whose new Twitter account launched: The @she_not_he Twitter bot corrects people who use the wrong pronoun for Caitlyn Jenner, and it has had a busier day than all of us combined. Literally within seconds of someone tweeting using a "he" pronoun in reference to Caitlyn, the bot will nudge its way into the conversation and politely remind the user that their tweet is all shades of wrong.
Although it isn't explicitly clear who got the Twitter up and running, it links out to GLAAD's blog. Like any bot, it does occasionally make mistakes—for instance, occasionally the "he" pronoun is in reference to someone else, and the user isn't misgendering—but all in all, its little internet-born heart is in the right place. This is how it introduced itself to the Twitter-verse:
I am a bot politely correcting Twitter users who misgender Caitlyn Jenner in their tweets. I might make mistakes reading your tweet!! I'm only human. (Not.)
Unfortunately, it didn't get to Drake Bell in time to minimize the damage, but DON'T WORRY, the rest of the internet did.
Here are some of the tweets that @she_not_he has fixed:
As you can see, the bot has been handy in correcting even people who have the best of intentions, helping facilitate people engaging in a dialogue of trans acceptance and understanding on the vast space that is Twitter. Power to you, Twitter bot. Keep on slaying, one tweet at a time.
