Transgender call for Facebook

[Shana A]

Transgender call for Facebook

    * Alex Dickinson
    * From: The Courier-Mail
    * March 05, 2010 11:00PM

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/transgender-call-for-facebook/story-e6freon6-1225837507351

QUEENSLAND'S gay and lesbian community has demanded Facebook widen its profile options to include transgenders.

Simply clicking male or female when signing up to the social networking website is too limiting, interest groups say.

"They should definitely do it and they'd be quite surprised by how many people there are in the community who are transgender that do use Facebook," said Shelley Argent, spokeswoman for Brisbane's Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Association.

[Fenrir]

Yeah, I refused to answer the Male/Female question on my Facebook profile. There are lots of languages you can set it to that mess up when you haven't, though, because they rely heavily on knowing your gender. (Yeah, I set my facebook to random languages for fun. It's sad, I know  )
I think an option of 'Other' would be helpful, but at least it uses 'gender' and not 'sex' to ask you to define yourself. I don't think there's any problem otherwise, and I'm not too fussed about it, to be honest. As the article said, you can always do what I've done and leave it out.

[Miss LXC 2.0]

Some identify as a "3rd gender" while others see themselves as something other than 3 choices.
"Other" or "prefer not to answer" along with "male" and "female" might be the best option.
I have always identified as Female and see the "option" that if Facebook made me upset for any reason, I'd simply longer use their services.

[Ms Jessica]

I find that SGO is perfect.  You can specify as much (or as little) info about yourself as you want, and it tacks on at the end of your profile info. 

Of course, you wouldn't need it if FB didn't adhere to a gender binary, but you could always leave your gender blank (can you, actually?  is that required?  never checked...) and use SGO to provide that kind of info in your profile instead. 

[Fenrir]

You can leave your gender blank, in the English version at least. Some of the languages that need to know your gender to address you give you grief if you don't, but you can still leave it blank. Mine's blank. 

[Autumn]

You can leave your gender blank, in the English version at least. Some of the languages that need to know your gender to address you give you grief if you don't, but you can still leave it blank. Mine's blank. 

Not anymore, you can't.

My facebook profile is a couple of years old, and I never specified a gender. So it stays that way. I made a separate, work/school safe facebook and it has mandatory gender selection for new accounts. So I made it female, because, seriously, what?

The trans label is useful for dating sites I suppose but I really don't want "HI I'M TRANS" attached to my real life information right there on the internet with all my friends connected, and for all of their friends to see.

[mickie88]

i agree with Autumn.

[Silver]

You can leave your gender blank, in the English version at least. Some of the languages that need to know your gender to address you give you grief if you don't, but you can still leave it blank. Mine's blank. 

It wouldn't let me sign up unless I picked male or female. Meh, I just delete billboard posts that reference my gender. Only out to a couple people so far.

[Fenrir]

Darn, really? Gosh, they were so much more forgiving with the amount of information you gave them when I signed up.  I think the article said you could just leave it blank as well, so they're lying.
Post Merge: March 12, 2010, 09:17:19 PM
Yeah, just tried it. What the hell? Why do they NEED that information? 

[Keroppi]

You have to specify a gender when you sign up doesn't mean you can't then remove it afterwards...

[LordKAT]

Most online things you have to specify a gender although you can change it later, you can't take it out.