It is now possible for those who don’t consider themselves male or female to use a different word on Facebook.
The social network announced on Thursday a list of over fifty options immediately available to its 1 billion users.
You can check your gender on Facebook by clicking the ‘Update Info’ button over your cover photo. “If you set your gender to Custom and select one or more genders, you can also select an audience for your custom gender,” Facebook writes on an updated help page. “In addition to your custom gender, you’ll choose a Preferred Pronoun. The preferred pronoun you select is public.”
Preferred pronouns are “him,” “her,” and “them.” They will be used in messages displayed in the Facebook Newsfeed like, “Wish [him/her/them] a happy birthday.”
An example of the updated feature can be seen below:
Facebook says they collaborated with their Network of Support, a “group of leading LGBT advocacy organizations,” who helped come up with the list of gender identities to add to the website. Examples of added identities include androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual, according to the Associated Press.
Finally, the social network says that there are now custom privacy settings for gender identity in case you want to limit who can see your identity to certain audiences (friend lists).
Facebook has a Diversity page which you can like to stay up-to-date on ways they are reaching out to be inclusive of as many people as possible.
The social network is already receiving praise around the internet for adding this long overdue feature.
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