By John Mack Freeman
In a turn of events this week, Facebook has abandoned a policy that blocked users from using names other than their own as the primary name on their Facebook profiles. Over the last few weeks, numerous drag performers had been forced to change their name from their drag persona to their non-drag name or risk having their accounts deleted. In lieu of this, Facebook has instituted a preferred name requirement. Facebook apologized (via The Advocate):
“I want to apologize to the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community for the hardship that we’ve put you through in dealing with your Facebook accounts over the past few weeks,” wrote chief product officer Chris Cox in a Facebook post this afternoon. “Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name. The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that’s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess. Part of what’s been so difficult about this conversation is that we support both of these individuals, and so many others affected by this, completely and utterly in how they use Facebook.”
I find it even more interesting that the issue arose when a single user targeted drag queens by making complaints to FB that they were violating the real-name policy (and apparently FB didn’t notice that earlier?). Despite their long-standing real-name policy, I know many people (myself included) who have used non-legal names and never been bothered by FB.