Facebook's Gender Evolution

 For as long as I can remember the only gender choices available on everything from standardized tests to social media profiles were male and female. 

That is until recently when Facebook made a change.

As I went into my "About Me" section to edit it I noticed something out of the ordinary. The gender section not only has male and female but a custom block. They have also added which pronoun you prefer. 

 

A step in the right direction…

I did some research online and found from www.slate.com that Facebook now has 56 genders to choose from. Here are what Slate's writer Peter Weber listed and defined some of the genders that can now be selected:

1. Agender/Neutrois — These terms are used by people who don't identify with any gender at all—they tend to either feel they have no gender or a neutral gender. Some use surgery and/or hormones to make their bodies conform to this gender neutrality.

2. Androgyne/Androgynous — Androgynes have both male and female gender characteristics and identify as a separate, third gender.

3. Bigender — Someone who is bigender identifies as male and female at different times. Whereas an androgyne has a single gender blending male and female, a bigender switches between the two.

4. Cis/Cisgender — Cisgender is essentially the opposite of transgender (cis- being Latin for "on this side of" versus trans-, "on the other side"). People who identify as cisgender are males or females whose gender aligns with their birth sex.

5. Female to Male/FTM — Someone who is transitioning from female to male, either physically (transsexual) or in terms of gender identity.

6. Gender Fluid — Like bigender people, the gender-fluid feel free to express both masculine and feminine characteristics at different times.

7. Gender Nonconforming/Variant — This is a broad category for people who don't act or behave according to the societal expectation for their sex. It includes cross-dressers and tomboys as well as the transgender.

8. Gender Questioning — This category is for people who are still trying to figure out where they fit on the axes of sex and gender.

9. Genderqueer — This is an umbrella term for all nonconforming gender identities. Most of the other identities in this list fall into the genderqueer category.

10. Intersex — This term refers to a person who was born with sexual anatomy, organs, or chromosomes that aren't entirely male or female. Intersex has largely replaced the term "hermaphrodite" for humans.

11. Male to Female/MTF — Someone who is transitioning from male to female, either physically (transsexual) or in terms of gender identity.

12. Neither — You understand this one: "I don't feel like I'm fully male or fully female. 'Nuff said."

13. Non-binary — People who identify as non-binary disregard the idea of a male and female dichotomy, or even a male-to-female continuum with androgyny in the middle. For them, gender is a complex idea that might fit better on a three-dimensional chart, or a multidimensional web.

14. Other — Like "neither," this is pretty self-explanatory. It can cover everything from "I'd prefer not to specify how I don't fit in the gender dichotomy" to "My gender is none of your damn business, Facebook."

15. Pangender — Pangender is similar to androgyny, in that the person identifies as a third gender with some combination of both male and female aspects, but it's a little more fluid. It can also be used as an inclusive term to signify "all genders."

16. Trans/Transgender — Transgender is a broad category that encompasses people who feel their gender is different than their birth sex—sometimes known as gender dysphoria. They may or may not choose to physically transition from their birth sex to their experienced gender.

17. Transsexual — Transsexual refers to transgender people who outwardly identify as their experienced gender rather than their birth sex. Many, but not all, transsexuals are transitioning (or have transitioned) from male to female or female to male through hormone therapy and/or gender reassignment surgery.

18. Two-spirit — This term refers to gender-variant Native Americans. In more than 150 Native American tribes, people with "two spirits"—a term coined in the 1990s to replace the term "berdache"—were part of a widely accepted, often respected, category of gender-ambiguous men and women.

 Will Oremus from Slate wrote more on the change:

             "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.

              "All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it's kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are," she said. "This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is."

 Brielle Harrison, Facebook's software engineer, took a huge step for the community. Hopefully others will soon follow suite.

 You should also take a look at Facebook's diversity page:     https://www.facebook.com/facebookdiversity?fref=photo

 Resources:

Oremus, W. (2014, February 13). Facebook No Longer Limits Your Gender to "Male" or "Female". Slate    Magazine. Retrieved August 2, 2014, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/13/facebook_gender_options_male_female_and_custom_plus_preferred_pronouns.html

Weber, P. (2014, February 21). Confused by All the New Facebook Genders? Here's What They Mean..  Slate Magazine. Retrieved August 2, 2014, from http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/02/21/gender_facebook_now_has_56_categories_to_choose_from_including_cisgender.html