I get asked for my gender often in online forms. What is it ultimately used for? Even for my employment why does my employer care what gender I am or my sexual orientation? Personally I think there is an over emphasis on gender and sexual orientation. I don't care about your gender or sexual orientation unless I want to have a sexual relationship with you.
What's even more insane is when they ask for your race. I've been asked that by US based entities and I literally don't know what to answer because I've never been asked that in my country and don't actually know what "race" I am.
The answer is there are no good reasons, but one cycle goes like this:
1. HR gets asked by their employees for statistics on how many non-binary/PoC/women/<insert your label here> people in the organization are represented in management/executive/engineering/<insert your probably under-represented role here>.
2. The org at first responds "We don't know because we don't collect this data".
3. The question-askers respond "How convenient, that's because you know they're under-represented".
4. Company responds with typical "meritocracy" answer, then eventually launches long, drawn-out process because hey, "we're a data driven organization!"
5. Years later, after the original question-asker is long gone they share the data, ideally after a few cycles that show <current under-represented individuals> have grown from small percentage of total to slightly larger small percentage. Company loudly boasts on all social media platforms about wokeness and snowflake status.
6. Times change and society moves on, leading to questions of "why does the company care if I'm <whatever, it's now a non-event, progress!>"
7. Employees respond with lack of giving a sh!t or manufacture false outrage at the violation of their personal privacy.
8. the cycle continues, while data deteriorates, leading to some pretty hilarious options in drop-downs.
Many things have "reporting requirements" where, for example, your employer is required to report your gender and race to the government to determine how sexist and racist they are.
I suspect it's very rarely actually important, it's just on the list of things they always have asked for and always will.
As I mentioned in a different comment, gender might be necessary for the feature of displaying content that addresses you, since some languages have gender baked in, there is no genderless 'you' form like in English.
What I also find a bit strange is when people feel the need to tell you what their sexual orientation is, even though you didn't ask. What's also strange is when you consider what you would have to ask them to have them give you that as their answer.
And in some cases it could even be considered as sexual harassment.
Example: "I am lesbian" in other words means I'm sexually attracted and may or may not have sexual intercourse with another woman.
Now try to think of questions you would have to ask to receive the above as the answer.
Maybe it's just me, but unless asked, it feels very inappropriate to just tell people with whom you have sex or wish to have sex with. Especially when the topic of conversation was about something completely different and in no way related.
> I don't care about your gender or sexual orientation unless I want to have a sexual relationship with you.
I feel the same way and have never been able to get a good answer for this one. "Statistics and hiring" is a very lame-duck answer. How does it help our product knowing that we have +1 more homonormative person?
For healthcare, I think it makes a lot of sense, as diseases affect different genders differently. Also, those with certain sexual orientations are more prone to certain diseases. It's crucial to understand someone's gender, sexual activity, and even race to give them proper healthcare.
I've been asked on two job applications lately whether or not I'm "asexual". I'm not, but I'm appalled to be asked this in a professional setting. If I was, I'd also be appalled, if not seriously distraught.
I immediately dropped the applications. Perhaps screening out people like me was the real goal to begin with, and maybe it's a win-win after all.
Quite often, it seems, they ask to build your profile to sell to advertisers. As much as it would be great for everyone to be treated equally, our genders do affect the crap that we buy and advertisers often care about it.
But more broadly, finding trends/patterns really does come down to being able to sort people into different buckets. Especially now, with the push towards ML, you never know which feature will turn out to be significant, so the strategy ends up being to collect as much data as possible and let computers churn through it looking for patterns.
It would be tempting to ascribe a gender-specific motive to the collection of gender data just based on the significance that we feel towards gender. But I'm not sure those collecting it have those motivations. They're just sucking in everything that they can get away with in the hopes that some of it will prove valuable.
I don’t think it’s necessary in most cases, although oddly I recently had a medical insurance claim rejected because of a gender mismatch for my wife. (USA and all the health insurance mess)
Turns out that my employer deliberately doesn’t send gender to the insurance company. This means it defaults to male. A urologist appointment for kidney stones was then rejected by the insurer when it didn’t match the provider.
