Google – AFP, 14 February 2014
 |
A consumer
watchdog group turned on Facebook, rejecting a $20 million
deal made to settle
charges that the social network violated privacy by using
"likes" as
endorsements for ads. (AFP/File, Karen Bleier)
|
San
Francisco — Facebook on Thursday freed members from the bonds of being either
male or female, letting people opt for custom genders such as transsexual or
"intersex" at the social network.
Along with
adding scores of "custom gender" options on profile pages, Facebook
is letting members select which pronouns they wish used when referring to them
in posts or messages.
Facebook
users could opt to be refered to as "he/him" or "she/her,"
or by a neutral "they/their" choice.
"While
to many this change may not mean much, for those it affects it means a great
deal," Facebook said in a post at its Diversity page that included a
picture of a rainbow flag on display on the company's campus in the Silicon
Valley city of Menlo Park.
Facebook
said it worked with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activist groups to
create a thorough list of gender options, which can be found in an
"other" category on profile About pages.
Custom genders
are only available to those who use Facebook in US English but the company
planned to expand the range in the future.
Feedback in
a forum at Facebook's Diversity page was mostly positive, with some suggesting
a need for even more description options and others insisting that biology
limits the choices to male or female.
Facebook's
move will make "great strides" in supporting young people whose
sexual identities don't conform to traditional societal norms, according to
US-based gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
"Over
the past few years, a person's Facebook profile truly has become their online
identity, and now Facebook has taken a milestone step to allow countless people
to more honestly and accurately represent themselves,? said HRC president Chad
Griffin.
A survey of
10,000 lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender youth published on Thursday by
HRC revealed that nearly 10 percent of them put themselves in a
"gender-expansive" group that could benefit from Facebook's move.
Two thirds
of the surveyed people in that group wrote in genders such as queer, gender-fluid,
and "non-binary," which means they feel they are neither male nor
female or some combination of both.
The survey
also indicated that "gender-expansive" youth were less likely to say
they were happy, fit into their communities, or had an adult at home they could
turn to.
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