Facebook Gender and Pronoun Settings: Which Way Will You Go?

Great news!

Facebook now allows English (US) users to customise their gender!

Some of the options for custom gender!

You can choose from 50 different options! You can also choose who sees your gender, you, just a certain list of people, friends, or more!

50 options gave considerable choice. With no crossdresser option, I quickly whittled it down to five choices: trans, androgynous, non-gender, pangender, and genderqueer.

Trans is a great umbrella term. I would definitely use it if there was nothing better. But with 50 options surely I could drill down to something better?

Androgynous and non-gender did not really feel like me, since no-one ever has a doubt whether I'm projecting a gender.

So it really came down to two options - pangender and genderqueer. And to be honest, I didn't really know the difference between them!

So I went to Wikipedia, it told me:

Pangender: Pangender people are those who do not wish to be labeled as female or male in gender, as they feel that they do not fit into binary genders because they feel they are all genders. The term has a great deal of overlap with genderqueer and is used by those in the LGBT community meaning "all genders."

Genderqueer: Genderqueer (GQ; alternatively non-binary) is a catch-all category for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and cisnormativity. Genderqueer people may identify as one or more of the following: blurred genders, 2+ genders, no gender, third gender.

After reading that I was not surprised I didn't know the difference between the two terms! I specifically don't like labels of female and male since they are constricting of behaviour, so I went for pangender.

The next thing Facebook lets you pick is which pronouns you want used on you. They/she/he.

You can wish me a happy unbirthday too!

Clearly I was never going to pick he! But in the end decided on "she"

She! After all I said about being pangender! Yes, she. Because I want to be called female pronouns to balance out all the male pronouns I get called in my everyday life.

Have a play with it yourself and let me know what settings you pick!