Happy Holidays!

Facebook is Indeed Anti-Trans!

By Kandi Robbins

Kandi

I am a 61-year-old transwoman. Like many of you, legally I am male, but essentially, I am a woman. Life’s 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 Facebook account. It is principally inactive and was only established to belong to a certain group I am in. I rarely use it.

My fear in setting up Kandi’s Facebook account was that Mark Zuckerberg and his algorithm would out me, possibly costing me my job and potentially creating issues for my family that 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 cross pollinate 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 Facebook account.  

I have sent numerous emails to Facebook to 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 not offer me (nor anyone else) the 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. (Catch 22)

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.

If you can offer any suggestions, you can reach me through my blog, Kandi’s Land, listed on the right side of Femulate’s screen. Thank you.

For further reading, Femulate has addressed this issue in the past, notably here, here and here.

Wearing Cynthia Rowley

Pamela Ray Christmas shopping at Locationan outlet centre in Perth, Western Australia.

Does Facebook have anti-trans biases?

By Vince Kayser

Our website (http://mytransgenderdate.com/) is currently experiencing a problem with Facebook, which begs the question “Does Facebook have anti-trans biases?” We wrote an article on it here: https://mytransgenderdate.com/blog/2022/07/does-facebook-have-anti-trans-biases

To summarize that article, we have been experiencing abusive and intrusive reviews by Facebook to the point of harassment. They have banned our pages and our admins for no reason. We also found out that we aren’t the only ones experiencing this. There are also other trans/LGBT sites that have been victims of Facebook.

Your Femulate editor is another person who experienced Facebook’s anti-trans bias. You can read all about it here, but in a nutshell, Facebook banned me from using their service because I used my femme name.

Wearing Venus

Femulating en masse

Facebook Off

As soon as I finish this post, I am going to mosey on over to Facebook and delete my account.

Years ago, Facebook blocked my account because they thought my femme name was fake. They offered no option for people like us.

I continued to use my other Facebook account which was under my legal name, but I used it less and less as time went by. Nowadays, I check in maybe once a week.

Then there was this: "Facebook apologizes to evangelist Franklin Graham after banning him for 24 hours over a 2016 post in which he argued in favor of a bill regulating transgender bathroom access"

Graham has been on our case for years, but I paid him no attention. I figured he was just another ChINO (Christian In Name Only) practicing his so-called religion. I always say, "Ignore the ignorant" and that's what I did.

But Facebook's support of Graham's "religious" views was the last straw. I am not waiting for the third strike and will delete my Facebook account post haste.

Happy New Year!

Wearing Boston Proper (Source: Boston Proper)

My all-time favorite femulator!

Help Us Get Our Identities Back!

A glance at any list in Facebook will easily reveal many obviously made-up names. So why are only some people losing their accounts? Because Facebook uses their reporting system to identify accounts that users think are fake. Why would a user report a fake name account? One is that they are a troll. They hate people with opposing views and want a chance to find and harass them in real life.

Another is that they are a transphobes. 

By using pictures, posts and memberships in trans-related groups, transphobes have identified and had suspended hundreds, maybe thousands of accounts of people who self-identify as trans. This is embarrassing, humiliating and potentially dangerous for those closeted, part-timers and others requiring a level of privacy from those who wish to do them harm.

Corrine is one such person. It has been two months since she was forced to use her "dead name" account on Facebook. This is more than an inconvenience. This has caused untold misery in the face of her courageous journey of transition.

Facebook has made itself indispensable in terms of contacts with friends, contacts with support networks, including professional services. For those who are disabled or otherwise socially isolated, it has become a lifeline. Leaving Facebook is inconceivable for the many, who have experienced the benefits of social-networking, and have found that nothing right now can replace it, at least not for average people without resources like Caitlyn or Janet or Kristin or Jazz.

So why does Zuckerberg insist on continuing a policy that not only empowers trolls but strips victims of their privacy and protections? 

Does he not recognize that only certain groups of people are being targeted for account suspension? Of course he does, and he's good with it too.

We are fighting back and right now, we have nearly 1800 others who have signed our petition to fight back. Can you please sign our petition and share it wherever you can? 

Thank you, 

Corrine and Michelle (and Stana)

Wearing BB Dakota.

Actor/comedian Paul Lynde femulating in the 1966 film Glass Bottom Boat.

Allison's Favorite Photo (of Allison!)

Hello Stana!

I'm a 33-year-old transwoman and a long time reader of your site. I've very much enjoyed seeing the photos and reading the stories you've shared from your readers and so I thought that I might share my favorite photo of me with you and the world.

The photo was taken in 2000 when I was about 18-years-old or so. I was still very much in the closet, but I had just come out to my sister and she insisted on giving me a makeover and doing a photo shoot. The attached photo was definitely the best of the bunch and remains one of my favorite photos of myself to this day.

