Adding a third gender option

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If and when the software ever supports it we will certainly give it attention.

Thank you.

There would be less confusion and argument if the ambiguous word "gender" (which sometimes means simply "sex", and sometimes doesn't) were not used at all in this context.

For simplicity, I would suggest:

Rename the "gender" field to "sex".

Optionally also:

Allow more than two values of "sex", e.g. add "indeterminate" (for the rare cases of indeterminate biological sex) and "mind your own business" (if the site owner doesn't wish to make a "male/female" or "male/female/indeterminate" response compulsory).

In theory, another field labelled "gender" could also be supplied, but I don't really see the point of doing so, and it would be confusing for most people (for whom gender = sex, always - or is that true for "most" autistic types, as it is true for most NTs?), and matters of gender are best left to informal discussion (say in the LGBT or Adult forums).

Perhaps the ideal would be to have "gender" as an optional profile field, which most users could easily ignore, and which would not even be displayed as a question to answer when you register, and would by default be left blank.

Other users are then left free to go on making the default assumption (gender = sex), if the user wants them to, and the user doesn't even have to think about the question, if he/she/...? doesn't want to.

I don't have any opinion as to what the exact structure of such an optional "gender" field should be.

(Perhaps one gender option should be what in the Usenet newsgroup soc.bi they used to call TOCOTOX: "too complicated to explain"!)

[The next paragraph is an afterthought, added in editing. Sorry if this is confusing.]

In a nutshell: treat gender just as sensitively as you would treat the related (but not identical) concept of sexual orientation, and in particular, don't oblige people to make an unintended default declaration of gender just because, possibly for good reasons, you require them to declare their physical sex. There is probably about as much or as little reason for having a 'gender' field (as opposed to a 'sex' field) as there would be for having a 'sexual orientation' field; and any such field, if it were to be of any real use, would probably have to be pretty complicated!

Sorry if I'm being a brashly opinionated newbie! That's most unlike me. I haven't introduced myself properly to the forums yet.

My reason for butting into this thread is that I'm physically male, but I hardly identify with the (socially constructed) "male" gender at all, and so it always makes me uncomfortable to have to choose "M" from "M/F", just because of my physical sex, and I would prefer any option which does not force me to imply, by default, that my gender as well as my sex is male.

(My gender is not especially female, either, although I would nearly always wear skirts or dresses if given a free choice, which unfortunately males in this society are not.)

The problem with a thread this long is that people post in it without having read all the previous replies. And understandably so.

There's a very good reason for having a gender field, in my opinion. Because, sometimes, in replying to something someone said, we address, not the person individually, but the whole group reading, and in doing so, we have a need to use pronoun to refer to that person. "You" is not appropriate, since we are not talking only to that person; they are simply one among many listeners. Singular they (which I just used) doesn't work (for many of us) when talking about someone specific. The choices are he or she. If I don't know which to use, I go to the profile, and see if they've said male or female, and I pick my pronoun based on that. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, I'm glad to have a way to check which pronoun to use.

However good a reason that is for having a gender field, it's certainly more of a reason than there would be for making someone pick a sexual orientation.

Thus the field is most useful as is, with it's binary choice, in my opinion. A more complicated field would tell us more about how the person sees themselves, but I think I'd have reason to look at their profile to check that even less often than I have reason to check which pronoun to use.

Oops! That's twice I've put my foot in it, in (I think) nine posts to the forum so far! About average for me.

I actually did read all of the thread before posting - but hastily, because I've been preoccupied with filling in and posting off a most intimidating Government form (ESA) before the deadline, and my concentration can't have been the sharpest.

I did notice how sensible all your contributions were, however! (Also, how similar our Aspie Quiz scores are.)

I'll re-read the thread, now that I'm more relaxed.

And I'll think some more, too!

First (hazy) thought, regarding pronouns: I would prefer to be "she", so I'm quite in favour of a gender field, now that you explain (for the second time?) what it's good for!

But don't you agree that there should also be a "Sex" field? If there isn't one, then it looks like people stating their gender are leaving their sex to be inferred by default, just as people presently stating their sex are leaving their gender to be inferred by default. Not much of an improvement, in my opinion.

