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Social networking giant Facebook made some vocab upgrades by adding "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership" to their iconic list of relationship statuses yesterday. According to The Huffington Post, the new statuses are currently available in the US, Canada, France, the U.K., and Australia, and will hopefully be available to more users in the near future.

This change comes in conjunction with the company's commitment to make Facebook a safe and inclusive tool for everyone, and was approved by their Network of Support -- a group of LGBT organizations the company partnered with at the height of the 'It Gets Better' campaign to ensure that they were doing their part to prevent cyberbullying.


"This has been a highly requested feature from users," said Facebook's manager of public policy communications, Andrew Noyes. "We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook."

It's important that the option is out there for people who want to use it, and while the law may be separate and unequal for now, at least everyone on the internet can experience the joy of having your third cousin Randy comment on your breakups and get-togethers.

And granted, the only "cvil unions" and "domestic partnerships" I've seen so far have been trolly ones (i.e.: "Katie is in a domestic partnership with her cats"), but that's what people have been doing with the "engaged", "married", and "it's complicated" options for years. Now the LGBTQ community is a just little more included in the social networking cesspool, and it feels good man.



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