Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Facebook is evolving.  

Facebook, the world’s largest online social network, has taken another step toward LGBT-inclusiveness, introducing same-sex icons for users to select from when adding marriage events to their profile’s timeline.

Previously, the marriages between gay couples were marked by the default “bride and groom” icon.

That’s good. Images matter. But I don’t really look at anyone’s relationship status icon.  It took me a minute to find them. And really … we are talking about another inch from a company that should be taking strides.

I think it was more significant when Facebook added the categories “domestic partner” and “civil union” to relationships because those phrases are more often visible on our pages and visibility is what its about – the validation of who we are.

Here’s the ongoing #FAIL of Facebook – we cannot “name” our pages using the words lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgender. “Gay” is permitted because is a fairly common surname (per GLAAD.) I just tries two minutes ago – I could not use any of the above words, but I could use LGBT.

I continue to find this quite offensive – akin to web filters automatically lumping anything with the word lesbian (or the other words) into the category “nudity or pornography” with no regard to context.

Listen up, Facebook, — the word lesbian is not offensive. I am not offensive. It is beyond my understanding that you did not take action when a third party listed MY HOME as “Hag Bag HQ – All Dykes Welcome” on their page (with accompany suggestions that we be raped) but you think the word “lesbian” is objectionable. Like breast feeding I guess.

This blog is a lesbian blog. Period. I am a lesbian, I write 99.9% of the content and so its all filtered through the fact that I am a lesbian. I don’t post nudity. I don’t post pornography. I write about cats, politics and LGBTQ events in Pittsburgh. And I resent the implication that if I used a more acceptable word in my domain, Facebook and the various web filters would find that very same content acceptable.

I also resent that someone can set up hate group or fan page on Facebook and get hours or days of traction for their evil agenda until it is reported and reviewed. If you permit people to do that, why can’t you simply allow the LGBTQ community to use our words and monitor just like any other page? Why is it so hard? Why does it require significant events like the marriage of an owner to push these changes? Is this even on your radar?

So kudos to the marriage same sex couples who have an icon that shows up one time on their page. Too bad for all the LGBTQ folks looking for good, relevant content.