… of gender identity:
In a surprise announcement Tuesday, Facebook revealed that it is now offering custom categories in the gender selection option beyond the traditional “male” and “female” demarcations.
Unlike Google+, however, which uses “other” as a totalizing option for anybody who wants to express their gender identity outside of the male/female binary (which may help explain why only one percent of its users choose to use it), Facebook is doing its users one better: offering 50 unique terms to choose from. So now instead of just selecting either “male” or “female,” you can choose “custom,” which lets you select your preferred gender identification.
Facebook isn’t allowing users to just write whatever they want, mind you. (I just tried to enter the term “walrus” and had no luck.) But it’s giving more than 50 new options, including everything from “genderqueer” to the defiantly simple “neither.” … As for pronouns, the service is adding the vaguely neutral term “them” to the existing “him” or “her” options.
Joyner is a bit confused:
I must admit, I haven’t the slightest clue what some of these terms mean, much less the distinction between, say, Trans Female, Trans*Female, Trans*Woman, Transexual Female, and Transgender Female. For that matter, if I’m understanding the terms correctly, I’m not only male I’m also Cis, Cis Male, Cis Man, Cisgender, and Cisgender Male; I have no idea what advantage is created by having so many choices to describe the exact same thing.
My point isn’t to make light of this. On balance, I think this is the right move. The fact that simply choosing male was a no-brainer for me under the old category system—indeed, it never occurred to me to wonder why additional choices weren’t provided—is an indicator of privilege. Facebook may have overcompensated here. But at least they’ve inspired a useful conversation.
Paris Lees asks, “Why stop there?”:
I doubt Facebook did this as an act of pure progressiveness to cater for its transgender users and I can’t help wondering what the commercial imperative is. What money is there to be made by sorting people into ever more specific boxes? Advertisers will be wetting themselves – particularly anyone selling wigs, chest binders, or any of the other specialised products aimed at those of us who seek to change our gender. It’s the monetisation of minorities.
But – as many of my Facebook friends have pointed out, wouldn’t it be better to leave a blank box for people to dream up their own gender identities? Why choose from 56?
Update from a reader, who answers Lees’ question:
From someone in the tech field, it’s because data normalization on a free-form field is next to impossible. Where you earlier quoted someone as calling it the “monetization of minorities” (which is entirely correct), there’s no way to target them if FB doesn’t know exactly who it’s targeting. That’s why you have to choose a specific gender – so FB knows exactly what it’s targeting.
The Dish 