I've been caught in this argument before. A situation arose with a client who wanted a male/female binary and I argued in favor of a third choice for those who

I've been caught in this argument before. A situation arose with a client who wanted a male/female binary and I argued in favor of a third choice for those who didn't wish to self identify, as I have a few friends who are activists in this area. The client's argument was for marketing targeting and metrics they needed it that way. I didn't get very far. On my own project, I put 4 options Male / Female / Transgender / Decline to state. It worked pretty well. I have it always default to Female. Men will instantly change it, women are happy and anyone who's serious about gender identification issues or really need to hide it both have options. I've been given compliments by LGBT activists for the selection choices so I guess I'm doing something right. Either way anyone who won't identify as M/F is a corner case. If you offend anyone its a tiny subset, and even of that group its likely they'd pick the gender they identify with. It does screw up email targeting and metrics a little bit, but I imagine not by a big enough sampling to make much of a difference..