Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shrugged off the kerfuffle over her disappearing pronouns, saying she had to drop them from her X bio for space considerations.

“The whole ’story’ of removing pronouns after the election is fake,” the New York Democrat posted Saturday on X. “It happened a long time ago after the SCOTUS Twitter ruling meant I had to add the ’personal acct’ disclosure. There weren’t enough chars [characters] so I had to swap the end. You can run the timeline to see for yourself.”

In March, the Supreme Court ruled that public officials who post information related to their government roles on their personal accounts can be held liable for violating the First Amendment if they block followers.

An Internet Archive search of the Democrat’s @AOC account on X shows “She/her” pronouns were listed on her bio in early March, but that by May the pronouns had been replaced with “Personal account.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University offered guidance to public officials on how to present themselves on social media in the aftermath of the court’s decision in Lindke v. Freed, including adding “personal” to their nonwork accounts.

“The Supreme Court has said that posts on a social media account labeled ’personal’ are presumed to be personal — but it has also made clear that evidence that an official is using the account for official purposes can overcome that presumption,” said the institute in its “Social Media for Public Officials 2.0” guide.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez took a ribbing on social media last week after sharp-eyed conservatives spotted the missing pronouns, accusing her of inching to the right in reaction to the Nov. 5 red-wave election.

On the other hand, she never removed her preferred pronouns from her Instagram account, poking a hole in the “AOC is no longer woke” theory.

Several commenters were unpersuaded by her explanation, asking why she didn’t remove other biographical items instead of her pronouns.

Her entire bio on X reads: “US Congresswoman, NY-14. In a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live. 100% People-Funded, takes no lobbyist [money emoji]. Personal account.”

“You could have removed other characters and kept it. That’s just an excuse,” said the @MisterIneffable account.

Phil Holloway, a police analyst and host of the “Inside the Law” channel on YouTube, opined: “You made a choice to take out the pronouns and leave other stuff in. We get it — and that [is] fine. It’s your profile so you do you. But don’t blame the character count, you pick what you want to pick.”

Others opted for sarcasm. Said the @akafacehots account: “So you thought all that other junk is more important than trans people? WHAT WILL YOUR VOTERS THINK? WHAT A FASCIST!”

The election results saw at least two Democratic congressmen question the party’s allegiance to gender ideology following the GOP’s success in attacking policies such as letting male-born athletes compete in female sports.

The Trump campaign’s “I Don’t Want” ad was credited with winning over voters by blasting Vice President Kamala Harris’ embrace of transgender rights.

“Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” said the ad.

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.