5 ms·

As a transgender person, I won't fill it out unless I have the option to opt out of gender identification or select "other" for gender. I'm not alone. http://

As a transgender person, I won't fill it out unless I have the option to opt out of gender identification or select "other" for gender. I'm not alone. http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/109566/_PARENT/layout_details_cc/true http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/1... http://www.autostraddle.com/facebook-wants-you-to-do-you-adds-new-non-binary-pronoun-and-gender-identity-options-223746/ http://www.autostraddle.com/facebook-wants-you-to-do-you-add...

Diamons 11y ago
So I'm guessing you never fly, because TSA only allows you to pick male or female.
- quaunaut 11y ago
  Since when do you register your gender with the TSA? Whenever I fly, I just walk through the checkpoint and move on to my flight.
  - fma 11y ago
    When you purchase your ticket, they ask for your name, date of birth and gender.
- 467568985476 11y ago
  Why the snark? It would be trivial to add another gender option to the page, and it would make the world a slightly friendlier place to a few people. Must everything be an argument?
  - xeromal 11y ago
    I agree. I self-identify as black and refuse to fill out forms that force me to select my ethnicity.
agildehaus 11y ago
Take a DNA test. Just because you consider gender flexible, which is fine, doesn't mean you should force everyone else to accept your definition of the term.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
coldtea 11y ago
There are MILLIONS of forms like that all over the internet. Is that really the first criticism that comes to mind when discussing this very specific endeavor? Heck, I'm a male, but often put female in forms, just to not give marketeers my info...
- DanBC 11y ago
  It's a useful criticism. In the UK current best practice (although it's still changing) would be to have two questions: one asking about gender identity and another asking about gender reassignment. Someone born as male who identifies as female should need to tick "other", they should be able to tick "female".
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Well, but they can tick "female". Right? I do think that "none" would be a useful addition, however. Or "whatever", maybe.
  - lowboy 11y ago
    > identifies as female As a point of clarification, this should be "identifies as a woman". Sex (male/female) is a physical characteristic, gender (man/woman) is a social construct. More info from transman's first link: > Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves. While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender may differ.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      EDIT: The text you quote does not say that man / woman and male / female have different uses. There's nothing to say that male / female only refer to sex not gender. If what you said is true (and it isn't) people would only need two questions on forms: "Are you male or female?" "Are you a man or a woman?" This would make no sense and so we can safely ignore it.
MichaelDickens 11y ago
I definitely agree with you that surveys should always include an "other" option for gender, but I'm wondering why you don't want to fill it out otherwise? I'm guessing from your username that you're a man, so why don't you want to pick "male"?
- vertex-four 11y ago
  So a lot of trans and gender-questioning people, once they get onto the "wtf is gender anyway" question, realise that while their brain likes running on testosterone or estrogen, and they might like or dislike their body in different configurations... eventually they realise that they exist outside the gender binary - they feel that they're neither entirely on one extreme of a "spectrum" of gender, nor the other. Some people wind up being genderqueer - others genderfluid - and yet more agender. All of these people don't fit in either "male" or "female" categories, and usually tend to fill out forms as either "other" or "I don't want to tell you". It's currently at the point in my country where some banks allow the title of Mx - a title for people who don't fit into the binary. And of course other people just really don't want to tell people their gender if they don't have to.
  - baby 11y ago
    I feel like this is missing the point that "gender" in a questionnaire is not asking you what you think you are, but what you really are. There is a scientific definition of the word gender that is being ignored here. And also yeah we could get rid of that kind of questions in "some" questionnaires, but for these kind of mass statistic tools this is interesting for example to see if females are paid less than males. I don't think people are interested in the .1% that is transgender as it will probably be too low to make valid statistics.
    - vertex-four 11y ago
      > I feel like this is missing the point that "gender" in a questionnaire is not asking you what you think you are, but what you really are. No, in this case it's a combination of what you are (i.e. your gender identity), and what whoever decides on how much they'll pay you thinks you are, mostly. But there's all sorts of variables in there still - a single variable probably isn't wonderful. Is a trans woman usually paid more or less than a cis woman? Is a genderqueer person usually paid more or less than X, etc etc? Does their identity filter into it or only their presentation - maybe people pick up on subconscious cues? > There is a scientific definition of the word gender that is being ignored here. The scientific community, since they accepted the existence of transgender people, mostly uses "sex" for the biological makeup of a person - and I'll point out that even that's not entirely binary, with the generally entirely ignored group of intersex people. > I don't think people are interested in the .1% that is transgender as it will probably be too low to make valid statistics. This sort of assumption has the issue of othering groups of people - asserting that certain groups of people are "other". This has issues well past individual studies - it's a societal issue where we decide that certain groups of people are not worth listening to. There's a set of comics written by a queer author on the subject here: http://www.robot-hugs.com/notice/ http://www.robot-hugs.com/notice/ When you're designing a form, it's not that difficult to accept options that you haven't thought of straight away - in fact, it's bad data science not to, as otherwise you get a bunch of people who either refuse to respond or box themselves in to whatever you force them to be, even when it's inaccurate, and you can't distinguish them from anyone else. After all - the question "which religion are you?", as might've been used in times past, would ignore atheists, and it'd be even worse if it only accepted the top 3-4 religions in a given country.
veganman 11y ago
As a vegan person, I won't fill it out unless I have guarantees that their infrastructure was built without hurting anything from the wonderful animal world in any way, shape or form. That would include their front-end consultant eating an egg for breakfast. Also, as a helicopterkin, I find "other" offensive, there is no reason "male" or "female" should have more prevalence than "helicopter" in public forms.
MajorLOL 11y ago
Agreed! I sexually self identify as an attack helicopter. I won't fill anything out until I have at the minimum the option of at least "fighter aircraft" or opt out too.
home_boi 11y ago
Why is gender included to begin with? It just adds extra, unneeded noise to the data.
- cbr 11y ago
  It lets you look at things like "are women being paid less than men" and see how that interacts with location, experience level, salary-vs-bonus, etc.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  I would except ALL aspects of demographics would be useful here. Not just gender but ethnicity, age hell I could even see height being useful considering you hear a lot of "you have to be taller to be CEO" crap; it would be interesting if there is anything to those stereotypes.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
throwaway933 11y ago
When you fill out gender as party of identifying yourself publicly (e.g. Facebook profile), of course it totally makes sense to have "long-tail" options so that people can fully express themselves, simply because the purpose is to be a public act of self-expression and self-identification. (So kudos to Facebook for including so many options.) However, for surveys, especially smaller ones like this (i.e. not the US Census), I wonder if adding a third gender option adds to, or diminishes from, the final result. Clearly, the objective here is to compare male and female salaries. Reporting "other" salaries would almost certainly be statistically insignificant (and therefore simply "throwing away" the data), given traffic to the site (not in the millions) and the slim proportion of the population that self-identifies as "other". Whenever there are two populations, there will usually be elements which don't fit perfectly into either -- male/female, straight/gay, introvert/extrovert. Even with quantitative measurements, your height, weight, and income can all vary from hour to hour, day to day, or month to month, and easily fall on one side of a threshold or another at different times. But when you fill out any kind of survey, you just have to pick one or the other. Many surveys ask for income categories, and a freelancer just has to decide if they think they're over $60K or under, even though the answer isn't clear at all. In a health survey, whether your BMI reports you as normal weight or overweight might depend on how much water you drank today. But you've just got to pick one. So when filling out gender on a survey, a survey that is primarily about other things (not about smaller shades of gender distinction), is it really that offensive to simply choose between whether you're closer to self-identifying to male or to female in your current workplace? And if you really feel like a 50/50 split, to pick one at random? Or, for the purposes of estimating pay disparity, do you really feel that there is no use at all in choosing male or female? That when you were hired, you were not viewed by your hiring manager as more towards male or female, but clearly and primarily as transgender, and so your salary information is useless in estimating any male/female wage difference?

