Facebook Gender Options Go Beyond Just Male and Female
We all have grown up signing off either “male” or “female” on all types of documents and online when it comes to online gender, but the thing is, not everybody’s sexuality is that simple. Most are born with both types of organs and it’s complicated when it comes to classifying them(selves).
Facebook has thus decided to add on more classes on it’s “gender” options for user profiles so you are better able to customize your sex according to what class you feel you really belong to. You can choose to be either transgender, hermaphrodite, andrognynous, bi-gender, or transexual because they want people to be more authentic in expressing themselves when it comes to their sexuality. This will only be available for people using the site in US English, so if you are, check out you gender options on your account profile.
It got me thinking, would it work in Zambia? I doubt it. We have strict laws about homosexuality so anybody who has these types of sexes would compromise themselves.
For example, let’s go with transgender, meaning you have one sexual organ, let’s say the female organ, but you feel like you’re a male inside. That means you could possibly have intercourse with females and you would be passed off as lesbian immediately!! That’s straight to the slammer (jail) for you with a possible loooooooong sentence here in Zambia.
Fortunately though, only the people you choose can actually see your chosen gender on your Facebook profile. But then again, never trust anybody. There are snitches everywhere.
Most reports record that only 1 per cent in any population is either transgender or transexual so that Facebook gender option is an initiative to allow them to classify themselves freely.
I don’t blame people for being born a certain way, and they obviously have a hard time trying to fit into a particular role especially if their family forces them to accept to be a particular sex. I mean, if you have both sexual organs (termed hermaphrodite) and you’re forced to be a girl, but your boy instincts are more dominant for you, that could be really hard to live with especially in a society such as ours where such things are termed ungodly, spiritual, witchcraft related or cursed.
This is no way an endorsement for homosexuality though. To each his/her opinion. I’m just saying people are not always born JUST male or female, and it has been acknowledged, hence the increased the Facebook gender options.
Image credit: commoncore.hku