If this was an Ob/Gyn appointment that makes a little more sense, but kidney stones and urology in general are non-gendered. This was not the first claim either. Plenty of others were fine with other providers.
I can see gender being used sort of generically for fraud prevention in some cases. But, it’s a stretch to say it’s broadly useful.
In general now I lie on forms about as much as I can. At Panera Bread I was asked if I’m the CEO when my account came up first name Panera, last name Bread. There’s no reason for any personal data, so I don’t give it.
Gathering this by employers is part of US federal law. It is also passed to your insurer, and used to do... insurance things invisibly.
Gathering this by companies is so they can better profile you and serve you tailored content (as defined by them.) E.g. If you respond "Man", they might want to send you fewer ads for tampons and more ads for razors or whatever. Note, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's the reasoning.
Ideally/ostensibly, this data collection is helpful for accountability, at the company level and also entities like Labor Dept. statistics. The concern is that companies who strive to be colorblind and non-discriminatory in their hiring don't end up that way in reality. And that assessment is impossible without some effort at data collection.
What would be correct, though? I don't think "It's not important" is really a satisfactory answer. There are many scenarios in which a site might want to personalize content for a voluntarily submitted gender preference. One example might be a site for people who want to have a sexual relationship with someone else.
Most of these questions are about identities that have sometimes been discriminated against (intentionally or unintentionally). The reason for asking is to make sure that the process is reaching the people it's supposed to. Like, if you're running a vaccine clinic that is intended for everyone, but women don't feel comfortable going there, you'd like know that's happening so you can dig into why.
As people have mentioned, this applies to hiring -- but at the top of the funnel in who your posts are reaching/motivating, not just at the end for diversity stats.
To your point, we don't usually ask for similar information like blood type in online forms. In the past, single/married was much more frequently asked. Are we at the point where gender is heading the same direction? For signing up for a library card or a Netflix account, no. But it depends on the context.
As a trans person I hate all half-assed inclusion measures, on top of the fact if I point this stuff out I sound like one of the 'bad ones'. It just made everything confusing whether it is asking for sex or gender. Medical stuff sure I'll disclose everything cause it's relevant to me getting good service. However, there are so many companies that want to just obviously use the info for ad revenue... What features are you bringing me that are improved cause you know my sex? What features are you bringing me that are improved cause you know I'm trans?
Huh, yeah, good point. "So you can better manipulate me into buying stuff" is a really non-compelling reason for me to give you sensitive personal information.
I'm sort of not surprised it's gotten to this point. In the early era of companies coming out to show their support, businesses wanted to show support in solidarity. The current state just feels like virtue signaling.
These are amusing, silly, embarrassing, cringey, and somewhat kind of sad.
I think (and kind of hope) that we might be slowly progressing towards an era where we stop discretizing gender into specific labels. The ever-growing number of labels suggests, to me at least, that we've got a wrong fit for the data type. I think it's rather simple: a multi-dimensional continuum of gender identity cannot be reduced to specific names. But that concept of "discrete gender" is very well-entrenched in society, so there's an attempt to make it fit by adding more discrete categories.
I'm not sure this is "wrong" given that I don't think society/culture/whatnot ever turns on a dime. But I don't think this represents a satisfactory state.
A good place to start is to stop asking for "gender" when it's completely unnecessary for whatever service is being offered. I think most websites don't need to. And if they're legally obligated in some way, that needs fixing.
...Am I making any sense? I'm having a moment of struggling to render my thoughts to words.
1. diverse - This is likely German and standard on German gender selectors, it refers to anybody who identifies as neither male nor female.
2. Mrs Prof Dr. - Again this is likely German, and is not a gender selector, rather a title selector. It is standard in Germany to use both Prof and Dr titles, the Mrs then implies female. You wouldn't use it conversationally.
Gender != Chromosomal sex != Physiological sex != Hormonal sex != Gametes produced (gametic sex).
A man is most commonly (by percentage of total adult human population) an XY male, with a penis/testes, and produce sperm.
