Facebook Hates You

If you are reading this, you are either a crossdresser, trans woman or an ally. Understand one thing I know for certain in life, Facebook hates you!

What I am about to explain here is something that could happen to you if you are on Facebook. It will not happen to all of you, but I can assure you it will happen to some of you, if it already hasn’t.

The following post ran on Femulate December 14, 2022. I ran it there, with the support of Stana, who has also had a similar experience, to get it in front of the most possible eyeballs. [Thank you Stana, there is no Kandi’s Land without you.]

I am a 61-year-old trans woman. Like many of you, legally I am male, but essentially, I am a woman. Life circumstances prevent me from going any further than this. As such, I have sought to build a female life that brings me pleasure and peace. I have become a serial volunteer all around Cleveland, working for The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Arthritis Foundation, The American Heart Association, The Diversity Center of Northern Ohio and this evening, I will be working one of the principal fundraisers for The Providence House. Providence House provides much needed crisis nursery services for those in desperate need in our area. There are many other places I work as well.

My mission in life is to demonstrate that we can live in the mainstream as women, even though we are unable to go down the difficult road to transition due to the circumstances of our lives.

I have also been able to work actively as a model and an actress as Kandi. I am Kandi.

I reluctantly started a Facebook account about a year ago as it was the principal means of networking within the communities mentioned above. I do have a male FB account. It is principally inactive and was only established to belong to a certain group I am in. I rarely ever use it.

My fear in setting up Kandi’s FB account was that Mark Zuckerberg and his algorithm would out me, possibly costing me my job and potentially creating issues for family they do not deserve. So, when I set up Kandi’s account, I used a nearby suburb as my location (not my actual location) and selected a different birthday because I feared by accessing either account from the same location (our home), Facebook would cross pollinate the two. In the meantime, I have built significant contacts through my FB account that are quite valuable to me.

Fast forward to December 9, 2022, and someone hacked my account. Facebook locked it down to “protect” me. And they will not unlock it without a legal form of ID. Kandi, legally, is not a person, so legally, she has no identification. I have tried on numerous occasions to submit my driver’s license with an explanation. I have done the same from my male FB account. I have sent numerous emails to FB from various email addresses I could find online. I have tried calling. I have provided my legal male information alongside my female information, at great discomfort to me. Bottom line, they will offer me (nor anyone else) no ability to contact them. They simply reject my submission time after time with no explanation or other option to prove who I am. A more arrogant organization does not exist.

Any of their “help” can only be accessed as a member, and being locked out, I have no access.

There are millions and millions of us on Facebook with the same potential situation. If I did not have so much invested in these contacts, I would simply walk away and continue to distain Facebook for the scourge that it is. 

Facebook has locked me out simply because I am transgender. At least that is how I see it.

I received feedback, but most of it was “this” happened to me and I lost my account.

For two weeks, I did everything I could to salvage the account. These are my personal experiences and observations along the way.

I hate to say this, but do you know who has been the least helpful? Anyone associated with the LGBT community. I emailed Cleveland’s Pride center, emailed San Mateo Pride (closest to FB geographically), Cleveland’s Plexus, which I am a member (LGBT Chamber of Commerce), I messengered (through my male account) FB’s LGBT page, emailed the ACLU of Northern California, messengered a Facebook Help page (basically was told I broke the rules). None of these places except the last one ever bothered to respond. A simple “there is nothing we can do or suggest” would be preferred to being ignored.

I reached out to an LGBT friendly, mainstream news feed, Huff Post. No response.

I reached out to a handful of friends and associates. Most could offer no solutions or ideas I hadn’t already tried. Most told stories of how they lost their accounts. Most not yet affected don’t really understand (nor did I) that it is only a matter of time that something like this happens to them.

I made an amazing connection with a drag queen. This is a huge problem for them because their drag names, the names under which they perform, are not their “legal” names. She quite literally responded immediately to me: “First off I am so sorry for what you were going through. Facebook is completely wrong and their dangerous real names policy continues. Myself and a group of folks worked hard to change this policy but were complete failures and that it still exists and we have no power to help you. I have CCed everyone that I can that could potentially do something but they are also in the same boat as me. There is a Facebook email that is above and so far that is the only way people have been able to get their names back. I’m so sorry this is cruel, dangerous and you should not have to go through it. It’s traumatic and harmful and I’m very sorry but I have no control”

She put me in touch with a few others who, as you might guess now, never responded.

I emailed [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], all emails are legitimate as they were delivered because I tried a few others and they bounced. Also [email protected] and [email protected].

I have called. The phone is automatically answered, you push a few numbers until you are then told they don’t provide phone support.

I made a video, as Kandi, holding up my drivers license very clearly in that video and completely explaining my situation. I have submitted that at least 20 times in various of these messages listed above. I have reported the problem daily for a week through my male account at what I feel heightens the risk of cross pollinating the two accounts.

A Vanity Club sister of mine has been awesome as the only real person to help, even though she really could not solve the Facebook riddle either. I also cannot tell you how disappointed in our “community” I am. I find there is very little real support which is why I strive to be just the opposite, supportive of our sisters whenever and wherever I am able. My blog is all about love and support of each other. I hated FB and how it rules society, which is why it took me until the ripe old age of 60 to ever have an account. My feelings about FB have been affirmed.

To pour salt in the wounds, I attended a film community (that, BTW, is really a community) holiday mixer and so many people walked up to me to compliment me on what they see of me on…….my Facebook page! That page was the link to me building a living, breathing life as a woman and was the catalyst to my making a connection that has become an incredible career opportunity for me. I do not have the experiences I have had, I do not know many of the people that I know, I do not have my wonderful new (real world) business partners, I do not have the career I am rebuilding from the wreckage of some things I have endured in the past, without this damn Facebook account.

It’s not as simple as starting over, it’s not as simple as my just being vain and posting pictures (yes, I am vain, but that’s not the point). Unfortunately Facebook and it’s FB-owned sister company, Instagram, have become common tools of communication in this country. We went from land lines to car phones to texting and email to now our society being tethered together by a company who literally has no soul.

I am close to saying f#$k it, but it is wrong for a class of people to be treated this way and for me to be punished by Facebook far more that any hacker could have damaged me.

I would have thought I could find someone who would have known one single person out of the 76,000 employees that are under the umbrella of Meta (Facebook). I would have hoped an LGBT employee there would reach out somehow through the LGBT FB page I contacted. I cannot believe I could not find a single story of anyone really having any success with this type of issue. All I need is a connection with one human being in that company who has an inkling of compassion.

Honestly, if I could solve this problem, I could make millions….

I am sure most think “what’s the big deal?”. The relationships I fostered, the contacts I made, poof. . . gone!

Be assured, Facebook hates you!

Tags: featured, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Opinion