Are we (yet) in heated agreement?

There is nothing that can be done in the near future, but if the option becomes available to do something we will be more than happy to discuss making a change.

I would argue that this also would not be a sensitive treatment, most especially if you expect people to list their sex assigned at birth. This would actually be fairly insensitive to transgender, genderqueer, intersex, and non-binary posters.

Although you do kind of touch on a valid point: Having a gender/sex field at all isn't really necessary.



I don't understand why there's something wrong with stating gender and leaving sex inferred.

But then I would be insensitive to myself! I suppose that is possible. There is a touch of devil's advocate in the way I write about this topic, and I'm sorry that I seem insensitive, especially when this a topic on which I have the tenderest of feelings! However, I'm serious that, if there is to be any recording of gender (in any sense of the word) at all, then there should be a simple M/F[/intersex/MYOB] field for physical sex, with an additional field for gender (possibly in free text form, as someone suggested) provided as an option, if enough people want it, and if it isn't hard to provide. (I'd use it.)


I, for one, certainly don't need there to be one. I'm quite happy to guess the sex and/or gender of other posters, I'm quite happy to guess either or both wrongly (I'm probably wrong as often as I am right!), I'm very happy for others to guess my sex and/or gender. (I'm particularly flattered when someone takes me to be female.)

The simple solution of renaming the "gender" field to "sex" and allowing it to be left blank (instead of forcing M/F) seems fine to me. I was trying to simplify the discussion, not make it more complicated! But I'm not very good at that.


Because sex (unlike gender) is a physical fact, and a lot of people (at least among NTs, I have no idea about Aspies in general) feel they are being deceived if you state only your gender, when your physical sex is the opposite. I have no wish to deceive anyone in that way. I don't at all like having been born male, but nor do I have any wish to deny the horrible fact that it happened!

Afterthought [added 3 hours later, using the editing facility - is this OK?]:

That might still seem rigidly insensitive of me, if it is taken to mean that even a transsexual should have to state their birth sex! I don't think that. I think that anyone who has had surgery done on their body to change their sex/gender, or is even intending to do so ("pre-op"), has pretty much earned the right to state their sex/gender to be whatever they wish it to be. (We're not talking about altering birth certificates here. That's a more complex issue. This is just a matter of registering at a website.) An optional 'gender' field could then be used, if they wish, to indicate their TS status. The use of the 'sex' field to indicate their chosen sex/gender would then be a kind of analogue of the physical surgery.

wouldn't it be easiest either just to not require an answer, or add "other"? or "prefer not to answer?" i don't think there needs to be a button for every single gender ever, but aspies often don't identify as a particular gender, so it would be helpful. i know of at least one person who was extremely upset at being forced to choose a gender, since it doesn't have one...

I don't understand how it is insensitive to you. Could you explain? I don't mean I don't believe you, I just didn't get it from your previous post.



Well, my ideal simplificiation is Gender:

Male
Female
Other, maybe a text field



Okay, I'll suggest an alternative thought here:

Which sex people were assigned at birth isn't anyone else's business. I understand what you are saying, but generally speaking transgender people are put under a lot of pressure by cisgender society to conform and disclose. It should be a personal choice as to whether to disclose in particular situations or contexts, just as it is a personal choice to disclose whether one is autistic. It is actually a coercive expectation to ask transgender people to not just out themselves, but describe their personal and possibly medical history to people who really have no business knowing. It's an option, but it shouldn't be an expectation and cisgender people shouldn't feel entitled to such disclosure under any circumstances.



Thank you for this addition. I still dislike the idea of a "sex" field, but I appreciate you clarifying your intent in suggesting it.



Not require an answer? Yes.
Add other? Yes.

I don't think "prefer not to answer" is equivalent to other, though. I think both would work fine. I did not mean to suggest that the entire list I put upthread should be added, but rather that the possible diversity is such that I think something would help.

I don't have a gender either, which is why I brought this thread back up.

