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Facebook offers more ways to express gender beyond 'male' and 'female' - Computerworld
In my opinion, this is pretty cool. The ostracism that a lot of these folks feel for not fitting a mold leads to all sorts of issues, such as depression. This thing that Facebook is doing which harms nobody and perhaps helps others feel more comfortable in their own skin.
Facebook, in a move that acknowledges the social issues around gender identity, updated its site to give its users more ways to express their gender.
The changes make available to users a list of roughly 50 different terms they can use to identify themselves. Among them: "Trans," "Trans Female," "Trans Male," "Genderqueer," "Gender Variant" and even "Androgynous," a term used for describing combined male and female characteristics. In addition, users can choose among three pronouns to be used in referring to them: "her," "him" or "them."
Facebook has incorporated privacy controls into the term selections. If users choose one or several of these new options, they can use Facebook's settings to control with whom their new classification is shared, such as "public" or "just friends.
The choice of pronoun, however, is always public. If a person chooses "neutral" for the pronoun, then instead of Facebook saying, "Wish her a happy birthday" on someone's special day, the site will say, "Wish them a happy birthday."
The new options can be accessed from a person's "About" page, by clicking on "Custom" in the drop-down menu for gender.
To make the changes and decide which terms to add, Facebook worked with a group of LGBT advocacy organizations, with the nonprofit Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, leading the charge. Other groups involved in the effort included The Trevor Project, which provides crisis and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth (the "Q" stands for questioning), and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center.
In my opinion, this is pretty cool. The ostracism that a lot of these folks feel for not fitting a mold leads to all sorts of issues, such as depression. This thing that Facebook is doing which harms nobody and perhaps helps others feel more comfortable in their own skin.