What They Say & What They Do.

I had a couple of friends that Facebook locked out because they didn’t used their real name. They are crossdressers so they didn’t use their real name because some of them are not out.

Facebook Builds A Rough Road Back For Those Booted By Its “Real Name” Policy
Process hell and faceless bureaucracy may await those locked out of their accounts — even when they use their legal names.
BuzzFeed
Posted on Jul. 17, 2015
By Alex Kantrowitz

Until recently, Daniel Wilson, a transgender musician based in England, went by the name Chalcedony Angel on Facebook. The moniker, a stage name, worked fine for a while, but as he — a pronoun he suggested we use — grew more comfortable with his identity, Wilson legally changed his name to Eveshka Ghost, and then made the change on Facebook as well.

Ghost’s new legal name displayed briefly on Facebook without issue. But then, like many in the trans community, he ran into trouble. On June 19, a message arrived in his inbox demanding he provide proof that Eveshka Ghost was indeed his real name. If he could not, he’d be kicked off the platform. When Ghost replied with his change of name form, he tumbled into a rabbit hole of Facebook bureaucracy. Nearly a month later, he still doesn’t have his account back.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, this never should have happened.

In a Q&A on his Facebook page earlier this month, Zuckerberg said his company’s “real name” policy — which prohibits aliases on the platform — should be workable for people in the trans community, who often go through identity transitions. But the reality is different. People who are reported as “real name” violators can find themselves locked in a bureaucratic mess, responding to emails that are essentially form letters from faceless Facebook employees, with no opportunity to talk live despite the complexities of the policy and the harshness of its enforcement. This system has hit the trans community particularly hard. But it’s also made life difficult for activists and various others.

One person that I know went by their trans name and on her gender she had transgender, but that didn’t help. For many trans people they are not out and if anyone found out they they are trans it could cost them their job or worst.

The article goes on to say,

Documentation Lady Soliloquy provided to BuzzFeed News shows how frustrating the process can be. In an initial message to Lady Soliloquy, Facebook linked a list of accepted documentation, and wrote the following: “If this is the name you are known by in everyday life, please help us verify it by attaching a copy of an ID that shows your name, photo and date of birth in a reply to this email.”

Lady Soliloquy then submitted multiple forms of identification — a bank statement, a utility bill, an IRS employer identification number receipt, and a photo ID — only to be met with a message from a “Jean” of Facebook’s community operations telling her, “We received your ID but couldn’t use it to verify your identity.” Little further information was offered.

It seems like some people at Facebook just will not accept any form of identification and I can’t help but wonder of it isn’t willful discrimination by some of their employees. They have a policy that some of their employees are not following.