Facebook allows nonbinary gender identities

[Othelos]

More options aren't a bad thing.

Of course not...but when you give me 7 ways for me to say I'm a non-Transgender male.... that's a bit much.

Only if you want it to be.

[Transhuman Proteus]

Some of them are basically repeats.

Yep. Repeats which are completely unnecessary.

I don't see any problem with putting the same thing down with different wording. If it was an official document of some kind? Sure.

But facebook? It's a social media website. Maybe they just wanted to cover their bases and weren't sure if they might be excluding an actual, distinct type of gender by picking only one of, say, transgender woman or transgender female etc.

Or maybe they were ahead of the curve and recognize that in social communities (which Facebook claims to want to foster) people might have preferred words and ways of addressing something like that, and wanted to let people use the accurate terms they use in their non-facebook life. I know of some people who'll use MTF before the alternatives, and vice versa. A person might want to be recognized by other people who use and understand "trans* man" to describe themselves, and so feel happier picking it over "transgender male" which can carry different connotations for people. Or Cis - not every cisguy & girl out there are even aware the term exists, but some people think it's important to recognize it.

Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

[Luveria]

More options aren't a bad thing.

Of course not...but when you give me 7 ways for me to say I'm a non-Transgender male.... that's a bit much.

Why?

[Luveria]

Yep. Repeats which are completely unnecessary.

I don't see any problem with putting the same thing down with different wording. If it was an official document of some kind? Sure.

But facebook? It's a social media website. Maybe they just wanted to cover their bases and weren't sure if they might be excluding an actual, distinct type of gender by picking only one of, say, transgender woman or transgender female etc.

Or maybe they were ahead of the curve and recognize that in social communities (which Facebook claims to want to foster) people might have preferred words and ways of addressing something like that, and wanted to let people use the accurate terms they use in their non-facebook life. I know of some people who'll use MTF before the alternatives, and vice versa. A person might want to be recognized by other people who use and understand "trans* man" to describe themselves, and so feel happier picking it over "transgender male" which can carry different connotations for people.

Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

Personally I don't like the word "trans*", as I prefer "trans". That is one of many reasons why there really are different terms that may suit a person's needs better.

[Transhuman Proteus]

I don't see any problem with putting the same thing down with different wording. If it was an official document of some kind? Sure.

But facebook? It's a social media website. Maybe they just wanted to cover their bases and weren't sure if they might be excluding an actual, distinct type of gender by picking only one of, say, transgender woman or transgender female etc.

Or maybe they were ahead of the curve and recognize that in social communities (which Facebook claims to want to foster) people might have preferred words and ways of addressing something like that, and wanted to let people use the accurate terms they use in their non-facebook life. I know of some people who'll use MTF before the alternatives, and vice versa. A person might want to be recognized by other people who use and understand "trans* man" to describe themselves, and so feel happier picking it over "transgender male" which can carry different connotations for people.

Personally I don't like the word "trans*", as I prefer "trans". That is one of many reasons why there really are different terms that may suit a person's needs better.

Indeed, and exactly.

[Ermarian]

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

And yeah, people would probably put in nonsensical stuff, but that's already happening for all the other profile fields. That "real-name policy" is a joke.

Curiously, the sexual orientation still contains only two checkboxes.

[Ancient Magmia]

This is great.

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

[Olthar]

This is nice.

[Transhuman Proteus]

This is great.

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Indeed. I heard someone make that suggestion today, and I instantly imagined just as much complaining from anti-transgendered etc pundits, pictured one of them going onto facebook on there show and typing in something rediculous and holding that up as proof that they're right and being transgendered is just make believe.

"We'll, according to my facebook profile I'm now an asexual tree! See, it's pandering like this that is dangerous to societyblah, blah, blah"

[Ermarian]

This is great.

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

[Luveria]

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

And yeah, people would probably put in nonsensical stuff, but that's already happening for all the other profile fields. That "real-name policy" is a joke.

Curiously, the sexual orientation still contains only two checkboxes.

What checkboxes are those?

[Herador]

This is great.


Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

No point in giving someone a brand new way to make an ass out of themselves though, especially on an issue as sensitive as this.

[New Frenco Empire]

This is great.

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Just because I wanted to put "space marine" as my gender...

Either way, you can pretty much do it with any field. My FB is just one big joke anyway, and since they were bound to miss something, I still think custom-written fields are the way to go.

[Luveria]

This is great.


Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Just because I wanted to put "space marine" as my gender...

Either way, you can pretty much do it with any field. My FB is just one big joke anyway, and since they were bound to miss something, I still think custom-written fields are the way to go.

Or they could add in new options later on.

[Libertechie]

Awesomo! Now I can have my gender identity and pronouns on my fb without having to spend an hour by freaking hacking it.

