Facebook's Pro-Stance Towards Recognizing Gender Differences

You don't just have to be male or female... on Facebook.

Last week, Facebook made a move that has alarmed many users, especially those who are new members signing up on their online social portal. The social media giant paired their move with a giant display of a rainbow flag on their Silicon Valley's company campus. What they did was to change the options on a user's gender from being strictly either "male" or "female" to allowing other customized genders such as "trans female" or "trans male".

Facebook even took it a step further by tweaking their personal pronouns used for their social network's members. Adding a neutral choice of "they/their", their users can get out of the gender mold of simply being labeled "he/him" or "she/her".

This wave of changes came along with their announcement that they have worked with active LBGT groups to craft an inclusive list of gender options for a user's profile page. For instance, GLAAD was one of those advocacy groups that aided the social media company to craft the "custom" option. For now, these changes are only available for those who select US English as their primary language but Facebook has promised that they will reflect these changes across the different language bases over time.

This is seen as a big step towards supporting people whose sexual or gender identities do not fit into the traditional standards or norms. So far it seems like a well-received initiative because this Facebook change has garnered a series of likes and has received mostly favorable comments on their official Facebook page.

One could think of this as Facebook's strategy of making their users feel inclusive in every bit of their social life and this is an excellent example of how technology is integrated into our social lives and our social identities. Thumbs up to Facebook for recognizing gender differences and who knows what new social initiatives will Facebook come up with next?

Well, let's just stay tuned then!