Facebook has added more than 50 gender options for people who don’t describe themselves as male or female.
The company says it worked with LBGT groups to create an extensive list of gender identities, which are available to everyone who uses the site in US English. People who select a custom gender also have the ability to choose the pronoun they’d like to be referred to publicly (he/his, she/her or they/their).
“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.”
Facebook told Slate it has no plans to publish a comprehensive list of the choices it offers, so staff at the online magazine took it upon themselves to reconstruct it by typing each letter of the alphabet into the text field and transcribe the options that appeared.
Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison 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." She had worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also 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. "This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is."
Dear Facebook: Your new gender options are awesome, thanks for doing this. Other networks/websites could learn from you.
— Matt Codd (@MC_Odd) February 13, 2014
