Just now I accessed my Facebook homepage to be told that I had to select either male or female on my profile so as to avoid confusion in my mini-feed.
I.
Mean.
Because people who have not disclosed a sex can't have done so for a good reason.
I investigated further and, on Facebook's Page, discovered a letter from some Facebook official claiming that, while they had respect for people who found the labels 'male' and 'female' too limiting, they had also discovered that, when translating the language of Facebook into different languages, lack of sex prescription resulted in 'inaccuracies'.
I want to make a formal complaint and I don't know where I should direct it to. I mean, I've commented on Facebook Page's note, but am not sure if this is official enough.
Luckily, you can opt to close the box without actually picking a sex, which is something. I'm not as miffed as I would be if they'd forced me.
But yeah, stupid in my opinion. I've got bloody good reasons for staying neutral right now, what with having a mix of contacts from university and back home.
Anyway, if this causes problems only in translation, why do English-speaking Facebook users have to choose?
I got that message as well, quite hilarious really! A suggestion of gender neutral pronouns could be useful but loads of people don't like them. I think said inaccuracies can be treated as amusing rather than a scary confusing implication of fragmented gender.
There is a group calling for the end of this sort of thing called 'For a queer positive facebook' - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2214484023.
well their reasoning is if u look at someone elses page who maybe has it written in another language all those things come up in ur chosen language including mini-feed, which raises translation issues as the vast majority of languages (i can think of atleast) have gender specific casing - which leads us back to james's favourite argument about language. However, i wonder whether anyone at facebook bothered to consider that these languages also have a gender neutral casing for verbs (such as ons in french) which may be a valid point in raising in that grp!!
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Mrs Doyle: I have cake!
Father Ted: No thanks, Mrs Doyle.
Mrs Doyle: Are you sure, Father? They've got cocaine in em!
Father Ted: WHAT?
Mrs Doyle: Oh, no, not cocaine. God, what am I on about. No, what d'you call them. Raisins.
Theres a gender application thing you can add to your profile and express yourself with... its little pinky blue gender symbol on my profile.
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Nic // LGBT Society Events Officer 05/06 // LGBT Assembly Chair 05/06 - NUS LGBT Society of the year 2006(winners) //
LUU honarary life member - Awarded 2006 // LGBT Assembly Mentor 2006 -Onwards.
Contact me at nicturner_85@hotmail.com
Nic // LGBT Society Events Officer 05/06 // LGBT Assembly Chair 05/06 - NUS LGBT Society of the year 2006(winners) //
LUU honarary life member - Awarded 2006 // LGBT Assembly Mentor 2006 -Onwards.
Contact me at nicturner_85@hotmail.com
Yes - but some people do find it very useful, myself included. It's actually called the SGO application (standing for Sexuality Gender Omg), if anyone wants to find it. Whilst privacy of gender qualification should be respected, so should a fuller expression ... there's also a Facebook group set up that I've joined called something along the lines of 'Select one: my right to not disclose my gender' or something, which I highly recommend.
