It's been quite some time since the uproar over Facebook's real name policy damaging the LGBTQ community and since I never heard a peep from anyone I assumed the terror was over... until today. Me and several of my friends who choose not to use a real name because of associations with our birth gender and for the purpose of remaining stealth from those who would do us harm, were hit by the PROVE WHO YOU ARE brigade today. Are there any work arounds? This could potentially damage my business.

Not being a face book member, I would suggest you message face book's management with your issue. My understanding from the news they were attempting to correct it on a more or less case by case bases but you may appear CIS to them so they figured you were using a false name.

   I haven't heard of this "Prove yourself" brigand you speak of, myself.
   I used to have a Facebook, maybe six years old, that wasn't in my current legal name and I was never stopped or questioned, emailed, nothing. Eventually it got deleted from inactivity, but nonetheless if you set it to your preferred name straight off, I don't think that they have any reason not to believe you. Other than that I don't know how you'd be able to prove you're you and not have to change your name in court or switch it on Facebook. :/ I do know a friend of mine on Facebook who has always used his preferred name etc. and nobody got onto him from Facebook or anything. I'm not sure why they'd target you or even know it was "the wrong name" or whatever the issue is.
   I'm sorry you have to go though this either way and I hope it all works out for you!

I am sorry to hear you are going through this as well.  Facebook has said in the past that when this happens someone has reported your page as something that does not represent you.  They setup this system for people trying to take on famous peoples identities.  It could be someone from your friends list, but if your profile is fairly public then facebook has said that conservative groups in the past have report transgender people on facebook as not representing the profile they have.  I have heard talking with facebook about it has become easier.

I would do two things:

(1) Contact Facebook, and let them know that name you're using is the one that you are known as. (That's all they require. It doesn't need to be a legal name). Ask them what sort of documentation they're looking for. It may end up being pretty simple.

(2) Try to contact one of the LGBT legal/advocacy organizations, Lambda Legal or the Transgender Law Center and see whether you have legal options.

Facebook has been publicly very contrite about harm they've done to the Trans community, so if they think you're going to make a stink (as well you should), I would be surprised if they were up for a fight.

Please keep posting and let us know how this progresses.

Sorry this has happened to you. I changed my name on Facebook months before my legal name change and didn't have any issues. What jessical said is correct - Facebook staff isn't going around picking out profiles with false names, it happens because someone reported you. There was a guy on here that had a similar thing happen. He resolved it with a few messages to Facebook. It took over a month to correct, but it was ultimately corrected.

Thank God I'm changing my name! I use my new name almost exclusively everywhere except on things that are tied to my SSN or DL.

Facebook really should have an exception for trans people though.

Quote from: iKate on August 22, 2015, 06:26:56 PM
Facebook really should have an exception for trans people though.

It does. You can use the name you are "known" by, i.e. the name that people call you. That doesn't have to be your legal name.

Quote from: suzifrommd on August 22, 2015, 07:44:56 PM
It does. You can use the name you are "known" by, i.e. the name that people call you. That doesn't have to be your legal name.

What if they ask for documentation?

I haven't really explored this much, admittedly. I was a facebooker in college in 2004 and had an account ever since. All of these changes just happened and I never really noticed.

Quote from: suzifrommd on August 22, 2015, 07:44:56 PM
It does. You can use the name you are "known" by, i.e. the name that people call you. That doesn't have to be your legal name.

That's the story they're spinning to keep the critics at bay but when you get flagged the only immediate option/the only option they present you with at the time is proving via legal documentation (or a dizzying mixture of other types) that your FB  name aligns with your "legal one." You have to do some digging to dispute the claim and from what I've experienced so far. it's not a smooth process. I'll let y'all know if and when I resolve this. 

I don't think it is Facebook staff going through and picking out accounts. Up until a couple of months my account name was my male birth name. While I had my male name on it I set the gender to female. Besides a couple of class mates asking about it at first I had no problems. A couple of months ago I changed the name to male name-Marcia. Still no one put up a fuss about it. I did have a couple of close friends message encouragement to me though. Keep in mind that I never had a facebook page until I decided to come out though. Also I have limited my Friends to a few categories. Close friends, Classmates that I knew, Some co-workers, and Some family. Basicly only the people that I believe will be supportive. I made these rules for myself when I made the account. Over time as I have relaxed on the family members part. So far all has worked out for me. I also try to keep a low profile on Facebook.

Quote from: suzifrommd on August 22, 2015, 07:44:56 PM
It does. You can use the name you are "known" by, i.e. the name that people call you. That doesn't have to be your legal name.

Yes, their policy in summary is that they don't want you using a pseudonym solely for social media purposes. There are many other cases where one can use a name other than their legal one (e.g. if you're known professionally by a stage/pen/etc. name you can use it). As long as you can show that you go by your chosen name in real life you should be okay.

Maybe I'm not social-media-minded enough (last thing I had was a Myspace) but I really don't understand the push toward "REAL IDENTITY ALL THE TIME" online.  A YouTube channel I had since the pre-google days recently forced me to switch to Google+ which insisted I put my first and last name in.

I feel less and less comfortable online every day.

Quote from: purpleshiny on September 07, 2015, 12:28:50 PM
Maybe I'm not social-media-minded enough (last thing I had was a Myspace) but I really don't understand the push toward "REAL IDENTITY ALL THE TIME" online.  A YouTube channel I had since the pre-google days recently forced me to switch to Google+ which insisted I put my first and last name in.

I feel less and less comfortable online every day.

I agree. There was a political message board I used to post on...until they decided to require everyone to use their real names. They claimed it was to stop harassment/trolling, but given how angry some folks on there would get if you disagreed with them, it was not unlikely some of them would have resorted to harassing/stalking people either on other sites or in real life.

I'm not a fan of social networking sites and I try to avoid them. But yeah, as far as I understand it they need some sort of legal proof of identification if you get challenged like that. Hopefully you find some kind of solution.