Why is Facebook refusing to listen to trans people over their ‘real names’ policy?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put his head above the parapet on Tuesday to defend Facebook’s ‘real names’ policy, claiming that it did not prevent individuals from using nicknames and that it had been misinterpreted.

The trans community has reacted with disbelief, with many accusing Zuckerberg of lying.

In a public Q&A on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg suggested Facebook’s policy had been misinterpreted in some cases. Claiming that the aim was to increase security for marginalized communities and make it easier for individuals to connect with friends, he said: ‘There is some confusion about what our policy actually is.

‘Real name does not mean your legal name. Your real name is whatever you go by and what your friends call you. If your friends all call you by a nickname and you want to use that name on Facebook, you should be able to do that.

‘In this way, we should be able to support everyone using their own real names, including everyone in the transgender community. We are working on better and more ways for people to show us what their real name is so we can both keep this policy which protects so many people in our community while also serving the transgender community.’

This interpretation of Facebook’s policy was instantly rejected by many, who took to the keyboard to vent their anger.

Commenting on this news on Buzzfeed, one Facebook user wrote: ‘”Real name does not mean your legal name”. Yes, that’s why your service has been kicking trans people off and forcing them to use their dead name. Your lying is disgusting.’

Another pointed out the discrepancy between Zuckerberg’s claim that using nickname was acceptable, and the fact that Facebook demands a range of official government documentation before they will allow individuals to return.

Others, more charitably, suggested Zuckerberg was simply not aware of how this policy was playing out in practice.

According to Facebook’s own guidelines on the issue, individuals whose name has been challenged should seek first to provide ‘any government-issued ID that contains your name and date of birth’.

According to Facebook, they also allow individuals to provide other documentation, which allows for individuals who have adopted alternative names in everyday life, but have not taken any steps to regularize this position with the state, to remain on Facebook. This, however, was directly contradicted by a third commenter who wrote: ‘I’m trans and was asked to provide legal documentation. This is a straight up lie.’

These sentiments were echoed across a number of forums, where Zuckerberg’s justification of Facebook’s policy has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended: rather than pour oil on troubled waters, it seems only to have provoked further anger.

In the UK, a number of activists are now seeking the support of their MP to fight this policy, and efforts are underway to arrange a meeting between Facebook and trans communities across Europe.

Gay Star News quizzed Facebook about Zuckerberg’s comments. In light of the assertion that ‘real name’ does not have to be your ‘legal name’, we asked why they request ‘legal proofs’ to prove a name. We also asked whether Zuckerberg’s comments meant they were backing away from their earlier stated position of describing this as an ‘authentic name policy’.

Facebook have not yet responded.

The post Why is Facebook refusing to listen to trans people over their ‘real names’ policy? appeared first on Gay Star News.

Jane Fae

www.gaystarnews.com/article/why-is-facebook-refusing-to-listen-to-trans-people-over-their-real-names-policy/

Celebrating at Mississippi Pride

At Jackson’s 2015 Mississippi Pride, members of the LGBT and allied community were ready to celebrate. 
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/celebrating-at-mississippi-pride?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

“No Gays Allowed” Business Owner Learns There Are Consequences To Being A Hateful Bigot

Another antigay business owner has learned there are consequences to bigotry.

Earlier this week, Jeff Amyx hung a handwritten sign in the window of his Tennessee hardware store: “No Gays Allowed” in response to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling.

“The Supreme Court did not speak for me when they voted to make this legal, and I can’t accept it,” Amyx told his local news station.

After the story went viral, Amyx was hit with a storm of backlash. It started with angry phone calls and emails.

“A lot of people have called and cussed me and said nasty things,” Amyx said.

Then a Facebook group was created calling for people to boycott the store.

But it took budget moving equipment company U-Haul dropping Amyx as a customer and demanding he take down its logo from his website for the small businessman to rethink his actions.

On Tuesday, Amyx replaced the “No Gays Allowed” sign with a more polite but no less ridiculous one: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”

Related: Five Disgraced Business Owners Who Learned That Homophobia Just Doesn’t Sell

Graham Gremore

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/MTbSe2MnX6o/no-gays-allowed-business-owner-learns-there-are-consequences-to-being-a-hateful-bigot-20150702

Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats

A photo alluding to an iconic image from World War II meant to depict the struggle for gay rights has stirred controversy online.

The picture (above) was take taken ten years ago by photographer Ed Freeman for the cover of Frontiers Magazine. It alludes to the now iconic image (below) of US Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during a battle that saw 6,821 servicemen lose their lives.

The original photograph also became the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. Freeman’s photograph found a new life after Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. The image circulated on social media and Freeman himself even re-posted it, weighing in on the image’s significance: 

When I took this picture almost ten years ago, it never, never occurred to me that it would someday come to symbolize the victory we are celebrating today. Congratulations to all of us! Love to you all.

Since the photo began to circulate, however, Freeman has received many hateful reactions on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that the image is disrespectful. Freeman has also received a death threat, as The Washington Post reports: 

“He said if he ever saw me, he’d kill me,” Freeman said in a phone interview. “I got swamped with vitriolic hate mail.”

Freeman reported the threat to the FBI.

The photographer insists that haters are misunderstanding what his intention was with the photograph:

Freeman, whose studio is in Los Angeles, said he never expected the backlash. The image, taken before social media was ubiquitous, was partially staged using models, and completed with Photoshop, he said.

