[Noisebridge-discuss] Gender & Technology followups from 5Mof

[Jason Dusek]

2009/09/21 Sai Emrys <noisebridge at saizai.com>:
> On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 2:24 AM, maymay <bitetheappleback at gmail.com> wrote:
> > OkCupid's line of questioning that only provides the option
> > to indicate gender as "male" or "female" is both ambiguous
> > on physical and gender identity grounds. Being more precise
> > by asking both questions would help in this situation, no?
>
> Sure. But it'd also confuse and turn off the vast majority of
> people who've never heard the term 'cisgendered' and
> potentially even think that questioning their gender is
> offensive and demeaning (ironically in much the same way as
> transgendered people might find binary categorization
> demeaning... but there are a lot more conservatives than
> trannies :-P).

  The term "gender" is probably too ambiguous and too loaded to
  serve as the name of a form field in which people specify more
  nuanced aspects of their sexuality. Maybe we need to coin a
  term? It goes without saying, I think, that people generally
  encounter the word "gender" on census forms, Equal
  Opportunities Act forms and health insurance forms where the
  term is taken to specify whether one is equipped to bear
  children; using "gender" in another sense makes it both more
  difficult to augment that kind of information and more
  difficult to communicate what is really being discussed.

--
Jason Dusek