Facebook Expands Its Gender Identification Options

Social network will now offer options such as “cisgender” and “transgender”

Facebook dramatically expanded the ways that its users can identify themselves by gender on Thursday, opening up the site to custom gender options that include “cisgender,” “intersex” and other choices.

The new option is currently only available to those using Facebook in U.S. English.

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Instead of the boring old “male” and “female” options on their About pages, Facebook users will now have a third category, “other,” to choose from. The “other” option will open a menu where users can choose up to 10 gender definitions, including”cisgender,” “transgender,” and “intersex,” as well as many other nuanced options.

Users will also have the option to control the audience they share their custom gender with.

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The expansion will also include the ability to choose a neutral pronoun to be referred to by, bringing the options up to male (he/his), female (she/her) and neutral (they/their).

Facebook said that it collaborated with “our Network of Support, a group of leading LGBT advocacy organizations,” to come up with the expanded gender options.

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