An online activist is forcing Facebook and Instagram to confront their controversial policy on women’s nipples.

Courtney Demone is a transgender woman who has recently started hormone replacement therapy. As such, one of the changes to her body is that she will begin to grow breasts — and Ms Demone is forcing Facebook and Instagram to respond to that change.

Both of the social networks have a strict policy prohibiting pictures of most women’s breasts, and each have been criticised by campaigns like free the nipple. But Ms Demone is arguing that the sites should recognise the double standard in that policy — which allows men to be photographed topless, but will ban the photos of women that do the same.

Ms Demone said that she would be posting topless pictures as her body changes. At some point, Facebook and Instagram will be forced to recognise her as a woman — and then, according to their own policies, choose to ban her pictures.

“In the coming months, I’ll be posting topless photos of myself on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms using the hashtag #DoIHaveBoobsNow until those networks decide that my breasts have developed enough to be sexualized and worthy of censorship,” wrote Ms Demone in a post this week. “(If they change their policies in the meantime, even better!)”

Transitioning towards presenting as a woman means falling into a different category under Instagram and Facebook’s rules. But it is the same elsewhere, with Ms Demone noting that “When people start to consistently see [her] as a woman, [her] privilege to be comfortably topless in public will be gone for good”.

The “Do I have boobs now?” project intends to expose the damage that double standard does, through the forum of Instagram and Facebook.

“So at what point in my breast development do I need to start covering my nipples? I already feel shameful about them being visible, but at what point does society say it’s unacceptable for them to be out? To give me some idea, I have my good friends Facebook and Instagram to help answer that question.”

The pictures have already been taken down — which Ms Demone speculates means that the site is opposed not to the actual development of the breasts so much as the gender presentation of the person in them.