01 Sep Facebook takes gender options one step further
While it is better to have more than 50 choices rather than two, others wondered why your relationships to family members had to be still defined as one of the two binary genders.
But now, the social networking site has built on their success and quietly rolled out the ability to designate family members using nonbinary and gender-neutral terms.
You can now not only list family members using terms such as ‘brother’, ‘father’, ‘sister’, ‘mother’, ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’, but you can describe your relationship like ‘sibling (gender neutral)’, ‘child (gender neutral)’ and ‘cousin (gender neutral)’.
When Facebook expanded their gender options in February, they said: ‘We’re proud to offer a new custom gender option to help you better express your own identity on Facebook.’
‘We also have added the ability for people to control the audience with whom they want to share their custom gender.
‘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.’
LGBT media watchdog group GLAAD praised Facebook for being ‘on the forefront of ensuring that the platform is safe and accessible to all of its LGBT users.
‘This new feature is a step forward in recognizing transgender people and allows them to tell their authentic story in their own words.’
Source: Gay Star News