Transgender Blackhawk Pilot Sues Right-Wing Influencer
Virginia Army National Guard pilot Jo Ellis is suing Matthew Wallace for spreading misinformation about her for "clicks and money."
Jo Ellis, a transgender pilot in the Virginia Army National Guard, is suing a right-wing influencer Matthew Wallace for claiming she was flying the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines plane, causing a fatal crash that claimed the lives of all 67 people inside both aircraft.
Ellis claims Wallace, who has 2.3 million followers on X, exploited the January 29 tragedy for “clicks and money” and accuses Wallace of deliberately spreading information he knew to be false.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
Ellis calls Wallace a “notorious transphobe” in the lawsuit and claims the influencer decided to push an anti-transgender narrative in connection with the plane crash because he knew it would draw significant attention and would be believed by right-leaning X users.
Ellis claims that Wallace posted on January 30, less than 24 hours after the crash, that Ellis was one of the Army pilots involved in the fatal aircraft collision, identifying her as transgender, and including a picture of her on the X post.
Once the charge was repeated widely on social media, Wallace allegedly deleted his initial post about the crash and published additional false claims about Ellis, the lawsuit claims.
On the following day, Wallace, who operates three other profiles on X, posted a clip of an interview Ellis did on commentator Michael Smerconish’s podcast on January 29, just hours before the crash.
“Listen before it’s taken down — why won’t they reveal the woman pilot’s name? Think about it,” he wrote. Several hours later, he allegedly created another post containing Ellis’ pictures, claiming that she had written “a long letter about ‘Gender Dysphoria’ and depression” the day before the crash.
Wallace also claimed that Ellis may have participated in “another trans terror attack,” exploiting a common trope among right-wing circles, in which transgender people, by dint of their alleged mental health problems, are responsible for a number of deadly shootings, attacks, or violent acts.
Upon learning of the rumors about her circulating on social media, Ellis created a “proof of life” video, posted to her personal Facebook page, in which she attempted to shut down rumors that she had been piloting the Black Hawk helicopter. She also noted that no member of the Virginia Army National Guard had been involved in the crash.
Following the “proof of life” video, the lawsuit alleges that Wallace reposted another X user’s post containing a clip from Ellis’ video, misgendering her and saying she was a military Black Hawk pilot and did write an article about being transgender in the military, but was still alive and not involved in the collision.
The lawsuit claims that Wallace’s post contained “outright and unequivocal falsehoods,” and that the rumors forced her “into the public sphere,” compromising her identity, her privacy, and her reputation.
The suit also claims that, as a transgender woman, Ellis “fears for the immediate safety of herself and her family on account of the hate inspired against her by Defendant’s lies.” Wallace told The Washington Post that she’s received harassment and death threats after her identity was revealed, prompting her to carry a firearm and hire a security detail for protection.
Ellis, who joined the Virginia Army National Guard in 2009 as a helicopter mechanic and has been deployed to Iraq and Kuwait during her military career. She has largely kept her struggles with gender dysphoria private, despite transitioning in 2023.
She only came out publicly in an essay for Michael Smerconish’s website on the day before the collision, saying she wanted to “show people the type of person that could be kicked out of the military just for being trans” under Trump’s executive order.
Defamation suits are incredibly difficult to prove, and Ellis’ lawsuit will likely test the bounds of the First Amendment and whether defamation lawsuits may be a successful tool in curbing the spread of online misinformation.
Ellis told the Post that she had a “unique opportunity” to fight back against the misinformation being spread about her online.
She told The New York Times that any financial compensation she receives from the case will be donated to families of the victims of the plane crash.
“I believe in free speech, but I also believe in consequences to free speech,” she said. “If you can stir up a mob because you say something that’s not true, that’s your right. But once the mob comes after someone, you’ve got to have some consequences.”
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