Facebook took a positive step forward today by offering users the ability to indicate a gender option other than just female or male. Now one can choose transgender, trans woman, trans man, trans person, intersex, genderqueer, gender fluid, and many other variations — about 50 in all. But the range of choices to indicate family members who are also on Facebook remains traditionally gendered.
If you have a relative who doesn’t identify as male or female (or if you don’t, and your relatives want to indicate your relationship to them), there are still only polar options: son or daughter, mother or father, brother or sister, grandmother or grandfather, granddaughter or grandson, father-in-law, mother-in-law, aunt or uncle, and so forth. Even cousins are gendered as “cousin: male” and “cousin: female.” How about the neutral parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, and plain old cousin? Aunt, uncle, niece, and nephew could easily also be “parent’s sibling” and “sibling’s child.” Finally, what about “relative” or “family” for anyone who doesn’t fit any of the listed options?
This isn’t to take away from the significant step forward Facebook has made in acknowledging that gender is a broad spectrum, and doing so on a huge platform. It’s an impressive show of understanding. I’m hoping that with a small nudge (and a little bit of software coding), they’ll take the additional step of acknowledging that those who don’t identify with traditional genders have family, too.
(I can’t claim to have originated this idea; thanks to Deb, who commented on the Mombian Facebook page about the need for a neutral parent/child option.)
