By Parangat Shukla
What’s your gender? Are you a male? Or a female? Most of the application forms you will ever fill in your entire lifetime, either online or offline, will ask you this question. All they have is an oval box, where you click next to your gender. Ever wondered, what if you are neither a male nor a female, what do you choose then? Well some applications are thoughtful enough to provide an “others” option, but most of them aren’t. The 1.2 Billion users strong Facebook has changed the game altogether, offering 50 different gender options like Trans-sex Male, Intersex, Androgynous, Gender-fluid, etc. under the Basic Information -> Gender category. Not only that, users have also been provided with an option to pick a preferred pronoun, amongst the following three: him, her or them. Initially these changes are being rolled out in the U.S. only, which amounts for more than 159 Million users, with no statement from the company about when it will be released in other countries. Though as always, Facebook has provided an option to hide gender from the profile if the user wants to keep it private.
First question that comes in mind, WHY? According to Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who has been a part of this project, “There’s going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world”. She is a Trans-woman herself, and is undergoing gender transformation from male to female. She continued, “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.”
LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gender) Community has faced harsh treatment and negligence by people all over the globe, in their struggle for justice and equality. So far, 15 countries worldwide legally recognize same sex marriages, with the UK joining the group in the end of March, the number will rise to 16, out of the total 194 countries in the world. In the US, seventeen out of fifty states have legalized same sex marriages. In the largest democracy of the world – India, homosexual sex is a crime and punishable by law. So at these times, this move by Facebook will surely encourage the members of LGBT community and is a very big advance for them, and might result in wide acceptance of people who do not want to classify themselves as either male or female. On the other hand, religious groups in the US do not appreciate this move. “It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and female” said Jeff Johnston, an issues analyst for Focus on the Family, an influential national religious organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, US.
Similar steps had been taken by Google+ before, where an option of “other” was introduced in the Gender section. About 1% of Google+ users have identified themselves as “other”. Requests of neutralizing the relationships gender (i.e. avoiding the terms son and daughter, etc.) and options for sexual orientation are being made, to which Facebook replied by saying that they are already working on it.
In a way, this Social Network is trying to influence the society in more ways than one. What do you think about this move? Leave your comments below.
Image Credits: www.slate.com, feministing.com
Similar steps had been taken by Google+ before, where an option of “other” was introduced in the Gender section. About 1% of Google+ users have identified themselves as “other”. Requests of neutralizing the relationships gender (i.e. avoiding the terms son and daughter, etc.) and options for sexual orientation are being made, to which Facebook replied by saying that they are already working on it.
In a way, this Social Network is trying to influence the society in more ways than one. What do you think about this move? Leave your comments below.
Image Credits: www.slate.com, feministing.com