Mumsnet registration ‘male’ ‘female’ ‘UNSPECIFIED’ ‘prefer not to say’

[Fuchsiaplant]

Been lurking for a while, and registered to comment on another thread.

However, was slightly horrified when I went to register.

How can you be “Unspecified”?

You are either male or female.

Come on mumsnet. You can do better than this. For a site that is called ‘Mumsnet’, it must surely understand that you are either male or female.

If it wants to fall down the sex/ gender rabbit hole, have two sections on registration.

ie,
sex - male or female

gender / what you identify as - male, female, cat, pigeon etc

Was horrified that Mumsnet has fallen on the first hurdle.

(Taking bets on how long this thread will stay up)

Male and female are also used to gender.

man and woman are not gender.

Male and female are sex categories not gender categories

OED

I wasn't assigned a sex at birth so asking that would be problematic.

You're not assigned a sex at birth. It's observed at birth.

I hadn't noticed that

Saying unspecified does sound rather weird though.

True

That's interesting. What did it say on your birth certificate? Where were you born? In the UK, the sex of a child has to be declared on its birth registration. Possibly some other countries don't do this?

You should be able to opt out of ALL the questions pertaining to protected characteristics.
People shouldn’t be compelled to state their sex/religion/race/level of ability on a Mumsnet registration form.

That's interesting. What did it say on your birth certificate? Where were you born? In the UK, the sex of a child has to be declared on its birth registration. Possibly some other countries don't do this?

It presumably recorded sex observed at birth, as is done everywhere. It's not 'assigned'.

Anyway re the op... darned if I know what difference there is between 'unspecified' and 'prefer not to say'. Unless the field says 'unspecified' until you choose one of the other options.

I've been thinking about this. Perhaps unspecified is for the lizard people.

I was born in England in the 80s
My sex was observed to be, and recorded as, female.

You were assigned/declared to be/observed to be female at birth, so the answer to the first question is "female".

Nope . The answer to "sex assigned at birth" is none.
If someone asked my "sex at birth" without the assigned nonsense it's still a stupid question. Sex can't change. So "at birth" is not needed.
My sex is, always has been and always will be, female.

As for the "which gender do you identify with?" I don't know. No ones ever been able to give a full explanation about what that means so I can decide.

Some people don't seem to understand what the word 'assigned' means, I guess. 🤷‍♀️

Or maybe what 'sex' actually is?

I blame Harry Potter and the sorting hat.

Do you mean this nonsense is actually JKRs fault?

For the record, the sorting hat put me in Hufflepuff. Which I am 100% happy with. I wish that was asked on a registration form for things. Maybe I'll add it to my email signature.

I am the same. Sometimes I answer "prefer not to say" to everything. Sometimes I comply and answer "female" and "woman."

This

I would guess that there are older accounts where the data wasn't collected at the time that now have Unspecified in that field in the background, and now the options are meant to be Male/Female/Prefer not to say but Unspecified is also pulling through as an option

How are you sleeping? Have you seen a professional? Being "horrified " over this is really worrying

Only 'slightly horrified', I wouldn't worry.

Im curious to know why male is listed first too, its a site primarily used by women. Why have they listed male first?