Reilly-Owen Clemens changed her Facebook gender to transsexual the moment she learned about the option.
“That’s nice,” the 26-year-old said. “Gonna make that leap right now.”
Since Facebook introduced more than 50 gender options in mid-February, users who don’t identify as male or female have been given the chance to empower themselves by selecting the gender that matches their identity, said Clemens, a graduate assistant in the UF Department of Women’s Studies.
Andrew Sun, a UF political science senior who identifies as trans, said this shows the social network's awareness of different identities.
“I definitely feel like, in general, the media is trying to do something better,” the 21-year-old said. “It’s not perfect, though.”
It’s a smart move that shows American understanding of gender is changing, said LGBT Affairs Director LB Hannahs, who identifies as genderqueer.
“I’m for small steps. I don’t think it’s going to be an overnight thing,” Hannahs said. “But I think more people will understand.”
However, Clemens said the feature could be problematic. While she can now identify as any gender she wants to, so can everyone else — and she fears it might be abused.
“Hopefully, people won’t just be like, ‘Well, this week I’m genderfluid, and next week, I’m, you know, trans, and the week after that, I guess I’m transsexual,’” she said. “To me, that would be kind of insulting.”
Sun said he thinks Facebook might not be the best medium for someone to come out.
“There are some situations where I feel like, yeah, I’m gonna out myself as trans,” Sun said.
But for him, Facebook is not one of those situations.
He said his gender on Facebook remains “male” because he feels it might not be safe to share his identity with more than 1,000 friends.
Many people still don’t understand gender, he said.
“Gender scares people,” Hannahs said. “It really does.”
