On July 5-7, 2023, Georgian (1, 2) and Russian-language Facebook accounts published a post according to which official posters in the New York subway threatened people with death if they did not respect transgender people. The posts contain pictures of the posters, which feature the inscription “Respect trans people or your pronouns will be “was/were.”
The photos of the New York subway posters are misleading and being circulated without context. The posters are not official and were not prepared by the city’s Department of Transportation. The posters belong to LGBTQ+ activist group Pride Train and were put up without permission.
Poster photos of Pride Month content have been circulating online since 2019. Many people thought they were official, as a group of activists tried their best to make the posters resemble the style of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Posters with different content put up by Pride Train in the subway
The specific poster shown in the Georgian and Russian posts was also produced by Pride Train and was published in 2021. They also published some of the posters on the pages of social networks (1, 2). “Respect trans people or your pronouns will be ‘was/were'” – a photo with the inscription can be seen both on the activist group’s now-deleted tweet and on the Instagram post.
This information was also verified by Reuters. Together with all this evidence, the statement of Megan Keegan, the spokesperson of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Service, was also published, in which she states that they did not display these posters, nor did they give permission to any person or organization.
About the Source
The Facebook account Nino Nino often publishes anti-Western content and conspiracy theories. Myth Detector has repeatedly debunked the false information amplified by the user.
The Facebook account Nini Khundadze has spread false information in the past as well. See more here.
The Russian-language Facebook account Orly Zipori is also notorious for spreading anti-vax, anti-Western, and anti-Ukrainian disinformation.
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