At 3:40 a.m. Monday morning, The Daily Signal received an email from YouTube alerting it that the trailer for a mini-documentary on a victim of gender ideology in California was flagged for mentioning “suicide or self-harm topics.”  

The video, “California Stole My Rights,” now displays a warning screen that would-be viewers must manually bypass to watch the full trailer. According to YouTube’s guidelines, the video might also be restricted. 

The Daily Signal asked YouTube what it meant by “restricted,” and why YouTube placed this restriction on the trailer, but it did not respond by the time of publication of this article. 

In the 44-second trailer, a California mother merely says the word “suicidal” when quoting what her then-14-year-old-daughter told her when pleading her case for transitioning from girl to boy.  

The mother says: 

It came out of nowhere that, all of a sudden, [my daughter said] ‘I want to be a boy. I feel suicidal.’ 

That’s it. 

Despite the fact that the mother was directly quoting her daughter, and the idea of suicide was never expanded upon, YouTube flagged the video for sensitive content anyway. 

In an email to The Daily Signal, YouTube said: 

We’re reaching out because members of the YouTube Community, including fellow creators, viewers, or staff, have expressed concern for your safety or well-being after coming across content you posted with topics related to suicide or self-harm. 

According to YouTube’s suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders policy, these are the kinds of content that may be “restricted rather than removed”:

• Content that is meant to be educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic. 

• Content that is of public interest. 

• Graphic content that is sufficiently blurred. 

• Dramatizations or scripted content, which includes but is not limited to animations, video games, music videos, and clips from movies and shows. 

• Detailed discussion of suicide or self-harm methods, locations, and hot spots. 

• Graphic descriptions of self-harm or suicide. 

However, in one YouTube video, “Turning To Self-Surgery: A Transgender Woman’s Journey — Through Their Eyes,” a male-to-female transgender person explains the details of self-castration due to gender dysphoria. While the original video itself warns viewers at the start of the video, YouTube does not place any warning on it, despite the video’s graphic narration and visuals depicting this act of self-harm. 

Meanwhile, The Daily Signal’s trailer gets a warning for quoting the word “suicidal” once and nothing more.  

Earlier this year, the trailer for the forthcoming film “Joker: Folie à Deux” was also slapped with the same restriction before the warning was eventually removed. Presumably, the warning came for a depiction of Lady Gaga’s character pointing a finger gun at her head and “pulling the trigger.” 

Where The Daily Signal trailer and “Joker: Folie à Deux’s” were censored, a video of the now-deceased actor-comedian Robin Williams titled “Robin Williams, In His Own Words About Suicide,” in which he exclusively detailed his battle with suicidal ideation, can be played with no such warning.