facebook_g_options.png.CROP.promo-mediumlargeThe following comes from a Feb. 13 story published by the Associated Press.

With a click of a cursor, Jay Brown in Cheverly, Md., went from Male to Trans Male. A few states away, Debon Garrigues of Asheville, N.C., switched from Male to Neutral. In San Francisco, Marilyn Roxie, formerly Female, chose three: Androgynous, Transgender and Genderqueer.

Across the country Thursday, news swept through the transgender community that social media giant Facebook had added a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them. And one after another, they made their changes in a quiet revolution of sorts.

“For me, this is about much more than a button on a monitor,” Garrigues said. “This encourages people to think outside the binary spectrum. It means I don’t have to try to fit in the wrong boxes.”

For many others, the change went unnoticed – or too far.

“Of course Facebook is entitled to manage its wildly popular site as it sees fit, but here is the bottom line: 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, Colo. “Those petitioning for the change insist that there are an infinite number of genders, but just saying it doesn’t make it so. That said, we have a great deal of compassion for those who reject their biological sex and believe they are the opposite sex.”

Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch, initially cover the company’s 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual.

“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,” said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also changing her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.

To read the entire story, click here.

https://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FACEBOOK_NEW_GENDER_OPTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-02-13-13-02-56