LGBTs get space on Facebook

CHANDIGARH: While the mood in India had majorly been an aggressive one ever since the apex court's archaic law banning gay sex; supporting the same community of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT), Facebook has introduced a custom option wherein it provides its users with gender choices other than just male or female.
Free from the bonds of sticking to either male or female status, the members of the social networking site can select from a list of some 50 other distinct genders a?? including trans female, trans male, trans person, gender variant, gender questioning, bigender, androgynous, pangender, transsexual and other such.
By going beyond male and female option, Facebook has made the LGBT community proud and made the recognition of the third gender relatively acceptable. Dhananjay, a member of LGBT community, sustained the move by Facebook as a good one, and said, "It will be easier for people to recognize and identify gender of any Facebook user. Moreover, it will help in accepting the third gender of the society".
"We welcome the steps taken by the social networking site by being more inclusive. This step is one of encouragement and in agreement with personal freedom of an individual. It also questions India's Supreme Court upholding the high court's decision over Section 377, and recriminalizing homosexuality," said Rubina, a member of LGBT community.
The new option surely supports today's youth whose sexual identities do not restrict to traditional societal norms, and it helps them in revealing their true identity. For Ashish Dutt, a member of LGBT, "It may not affect many, but for some like us it is really very important as we will help identify our exact identity and provide us with a sense of acceptability even if only over the social networking site."
While many are content and joyous over the latest development over one of world's most populous social networking site, many still think that instead of options, the gender status should be left blank, to be filled by the profile owner himself/herself. One such social worker, Bikram Kohli, who supports that the site should provide a "write-in" option under the gender status, says, "It will be interesting to see this policy rolled out in other languages that do not have provisions for gender-neutral pronouns like they\them; languages like French or Hindi."
There are over 50 groups and communities under the LGBT community in Facebook which comprises of a huge section of the society. Every group or community has more than 50 members, which adds up to nearly 2,000 members.