ABSTRACT
In September 2014, the The Gaily Grind (Garcia 2014) reported on an unfolding drama in San Francisco’s drag queen performing community. Facebook, the largest and most well-known social media site, deleted the profiles of hundreds of drag queens who were using their chosen stage names instead of their “real” or official names (names that are stated on official identification documents, such as a driver’s license). The drag queen community petitioned against this action by Facebook, claiming that it was discriminatory against transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals. Facebook responded by temporarily reactivating the profiles, allotting a designated amount of time for individuals to change their profile names in order to be in accordance with Facebook’s “real name” policy. In response, the drag queen community protested, arguing that they should not be treated like anonymous trolls, but as people who identify by their stage names, which they regard as real names. Eventually, Chris Cox, Chief Product Manager at Facebook, apologized. Facebook promised to reactivate the profiles of people affected and to rethink its policy. Cox explained that they had not intended to offend anyone with the real name policy, though he argued that this policy differentiates Facebook by making it safer than other Internet spaces, where anonymity is the norm.
