Facebook’s 58 Gender Options Explained

Facebook just announced that they are now offering 58 different gender options for users to choose from. Here is the entire list and some of the options explained to you. 

When you first here that Facebook is now giving you 58 options to identify your gender, it's hard to comprehend why you would need that many to choose from. Once you actually see the different options, it further solidifies that notion.

Here is the entire list of the gender options you have, and definitions from Wikipedia, or in some obscure word's cases, different sites:

• Agender - a term that describes people who lack a gender. Agender people may be of any physical sex, whether DFAB or DMAB (Female-bodied or Male-bodied), someone can still identify as Agender. Gender does not have anything to do with bodies. Think of it as SEX = BODY, GENDER = MINDSET.
• Androgyne - is the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics. It can also refer to biological intersex physicality, especially with regard to plant and human sexuality.
• Androgynous - An androgynous person is a female or male who has a high degree of both feminine (expressive) and masculine (instrumental) traits. (same as the above definition)
• Bigender - describes a person who feels they exhibit two genders. The two genders may include any particular gender on or outside of the gender spectrum.
• Cis - describe related types of gender identity where an individual's experience of their own gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth
• Cisgender - Same as above, a complement to transgender
• Cis Female - a female with a female gender identity
• Cis Male - a male with a male gender identity
• Cis Man - an analogy for cis male
• Cis Woman - an analogy for cis female
• Cisgender Female - same as Cis Female and Cis Woman
• Cisgender Male - an analogy for cis male
• Cisgender Man - same as Cis Male and Cis Man
• Cisgender Woman - same as Cis Female, Cisgender Female and Cis Woman
• Female to Male - a transgender man, assigned female at birth, but identifies as male.
• FTM - short version of Female to Male
• Gender Fluid - a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of boy and girl. A person who is Gender Fluid may always feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more boy some days, and more girl other days.
  Being Gender Fluid has nothing to do with which set of genitalia one has, nor their sexual orientation.
• Gender Nonconforming - is behaviour or gender expression that does not conform to dominant gender norms of male and female. People who exhibit gender variance may be called gender variant, gender non-conforming, or gender atypical.
• Gender Questioning -  is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, and concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons
• Gender Variant - see "Gender Nonconforming"
• Genderqueer - a catch-all category for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and cisnormativity. Genderqueer people may identify as one or more of the following:
  • having an overlap of, or blurred lines between, gender identity and sexual and romantic orientation.
  • two or more genders (bigender, trigender, pangender);
  • without a gender (nongendered, genderless, agender; neutrois);
  • moving between genders or with a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid);
  • third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender
• Intersex - a variation in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that do not allow an individual to be distinctly identified as male or female.
• Male to Female - a transgender woman, assigned male at birth, but identifies as female.
• MTF - short version of Male To Female
• Neither - No Definition; assume the person does not want to be identified as Male or Female
• Neutrois -  an identity used by individuals who feel they fall outside the gender binary. Many feel Neutrois is a gender, like a third gender while others feel agendered. What they have in common is that they wish to minimize their birth gender markers.
• Non-binary - see "Genderqueer"
• Other - NO DEFINITION; assume it is something so random and obscure these 58 terms couldn't help you, maybe a shrink can
• Pangender - people are those who do not wish to be labeled as female or male in gender, as they feel that they do not fit into binary genders because they feel they are all genders. The term has a great deal of overlap with genderqueer and is used by those in the LGBTcommunity meaning "all genders."
• Trans - a term encompassing a range of transgender identities
• Trans* - an umbrella term that refers to all of the identities within the gender identity spectrum. The asterisk makes special note in an effort to include all non-cisgender gender identities, including transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, and trans man and trans woman. The origin behind the asterisk is a bit computer geeky.  When you add an asterisk to the end of a search term, you’re telling your computer to search for whatever you typed, plus any characters after (e.g., [search term*][extra letters], or trans*[-gender, -queer, -sexual, etc.]).  The idea was to include trans and other identities related to trans, in the most technical way.
• Trans Female - transgender person with a female gender identity
• Trans* Female - see "Trans Female"
• Trans Male - transgender person with a male identity
• Trans* Male - see "trans Male"
• Trans Man - see "Trans Male"
• Trans* Man - see "Trans Male"
• Trans Person - the state of one's gender identity or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them.
• Trans* Person - see "Transgender" or "Trans Person"
• Trans Woman - see "Trans Female"
• Trans* Woman - see "Trans Female"
• Transfeminine - see "Trans Female"
• Transgender -  the state of one's gender identity or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them.
• Transgender Female - see "Trans Female"
• Transgender Male - see "Trans Male"
• Transgender Man - see "Trans Male"
• Transgender Person - see "Transgender"
• Transgender Woman - see "Trans Female"
• Transmasculine - a term used to describe those who were assigned female at birth, but identify as more male than female
• Transsexual - describes the condition in which an individual identifies with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their assigned sex, i.e. in which a person's assigned sex at birth conflicts with their psychological gender
• Transsexual Female - born a male who identifies as a female. Could have gender reassignment surgery to become a female
• Transsexual Male - born a female who identifies as a male. Could have gender reassignment surgery to become a male
• Transsexual Man - see "Transsexual Male"
• Transsexual Person - see "Transexual"
• Transsexual Woman - see "Transsexual Female"
• Two-Spirit - an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as berdaches, indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles in First Nations and Native American tribes. Third gender roles historically embodied by two-spirit people include performing work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women. The presence of male two-spirits "was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples."

After painstakingly going through each of the terms and defining them, you can obviously see that many of the terms mean the same thing. Are 58 different words really necessary? Obviously not. I guess this is Facebook's way of trying to be as politically correct as possible. The better option would be to just leave it up to us to write in our own gender identity. Then at least "other" wouldn't be necessary.