In case you haven’t noticed, there is a gender revolution happening in our culture. We’ve moved beyond binary when identifying our genders (male or female). Facebook responded and now has 58 different gender options for those that don’t fit in the binary system. It’s not as easy as you’d think so I figured I’d share how to change your gender on Facebook if the original setting is no longer accurate.
As with most tech support solutions I discover, it took a question from someone else for me to learn how to do this. When I first read the article cited above, I mentioned it in class and a student asked me how to do it after she couldn’t figure it out. It really wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be so I wrote this blog to help anyone else that might need it. (updated April 2023)
Instructions on How to Change Your Gender on Facebook (desktop)
- Go to your profile
- Choose About
- Choose Contact and Basic Info
- Next to your current gender, click on the Edit pencil
- Drop down menu More Options has Choose Female, Male, or Nonbinary
- Or type into the field how you prefer to be identified and this shows a list of options to choose from or you may stay with your custom text
- Below that is a question “What pronoun do you use?” and you can customize Facebook’s prompts
- You can also choose your visibility level of your pronouns
- Make sure to hit Save
Instructions on How to Change Your Gender on Facebook (mobile)
- Go to your profile
- Choose Edit Profile
- Scroll all the way to the bottom and choose Edit Your About Info
- Scroll for Basic Info and choose Edit
- In the Gender section, choose Female, Male or More Options
- In the More Gender Options section there’s an empty field where you can put in how you prefer to be identified. This shows a list of options to choose from as you type or you may stay with your custom text
- Next to your current gender, click on the Edit pencil
- Drop down menu More Options has Choose Female, Male, or Nonbinary
- Or type into the field how you prefer to be identified and this shows a list of options to choose from or you may stay with your custom text
- Below that is a question “What pronoun do you use?” and you can customize Facebook’s prompts
- You can also choose your visibility level of your pronouns
- Make sure to hit Save
only gives male and female on mine :/
I’m sorry you don’t have it yet, Tigger. It’ll come!
It keeps saying try again. Over and over
I’d recommend trying again on another day. Fingers crossed it’ll work for you!
They don’t have my choice and I cannot add my own custom choice?
There are still 58 options. If you type in the first letter of your choice, an autosuggest list pops up and you can choose from there. If yours isn’t on the list, I’m curious what it is.
If you start typing it, and it doesn’t come up, continue typing and then you can click on it, so it will basically create it for you.
Thank you!
Being in transition myself…this helps…
I already have an alternative account, but sticking to my original helps a lot…
You are welcome! This is important. Cheers to you in your transition. <3
When i click on about in my profile, it doesn’t give the option contacts and basic info……is there any other method?
About>Contact & Basic Info>all the way down Gender is in Basic Info
If you don’t have that option, look for where your birthday is listed on your profile. They are usually listed right next to each other.
Thanks for this post as im in transition.
I’m happy to share this information and glad you found it useful :)
Were can I find about?
Check out this article: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/02/heres-a-list-of-58-gender-options-for-facebook-users/
What if your sharing an account with your man??
Facebook is set up for one person per account. They don’t want people to share accounts because they need to be able to give their paying advertisers accurate counts of people viewing ads. They aren’t ever going to offer double or couple accounts and they may shut yours down if they ever notice that it’s being used by two people as it violates their terms of service. So there won’t ever be a gender option that accounts for more than one person.
Why can’t I can’t change my gender option! It’s keep saying please try again over!!