Google Confuses TG Terms With Child Porn

The RedHandedPorn.com website features videos of people, all different types of people, masturbating in as many different ways as they can think of and demonstrate. The site is owned by lesbians (who self identify as “dykes”) and they are based in San Francisco. Due to the larger than average TG population in SF many of the people who want to “perform” on the site are transgendered.

One of the owners of the site contacted TGF today to let us know about a problem they are having with Internet search mega giant Google. It seems that they signed up for Google’s AdWords system, a service Google provides which puts those paid ads on your search results page. To be added as a paid ad link an advertiser has to enter words that describe their business or product into Google’s software. Google’s system won’t allow Red Handed to use certain words to describe a particular video, even in descriptions or titles on Red Handed’s own site.

Boots Boccaleone, an owner of the site, told TGF, “We have created a radical, queer, alternative porn site. It features transgendered folk of all flavors and styles as well as other more traditionally gendered people. The people are all amateur, real people caught in the act of masturbating with permission. We are having an impossibly difficult time creating ads that both acurately describe our site and will be accepted by AdWords.”

Boccaleone says that Google has flagged any ad submitted by Red Handed that used terms Google has found to be related to child pornography.

“We have made several ads using the words that our transgendered performers use for themselves,” she said. She continued, “Namely ‘trans-boi’, ‘trans-boy’, ‘trans-grrrl’, ‘trans-girl’, and ‘genderqueer’.”

Google would not run the ads containing those words but would allow ads using “shemale”, “tranny”, “Mtf” and “FtM”, terms that Boccaleone feels transgender people may find, “offensive and clinical”.

Boccaleone’s attempts to contact Google to discuss the matter have been met with form emails.

“I realize that porn is not a mainstream issue, and it doesn’t impact the life of very many transgendered people. This problem, however, is bigger than porn. It is about large corporations mandating the language of bigots while banning community language,” she concluded.

For more on the controversy visit the SF Gate website for Violet Blue’s blog. (Link opens in a new window.)

Category: All TGForum Posts, Transgender Community News