Diamons 11y ago

So I'm guessing you never fly, because TSA only allows you to pick male or female.

quaunaut 11y ago
Since when do you register your gender with the TSA? Whenever I fly, I just walk through the checkpoint and move on to my flight.
- fma 11y ago
  When you purchase your ticket, they ask for your name, date of birth and gender.
467568985476 11y ago
Why the snark? It would be trivial to add another gender option to the page, and it would make the world a slightly friendlier place to a few people. Must everything be an argument?
- xeromal 11y ago
  I agree. I self-identify as black and refuse to fill out forms that force me to select my ethnicity.

agildehaus 11y ago

Take a DNA test. Just because you consider gender flexible, which is fine, doesn't mean you should force everyone else to accept your definition of the term.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

coldtea 11y ago

There are MILLIONS of forms like that all over the internet. Is that really the first criticism that comes to mind when discussing this very specific endeavor? Heck, I'm a male, but often put female in forms, just to not give marketeers my info...

DanBC 11y ago
It's a useful criticism. In the UK current best practice (although it's still changing) would be to have two questions: one asking about gender identity and another asking about gender reassignment. Someone born as male who identifies as female should need to tick "other", they should be able to tick "female".
- mirimir 11y ago
  Well, but they can tick "female". Right? I do think that "none" would be a useful addition, however. Or "whatever", maybe.
- lowboy 11y ago
  > identifies as female As a point of clarification, this should be "identifies as a woman". Sex (male/female) is a physical characteristic, gender (man/woman) is a social construct. More info from transman's first link: > Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves. While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender may differ.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    EDIT: The text you quote does not say that man / woman and male / female have different uses. There's nothing to say that male / female only refer to sex not gender. If what you said is true (and it isn't) people would only need two questions on forms: "Are you male or female?" "Are you a man or a woman?" This would make no sense and so we can safely ignore it.