Unfortunately I wasn't strong enough or brave enough to come out to the world back then. It wasn't until just a few years ago that I finally fully accepted myself and began my transition. I will be debuting my newest self to the world at my brother's upcoming wedding and will hopefully have some new photos to call my favorites!

Allison

Got selfies? My open invitation to post your favorite photo along with the story behind it and the reason it is your favorite photo still stands, so don't be shy, send me your fave foto. ― Stana

Wearing Halston Heritage

Actor Vince Gatton femulating Candy Darling on stage in Dorothy and Candy in 2006

Stana's Favorite Photo (of Stana!)

Ready for the Hall of Fame

This is a rerun more or less, however, I like the story so much and it is the third anniversary of the event and I have no more favorite photos from you girls to post (hint, hint) that I decided to post this story again with some editing to freshen it up.

My favorite photo of me is one that I self-took after I got dressed to kill to attend my law school class reunion in June 2012. I like the photo for a number of reasons: I love the outfit I put together and I don't look bad for a 61-year-old woman.

But also, the photo is my favorite because attending the reunion was probably the most daring thing I ever did. Unlike other outings where I forewarned my friends and acquaintances, I went into the reunion cold. My name was on the guest list, so my classmates knew I would be attending, but they had no idea I would be attending in my true gender.

By the way, as I wrote here back in 2012, "My law school reunion experience was just fabulous!"

Here's the whole story.

For those of you out of the loop, on Saturday evening, I attended my law school reunion at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA.

Getting ready yesterday afternoon, I cut myself badly using a new blade in my razor. It was a deep cut just under my left nostril and it took forever to stop bleeding. As a result, it took me longer to do my makeup, initially working around the cut, then waiting for the bleeding to stop when I could go no further by working around it. Luckily, I started doing my makeup early enough so that any technical difficulties would not affect my arrival time at the Hall of Fame.

I was dressed and out the door (after snapping a few photos) at 4:45 PM to make the 50-mile trip by 6 PM when the cocktail hour began. On the way, the traffic message boards on the interstate informed me that the exit I had to take to switch from I-84 to I-91 was closed and it recommended a detour via another highway.

I thought about driving to an exit before the closed exit and trying to work my way via the Hartford city streets to an I-91 entrance, but I was familiar with the recommended detour and figured I would only lose 10 minutes, whereas who knew how much time Plan A would cost me. So I took the detour and lost about 20 minutes instead of 10.

The rest of the trip was smooth-sailing and I arrived at the Hall of Fame at 5:55 PM ― perfect timing!

I entered the Hall of Fame complex and quickly found the site of the reunion. I was in error in that I thought that the reunion would be held in the Center Court banquet hall. Instead, it took place in a smaller banquet hall in the complex. It was not as spectacular as I pictured the Center Court, but it was very nice nonetheless.

I checked in and immediately encountered the woman who I had exchanged a few e-mails with concerning the reunion. I introduced myself; she welcomed me and helped me find my name badge.

There were about 20 people already in attendance. I recognized one of my classmates, CR, a woman who I considered a school acquaintance, not a long lost friend. I said hello to her and she returned a hello, while looking at my name badge trying to figure out who I was (the badge listed Stana, my real last name, and my class year, 1977).

She was carrying a copy of our class yearbook, so I suggested she look me up in the yearbook to refresh her memory. She did and when she put two-and-two together, she exclaimed, "Oh my god! Stanley, you are beautiful now!"

She gushed over how I had changed and then we chatted a bit trying to catch up on the past 35 years in five minutes. CR was distracted by another person, who I did not recognize, so I went to the bar and got a glass of white wine.

My Classmates and I

I mingled with myself for about five minutes, then CR came around again and pointed me the direction of a table where other 1977 classmates were gathering, so I headed in that direction. There I found two other female school acquaintances (PM and LF) and one of my best friends (JB) and his wife.

An aside, as it turned out, there were nine people in my class who made it to the reunion. Four women and five men. All the women came solo and all five men came with their wives. I believe that the three other women are unattached.

Both PM and LF welcomed me with open arms as if we were old girlfriends and not just acquaintances (I think CR had informed them of my presence before I found their table, so they were expecting me). I did not recognize JB immediately, but when I realized it was my old friend, I greeted him warmly and gave him a hug. His wife, EB, introduced herself and she was very welcoming, too. We all exchanged our stories about the last 35 years, but the women were more interested in hearing my story than relating theirs to me. So as not to disappoint, I obliged and held an impromptu outreach session.

Another friend, MM, showed up and he greeted me like the old friends we were.

