Facebook表示，此次更新暂时只针对美国地区，主要目的是向用户提供更多选择，方便他们更贴切地描述自己目前的情况。Facebook目前在全世界有12.3亿月活跃用户，它也允许用户将性别状态设为保密。
负责此次更新的软件工程师布丽尔•哈里森说：“对很多人来说，这次更新好像毫无意义，但是对于那些会受到影响的人来说，这次更新意味着天翻地覆的改变。”哈里森本人也是此次更新的受益者，她正在接受从男性变为女性的系列手术。“这是我第一次在网站上向朋友说明自己的确切性别状态，”她说。
据加州大学洛杉矶分校一所智库的预测数据显示，美国至少有70万人声称自己是变性人。美国最大的非异性恋维权机构“人权战线”在去年的调查中发现，10%的同性恋、双性恋和变性人会在填写性别时选择“其他”。
Male, female or 48 other varieties? Now Facebook offers users FIFTYdifferent genders to choose from
New options include 'cisgender,' 'transgender' and 'intersex'
Site has also updated its setting to allow users to select a neutral pronoun referring tothem as they, their or them
Facebook came up with its range of terms after consulting with leading gay andtransgender activists
Facebook has completely revamped its gender settings to allow for options other than just male orfemale.
The feature is designed to help transgender users of the site, and now has 50 options, including 'cisgender,' 'transgender' and 'intersex'.
The site has also updated its setting to allow users to select a neutral pronoun referring to them asthey, their or them.
Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday,initially cover the company's 159 million monthly users in the U.S.
They are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such asandrogynous, 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 doesimpact, it means the world,' said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison.
Harrison worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male tofemale.
On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also changingher Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.
'All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given thisbinary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender?
'And it's kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are,' she said.
'This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people Iknow what my gender is.'
Facebook, which has 1.23 billion active monthly users around the world, also allows them to keeptheir gender identity private and will continue to do so.
The Williams Institute, a think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimate thatthere are at least 700,000 individuals in the U.S. who identify as transgender, an umbrella term thatincludes people who live as a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth.
The move by Facebook represents a basic and a yet significant form of recognition of the nation'sgrowing transgender rights movement, which has been spurred by veteran activists and youngpeople who identify as transgender at younger and younger ages.
The Human Rights Campaign last year found that 10 percent of the 10,000 lesbian, gay, bisexualtransgender youths it surveyed used 'other' or wrote in their own gender terms.
'Over the past few years, a person's Facebook profile truly has become their online identity, andnow Facebook has taken a milestone step to allow countless people to more honestly andaccurately represent themselves,' HRC President Chad Griffin said.
'Facebook's action is one that I hope others heed in supporting individuals' multifaceted identities.'
The change to the gender selection option is seen as a major step toward acceptance for peoplewho don't self-identify as male or female, but the high-profile development seemed senseless tothose who believe in two genders, no more.
'Of course Facebook is entitled to manage its wildly popular site as it sees fit, but here is the bottomline: It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male andfemale,' said Jeff Johnston, an issues analyst for Focus on the Family, an influential national religiousorganization based in Denver.
'Those petitioning for the change insist that there are an infinite number of genders, but just sayingit doesn't make it so.
'That said, we have a great deal of compassion for those who reject their biological sex and believethey are the opposite sex.'
Masen Davis, executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, said it maybe hard for some people to understand the importance of having the ability to select from multiplegenders online. But he said many transgender people will be thrilled with the change.
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