Out on Facebook: move over, Friendster: an online community made for college students has been growing fast, especially among young gays and lesbians

Most mornings, Princeton University student Robert Kennelley sits down in front of his computer to do two important things: check his e-mail

and log on to Facebook.com, an online community primarily for intercollegiate students that has exploded in popularity over the past year; it was recently also made available to high schools. Unlike its popular counterpart, Friendster.com, Facebook is open only to individuals with a university e-mail address or a screened high school address, and gay students are getting into it in a big way.

The site allows the 21-year-old Kennelley to regularly update his online profile, including an ever-changing list of favorite bands and movies. But there is one field he doesn't change: In the category "interested in," Kennelley has filled in "men." He is what's known among Facebook users as "out on the Facebook," a student whose profile describes an interest in dating someone of the same sex. "It's no longer even something I give a second thought to," says Kennelley, who came out at 18. "Part of me is very [obsessive], and so I have to fill out every box on the form if at all possible. I wasn't going to omit putting 'men' because I saw no reason not to."

Kennelley's profile also includes his campus address, his cell phone number, and the courses he is taking. It can be seen by over 7,500 Princeton undergraduates and faculty who need only a "princeton.edu" e-mail address to register on the free site. "It's a visual," says Kennelley, who uses Facebook three or four times a day to look up cell phone numbers or just to kill time. "It's very much something students use to connect with each other now."

The site went online in February 2004 for Harvard University students, but after 6,000 students registered within the first three weeks, its founder, then-Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg, wanted to see if it would catch on at other schools. Now Facebook.com boasts over 4 million registered users at over 2,000 colleges.

From the beginning Facebook wanted to be gay-friendly, says Chris Hughes, the site's out spokesman. But the only way users can express their sexual orientation is through the "interested in" field. The hope was "to open up as much space as possible for different identities," Hughes says. "We agreed that it was a much more logical way to set up the whole sexuality identification."

Gay and lesbian students at some schools may want to be cautious about coming out on Facebook. "At some schools, perhaps even the majority of the schools in our nation, being gay or interested in the same sex is still controversial," says Hughes. "But I think most of the people who are comfortable [coming out] on Facebook are also those who are willing to face the challenges that might come with that in social environments."

Kennelley agrees. "In this day and age you have to weigh the dangers with the benefits," he says. "Of course, I think being out far outweighs any dangers it entails. Being out on the Facebook is a statement, just like coming out face-to-face. It has that same value."

COPYRIGHT 2005 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group