The cocktail hour flew by and before I knew it, PM was beckoning me to join her at the 1977 table in the dining room. I sat down next to PM and we chatted forever, mostly about me. She assumed that I was a post-op TS and I explained that I was not. Actually, everyone I talked to about being transgender assumed I was post-op and I explained to all of them that I was not.

PM said that I was undoubtedly a woman and that I was more of a woman than she was! She said she never felt like a "woman" and was not sure what it meant to feel like a woman. I basically said we are what we are, but society pigeonholes us as "men" or "women" according to their "standards."

After dinner, which by the way, was excellent, I had a long discussion with EB about being transgender. EB is in the entertainment industry in New York City and as a result, she is familiar with  transgenders and knows where I am coming from more or less.

I mentioned to her that her husband, JB, was the person who told me at the law school Halloween party 36 years ago, that he never realized how feminine I was until he saw me in my costume en femme and realized that it was such a good fit for me and my personality, mannerisms, etc.

MM sat down next to me to chat a bit and said that I was very brave to do what I did. And I replied with my standard comeback to the bravery comment, that is, I don't consider it brave to be yourself… to be what who you are. But he said I was too modest and that if he was in the same situation, he doubted if he could do what I did.

Maybe, maybe not, but it was very nice of MM to say what he did. In fact, I received nothing but support and positive words from all my classmates.

I did not mix much with the other attendees; there was not much time to do so. But early on, one woman from the class of 2006 introduced herself and we had a short chat about what we had in common, that is, the mispronunciation of our first names. Her name is Zoe and people call her Zo or Zo-ee.  About half the people pronounced my name correctly (rhymes with Donna) and the other half got it wrong, but I didn't mind.

The only other non-classmate I recall speaking with was a professor who dined at our table and sat right next to me. He began teaching at the school the year after I graduated, so he did not know me from the school, but I asked him about what happened to some of the people I worked with way back when (I worked in the library while attending law school) and he tried to fill me in on what he remembered (not much as it turned out).

Another aside... the three female classmates who I conversed with extensively at the reunion seldom spoke to me when we were attending law school. I cannot recall having an extended conversation with any of them back then.

So, needless to say, I was very surprised how well they interfaced with me at the reunion. It was like we were four old girlfriends reliving the past. I assure you that I am not complaining, but I was very surprised nonetheless.

The evening ended much too quickly and I was on my way home at 10:30 PM.

I had a wonderful time to put it mildly!

Wearing Boston Proper

The "Best" in the womanless beauty pageant

Facebook Will Out You

I tried to log into my Facebook account and was informed:

Sorry, this page isn't available.

The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed.

Then Facebook asked:

Please Change Your Name.

It looks like the name on your Facebook account may not be your authentic name. We ask everyone to use the name they go by in real life so friends know who they're connecting with.

What names are allowed on Facebook?

If this is the name you use in your everyday life, we would like to work with you to verify the name that best represents your identity. We accept a number of documents to allow you to verify your everyday name.

My Facebook account is "Stana Stana." It is the my "authentic name," that is, the name I use "so friends know who they're connecting with." However, it is not my "legal" name and as a result, I have no paperwork to prove to Facebook that Stana Stana is authentic.

Facebook will permit me to use Stana Stana as a nickname associated with an account under my legal name. However, that is not a viable option because (1) it will require me to set up a new account and lose everything (hundreds of Facebook friends, messages, photos, etc.) associated with my Stana Stana account and (2) my legal name will be displayed in my profile, thus outing me to the millions of Facebook users. (Yeah, I know I am pretty much as outed as one can be, but there are still a few people who don't know and I prefer it that way.)

Thus, I am banned from Facebook.

And so it goes.

New York City Tony Awards style, June 1015

Actors performing Much Ado About Nothing in the 2014 Illinois Shakespeare Festival

Friday Femulations

Yesterday, my co-workers were still abuzz about my appearance en femme on Halloween Wednesday.

I received a few more compliments including one from the fellow who on Wednesday said I missed my calling and should have been a female impersonator. On Thursday, he said, "I prefer how you looked on Wednesday!"

I said, "I do, too."

***

One of the many comments I received on yesterday's post came as a complete surprise. It was from Peter Lappin, who writes Male Pattern Boldness blog.

I have been reading Peter's blog for years and even wrote about it here, but I had no idea he read Femulate!

If you have not read Peter's blog, I highly recommend doing so because I think you will enjoy it.

***

Speaking of Femulate readers, actor and femulator par excellence Christopher Morley had some kind words to say about Femulate here on Facebook.

If you have not visited Christopher's Facebook page, please do; it is full of photos and video clips from his acting career.

***

The World Health Organization still lists transsexualism as a mental disorder. Former Miss Universe contestant Jenna Talackova is fighting back.

Please read all about here and sign her petition.

