Facial recognition software is a billion dollar industry, with Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook developing systems, some of which have been sold to governments and private companies. Those systems are a nightmare for various reasons—some systems have, for example, been shown to misidentify black people in criminal databases while others have been unable to see black faces at all. The problems can be severe for transgender and nonbinary people because most facial recognition software is programmed to sort people into two groups—male or female. Because these systems aren’t designed with transgender and gender nonconforming people in mind, something as common...
