Gay not an option on MySpace profiles

May 3, 2007

When signing up for an account on MySpace, a popular social networking site, and filling out the "Background and Lifestyle" area of your profile, if you are a gay male MySpace doesn't list that as a possible sexual orientation.

When selecting the option for your sexuality or homosexuality, you can select amongst "bisexual", "lesbian", "straight", "not sure" or "no answer," but there is no option to select "gay."

Gay refers to homosexuals in general but sometimes gay can be used to refer only to homosexual men. Lesbian generally only refers to homosexual women.

According to an Internet report, it was removed some time ago, after News Corporation bought MySpace. Rupert Murdoch is in charge of News Corporation and last year said that he was "homophobic and crazy" on the issue of gay marriage.

Despite the report, MySpace says that they did not know about Murdoch's views on homosexuality and calls the incident a bug, which was supposed to be fixed during the overnight hours of May 3. As of the May 5 the situation is unchanged.

"Some people have asked about the missing orientation option for 'gay' on edit profile. That's a bug that should be fixed later tonight... No, MySpace does not hate gay people.. duh," said a message posted on user's MySpace account pages by the site's founder Tom Anderson.