One minor nice moment

[drwex]

It seems like all the organizations I belong to are sending out their annual member surveys this month. I filled out the Amnesty International survey recently and was pleased to see that their choices for Gender were: Male, Female, Transgender, Other

It's probably not perfect and I'm sure a couple of my friends could help them broaden the idea still further, but it was nice to see an organization that recognizes more than the standard male/female identities.

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

It's probably not perfect and I'm sure a couple of my friends could help them broaden the idea still further, but it was nice to see an organization that recognizes more than the standard male/female identities.

Hmm. Well, yes, I agree that this is basically an enlightened concept, but it does still seem a bit misguided. I usually understand "transgender" to be an adjective modifying one's notional gender, not as a *kind* of gender distinct from Male/Female.

What behavior are they expecting under this system? That all FtMs and all MtFs should choose "transgender" unilaterally? How does that help them analyze their demographic info? Or should they have a separate additional category for each -- which would imply that FtMs do not get to identify as "really" Male and so on? (Asking for that distinction would certainly make sense in a medical setting or in studies where gender is a real and relevant factor being analyzed; I'm not sure about Amnesty International.)

I would further think that if it's meant instead to apply to "people who do not identify with either of the first two", then "Other" would more appropriately cover it; or if you read "transgender" as "currently in transition" (in either direction), that might be a meaningful statement, but it seems to me that that's not what is normally meant by the word.

OTOH, if this is checkboxes rather than radio buttons, it makes total sense to me. ;-)

Really, I'm just wondering whether this serves the needs of the people it's referencing in any way beyond visibility (not to belittle increased visibility as a stage).

My recommended construction for a gender radio-button menu is usually:
()Male ()Female ()Other ()Prefer not to say

I think it's a question of self-identification

[drwex]

I know some people who have transitioned from one gender to another and prefer to be identified with their new gender, including the use of pronouns, access to sex-segregated facilities such as locker rooms, etc.

I know other people who don't feel that a specific gender label fits them. I'm not sure a generic "other" works, but it seems better than requiring selection of either male or female (or even both, since some folk seem to feel that neither label fits).

I also know that I'm pretty ignorant on this subject, but I know enough to notice when one organization is making an effort that others are not making :)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

This. I've seem transgender people call it "third-gendering", because it implies that they're transgender *instead of* male or female. I see where they're making an effort! But.

--'song
other

[c1.livejournal.com]

As a survey tool, how useful is this? Knowing that gay rights (forget about trans rights for the moment) in America are far from a done deal, if I were asked, I'd be hesitant to supply information that might come back to haunt me.
I'd say something like "not every place in America is as forward thinking as Boston", except then I remember what it took for Boston to integrate its public schools (busing, anyone?), how "integrated" the fire department is (not!), that gay marriage in Massachusetts never saw the test of a popular vote (at the time of the court decision, it's doubtful it would have passed), and a whole host of other things, and I'm stuck with "America isn't very forward thinking".

[cos]

I'm on a mailing list called Progressive Exchange which is used by a lot of people who do online stuff for various nonprofits, campaigns, and other lefty groups to discuss strategy, trade tips, point out interesting new essays or research relevant to that work, etc. Sometime in the past few weeks, someone from Amnesty International posed a question to the list about exactly that: How do you code gender in your member database (and, consequently, what gender options you have on surveys and and web forms). Interesting discussion, which advice for different things to do depending on what sort of organization/campaign/group you are, and what your data needs are (for example, are you going to need to join your data with other databases you get from other sources? If so, the better you match their fields, the more accurate your join).

P.S. The person from Amnesty opened the conversation by saying they thought just adding "Other" seemed insufficient, but then, how many other options do you add? But much of the discussion seemed to suggest that it's better to have fewer categories unless you really need more to be able to accomplish what you need to with your data. For a variety of fairly solid reasons.