JD Vance becomes the most blocked account on Bluesky after anti-trans post
JD Vance has become the most blocked account on Bluesky just two days after joining the social media platform.
The vice president signed up for the site, a competitor of X/Twitter, on Wednesday. Vance used his first post to mock transgender people by sharing part of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which he incorrectly said that gender-affirming care relies on “questionable evidence.”
“Hello Bluesky, I’ve been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis,” Vance wrote. “So I’m thrilled to be here to engage with all of you.”
Within just one day, Vance became the most blocked account on Bluesky, according to Clearsky, the platform’s unofficial data tracker. As of publishing, Vance has been blocked by over 117,500 accounts, more than 29,000 of which blocked him in the past 24 hours. He has only gained 10,000 followers since joining the site.
The title formerly belonged to anti-trans journalist Jesse Singal, whom GLAAD has criticized for spreading misinformation harmful to LGBTQ+ people. It took 12 days for Singal to become the most blocked account, with users even starting a petition asking the site to remove his account. He is currently blocked by over 81,000 people.
“The only thing I’ve ever accomplished in my life, gone, all because being vice president wasn’t enough for JD Vance — he needed more,” Singal recently posted on X/Twitter in response to the news. “We are in hell.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Wednesday that Tennessee‘s law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth – while allowing the same treatments for youth who aren’t trans – does not constitute sex-based discrimination, and therefore does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
In the snippet of his opinion shared by Vance, Thomas asserted that the Court should not listen to “so-called experts,” accusing medical professionals of allowing “ideology to influence their medical guidance.” He then falsely claimed that “there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender dysphoria in children.”
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults, but minors as well. Out of 55 peer-reviewed studies, not a single one found that gender transition has negative outcomes.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissenting opinion that the law explicitly discriminates on the basis of both sex and gender, as it “expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status,” since “male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls.”
The decision “does irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause and invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight,” Sotomayor wrote. “It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them. Because there is no constitutional justification for that result, I dissent.”
Back on Bluesky, Vance was met with , with one person asking, “Why pick such a polarizing issue if you want to have a real discussion, and why not something relevant to more Americans?”
To which another replied, “It’s only a polarizing issue because ignorant bigoted child abusing superstitious sadists like Vance want to pretend that they know more than doctors.”