Facebook Gender cock-up

Yup Facebook are scrabbling to keep themselves in what they like to think is a PC position by adding a further 50+ gender IDs to their previous binary. All this does is further ghettoize non-cis people: any [trans* worth their salt] transexual wants to be recognised as either women or men and accorded the rights that go with it ( equal male/female rights might be a better fight for FB to take up ). FB completely misses the point in a fabulous face-plant which suggests that trans* is a fashion-declaration with which to impress you friends.
Yet another reason I avoid HateBook for the shite it is

stickygirl said:

Yup Facebook are scrabbling to keep themselves in what they like to think is a PC position by adding a further 50+ gender IDs to their previous binary. All this does is further ghettoize non-binary people: any trans* worth their salt wants to be recognised as either women or men and accorded the rights that go with it

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Erm. I think we might not be using some words in the same way.

By my understanding "non-binary" means somebody whose self-designated identity doesn't line up with "male" or "female": e.g. genderqueer, genderfluid, agender. A trans man who wants to be recognised simply as "man", or a trans woman who wants simply "woman", has a binary identity even if it doesn't match what was assigned at birth.

"Trans*" with asterisk encompasses all non-cis gender identities, including both binary trans people and non-binary people: e.g. genderqueer, agender, genderfluid, etc.

So pretty much by definition, non-binary people don't want to be recognised as women exclusive-or men; depending on the person they want both, or none, or male some days and female other days, or It's Complicated. Some people in those groups may well be more comfortable with one of the new options, and the "any trans* worth their salt wants to be recognised as either women or men" comment comes across as marginalising to them, which I doubt was your intention.

But FB being FB, there's still plenty to dislike about it. I've heard of people being outed by the new gender settings: a trans person had custom privacy settings so their family members couldn't view their gender, but it still sent the family members notifications with pronouns based on their private settings.

Also, as long as the list is, it's very white. Polynesian islanders, Australian Aboriginals, South-East Asians, probably others I've forgotten: all of those cultures have their own distinctive non-cis identities but you won't see "brotherboy", "sistergirl", "hijra", "mahu", "fa'afafine", or "whakawahine" on that list. One solitary Indigenous American option, that's all.

A better option would just be to let people write in gender and pronouns as a free-text field. The reason they did it this way almost certainly comes down to marketing: FB want demographic info so they can show people targeted ads, and it's much easier to do that with a multiple-choice list than free text.

Yup - I stand corrected so thanks BT. I'm too wrapped up in my own tinsel world and was narked by FB. I hope you don't mind if I tippex over a couple of adjectives, partly through embarrassment but also to put across a more balanced blurt?

There was good article in the Guardian that asked why people had to declare their gender at all, but that would just confuse the advertising bots

stickygirl said:

Yup - I stand corrected so thanks BT. I'm too wrapped up in my own tinsel world and was narked by FB. I hope you don't mind if I tippex over a couple of adjectives, partly through embarrassment but also to put across a more balanced blurt?

There was good article in the Guardian that asked why people had to declare their gender at all, but that would just confuse the advertising bots

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Cool, I figured you hadn't intended it that way