A woman is most commonly (by percentage of total adult human population) an XX female, with vulva/vagina/uterus/ovaries and breasts, and produce eggs. Older women (after menopause) no longer produce eggs and so have neuter gametic sex.
Pre-pubescent children don't produce gametes, and thus have neuter gametic sex.
A trans man is an XX female, possibly with surgical alterations to physiological sex, possibly with hormone replacement therapy to alter hormonal sex, and possibly (if either of the two former are present) with neuter gametic sex. Being a man does not require being male.
A trans woman is an XY male, possibly with surgical alterations to physiological sex, possibly with hormone replacement therapy to alter hormonal sex, and possibly (if either of the two former are present) with neuter gametic sex. Being a woman does not require being female.
Other combinations are possible.
Confusing gender with the various forms of sex and sex characteristics is unnecessary and causes confusion.
... indicates that the webmaster has never been to Germany etc. These are titles, not genders. In some countries the titles "Mrs.", "Doctor", "Professor" pile up into one combined title. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that drop-down list in much of Europe.
TBH I wished these sorts of dropdowns simply asked for pronouns and title for most sites. If I'm Dr. PuppyTailWags, he/him pronouns, that's all most companies need from me. I'm sure some exceptions exist: of course my doctor should know if I go by he/him but have a uterus, of course my dating profile should specify who I want to date. But say, my meal delivery service shouldn't care lol.
I was asked for race/gender/etc. on an award application one time. I declined to state because I didn't think that was relevant. Who wants to get an award based on demographics?
After I won, one of the organizers delicately asked me what my pronouns were so I would not be misgendered during the awards presentation. He said that he thought I was cisgender but needed to check because I declined to state.
I wonder what percent of people decline to state because they don't wish to share the info versus are not comfortable with the other options. I will continue to decline to state in almost all circumstances. Maybe companies will realize their data is garbage and stop asking.
What upsets me is that I was bullied my whole life for being gay and feminine. There were even a few times growing up where my teachers bullied me for not being "man" enough including PE teachers putting me in girls groups and teachers joking to the class that I don't need Maths because I'll probably be hairdresser anyway.
I'm not gay though. I'm just kinda weird, which I'm fine with even if others aren't. I think I'm just a guy who sometimes likes to wear a bit of makeup (think Fall Out Boy, not cross-dressing) and is straight, but also kinda asexual, I guess.
It's sad though because although I identify as a straight male and have spend my entire life being abused for my gender and sexuality, I now have the privilege(?) of being discriminated against in the workplace. Growing up my parents told me it was just school, but it's not, people just suck.
I learnt to handle the name calling though. Those who were badly bullied can probably relate, you have to grow a thick skin just to survive emotionally. But knowing employers might discriminate against you is different because you have no power.
On the 4473 form for background check in the US, the valid races are "White, African American, Asian, Hispanic". No other options, and no option to not specify. The fun part is, you can select ALL of them, not just one, and MANY people do just that.
The funny thing is that I can sort of see how some of these end up happening.
Dr (male) and Dr (female) as separate titles makes sense for example, for i18n reasons, since some languages like Spanish will require the info - even a simple 'welcome!' would have to choose bienvenido/bienvenida depending on gender.
I like this site, shows how even 'simple' things can get complicated, in many cases you can see the logic that got them there.
The Canadian Decathlon one is here (go to the filter) - https://www.decathlon.ca/en/c/22252/sports - and you can see the train of thought that it makes sense to put a filter in as sportswear comes in male/female. Those filters probably make a bit more sense when filtering a specific category too but I can see how that would all get in without someone considering how absurd it'd look when filtering all products.
[+] [-] fasteddie31003|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cypress66|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wintogreen74|3 years ago|reply
1. HR gets asked by their employees for statistics on how many non-binary/PoC/women/<insert your label here> people in the organization are represented in management/executive/engineering/<insert your probably under-represented role here>.
2. The org at first responds "We don't know because we don't collect this data".
3. The question-askers respond "How convenient, that's because you know they're under-represented".
4. Company responds with typical "meritocracy" answer, then eventually launches long, drawn-out process because hey, "we're a data driven organization!"
