Facebook on Thursday broadened gender
options for users in the United States.
According to the AP, about 50 different
terms people can use to identify their gender have been added,
including such terms as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender
fluid or transgender.
“There's going to be a lot people for
whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact,
it means the world,” Brielle Harrison, a software engineer who
worked on the project, told
the AP.
Harrison, who is undergoing gender
transition, said she would take advantage of the change and choose
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.
GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis called
the change “a step forward in recognizing transgender people and
allows them to tell their authentic story in their own words.”
“Once again, Facebook is on the
forefront of ensuring that the platform is safe and accessible to all
of its LGBT users,” she added.
Masen Davis, executive director of the
Transgender Law Center, also applauded the new feature.
“We applaud Facebook for making it
possible for people to be their authentic selves online,” he said.
Facebook has more than 1 billion active
worldwide users.