Last Thursday, Facebook changed
its gender
identity feature. Previously, it distinguished only between
male and female. Now, it allows users to choose among transgender,
genderqueer, intersex and over 50 other possibilities. One may also
pick his/her/their pronoun of choice. The Daily Beast
provides the complete
list as well as definitions for each term. For making these
advances, we can thank an increasingly techno-centric mindset that
has displaced the zero-sum mentality of government.
Predictably, some people are not happy.
On a recent episode of Fox & Friends, Clayton
Morris and Tucker Carlson
poked fun at the new feature, questioning why people would want
to use it.
Jane Fae of The Guardian argues it would be better if
Facebook simply eliminated gender identification entirely, because
she
believes it negatively impacts women.
Yet, as Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison
told the Associated Press, “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.” And why shouldn’t it?
In facilitating these options, the social media site has
realized something previously relegated to science fiction. In Kurt
Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, an alien race called
Tralfamadorians
can see more dimensions than humans. This makes them generally
peaceful and understanding, and specifically allows them to
recognize a spectrum of sexes beyond male and female.
Undoubtedly, individuals have long felt they don’t fit perfectly
within social norms or their own biological structure. When
Vonnegut’s novel was published in 1969, though, alternative sexual
lifestyles were taboo, and enforced
as such by law.
Government has long operated with a mindset of simple binaries:
Republican or Democrat, yes or no, with us or against us. This
political culture pushes a complex society onto opposite ends of
ideological poles and fumbles with protecting the rights of
some while
infringing on others. Meanwhile, the rest of society, thanks in
part to our technology saturation, wears away at this outmoded,
two-dimensional paradigm in favor a more
cooperative, dynamic, and productive one.
From social media to
professional sports–available and engageable on TV, computers,
phones, and smartwatches–we continuously expose ourselves to
countless ideas, settings, and
products that may challenge
and develop our worldview. Likewise,
big data-crunching technology becomes ever more finely
calibrated to cater to particularized wants. Carlson, Morris, and
Fae are free to maintain their personal preferences about Facebook
and gender. They aren’t set in opposition to alternatives, but
alongside them. Nobody loses. Instead, we all move a bit closer to
a once-fantastical future that provides abundant options for
self-expression and the ability of each individual to determine the
value of those options for himself/herself/themselves.
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