AN ONLINE opinion piece defending actress Scarlett Johansson for accepting a role as a transgender man has been deleted after readers slammed it as “absolutely ignorant”.

Business Insider columnist Daniella Greenbaum was responding to the backlash following news Johansson would play Dante “Tex” Gill, a transgender man, in the upcoming movie Rub & Tug.

The piece, headlined “Scarlett Johansson is being unfairly criticised for doing her job after being cast as a transgender man”, was first published last Friday and but removed following complaints from staff, according to The Daily Beast.

“Business Insider removed the column because, upon further review, we decided it did not meet our editorial standards,” a note underneath the headline of the now-deleted article reads.

In the piece — which can still be viewed in cached versions — Greenbaum said Johansson was the “latest target of the social-justice warrior mob” and was “being chastised for, well, acting”.

“She has been cast in a movie in which she will play someone different than herself,” she wrote. “For this great crime — which seems to essentially define the career path she has chosen — she is being castigated for being insufficiently sensitive to the transgender community.

“It’s hard to imagine people having the same reaction in other scenarios — a rich actor being hired to play a poor person; an actor whose real-life parents were still living being hired to play an orphan; a perfectly nice, upstanding member of society being cast as a rapist; or an actor with no scientific experience being cast as a palaeontologist.

“A New York Times story on the fallout described the online backlash as being ‘led by transgender actors, who argued that such casting decisions take opportunities away from members of marginalised communities’.

“What they fail to acknowledge is that the job of an actor is to represent someone else. Johansson’s identity off the screen is irrelevant to the identities she plays on the screen. That’s what she’s paid for. And if she does her job, she’ll make everyone forget about the controversy in the first place.”

Much of the social media reaction to the piece was negative. “I read your column and I find it absolutely ignorant!!!” one user tweeted.

“Scarlett could’ve rejected the role and she absolutely should have!!! Trans actors don’t get to audition for any roles other than trans characters and even then it’s taken by an actress w a net worth of 100 million!!!!”

Another wrote, “There are so many roles and opportunities for Scarlett Johansson … and there aren’t many for transfolk. Let them tell their own stories. Scarlett Johansson can definitely find many roles playing a white, cisgender woman. Trans people, not so much.”

The controversy prompted the website to establish a new vetting policy for opinion pieces covering “culturally sensitive topics, such as marginalised communities, race, or LGTBQ+ issues”, according to an internal email from Business Insider’s global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson obtained by CNN.

“There should be no partisan name-calling, e.g. ‘social justice warriors,’ ‘libtards,’ or ‘rednecks,’” Carlson said. “Opinion and arguments should feel reported and researched, and not like quick reactions.

“To be clear: This does not mean our argument-writers should not take big swings, or that they must have opinions shared by everyone in our newsroom. Editors are not being asked to agree with the column.

“Editors are not responsible for preventing a loud and upset response to the piece from within or without the newsroom. They are responsible for making sure that if a piece causes an uproar, we are comfortable saying it’s a well-argued and thoughtful opinion.”

A spokesman for the website told CNN that Greenbaum “stands by her piece and disagrees with the decision to take it down”. “She wanted that on the record,” he said.