Facebook adds new gender identity options for confused or stupid users!

NEW YORK (PNN) - February 14, 2014 - Facebook on Thursday added custom gender options for users to identify themselves other than "male" and "female".

Users now can identify themselves as bigender, androgynous, cisgender, or in one of more than 50 ways. The move initially applies only to the company's 159 million monthly users in the Fascist Police States of Amerika.

Facebook plans to provide the additional options to users outside the FPSA as well, but it did not reveal a time line.

With the goal of enabling users to feel comfortable about being themselves, Facebook teamed up with several leading homosexual advocacy groups to compile a list of gender identities. Those who select a custom gender will have the option to choose the pronoun to which they are referred publicly - male (he/his), female (she/her), or neutral (they/their).

In addition, Facebook users now can select the audience with whom they share their gender identity. Many people face difficulties when going public with their gender identities, Facebook acknowledged, and customizing their sharing audience will allow them to express their true identities with those they trust. Users still have the option of keeping their gender identities private, as they have been able to do for years.

Facebook engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project, is undergoing male-to-female gender transformation. Harrison changed her gender identity from female to trans woman.

The move has drawn praise from homosexual organizations, which worked on the project with Facebook, and the Transgender Law Center. However, critics have decried the change.

Proponents of the new choices are trying to argue there's an infinite number of gender identities, said Jeff Johnston, an issues analyst for Focus on the Family.

However, that doesn’t make it so, he said, insisting, "It's impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and female."

When it comes to advertising, marketers can target users based on whether they are male or female. Those who change to one of the new identification options will be targeted based on the pronouns they choose. Advertisers will not be able to target users if they identify as transgender or if they recently changed gender.

Other social networks have toyed with similar options. Google+ lets users identify themselves as "male," "female" or "other." Around 1% of Google+ users identify as the latter.