Facebook Adds 50 New Gender Options for US Users - You Don't Have to Be Male or Female Anymore; It's Now Him, Her and Them
Social media giant Facebook expanded its basic male or female gender identity options for its 159 million U.S. users Thursday to include a raft of approximately 50 other terms including transsexual, androgynous and intersex.
Along with an official launch of the change, the company celebrated its decision in a post on its diversity page in which it explained that it collaborated with a group of leading LGBT advocacy organizations to come up with its list of new gender identities.
"When you come to Facebook to connect with the people, causes, and organizations you care about, we want you to feel comfortable being your true, authentic self. An important part of this is the expression of gender, especially when it extends beyond the definitions of just 'male' or 'female.' So today, we're proud to offer a new custom gender option to help you better express your own identity on Facebook," noted the social media giant in the post.
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"We collaborated with our network of support, a group of leading LGBT advocacy organizations, to offer an extensive list of gender identities that many people use to describe themselves. Moreover, people who select a custom gender will now have the ability to choose the pronoun they'd like to be referred to publicly — male (he/his), female (she/her) or neutral (they/their)," it continued.
"We also have added the ability for people to control the audience with whom they want to share their custom gender. We recognize that some people face challenges sharing their true gender identity with others, and this setting gives people the ability to express themselves in an authentic way," it ended.
Brielle Harrison, a Facebook software engineer who worked on the project and is currently undergoing gender transformation from male to female, told The Associated Press: "There's going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world."
Harrison explained that she would be changing her Facebook identity from female to transwoman.
"All too often transgender people, like myself, and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it's kind-of disheartening, because none of those let us tell others who we really are," she said.
While the announcement has received much praise from the LGBT community, many others disagree with the move, citing moral or social grounds.
"Seriously, this is what Facebook is doing? Really? No one makes a big deal that I am a heterosexual female and I don't have to announce it to the world, have a special title or anything," wrote Kelly Kearns in a response Thursday.
"Honestly, I'm so sick of everything being turned into something racial, sexual preference and now gender. The more people do this, the more disconnected people become. My word, we are human beings, male or female and we love and marry whomever we love and marry, simple," she continued.
"I can't stand the fact that, in America, we have American and African Americans and now people are starting to add other groups becoming "whatever" American. People don't want division and don't want to be seen as different, yet they INSIST on being LABELED as different and creating divisions," she added.
