Profile Gender Options

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This is a follow-up to miasp5's post.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt226127.html

I want to poll the WP users about the necessity for another option for gender for your profile.

Right now, the profile only includes "male" and "female". We think it's high time it also included options like "transgender", "androgynous", "genderqueer", "not telling", or simply "other".

Please answer the poll, and hopefully the people who could make such a change would be willing to consider it. It might be a lot of work, but I think we have enough people here who don't fit into the binary in quite the typical way that it would be worth the effort.

If "Gender: M/F/L/G/B/T/Other" is allowed, then an option for "Sex: M/F" should be included as well.

Or do away with such discrimination-based data altogether; I mean, there is no option for Religion, Politics, Disability, Income, Education, or Ethnicity, is there?

No, there is not.

Then why allow - or even ask for - data that could inspire discriminatory posts (or discriminatory deletion of posts) from others?

I think it would be a good idea to at least add an "other" option. Some people may not be comfortable with random internet people knowing their sex/gender and some people may not identify as male or female. This way, they don't have to feel like they are lying on their profile by selecting male or female and it does not outwardly state if they are trans or genderqueer or whatever so discrimination would not be a problem.

I support this all the way. Don't have anything to add right about now, though.

Perhaps you could also take this suggestion to this subforum, where you're more likely to be noticed by the moderators, Callista: http://www.wrongplanet.net/forum13.html

Surely if you're trans you identify as either male or female - so you would choose whichever you identify with ... it doesn't matter what biological sex you were allocated at birth.

I think there is call for an "other" option though and possibly a "not telling" option.

Or do away with the gender part of the profile altogether.

Yes. Still, many people consider being trans a big part of their identity, and others are in the middle of transitioning or still, for one reason or another, living as their assigned gender. Seems to me it should be allowed to be open about being transgender, especially here, if one wishes to be.

Also, many do not see themselves as being either one of the binary genders. Having options for "other" and "undisclosed" would be nice.

There is no need for a "sex" entry as Fnord suggested.

I would at least like the option to not having to pick.

I don't think it should be mandatory to have to disclose the shape of my genitals.

I don't know. Personally, I'm fine with the idea of being physically female, but I've never understood the whole gender thing or what it's like to "feel like a woman" or "feel like a man".
"Sex" would be a better word for it, for me, than "gender".

One option should be blank.

I don't know what it's like to "feel like a woman" or "feel like a man" but I don't want to have one option to put down "other" or "none" or "blank" or whatever might be available to describe my gender or lack thereof, and then be faced with a second option where I essentially have to add "but I am really female," and I don't really mind being identified or referred to as female.



^^^^^

Yes.

The way I had envisioned it wasn't as a separate thing, but rather as part of a general set of "Sex/Gender" options in a person's profile.

For example, the options might be (I've left out a lot of possible options probably)
Male gender
Female gender
Transgender
Agender
Bigender
Male Sex
Female Sex
Intersexed
Transsexual

People wouldn't have to pick a sex option, it would just be another option.
Does that better explain what I meant?

For me, the ideal gender option would be "Gender is irrelevant", but it would cause a whole lot of having to explain that I meant it's irrelevant to me and that I understand that it's very important to many people.
I guess that "agender" would be the closest option that I see used around the place, but even that places more emphasis on gender than I'm comfortable using.

There are supposed to be only two natural biological genders that people are born with. However, there are actually a small number of people whose biological gender is not clearly male or female due to certain conditions to do with chromosomes or hormones. I read a book (fiction, not a scietific book) that had a lot of mentions of intersexuality. According to it there are six (if I remember correctly) additional sexes. But I think even such a definition can vary depending on different people's perspectives. I think it's actually quite a complex issue.

In addition there are people who feel their biological gender doesn't fit how they feel and would rather identify as the other gender or some other gender.

These issues are very important for those who are affected by them. I'd say M/F/O might be a reasonable compromise.

From what I've seen there are a lot of people on this board who would use those other options and that in itself is a good enough reason as far as I'm concerned.

I don't see any reason why people should be pushed into one of two options or why anyone else should want them to.

Fnord suggested a second dropdown for sex, which is what I objected to.



I see what you mean here. I've suggested even longer lists. For some strange reason, people get weird and defensive about the idea of listing more than two options.



Yes.



Right. I would use agender, which makes me think that although I may use similar phrasing to you (and others) that I don't experience it the same way, which is fine. Just needed an explanation to make it click as to what the difference is. Thank you.

Then there is no need for a "gender" entry, either.