I must say, I'm getting quite confused by this thread! In my first post in it, at 10:41 a.m. on Tuesday, I stated plainly enough (or so I thought!) that I am myself transgendered (or gender dysphoric, or whatever term best expresses my particular state of gender confusion and ambiguity). So, if I am being insensitive to trans people, then I am being insensitive to myself. Which is, as I said, not impossible. (I have spent a long and painful lifetime being insensitive to myself, by trying to placate an alien society which does not even appreciate my self-destructive efforts on its behalf.)



I know I'm hopeless at expressing myself, but I think that if you are willing to painstakingly re-read my carefully (if still badly!) composed articles, you will find that I am already as aware of these problems as anyone could be, but I just haven't communicated my thoughts and feelings effectively.



Just to clarify some more (I hope!): I was not suggesting the addition of a 'sex' field. I was suggesting the renaming of the existing 'gender' field to 'sex', because that is in fact the sense in which the word 'gender' was already being used. I seriously thought this would simplify the discussion, because confusion and heated argument seemed to be resulting in part from the ambiguous use of the word 'gender' sometimes to mean simply physical sex, and sometimes to mean psychological gender. In saying that, I am not implying that either physical sex or psychological gender is a simple matter of M/F. I am just saying that whatever confusion and ambiguity there already is in the subject is only going to be further compounded if one word is continually being used with two distinguishable meanings (each capable of further subtle definition). I proposed using one word for one meaning, another word for another meaning. It was almost entirely a linguistic proposal. I was not strongly advocating any particular policy. In passing, I did state my (mild) feelings about various different possible policies, but nothing I said will make any sense if my main point, about the ambiguity of the word 'gender', is not explicitly addressed. No one seems to have either accepted or rejected it, so it is perhaps not surprising if my contributions on the whole have only caused confusion, instead of clarifying the discussion as I hoped. If confusion continues, I will simply conclude that I am out of my depth in some mysterious way, and bow out .

Would that person really prefer to be called "it", as if they are a thing rather than a person, rather than choose male or female for pronoun purposes?

Personally, I will never call a person "it". That's offensive. If "he" or "she" doesn't work, there's "he/she", or "they", or "the person", or (when given) repeat the name, and maybe other possibilities I'm not thinking of that leave the person being a person.

We will do what we can to add more options when we can. In the meantime this has developed into something of a debate about gender options in the abstract and as such I am moving it to LGBT.

What's wrong with a name? There is no phrase in the English language in which the words she, he, his, hers, her or him cannot be replaced with the name of the individual. (Without the need to resort to the grammatically inaccurate plural, or the odd neoorthographies like "s/he."

Yes, nothing wrong with the name. Except when choosing, perhaps for privacy reasons, to refer to the person without naming them, as Torako, who I was replying to, did.

Well, sometimes repeating a name instead of a pronoun sound bad, but, still, sometimes it's the best option, thus why I listed it among the possibilities.

What I understood you to say is that your sex is male but you do not identify with male as a gender, and thus changing the gender field to say "sex" would allow you to select male without worrying about your gender.

This is an expectation that I believe is fairly insensitive to transgender people in general, even if individuals identify in some way with their sex assigned at birth, although I understand now you did not intend that expectation.



That or I didn't read you clearly.



I use gender to specifically mean "psychological gender," not sex. For some reason everyone uses "male" and "female" in gender fields (where "man" and "woman" would be actually correct). I think of the two, physical sex is actually less important, unless a particular individual feels it is more important.

My objections to using "sex" instead of "gender" are that it leaves the psychological (or possibly neurological) aspect out, and leaves "other" out as an option, as you basically get "male" and "female," maybe "intersex" (which I am not sure about as a category in this context), and "none of your business." People will pick what they identify with, as no one is forced to select whatever they were assigned at birth, but it primarily pushes things back to what my own suggestion was to move away from, which was to give people more actual options than male or female, or at least an option that says "other" to accommodate people who don't identify strictly with either and would like to be able to say they don't identify with either. Basically, I wanted to get away from the idea that "male" and "female" are the only real options.



Torako said in another thread that yes, that person prefers to be called "it." I know of another person who uses "it" as a pronoun. While I would never label someone "it" against their will, if that's what someone asks, I'll certainly respect it.