Classification & Being Called into Being

At one point in her lecture, Crawford argues that bias is not an error of certain classificatory systems but a feature of classification itself. For example, she points to Facebook’s expansion of its gender identification choices from two to fifty-six in the span of two years, which, for her, did not solve the problem of under- or mis-representation, as it rests on the same classificatory logic that limited gender identity expression to pre-formed categories in the first place. Crawford suggests that a free-text field or doing away with the gender identification option altogether would have been more effective. However, I wonder whether the latter suggestion is even feasible or desirable. This ties into Drabinski’s argument that we need categories “in order to come into being,” though that “being” can always be contested, subverted, and resisted (103). This also comes up in Foucault, when he argues that “fabulous” animals are not impossible “because they are designated as such,” rather, it is their proximity to “real” animals that is impossible (2). To what extent does designation or classification make something or someone real or call them “into being”? How important to the process of resisting and re-making categories is the ability to call out their biases? In the same way that there is no way to permanently correct classificatory systems, is there any way, let alone any point, to permanently erase them?