56 “custom gender” options to choose from to present his “true, authentic self” to the world

Facebook offers 56 new ways of being You

by Kelly Bartlett

How ironic that a company reliant on a binary code 

rejects the binary reality of male and female.

Facebook is a powerhouse of social media that not only reflects our culture but leads it. “Friend” used to be a noun until Facebook turned it into a verb. Getting "tagged" has a whole new meaning. Now friends aren’t assessed by what they have in common or how much they like each other; they are simply numbered and measured by what they “Like.” Getting an account on Facebook is a rite of passage for many 13-year-olds. And when your young teen registers, he now has 56 “custom gender” options to choose from to present his “true, authentic self” to the world.

Facebook explains on its Diversity page:

When you come to Facebook to connect with the people, causes, and organizations you care about, we want you to feel comfortable being your true, authentic self. An important part of this is the expression of gender, especially when it extends beyond the definitions of just “male” or female.” So today, we’re proud to offer a new custom gender option to help you better express your own identity on Facebook.
We collaborated with our Network of Support, a group of leading LGBT advocacy organizations, to offer an extensive list of gender identities that many people use to describe themselves. Moreover, people who select a custom gender will now have the ability to choose the pronoun they’d like to be referred to publicly — male (he/his), female (she/her) or neutral (they/their).


Options include: agender, bigender, cisgender, genderqueer, and neither as well as several trans options, with and without an asterisk.

Although users can choose from 58 gender labels, advertisers are interested in the three key pronouns: he, she, or they. It doesn’t matter whether you write “Trans female” or “Trans* Male,” they’ll base their marketing on your pronoun of choice. Every connection made by the 159 million monthly consumers in the US gives Facebook another opportunity to connect with the bank.

The trans community welcomed Facebook’s catering to virtual diversity. ABC News reported:

"There's going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world," said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also changing her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.

Indeed. Can you hear the yearning in this comment someone wrote regarding Facebook’s new terminology?

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have made me feel like a real person and I cannot tell you how much that matters.”

This person needs a custom gender on Facebook to “feel like a real person”? What are we doing wrong? Why does he or she not feel real already?

With 1.23 billion users worldwide, Facebook knows a thing or two about connecting people. Society is trending towards tolerance, unity and equality with the intention of breaking through stereotypes. Everyone wants to feel special and be treated as a unique individual. But will offering 56 new labels on social media advance this goal? Or will extra layers of labels simply fence us in different corrals? For people who don’t like to be boxed in, why would a different box be better?

And if you think 58 options for gender are sufficient, think again. How will Facebook translate these gender options for their global users who speak a foreign language? And what about the consumers urging Facebook to offer corresponding variations for their “Relationships.” One commenter wrote: "Now Facebook needs to fix how they handle sexual orientation!" Instead of settling the matter, Facebook opened up Pandora’s box of myths.

..............

Read more: www.mercatornet.com