Male, female or custom? Facebook adds options for users to self-identify

Most people don't know there's a difference between sex and gender.

I never thought I'd be grateful for being a fat, nerdy, awkward kid. It sure sucked a lot of the time then. But now those experiences really help me appreciate why it's important to try to be especially respectful toward people who are different not just in my specific ways, but in their own fashion. They are already getting enough crap.

Your notions about what makes for a human is something that lives in your head. Which is fine; the world is a complicated place, and we can't represent it in 3 pounds of meat without simplifying.

But the mistake many people make with gender (and a lot of other things) is to try to reverse the flow, demanding that the world correspond to the mental model.

As a non-gender example, I have friends who are ethnically complicated. Sometimes people will just ask them, "What are you?" Even strangers on the street. By which they mean, "I am uncomfortable because you don't conform to my notions of race. Please put yourself in one of my boxes." Those people always look like assholes.

When I arrived in San Francisco 15 years ago, I used to worry about what gender people were. I was uncomfortable that they didn't fit in the categories I had inherited. Was that person "really" a woman? Eventually I learned that gender was much more complicated than I expected.

But I also learned that other people don't have an obligation to fit neatly into my prejudices. Now my take is practical: unless I'm intending to have sex with somebody, what they have in their pants is none of my business. English, alas, makes ignoring gender entirely impossible. So sometimes I am forced to ask, "Hey, what pronoun would you like me to use for you?"

This is a thing, there are people. Human sex is non-binary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XYY_syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRY

And, in fact, there's research showing connections between transgender identity (where socially constructed gender -- usually based on the more obvious indicia of biological sex -- doesn't line up with gender identity) and instances where the various indicia of biological sex aren't aligned in the usual way. Its not, as I understand, apparently the only factor in transgender identity, but it seems to be a significant correlate.

The idea that gender ought to be simple seems largely supported by the illusion that sex is simple.

In this case, Facebook is going from 1 bit to 6 bits. I think they can handle it.

For example, what gender would you assign to someone who was born with both sets of genitalia, and had the choice made by their parents to remove the vagina? She may choose to identify as female because that's how her brain (and possibly breasts) evolved, regardless of the choice her parents made for her as a baby.

The transgender "agenda" isn't forcing anyone to do anything, it's about having basic respect for the identity of those you interact with.

You're free to reject "other people's illusions", but there's a good chance you'll just come across as insensitive and a bit of a jerk.

Exactly! And that's why changes like this are so important. I, like you, don't want to be pressured into referring to someone by a gender identity which does not match their reality.

Your personal relationship to gender is very simple. Yay, good for you. But there are people whose relationships are more complex. I promise that they have thought about gender 100x more than you have, and it is you that have the illusions here.

How do I know? Well, I started out with those same illusions and then actually talked to people who changed gender or who just don't fit well in a gender-binary framework. I learned a lot. If you're willing to set aside your arrogance on this, you could do the same.

So, even from the "biology is the only real thing that legitimate justifies gender identity" perspective -- a perspective that I personally find ludicrous but which is nonetheless common among people who whine about a "transgender agenda" and assert that gender identity is somehow invalid when it doesn't line up with biology -- even from that narrow-minded perspective transgender people (or a very significant share of them, at any rate) have a legitimate claim to a distinct gender identity.

The illusions about sex and gender are yours, not theirs.

Or do you not want to be pressured into describing things accurately?

Sex is biological, gender is a label people choose to identify with. How could it be an illusion? Would you prefer to inspect their genitalia before using pronouns? Men could always label themselves as female if they want anyway, now they simply have more options.

Do you also refuse to use nicknames because they're different from their legal names? What about Internet handles?

If you believe in the right of self-determination, what's the fucking difference how someone self-identifies?

Oh right, by claiming they're not really male or female for reasons x, y, and z.

Odd; most online and conventional media outlets are saying something completely different.