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In mid-July, the Canadian free speech activist was banned from Twitter after getting into an online argument with Jessica Yaniv — the pre-op transgender woman currently making headlines for her lawsuit against two female estheticians in B.C. who refused to wax her pubic area.

At the time, Yaniv tweeted at Shepherd, “I heard @realDonaldTrump is building a wall inside of your uterus aka your ‘reproductive abnormality’ hopefully the walk works as intended.”

Shepherd tweeted back in kind: “At least I have a uterus, you ugly fat man.

Critics of Twitter’s decision to ban Shepherd and allow Yaniv to go unpunished argued it showed the social media platform has a double-standard for some users behaving badly compared to others depending on their background.

Defenders of the decision to ban Shepherd cited Twitter’s policy that “misgendering” or not using someone’s preferred pronouns is against Twitter’s rules.

Shortly after Shepherd returned to Twitter she asked if Vancouver-based journalist and feminist Meghan Murphy would also have her account reactivated. Murphy was also was banned from the social media platform after not using Yaniv’s preferred pronouns.

ggordon@postmedia.com