So one day, the cosplay community (and Salman Rushdie) woke up to find all their Facebook accounts gone. Some were separate accounts that cosplayers kept in order to avoid stalking, some to keep potential employers from seeing their cosplay life, and some just because they didn’t want to bother their family and non-cosplay friends with all that cosplay stuff they don’t understand anyway. In the case of Mr. Rushdie he beat the book of face’s policy and is now Salman Rushdie again, however the cosplay community is still left with a gaping hole where all their photos, contact info, and memories used to be. On a personal level, outside of cosplay but as a transgender individual, this policy and random enforcement frightens me and makes me worried that Facebook All Mighty will start erasing Trans individuals from their social media website, and could lead Facebook down a very transphobic path.

Facebook is such a valuable tool for Trans individuals. Facebook helps Trans individuals develop a sense of community, find other trans individuals in their area with its groups function, and gives us exactly what FB should be, a social network. At the beginning of July, I came into personal hardships and had to leave the living situation I was in. I will not have a permanent place to stay until November. I was looking at living out of my car, on the streets, anywhere I could think of because I had been turned away. If it was not for both Steampunk, the Cosplay community, and my ties to them on Facebook I would still be homeless. I am SO lucky that so many friends on mine on Facebook, who I met through Cosplay and Steampunk, rallied together to let me couch-hop until I can get something long term.

Many trans individuals (myself included) have trouble affording the services they need, such as legally changing our name. Sure, it’s a priority on my list but, as is the case with many trans people like myself, when I have to choose between buying razors because I’ve been using the same for three months, transportation, and shelter, not to mention other amenities that for some might seem frivolous (like makeup) but are 100% necessary if I want to leave the house without being harassed on the street, the money you’re saving up to get your name changed goes to other places.

Sure, one can also make the argument “Quit cosplaying, quit going to events, quit doing stuff and put that money towards getting your name changed.” That is a very true and very fair argument. However it is this community that has helped lift me up and it is this social medium that allowed them to do it, which brings me back to the point. Facebook has been a place that many trans individuals can finally realize who they are. To make me or another trans individual identify as their legal name/their birth name is insensitive to trans individuals. You wouldn’t tell a hermit crab to move back into it’s original shell, a snake to live in their original skin, a butterfly to crawl back into it’s cocoon, and you SHOUDLN’T tell a trans individual to identify as their birth name. I have outgrown that skin. If Salman Rushdie is a human being and can exist on Facebook as such, so can we.