***

A few days ago, I added a gadget to the blog which lists the most popular posts for the past month. The gadget is located at the very bottom center of Femulate.  hope you find it useful.

And if you have any other suggestions for this blog, please send them to me (stana-stana at sbcglobal.net).

Christopher Morley on Facebook

Famous film femulator Christopher Morley sent me the following Facebook message:

"For all your 'femulate' fans, I now have a Facebook page with many photos and videos for their enjoyment."

Face Time

That's my face on Facebook.

After over a year's absence, I have decided to try Facebook again.

"Stana Stana" is my Facebook name; www.facebook.com/stana.stana.3 is my home page.

I will be on the road most of the day today, so catch you later!

Facebook Now Sharing Your Address and Phone Number

Updated Below

I just deleted my Facebook account after reading this article on Salon, which revealed that Facebook is now sharing my home address and telephone number with third party developers.

"In a platform upgrade on Friday, Facebook announced that these 'new user object fields' were free game for anyone and even gave detailed instructions on how to access users' addresses and phone numbers."

That was the last straw.

Although I had over a thousand Facebook "friends," I rarely used the service, so deleting my account was not a big sacrifice.

By the way, Facebook makes it easy to deactivate your account, which will temporarily hide your information until you reactivate it, but they make it more difficult to permanently delete your account.

So, here is a short-cut for permanently deleting your account: log in to your Facebook account, paste the following URL into your browser:

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

and follow the subsequent directions.

UPDATE: After reading some of your comments, I reconsidered. Luckily, my account deletion did not take affect yet (it can take up to 14 days), so I reactivated my account and made my personal information as impersonal as possible.

Wednesday Wanderings

A Fix For Feeding Femulate to Facebook

I thank everyone who responded to my plea for help on how to feed this blog to Facebook.

Petra of Voyages en Rose fame suggested I use Google Reader as an intermediary.

Here are the steps to accomplish it:

1. In Google Reader, subscribe to the blog you want to feed to Facebook.

2. In the Google Reader settings, under the Send To options, put a check mark in the Facebook check box.

3. In your web browser, set www.google.com as an exception in your pop-up blocker (if you are using one).

4. In Google Reader, select a blog post to feed to Facebook by clicking on the Send To link displayed below the blog post. ("Facebook" should appear as a menu option when you click on Send To.)

If all goes well, the selected blog post will appear on your Facebook page. Note that it is not an automatic feed; you will have to manually select each blog post you wish to send to Facebook. It is better than nothing, which is what I had until Petra came to my rescue.

A Good Thing About Glaucoma

Yesterday, my eye doctor tested me for glaucoma.

My doctor explained that if I do have glaucoma, he will prescribe eye drops to hold off vision loss. He then listed the side effects of the eye drops. When he mentioned eyelash growth, I reacted quickly with a big smile and two thumbs up.

The doctor seemed confused by my positive reaction to that side effect. Meanwhile, I thought to myself that the woman that I am is taking over my life completely and any pretenses of being a male are falling by the wayside.

Another Fantasia Fair Photo

The photo above is from a week ago, i.e., my last night in Provincetown when I dined at Front Street restaurant with some new and old friends. 

Monday Musings

Feeding Femulate to Facebook

I have tried unsuccessfully to set up an RSS feed of this blog to my Facebook account.

Using Facebook’s “Import a Blog” function does not work. I've tried using it countless times, but each time, Facebook comes back with "Import Failed - We couldn't find a feed using the URL you provided."

http://www.femulate.org/feeds/posts/default is the URL of the feed. I know it is good, but Facebook does not like it.

I have sent Facebook a bug report, but so far, I have not received a response.

If anyone has any clues about why I cannot get this to work, I would appreciate hearing from you?

Outfit

I displayed the outfit on the right all weekend long in the blog’s “Femulate Her:” slot because I like it a lot.

I can definitely see me wearing it. I already have most of the pieces to put something similar together; I only lack the hosiery.

Maybe I can buy the hosiery before my next outing en femme.

Feeling the Femulation Effect

Having spent four days last week en femme, I again feel the “femulation effect,” i.e., I want to femulate more often... like 24/7 for the rest of my life!

My Name and Facebook

When I changed my name from Staci to Stana back in May, I tried to change my name on Facebook to no avail. (Facebook insisted that Stana was not my real name!)

I gave up trying, but I revisited the issue today.

I was not able to change my name to Stana, but it did allow me to add Stana as an "alternate name." So now if someone searches for "Stana" on Facebook, they will find me.

By the way, my new name was a big hit at Fantasia Fair. The only issue was that some people pronounced it by rhyming Stana with Donna, while others pronounced it by rhyming Stana with Vanna. I think I prefer the latter, but I am ok with the former, too.