50+ Gender options on Facebook?!

[dalebert]

I hate Facebook and I'm not on it, but perhaps this makes them marginally less evil. If you want to social network with me, I'm on Diaspora (link in my sig).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/13/facebook_custom_gender_options_here_are_all_56_custom_options.html

[LordKAT]

I think no gender should be asked. They may ask about preferred pronouns but skip the rest of that garbage.

[dalebert]

I was thinking just have a space that you can type whatever you want into for gender. Still, that wouldn't be as educational for total gender noobs as seeing all those options. I imagine it will inspire a lot of curiosity and maybe some Googling.

[Natkat]

I was thinking just have a space that you can type whatever you want into for gender. Still, that wouldn't be as educational for total gender noobs as seeing all those options. I imagine it will inspire a lot of curiosity and maybe some Googling.

Well that's pretty much what you do.

When you go to facebook you have the typical male or female option and then you have one called custom. by custom you can type anything you like and alot of those 58 words pop up like when you seach for something on google. 58 words sound like alot but it dosen't feel like that many when you type it like this. Most of the words are the same but varientations of what you prefern. ex FTM, transman, or trans male. I wouldn't mind having more words, they ex don't have "transguy" which is my prefern word, but theres always an option of "other" is you don't find anything who seams to fit, and its also posible to use multiply terms so you both can be "transgender-ftm-genderqueer" ex

another important point is you can also hide your gender and be gender neutral, and you decide if your pronome should be "he" "she" or "they"
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it not 100% perfect but in general I think it really awsome and easy to use so I will say well done to facebook.
only sad point is it only works in English US, so everyone like me who do not have there facebook in english or in the "wrong english" (ex UK) must change our settings first, which mean it only people who have some Ok english skills who can use these. theres however still an option on hidding your gender and become gender neutral no matter which languarge you use, but its alittle complicated still. If the multiply-gender option becomes a succes maybe it will spread to the other languarges as well. I think so far they are just testing it.







you can settle multiply options or you can hide your gender so it only available for you, and let facebook use gender neutral pronouce for you.

[YBtheOutlaw]

i don't think i was planning to or am going to use any of the gender options other than 'male'. until i'm out enough to use it freely i'm keeping my gender hidden. anyway the pronouns have been torturing me forever and i didn't dare pick male even when it's hidden for others and make facebook use male pronouns for me. so i had to tick female and keep it hidden, and let the pronouns ruin my life. so obviously the first thing i did after hearing this news was setting my preferred pronouns to neutral. i'm still afraid it might raise questions as to why i suddenly became 'they'. but i just couldn't let the option go waste.

[Natkat]

i don't think i was planning to or am going to use any of the gender options other than 'male'. until i'm out enough to use it freely i'm keeping my gender hidden. anyway the pronouns have been torturing me forever and i didn't dare pick male even when it's hidden for others and make facebook use male pronouns for me. so i had to tick female and keep it hidden, and let the pronouns ruin my life. so obviously the first thing i did after hearing this news was setting my preferred pronouns to neutral. i'm still afraid it might raise questions as to why i suddenly became 'they'. but i just couldn't let the option go waste.

If theres problems I guess you can say you think it ridiculous that gender should be important to list on social networks like facebook.

I once complained for IT suport on my school because we had to find a job for our work experience. Few days after I complained the guy said they had taken off gender and age on the settings for the site because they didn't think it should matter which gender or age we had and they did not want any company to favour us for these informations.

[dalebert]

BTW, Diaspora just has a blank line to type in whatever you want for gender and I described my gender the same way I've been describing it for years, and it wasn't an option on Facebook: "lesbian in a gay man's body".