5. Years later, after the original question-asker is long gone they share the data, ideally after a few cycles that show <current under-represented individuals> have grown from small percentage of total to slightly larger small percentage. Company loudly boasts on all social media platforms about wokeness and snowflake status.
6. Times change and society moves on, leading to questions of "why does the company care if I'm <whatever, it's now a non-event, progress!>"
7. Employees respond with lack of giving a sh!t or manufacture false outrage at the violation of their personal privacy.
8. the cycle continues, while data deteriorates, leading to some pretty hilarious options in drop-downs.
[+] [-] bombcar|3 years ago|reply
I suspect it's very rarely actually important, it's just on the list of things they always have asked for and always will.
[+] [-] kace91|3 years ago|reply
Now sexual orientation, that's a head scratcher.
[+] [-] LoveMortuus|3 years ago|reply
And in some cases it could even be considered as sexual harassment.
Example: "I am lesbian" in other words means I'm sexually attracted and may or may not have sexual intercourse with another woman.
Now try to think of questions you would have to ask to receive the above as the answer.
Maybe it's just me, but unless asked, it feels very inappropriate to just tell people with whom you have sex or wish to have sex with. Especially when the topic of conversation was about something completely different and in no way related.
[+] [-] no-dr-onboard|3 years ago|reply
I feel the same way and have never been able to get a good answer for this one. "Statistics and hiring" is a very lame-duck answer. How does it help our product knowing that we have +1 more homonormative person?
[+] [-] knicholes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrownawaydad|3 years ago|reply
I immediately dropped the applications. Perhaps screening out people like me was the real goal to begin with, and maybe it's a win-win after all.
[+] [-] curun1r|3 years ago|reply
Quite often, it seems, they ask to build your profile to sell to advertisers. As much as it would be great for everyone to be treated equally, our genders do affect the crap that we buy and advertisers often care about it.
But more broadly, finding trends/patterns really does come down to being able to sort people into different buckets. Especially now, with the push towards ML, you never know which feature will turn out to be significant, so the strategy ends up being to collect as much data as possible and let computers churn through it looking for patterns.
It would be tempting to ascribe a gender-specific motive to the collection of gender data just based on the significance that we feel towards gender. But I'm not sure those collecting it have those motivations. They're just sucking in everything that they can get away with in the hopes that some of it will prove valuable.
[+] [-] hnbear|3 years ago|reply
Turns out that my employer deliberately doesn’t send gender to the insurance company. This means it defaults to male. A urologist appointment for kidney stones was then rejected by the insurer when it didn’t match the provider.
If this was an Ob/Gyn appointment that makes a little more sense, but kidney stones and urology in general are non-gendered. This was not the first claim either. Plenty of others were fine with other providers.
I can see gender being used sort of generically for fraud prevention in some cases. But, it’s a stretch to say it’s broadly useful.
In general now I lie on forms about as much as I can. At Panera Bread I was asked if I’m the CEO when my account came up first name Panera, last name Bread. There’s no reason for any personal data, so I don’t give it.
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genderwhy|3 years ago|reply
Gathering this by companies is so they can better profile you and serve you tailored content (as defined by them.) E.g. If you respond "Man", they might want to send you fewer ads for tampons and more ads for razors or whatever. Note, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's the reasoning.
[+] [-] danso|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skataz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitlax|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evrydayhustling|3 years ago|reply
As people have mentioned, this applies to hiring -- but at the top of the funnel in who your posts are reaching/motivating, not just at the end for diversity stats.
[+] [-] jdlyga|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|3 years ago|reply
Like, why should they know?
I'm happy for them to have anonymized stats for decision making, but they shouldn't have it attached to a record with my name.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] OtomotO|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playingalong|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|3 years ago|reply
We hate it, but we're required to.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] smrtinsert|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnEro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShredKazoo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yamazakiwi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smrtinsert|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nmz|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Waterluvian|3 years ago|reply
I think (and kind of hope) that we might be slowly progressing towards an era where we stop discretizing gender into specific labels. The ever-growing number of labels suggests, to me at least, that we've got a wrong fit for the data type. I think it's rather simple: a multi-dimensional continuum of gender identity cannot be reduced to specific names. But that concept of "discrete gender" is very well-entrenched in society, so there's an attempt to make it fit by adding more discrete categories.
