A few months ago, Facebook has been lauded for bringing the rainbow-coloured profile pictures to its users when same-sex marriage has been legalized in the United States. The social networking site's users have paraded their pride with the images and matching hashtag, LoveWins. As the platform continues to make adjustments to better accommodate a wide variety of users, more and more people are able to comfortably express themselves on the platform. In the United States, more and more users are coming out on the social networking site.
According to a PCMag report, the past year has seen 800,000 Americans update their Facebook profiles to indicate same-gender attraction and to specify a custom gender. The custom gender specification tool has been introduced by Facebook early last year. This makes the total number of Americans to come out on the platform to about 6 million people.
The Facebook report stated that the "last year has witnessed steady growth in the number and the rate of people coming out on Facebook." The report also cited that support for the LGBT community has increased, and that the recent ruling of the Supreme Court Obergefell has impacted the increase of people expressing their support for the LGBT community on the social platform.
The report has been made to honour the National Coming Out Day, which is commemorated on Oct. 11, as well as the #SpiritDay on Oct. 15. The study has shown that the number of Americans coming out on Facebook last year has increased by 2.5 times this year. The report stated that over 26 million Facebook users have expressed support for the same-sex marriage ruling in June by changing their profile images.
"The number of people on Facebook coming out per day is on track to be three times what it was a year ago," the report said. The figures reported have only taken into account those who came out using Facebook's prescribed parameters. The study indicated that the number of those that may have come out on Facebook may be higher than the ones reported.