MichaelDickens 11y ago

I definitely agree with you that surveys should always include an "other" option for gender, but I'm wondering why you don't want to fill it out otherwise? I'm guessing from your username that you're a man, so why don't you want to pick "male"?

vertex-four 11y ago
So a lot of trans and gender-questioning people, once they get onto the "wtf is gender anyway" question, realise that while their brain likes running on testosterone or estrogen, and they might like or dislike their body in different configurations... eventually they realise that they exist outside the gender binary - they feel that they're neither entirely on one extreme of a "spectrum" of gender, nor the other. Some people wind up being genderqueer - others genderfluid - and yet more agender. All of these people don't fit in either "male" or "female" categories, and usually tend to fill out forms as either "other" or "I don't want to tell you". It's currently at the point in my country where some banks allow the title of Mx - a title for people who don't fit into the binary. And of course other people just really don't want to tell people their gender if they don't have to.
- baby 11y ago
  I feel like this is missing the point that "gender" in a questionnaire is not asking you what you think you are, but what you really are. There is a scientific definition of the word gender that is being ignored here. And also yeah we could get rid of that kind of questions in "some" questionnaires, but for these kind of mass statistic tools this is interesting for example to see if females are paid less than males. I don't think people are interested in the .1% that is transgender as it will probably be too low to make valid statistics.
  - vertex-four 11y ago
    > I feel like this is missing the point that "gender" in a questionnaire is not asking you what you think you are, but what you really are. No, in this case it's a combination of what you are (i.e. your gender identity), and what whoever decides on how much they'll pay you thinks you are, mostly. But there's all sorts of variables in there still - a single variable probably isn't wonderful. Is a trans woman usually paid more or less than a cis woman? Is a genderqueer person usually paid more or less than X, etc etc? Does their identity filter into it or only their presentation - maybe people pick up on subconscious cues? > There is a scientific definition of the word gender that is being ignored here. The scientific community, since they accepted the existence of transgender people, mostly uses "sex" for the biological makeup of a person - and I'll point out that even that's not entirely binary, with the generally entirely ignored group of intersex people. > I don't think people are interested in the .1% that is transgender as it will probably be too low to make valid statistics. This sort of assumption has the issue of othering groups of people - asserting that certain groups of people are "other". This has issues well past individual studies - it's a societal issue where we decide that certain groups of people are not worth listening to. There's a set of comics written by a queer author on the subject here: http://www.robot-hugs.com/notice/ http://www.robot-hugs.com/notice/ When you're designing a form, it's not that difficult to accept options that you haven't thought of straight away - in fact, it's bad data science not to, as otherwise you get a bunch of people who either refuse to respond or box themselves in to whatever you force them to be, even when it's inaccurate, and you can't distinguish them from anyone else. After all - the question "which religion are you?", as might've been used in times past, would ignore atheists, and it'd be even worse if it only accepted the top 3-4 religions in a given country.

veganman 11y ago

As a vegan person, I won't fill it out unless I have guarantees that their infrastructure was built without hurting anything from the wonderful animal world in any way, shape or form. That would include their front-end consultant eating an egg for breakfast. Also, as a helicopterkin, I find "other" offensive, there is no reason "male" or "female" should have more prevalence than "helicopter" in public forms.

MajorLOL 11y ago

Agreed! I sexually self identify as an attack helicopter. I won't fill anything out until I have at the minimum the option of at least "fighter aircraft" or opt out too.

home_boi 11y ago

Why is gender included to begin with? It just adds extra, unneeded noise to the data.

cbr 11y ago
It lets you look at things like "are women being paid less than men" and see how that interacts with location, experience level, salary-vs-bonus, etc.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
I would except ALL aspects of demographics would be useful here. Not just gender but ethnicity, age hell I could even see height being useful considering you hear a lot of "you have to be taller to be CEO" crap; it would be interesting if there is anything to those stereotypes.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

throwaway933 11y ago

When you fill out gender as party of identifying yourself publicly (e.g. Facebook profile), of course it totally makes sense to have "long-tail" options so that people can fully express themselves, simply because the purpose is to be a public act of self-expression and self-identification. (So kudos to Facebook for including so many options.) However, for surveys, especially smaller ones like this (i.e. not the US Census), I wonder if adding a third gender option adds to, or diminishes from, the final result. Clearly, the objective here is to compare male and female salaries. Reporting "other" salaries would almost certainly be statistically insignificant (and therefore simply "throwing away" the data), given traffic to the site (not in the millions) and the slim proportion of the population that self-identifies as "other". Whenever there are two populations, there will usually be elements which don't fit perfectly into either -- male/female, straight/gay, introvert/extrovert. Even with quantitative measurements, your height, weight, and income can all vary from hour to hour, day to day, or month to month, and easily fall on one side of a threshold or another at different times. But when you fill out any kind of survey, you just have to pick one or the other. Many surveys ask for income categories, and a freelancer just has to decide if they think they're over $60K or under, even though the answer isn't clear at all. In a health survey, whether your BMI reports you as normal weight or overweight might depend on how much water you drank today. But you've just got to pick one. So when filling out gender on a survey, a survey that is primarily about other things (not about smaller shades of gender distinction), is it really that offensive to simply choose between whether you're closer to self-identifying to male or to female in your current workplace? And if you really feel like a 50/50 split, to pick one at random? Or, for the purposes of estimating pay disparity, do you really feel that there is no use at all in choosing male or female? That when you were hired, you were not viewed by your hiring manager as more towards male or female, but clearly and primarily as transgender, and so your salary information is useless in estimating any male/female wage difference?