I'm not sure this is "wrong" given that I don't think society/culture/whatnot ever turns on a dime. But I don't think this represents a satisfactory state.
A good place to start is to stop asking for "gender" when it's completely unnecessary for whatever service is being offered. I think most websites don't need to. And if they're legally obligated in some way, that needs fixing.
...Am I making any sense? I'm having a moment of struggling to render my thoughts to words.
[+] [-] agolio|3 years ago|reply
2. Mrs Prof Dr. - Again this is likely German, and is not a gender selector, rather a title selector. It is standard in Germany to use both Prof and Dr titles, the Mrs then implies female. You wouldn't use it conversationally.
[+] [-] mccorrinall|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SAI_Peregrinus|3 years ago|reply
A man is most commonly (by percentage of total adult human population) an XY male, with a penis/testes, and produce sperm.
A woman is most commonly (by percentage of total adult human population) an XX female, with vulva/vagina/uterus/ovaries and breasts, and produce eggs. Older women (after menopause) no longer produce eggs and so have neuter gametic sex.
Pre-pubescent children don't produce gametes, and thus have neuter gametic sex.
A trans man is an XX female, possibly with surgical alterations to physiological sex, possibly with hormone replacement therapy to alter hormonal sex, and possibly (if either of the two former are present) with neuter gametic sex. Being a man does not require being male.
A trans woman is an XY male, possibly with surgical alterations to physiological sex, possibly with hormone replacement therapy to alter hormonal sex, and possibly (if either of the two former are present) with neuter gametic sex. Being a woman does not require being female.
Other combinations are possible.
Confusing gender with the various forms of sex and sex characteristics is unnecessary and causes confusion.
[+] [-] SeanLuke|3 years ago|reply
... indicates that the webmaster has never been to Germany etc. These are titles, not genders. In some countries the titles "Mrs.", "Doctor", "Professor" pile up into one combined title. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that drop-down list in much of Europe.
Edit: looks like I was beat to it.
[+] [-] thot_experiment|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PuppyTailWags|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crackercrews|3 years ago|reply
After I won, one of the organizers delicately asked me what my pronouns were so I would not be misgendered during the awards presentation. He said that he thought I was cisgender but needed to check because I declined to state.
I wonder what percent of people decline to state because they don't wish to share the info versus are not comfortable with the other options. I will continue to decline to state in almost all circumstances. Maybe companies will realize their data is garbage and stop asking.
[+] [-] AstralStorm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kypro|3 years ago|reply
I'm not gay though. I'm just kinda weird, which I'm fine with even if others aren't. I think I'm just a guy who sometimes likes to wear a bit of makeup (think Fall Out Boy, not cross-dressing) and is straight, but also kinda asexual, I guess.
It's sad though because although I identify as a straight male and have spend my entire life being abused for my gender and sexuality, I now have the privilege(?) of being discriminated against in the workplace. Growing up my parents told me it was just school, but it's not, people just suck.
I learnt to handle the name calling though. Those who were badly bullied can probably relate, you have to grow a thick skin just to survive emotionally. But knowing employers might discriminate against you is different because you have no power.
[+] [-] sn_master|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damsta|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kace91|3 years ago|reply
Dr (male) and Dr (female) as separate titles makes sense for example, for i18n reasons, since some languages like Spanish will require the info - even a simple 'welcome!' would have to choose bienvenido/bienvenida depending on gender.
[+] [-] srmarm|3 years ago|reply
The Canadian Decathlon one is here (go to the filter) - https://www.decathlon.ca/en/c/22252/sports - and you can see the train of thought that it makes sense to put a filter in as sportswear comes in male/female. Those filters probably make a bit more sense when filtering a specific category too but I can see how that would all get in without someone considering how absurd it'd look when filtering all products.
[+] [-] kioleanu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cleverwebble|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CharlesW|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quirk|3 years ago|reply