The internet can do some cool things. For example: @CongressEdits automatically posts every time someone using a Capitol Hill IP addresses changes an entry. On the 18th, the bot posted about two changes to trans-related pages by someone on a House computer:

Gender identity disorder Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US House of Representatives http://t.co/z0JXcd04tR — congress-edits (@congressedits) August 18, 2014

Transphobia Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US House of Representatives http://t.co/74DMTxrhuq — congress-edits (@congressedits) August 18, 2014

Unsurprisingly (unless you have a hell of a lot of misplaced faith in Congress), the edits were hateful. One added to the Gender Identity Disorder a note on “Species dysphoria, a similar disorder where people think they are a different species than they actually are rather than a different gender than they actually are.” And the other edited the Transphobia page, writing that “Vice magazine cofounder Gavin McInnes desribes transphobia as a perfectly natural response to someone pretending to be something that they are not,” with a link to McInnes’ now-removed awful Thought Catalog piece.



This, friends, is what our tax payer dollars are spent on.

Both additions have since been removed, but I wonder if any internet sleuths can track down from which representatives’ office these edits were made. If you find out, let us know.

Alexandra Brodsky is a Feministing editor, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX.