Facebook unveils new gender options for users
Gay advocacy group hails "milestone" move to allow social network users to identify as gender other than male or female.
Facebook has introduced a new option allowing users to identify themselves as a gender other than male or female.
The basic user profile for members in the United States now includes a customization category with a variety of gender identifiers, including
"transgender," "intersex" and "fluid," the social networking company
announced on Thursday.
"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," Facebook
software engineer Brielle Harrison, who is undergoing a gender
transformation from male to female, told the Associated Press news
agency.
Facebook said it wanted users to "feel comfortable being your true, authentic self."
The social networking site, which has more than 1.2bn members
worldwide, said it worked with a leading group of gay and transgender
advocacy organisations to develop the list of gender options, previously
limited to male or female.
Rival site Google+ already had an "other" option for gender.
Expansion plans
Custom genders are only available to those who use Facebook in US
English, but the company plans to expand the range in the future.
Facebook's move will help support young people whose sexual
identities do not conform to traditional societal norms, the Human
Rights Campaign Foundation, a US-based gay advocacy group, told the
Agence France-Presse news agency.
"Facebook has taken a milestone step to allow countless people to
more honestly and accurately represent themselves," foundation president
Chad Griffin said.
The Williams Institute, a think-tank based in Los Angeles, estimates
that at least 700,000 individuals in the United States identify as
transgender, an umbrella term that includes people who live as a gender
different from the one assigned to them at birth.
Facebook's announcement generated some criticism from US religious
group Focus on the Family, with representative Jeff Johnston telling the
AP: "It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is
divided into two halves: male and female."
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