[Ancient Magmia]

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

True, though offensive anti-transgender material being put in there do more serious damage. Religion and politics are something that people will naturally disagree on, but gender identity shouldn't be one of those things you can post any sort of nonsense in.

[Transhuman Proteus]

This is great.


Maybe to prevent people from imputing stupid or offensive material.

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

Lots of people see a difference between things like race, gender, sexual orientation etc (the more set in stone things), and the aspects of our life we choose to follow/be a part of. Whether it is justified or not I guess depends on how one views it.

Plus, as many different officially recognized terms for particular genders as facebook can list, there's a lot more for professions, job titles, religions and particular political parties/philosophies etc. The place I'm working at the moment has just been acquired by an international company, and they've given everyone new titles, some of which I've never heard of - Digital Archivist Comptroller? Strategic Logistics Analyst? I'd pity the Facebook intern who had to come up with any sort of comprehensive profession list. 58 relatively official terms for gender is a lot less then tens of thousands of different relatively official profession titles.

Or if you will - it's not to hard to make a fairly functional, realtively definitive list of genders, which can't be said for religions (if you're giving people the options to get down to sects and particular denominations etc) or professions

[Ermarian]

If they had to add over fifty options, why not just allow entering custom text? There's bound to be an option they missed; not to mention the possibility of selecting multiple options.

And yeah, people would probably put in nonsensical stuff, but that's already happening for all the other profile fields. That "real-name policy" is a joke.

Curiously, the sexual orientation still contains only two checkboxes.

What checkboxes are those?

"Interested in:
[ ] Women [ ] Men"

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

No point in giving someone a brand new way to make an ass out of themselves though, especially on an issue as sensitive as this.

It's their choice to make an ass of themselves, though. I honestly don't think defining a list of pre-approved gender options (beyond moderating obvious abuse) is any more necessary than it would be to curate the politics and religion fields. If someone enters a ridiculous value, this shouldn't constitute an invalidation of someone else's sincerely held identity, any more than writing in "Pastafarian" invalidates sincerely held religions.

And obviously, if someone uses it to be abusive, it can still get moderated. Hell, Facebook can filter it for known abuse and send unknown values to a moderation queue.

[Luveria]

What checkboxes are those?

"Interested in:
[ ] Women [ ] Men"

So where do I mark down that I'm only interested in trans women?

[Multifarity]

Oh. Did they not already do this, then?

[Ermarian]

"Interested in:
[ ] Women [ ] Men"

So where do I mark down that I'm only interested in trans women?

"Women" should cover it; marking subsets of genders probably shouldn't be necessary (because that kind of stuff actually does sound a bit iffy, much as explicitly marking exclusive attraction to cis women, or white women, or whatever). But what about attraction to non-binary genders?

[New Frenco Empire]

Just because I wanted to put "space marine" as my gender...

Either way, you can pretty much do it with any field. My FB is just one big joke anyway, and since they were bound to miss something, I still think custom-written fields are the way to go.

Or they could add in new options later on.

As long as space marine is an option, I'll be happy.

Yeah, edited while you were posting. I see that point, but people can already put in stupid or offensive text for politics, religion, and all the other areas like education and profession. Not to mention the name, or setting the birthdate to 1905.

True, though offensive anti-transgender material being put in there do more serious damage. Religion and politics are something that people will naturally disagree on, but gender identity shouldn't be one of those things you can post any sort of nonsense in.

Transphobes will be transphobes. Limiting customization won't stop them.

Besides, if it's offensive beyond site rules (I don't see these people putting anything worse than "man jst liek tha lord of the rings GAWD almitey intented" or some other shit, really), moderating exists. There are thousands and thousands of genders (and immature fucks like me who just want to abuse customization to make my FB as stupid as possible, but that isn't the point). Be on the lookout for overly-offensive posts and bam: so good.

[New Frenco Empire]

Oh. Did they not already do this, then?

I think "other" was an option before.

[Luveria]

So where do I mark down that I'm only interested in trans women?

"Women" should cover it; marking subsets of genders probably shouldn't be necessary.

It does cover it but it's not unusual someone would be specifically interested in trans females just as how many people are only interested in cis ones.

But what about attraction to non-binary genders?

Such as what?

I like femme males too, but if I put down "Men", that carries certain implications like an expectation I'm interested in "men" and not only the very feminine males.

[Ermarian]

I just went on Facebook to check this, and selecting the custom gender option now does create a text field.

Edit: Re attraction - if it is possible to enter a gender identity that doesn't fall under "Men" or "Women" or both (such as agendered, etc.) then it should probably be possible to enter a sexual orientation including those identities - currently bisexual/pansexual people have to basically stick with the same options.