The social network created by Mark Zuckerberg recently suspended the profiles of drag queens whose pages were under their stage names. The performers suddenly found themselves blocked from their accounts and were sent messages with instructions on how to replace their stage names with their legal names, according to Facebook’s “real name” policy.
A while back we reported that Argentina had become the first Latin American country and the fourth in the world after the United States, United Kingdom and Spain to offer two new options: “personalised gender settings” and “how you want to be seen on the web”.
Agender, Androgyne, Androgynous, Bigender, Cis, Cis Female, Cis Male, Cis Man, Cis Woman, Cisgender, Cisgender Female, Cisgender Male, Cisgender Man, Cisgender Woman, Female to Male, FTM, Gender Fluid, Gender Nonconforming, Gender Questioning, Gender Variant, Genderqueer, Intersex, Pangender, Trans Female, Trans Male, Trans Man, Trans Person and Trans Woman are some of the 56 custom options offered by Facebook in the gender description field, developed and adapted together with local LGBT rights associations and organisations.
But what happened in the case of drag performers provides more reasons for being wary of Facebook’s supposed progressive nature, which we had previously questioned. In our earlier article we wondered about the social network’s morals when it recognises gender diversity while continuing to censor the activities of cyber activists, such as the posting of photos of naked breasts or images involving menstruation or women’s genitals.
Read the full feminist talk in GenderIT.org .