Social networking sites

[av1]

I'm not on Facebook/Google+/Twitter under my real name. But now I've been getting requests to join it from my friends and I also will like to but WHY THE HELL IS IT REQUIRED TO DECLARE YOUR GENDER? I can hide it but I can not even choose male in fear of it getting revealed-and my real  email also has my real feminine name. I cannot afford to come out as I know they won't accept me, I know this about my friends as they often talk stupid things about trans people. Can i hide my gender and change it later?

[geek]

not to my knowledge :/

i know one of them has "unspecified" as gender, but i cant remember which >.<

[Contravene]

It's for advertising purposes. Facebook and other social media sites make money from selling ad space so they try to get as much information about their users as they can to sort them into different demographics that ads can be targeted to. I know Google+ is the one that has an "other" or unspecified option.You can change your name multiple times on Facebook but I don't know if it allows you to change your basic information like gender and birthdate.

[geek]

It's for advertising purposes. Facebook and other social media sites make money from selling ad space so they try to get as much information about their users as they can to sort them into different demographics that ads can be targeted to. I know Google+ is the one that has an "other" or unspecified option.You can change your name multiple times on Facebook but I don't know if it allows you to change your basic information like gender and birthdate.

it lets you change it at least once, as for name, the number of times is VERY limited. i cant change mine anymore and i only went from <old name> to half name.

just make two accounts bro or stick to your guns and tell them that social networking is an addictive crack whore devil sort of thing (which it is )

[AdamMLP]

There is a way to get Facebook to call you gender neutral (singular they) pronouns, or there definitely used to be, it's hard to say the amount they insist on updating it. Google "Facebook gender neutral" and there are several different ways such as this:

http://m0tei.co.uk/facebookgender/

[aleon515]

There is a way to get Facebook to call you gender neutral (singular they) pronouns, or there definitely used to be, it's hard to say the amount they insist on updating it. Google "Facebook gender neutral" and there are several different ways such as this:

http://m0tei.co.uk/facebookgender/

Yeah I have a couple friends who are "they". It's a trick or hack I suppose, but it does seem to work.

--Jay

[overdrive]

Or create your accounts as male with your preferred male name and if your friends say anything, just tell them that you don't want everyone to find you so you're using a fake name so you can keep your friends small to only those you tell your identity to. 

[YBtheOutlaw]

mx advice is, if you cant use your preferred name and gender stay away from them. it makes you deadly anxious and kills your confidence. i'm in pretty much the same situation except that i made google and facebook accounts long before knowing i was trans. every time i made some sort of account i would hover the pointer over the gender options and wish i could tick male and keep it hidden, but in fear of getting discovered i'd tick female and regret it for days. my general email and facebook both have my birth name, where the first name is pretty unisex but middle name is ultra feminine. every time i see my email address or fb profile i cringe. i've always been so anxious in fb. i hate chatting. it sucks even more when they say 'my name' changed 'her' profile picture and such. i can smash the computer when some random stranger guy sends a 'hi dear' msg just because i use a girls name. i never used a photo of mine as a profile picture. it was because of all these i created the online existance of the 'outlaw'.

[Nikotinic]

There is a way to get Facebook to call you gender neutral (singular they) pronouns, or there definitely used to be, it's hard to say the amount they insist on updating it. Google "Facebook gender neutral" and there are several different ways such as this:

http://m0tei.co.uk/facebookgender/

Thanks for the hack, I'd been wondering if there was a way to do this.

I created a male facebook page for myself but didn't end up adding any friends. I realised that friends of friends would be able to see me on wall posts and friends lists ect and that my photo would show up there. It also seems like a lot of effort to manage two social media presences. I'm just going to wait until I want to come out publicly and then change things on my current profiles.

[Arch]

I have two Facebook accounts, both male, but one is for people who knew me from before. I would love to collapse everything into one account, but my old friends WILL occasionally post trans-related stuff on my wall with "thought you'd like to see this" types of comments. And a huge percentage of my "before" friends are trans, many of them visibly so.

I was always worried that my two worlds would collide. Now I just don't FB, and I'm much happier. The accounts are still there, but I don't do anything with them.