Facebook is no longer sure if you're a boy or a girl

In The Beginning God created Adam and Eve. Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg added 50 some-odd variants, because, diversity!

You don't have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them.

Really? Only three "preferred pronouns?" C'mon, you guys can do better than that!

Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company's 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual.

Curiously missing from the list is "confused."

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Now, as a private company, Facebook is of course free to implement whatever features they like. And if letting someone pretend he/she/it is an "authentic" non-binary pangender transexual radfem activist, well it's obviously just another way to increase the value of Zuck's stock options.

My concern is that Facebook hasn't gone far enough. All 50+ of their gender-bender monikers still exist on a male — female continuum. There is a box for "bigender," but not one for tri, quad, or penta-gender. Labels exist for women becoming men, or men transforming into women. You can be a "transgender person," which is apparently disjoint from those of you who are "transexual persons." Not to worry though, FB has plenty of combinations in between.

Which is all well and good.

But, what about Vissians and Andorians? Their sexuality is much more complicated. Surely Facebook wouldn't want to discriminate against the universe of Star Trek.

I mean, if you're going to entertain 50 fictions, why not throw in a few more?

Posted at 23:28 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Perm Link |
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