I know that you have an open ended box to submit gender identity for this forum, but I noticed the default answers are not actually talking about gender, but are talking about sex. The terms male and female refer to sex, not gender. Gender words are things like man and woman. So I was wondering if that could be changed to reflect the question being asked? Also, you have trans on there as an option but not cis (which I assume is what you meant by putting "male" "female". Could you perhaps incorporate cisman and ciswoman, along with transman, transwoman, and genderqueer? Without the cis umbrella term, it sort of implies that a particular gender is a default category when I think we all know that gender and gender identity is much more complex than that.
Yes I realize that. However, the question and the answers provided do not match up since sex is biological and gender is not. And including cis gendered terms revokes the privilege of one (or two) particular genders as "normal" or the "default." It was just worth at least asking about in any case.
There are many trans* people that use the male/female options. So not only cis people use those options. Also, you get into the sticky territory of what people actually identify as and what you think that they should identify as. As others have said, there is the blank box, so people can fill that in as they choose.
Yes there are many that do but that is still in reference to sex when the question asks about gender which is where my confusion is coming from in part.
You're splitting hairs here. I used to think I was some magical gender identity and everyone has their own. But I just stopped worrying about it and identify as trans female even though I have a lot of male characteristics and have to present male a lot. If I wanted to choose something else I would have. There is still something to be said about being TOO politically correct even in the LGBT world. And believe me. People here know the difference between sex and gender. But the point is your question can be satisfactorily be addressed through the aforementioned fill in the blank.
Since this website caters to gender issues as prominently as sexual issue, gender identity is asked over sex because it is a more valuable piece of information for reference and identification within the community for member struggling with gender issues. However, gender identity is optional. Not even specifically on this site, but in life in general. People don't have to pick sides. Man, woman, genderqueer, and everything else under the sun are all simply terms that we have created to describe various archetypes of individuals, but they are not definitive categories. They are not terms that everyone has to adopt because they are merely adjectives that humans have chosen to create. No one is forced to choose between proclaiming wholeheartedly that they are a man, woman, or gender variant identity. Additionally, since you acknowledge the fact that gender and sex are indeed different, you must also acknowledge the fact that changing the identity of those who classify themselves as "male and female" to "men and women" would be vastly assuming and plausibly incorrect in a number of cases. As someone who have no issue with identify as male, but plenty of issue with the ideal of the "man" as a gender I can attribute to that. I'm not sure which exactly you would like to do: force members to choose a gender identity when they shouldn't have to or force members to classify themselves under sex and alienate our transgender and gender variant members. Personality, I am much more of a fan of the present options.
Everyone, please correct me if I'm wrong twizt, I think the issue they have is that the words "male / female" usually refer to physical sex and "man / woman" refer to gender. Twizt, that is a valid point. But I think it's also a minor enough problem that it probably won't get fixed for some time. From time to time we look for ways to make EC better, and I can try to remember and bring up your suggestion then. Right now we're an all volunteer staff, and we're swamped. Until then, I am really glad that we do have the fill-in-the-blank. Ideally we would still use "gender" and then "woman (trans*)" or "man (trans*)" as I think you are suggesting as defaults. However, the silver lining is that you can of course choose whatever word fits you best And so I actually remember when the time comes to make improvements, I went ahead and changed my gender label.
While I'm not opposed to this idea, I suppose why I'm not too sure about it being fixed asap here is that you're the only one who's brought that up, and from what I've seen, the mods don't do anything unless it's a bigger issue to people. For example, until recently, we didn't have gender-neutral options (besides the box), and it took several threads with long debates to get it to the mods, that, hey, more people want this change. Also, in regards to the 2nd paragraph, I know for a fact that there are members here who would really hate that idea, of absolutely having to say they're trans* instead of simply saying they're male or female, because to some people, it's like being trans* isn't "enough" and those members get judged for it, which is what EC is trying to avoid.
Technically, the OP is correct. Gender is not the same as sex. However, a very simple fix is to simply add "/sex" when asked for gender id. The other changes are unnecessary.
You know I don't speak for staff either, I just wanted to chime in to clear up a misconception I saw, and to explain a little bit about our position as far as EC getting really big really fast. Us newbs - definitely guilty of this myself - really need to step up more than we have been and I'm trying to do that a little here. I wasn't joking about things being swamped. So just brainstorming with the rest of you, I still like the idea I had earlier, changing male -> man and female -> woman. As far as adding sex in after gender, I think it could be a great idea as far as letting intersex people be more visible if they wanted to be, but we would DEFINITELY have to have some kind of default option up there for intersex people if we did that. That's the trouble with these changes though, anything we do no matter how small is going to have other side effects.
Yes this was what I was trying to say. It just struck me as odd that it asked for gender and then supplied sex responses as the default. I was not trying to make a big deal out of it and I am sure there are many other things the admins and mods have going on, I just thought it was worth pointing out in a place that is trying to be inclusive. I know there is the open ended box, which is waaaayyyy better than most options, don't get me wrong, it just seemed like it was still "othering" people who identify differently. I like the idea of just adding /sex to the question. That would make for a relatively easy solution. And as mentioned, it would also allow for intersex to be included.
I've been lurking on this thread for a while. Yeah, I agree with adding the sex option. Good idea! However, I personally think adding a ton of gender options will merely serve to confuse people. It's inefficient to fix what isn't broken. Besides the question, what we have now is fine. People who identify differently, as you put it, can use the empty box. How is that "othering" anyone? I'm just curious.
...why? I don't see why we need to list sex too. I mean, what's wrong with male and female as meaning gender to some degree? I'm a male. Just in a body that doesn't reflect that. So, hence, I'm trans. So voila.
Essentially because it is giving a handful of default-type of answers (cis without saying cis, trans, and genderqueer) and then those that don't fit those normalized defaults can write in their respective identities. I am all for having that open-ended box, but having some already there and others not still leads to othering in a way since it creates an other category of sorts. Ultimately, this was not really what I was trying to ask about with this thread. It was mostly about the assumption of cis without saying cis and asking about gender and then giving sex options.
Yeah, but why sex AND gender? If someone (like moi) says he's a transguy, that's implied. I mean, why does sex matter to gender? You're your gender, whoopee. Your sex? You've only gotta mention that if it matters. If you want you can say, "oh hey, I'm a guy and I was/am intersex" If you identity as male, then your sex doesn't matter unless you're making a post that hinges on, say, something that hinges on what parts you have.
It's just a technical thing that some of us find important. Male isn't a gender, it is a biological sex. To be correct, the choices should be "man," "woman," etc. as those are gender terms.
Those whom are not comfortable with the current set of options are entirely welcome to input their own personal preferences. The supposed issue of members "being cis without claiming cis" seems entirely unsubstantial and the fact that there is even this much of a debate predominantly from members who wouldn't even use either option given the opportunity makes going through the process of a change appear even more unnecessary. I'm quite uncertain of what exactly there is to be uncomfortable with. If this situation were a concern of value, I'm sure the staff would be more open to pursuing a change; however, I highly doubt that any member of the staff would enjoy going through the process of making an alteration over the system that thousands of accounts have been created under simply in the name of semantics. I respect every opinion in this thread, but that simply doesn't make sense.
Hey, do we really need to be extremely inclusive and politically correct while sacrificing efficiency and practicality? While adding the sex to the question would stop some annoying complaints to our lovely staff members, I think that this is a case of complaining about semantics when we have bigger fish to fry. What's wrong with having other categories? Would it be better if we lumped everything together?