“The principle complaint that people have is that I am equating the gay struggle with the contribution and sacrifice of American servicemen,” he said. “But there is no equal sign here. This is not meant as a sign of disrespect. For God sake, no. I totally support people in uniform. There is no comparison going on here. The comparison is going on in people’s heads, and they’re spoiling for a fight. They’re already on edge because of  the gay marriage decision.”

One silver lining from the story may be that one of Freeman’s critics has given him an idea for his next photo:

“One of them said, ‘Well, why don’t you have an astronaut planting a gay flag on the moon?’” he laughed. “And I said, ‘Well, why not?’”

The post Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Gay Pride Version of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats

New Orleans Man Who Kidnapped Trans Woman Granted 'Rare' Minimum Sentence

After assault and attempted rape charges were dropped, a judge chose to be unusually lenient, citing the attacker’s age.

read more

Mitch Kellaway

www.advocate.com/crime/2015/07/02/new-orleans-man-who-kidnapped-trans-woman-granted-rare-minimum-sentence

There's A Sign Women Are Ovulating, But Men Can't Detect It
By Cari Nierenberg, Contributing LiveScience Writer
Published on 07/01/2015 11:38 AM EDT on LiveScience

Women’s cheeks get redder when they are the most fertile, but this color change is so subtle that it is undetectable by the human eye, a new study finds.

In the study, researchers in the United Kingdom took photographs of 22 women every weekday over the course of one month. After analyzing the photos, the researchers concluded that the women’s faces got redder around the time they ovulated.

“This is the first study to conclusively show that women’s faces do change in redness over the course of the menstrual cycle,” said Robert Burriss, a co-author of the study and a research fellow in psychology at Northumbria University in England.

But the researchers had expected to find a change in skin redness that was detectable to the human eye, because this might explain why previous studies had suggested that men perceive women’s faces as more attractive when the women are ovulating, Burriss told Live Science. Surprisingly, however, the study found that the changes in redness are too small for people to perceive, he said.

Past research had shown that men find women more attractive when the women are ovulating, and that men rate changes in women’s voices and body odor during ovulation as more attractive. This new study investigated whether changes in women’s facial coloring during their menstrual cycle might also explain how attractive they appear to men during ovulation.

The researchers used a specialized camera to take the photographs, and analyzed changes in the women’s skin color and skin luminance, which is a measure of its lightness or darkness, at two locations on the women’s cheeks. [5 Myths About Women’s Bodies]

The study found no change in the women’s skin luminance, but there were variations in facial color, according to the findings published today (June 30) in the journal PLOS ONE. The redness in a woman’s cheeks increased in the days before she ovulated and remained high until she began her next period, and then decreased rapidly after she started her period.

Attractiveness and fertility

Research has shown that men consider red facial skin more attractive, and researchers think the reason for this may be that the color suggests good health and youthfulness, Burriss said. The color of skin on other primate species changes in a similar way when they are the most fertile, he noted.

For example, female chimpanzees have swollen red bottoms at peak fertility as a clue to attract male chimps looking to mate.

But humans might not “advertise their fertility” the way that chimps and other species do, Burriss said. The benefit of concealing ovulation in women might be that it promotes relationship commitment, he noted.

“If men don’t know when women are fertile, they stay interested in the relationship,” Burriss said. In species where the timing of ovulation is obvious, such as chimps, males often ignore nonfertile females, he noted.

Some studies have suggested that women may advertise their fertility by becoming more flirtatious, but they do so only with men they find attractive. Other research has shown that women may make more attempts to enhance their appeal near the time of ovulation by wearing more revealing, stylish or red clothing.

A next step in this current research may be to determine whether skin-color changes are more pronounced in some parts of the face than in others during ovulation. For instance, future studies could look at whether the lips have more dramatic color changes than the cheeks do, Burriss said.

One weakness of the study is that it included mostly Caucasian women, so it’s unclear whether similar patterns of skin variation during the menstrual cycle would be observed in women of different skin colors.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

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Leaked emails reveal Hillary Clinton has always supported LGBTI rights

Hillary Clinton’s emails have been released to the public, and it shows that she has always been a supporter of LGBTI rights.

The Democratic politician that could very easily be US’ next president had her online messages released by the State Department, and one of them is very revealing.

Back in 2009, four years before she said she ‘evolved’ on same-sex marriage, the then-Secretary of State expressed concern over the torture and murder of gay men in Iraq.

‘So sad and terrible,’ she said. ‘We should ask Chris Hill to raise this w govt. If we ever get Posner confirmed we should emphasize LGBT human rights.’

The Washington Blade reports the Chris Hill to which Clinton is referring to is likely US ambassador to Iraq during the first two years of the Obama administration.

Posner is likely Michael Posner, who came to serve in the State Department after his confirmation as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.’

During her campaign for president so far, Clinton has consistently supported marriage equality. In videos she has shown same-sex couples and mentioned LGBTI rights in her speeches.

In a 2013 video made with the Human Rights Campaign, Clinton revealed she believes that LGBTI people are ‘full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship’.

‘That includes marriage,’ she said. ‘That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law.’

The post Leaked emails reveal Hillary Clinton has always supported LGBTI rights appeared first on Gay Star News.

Joe Morgan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/leaked-emails-reveal-hillary-clinton-has-always-supported-lgbti-rights/

HRC Commends Episcopal Church for Historic Vote Allowing Religious Weddings for Same-Sex Couples

Yesterday, HRC Foundation hailed the Episcopal Church for its vote today allowing clergy to preside over religious ceremonies for same-sex couples as of November 1.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hrc-commends-episcopal-church-for-historic-vote-allowing-religious-weddings?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed