Actually, there ARE only two answers.

There are numerous answers as to how one identifys within their biologically determined gender, however, this does not mean there are more than two genders. It simply underlines the incredible power of human conciousness.

So just to come at it from the other side, and because there’s no point in having a serious discussion on a comment thread:  to the author, I appreciate the fact that a tech website is willing to write editorials on this kind of topic.  It’s a breath of fresh air within a dominantly male-heterosexual tech culture environment that mistakes its own self-understanding and self-identification as generally valid, true, and applicable to others who happen to, say, use Google Plus and Facebook. 

On the bright side, I don’t have to shoehorn myself into a category that does not fit. The existence of “other” makes people aware that there *are* people who don’t count themselves as male or female in gender.

On the other: “others” are people who are marginzalized, abused, forgotten. There’s us and them, and others are them.

To the average person who doesn’t know me well, I’m just a guy. I don’t wear Genderqueer Pride colors every day, and thus far, I don’t go out with a beard and a skirt. What bothered me more about G+ originally was that gender was forced public. I could choose Male and be lying and cramming myself back into binary boxes, or Other and out myself to the world.

Thankfully they have fixed that much.

And now I do feel the need to comment myself: if only to represent the other side of the average of the responses here. I would like to let you know that I appreciate your phrasing quite a lot. I am so relieved there are other literate persons out there who even realize this is indeed an issue, that this sheer lack of awareness of Otherness ends up being read as a confused prejudice to those who don’t fit in one of the standard molds.

I notice a prevalent tendency towards this binary thinking – and not just for orientation sorting, but for any misconception that follows the simplistic formula of “if not A, then B, end of line.” I think this needs to be politely brought to public attention before a lot of invisible people get left behind even further. When will come the day when multiple concurrent (and consenting) significant others are just as much the norm as one-at-a-time relationships, and when asexuals are not considered ‘broken’ in the eyes of all the ‘normal healthy’ people? Not to say that the typical homosexual or pansexual person has it easy out there yet – but they do throw themselves some awesome parades and parties, and everyone (in the western world at least) acknowledges those groups exist at all. More traditional views at least -understand- the definition of these groups, whether or not they agree morally or whatnot. Conservatives can process the -idea- of what they would consider a bizarro mirror-universe partnership, but they still can’t even see the other other stacked layers, the other parallel dimensions, the fact that there can be way more than two physical sexes, literally dozens of genders, and an infinite number of ways to group up.

Yes, gender is heavily influenced by surroundings, but in the end, the individual makes a choice – and hopefully consciously. They can subscribe to a default, they can play all the sides, they can invent their own – no one answer is correct, and there are certainly more than two answers to choose from.

That all being said. I don’t mind referring to myself as an ‘other’ for internet filing purposes – if for nothing else than I won’t get served up nonsensical ads that are sex and/or gender specific. I haven’t poked around on Google+ yet, but on Facebook, I never selected a gender in that drop down. You can skip it entirely. Same with Flickr. On Etsy, they go one step further and refer to a single person who does not specify as “they” – a grammatical trend I hope continues to spread. It may seem insignificant or silly, but if merely reformatted webform design can peacefully help resolve mental blockage, then those sites with a huge user base do need to know they have the power to help support that.

Still, I’m all for reducing guilt, so I’m glad we’ve lightened your mental load.

still talking about your ex huh.  pics or it didn’t happen.

How about trying to be a technology news site again?  I don’t give a shit about your personal lives or your feelings, especially when you do a poor job supporting your opinions and don’t take five seconds to think.

Thank you for finally giving me what I need to remove your site from my RSS reader guilt-free.

tl;dr HURR DURR GENDER ISSUES R EVERYWHERE

‘X has her birthday today’
‘Y has commented on his status’