Since Facebook's inception, one of the more basic personal profile attributes has been the initial selection of male or female, right up there along with "where do you live"? or maybe "what's your name"?
However, the social media icon has added new a customizable gender selection bar featuring up to fifty different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them.
While this change means little if not absolutely nothing to 99.5% of its users, the transgender community will surely applaud the move to actually identify themselves as who they are similar to an Asian individual who would probably prefer not to have to select "Caucasian" if there were no 'Asian' option for them.
While this may seem to be a non-story for most of the country, it certainly didn't get past the offices of Fox News where the news of this change sparked so much confusion that it merited a Middle School-style laugh and snide mockery of the inclusion of anyone in the trans community or other communities leading Fox Anchor (and Daily Caller owner) Tucker Carlson to ignorantly snarl "and this includes intersex people, whatever that means".
Video, via Media Matters:
Notable in this situation is the unsurprising outrage by rising social conservative star Todd Starnes who just couldn't help himself:
Facebook says it wants their one billion members to feel comfortable being their true authentic self.
But that's not exactly true. What if you identify as a pine cone or a chicken or a weed whacker? Facebook doesn't offer those options.
But they do allow users to be gender fluid.
I'm not sure what that is - but you might want to have a roll of paper towels handy -- just in case.
The bottom line? It must be nice to be you. I'm talking to all the Todd Starnes of the world - do you really think, deep down inside, do you honestly believe that you'd be snarking at these people if you were transgender yourself? Would you oppose the gays if you were gay? Answering that question honestly truly does reflect on a person's foundational beliefs about this world.
One test of a truly good person is the ability to see the world through the eyes of anyone. Thus, we can diagnose the world's problems through the lens of moving everyone forward. It's much easier, and therefore much more cruel to view everything through the lens of what is good for you and those like you.