How Facebook Outed Me and Endangered Me With Their Name Policy

I was late to the Facebook game. As where most people were on the social media bandwagon shortly after the trend began, I was still dealing with issues of insecurity, fear of judgement and the court of public opinion regarding my identity.

I was, to be fair, never in “The Closet.” My gender was never a question I had to wrestle with. But, I knew my gender was an issue for others- a religious issue, a political issue, an issue met with misunderstandings, confusion and typically a default to allegations like “Pervert” or “Child molester.” I knew the alignment of my gender since I was young, but having been presumed gay due to my femininity and witnessing so many adult gay men and women experience harassment, abuse, isolation and, in one case I saw up close and personal, excommunication from a church, allowing other people permission to assess the quality of my character and project their ignorance onto me was something that terrified me and took years to reconcile with. A lot of people don’t realize that we transgender men and women were usually labeled gay or lesbian by society even before we developed the self awareness or courage to admit to ourselves that our gender mapping didn’t match our sex.

I never told anyone I was transgender until less than a decade ago. Although I had spent years researching the…