to object to MNHQ forcing a MALE/FEMALE gender binary on my account.

[HairyLittleCarrot]

I don't have any GENDER.

My MN account forces me to pick from two 'genders'.

I can't even opt out, it's a forced binary choice.

I'm not agender, pangender, cisgender, transgender, male gender, female gender or ANY GENDER.

If you want to know my sex, I am happy to provide that information. But you'll have to add that in as a field, because it doesn't exist currently.

Sex and gender are not the same thing. If you insist on collecting data by gender and making it a forced choice I would like an option as follows:

"Reject gender as a harmful, made up, bullshit concept".

Then when you analyse your account database you can say
X% identify as female gender
Y% identify as male gender
Z% reject gender as a bullshit concept.

AIBU to request MNHQ to alter my account details so that they do not misrepresent me?

Dratsea the problem comes with laws and official government forms using gender in an unclear way. From threads on here it would appear gender is now the social construct and nothing to do with biological classification.

I think!

Hi all - we've been discussing the issues raised on the thread.

We are currently looking into the way people join the site, and so this thread has been really interesting to read. We'll certainly factor in what's been said here when we work on improving the joining process.

Venus thank you and Sonya exactly.

Thanks Becca, I was in the process of reporting myself!

Dratsea I came to the conclusion as mad as it is, that I ought to now stop calling myself a woman as I don't "feel" like one. I am a female and will henceforth in the eyes of the law be what? Then they would say you look like our category of Gender=woman so we will assign you to that group at which point the whole notion of choosing gender is exploded-- like my head.

I wish there was a very clear discussion about the definition of sex and gender in the media/parlaiment/whatever other big arena involved in taking decisions that will involve us all.

I like the explaination about nomenclature and classification dratsea. It's a good reminder that some stuff are set in stone (sex) and others aren't (gender)>
I'm worried that laws coming in to protect discrimination of transpeople will be done by people who have no idea of the difference, will take their decision based on unclear definitions and that therefore we will end up with a situation that will be unmanageable.

Tbh, I think that for most people, they will have no issue with the distinction between sex and gender. I'm concerned that transpeople will have some issue saying that they are male when MTF.
One of the issue, of course, being that we don't have two different words to talk about sex and gender. It's all man/woman or male/female, based on the 'outdated' idea that if you were of the male/female sex then you automatically are of the male/female gender. I'm convinced that if we had different words to talk about male sex and male gender (and female of course), things would be much easier.

Sonya the eyes of the law had and have a very "classification" orientated view of male/female. Remind me when homosexuality became legal (only between consenting over 21 yr olds in private)? It will not just be your head that explodes, I do worry about my ex-patient who had an X and a Y chromosome but had a vagina, no ovaries, no willy, (big clitoris) and was "female". She is now in her thirties.

Totally unrelated, and apologies to HLC for hijack Recent TED Talk

My phone has crashed 3 times trying to respond to dratsea in length. Aargh.
brief response:
I think you are mistakenly conflating 'sex' and 'gender' as terms and not understanding the impact of that mistake.
Could you give your definitions of each term as you understand them in the context of this discussion?
That is: sex was a legally protected characteristic, but now gender is instead.

Dratsea your head may explode soon enough..

I'm worried that laws coming in to protect discrimination of transpeople will be done by people who have no idea of the difference, will take their decision based on unclear definitions and that therefore we will end up with a situation that will be unmanageable.

That's exactly what is happening IMO. I wouldn't trust Maria Miller to manage her way out of a paper bag. She is deeply stupid. She responded to someone on twitter who urged her to consider the recommendations the Committee had received about women's rights by telling her that it was all answered in the report. Where?

Hi HLC Sex and gender are words rather than terms. OK classification and nomenclature are also words but I have tried to make a distinction "in terms". I adored Alice in Wonderland, still do at 65, because of the anarchy of Charles's (Lewis's) use and misuse of words. If defined as part of a classification both sex and gender can have a legal definition. I know that cannot be done, those terms can only be nomenclature. I am not sure our politicians had that insight when formulating laws in relation to sex/gender as in M/F, if I am guilty in conflating the terms then perhaps I am not alone?

Sorry about your phone.

That is: sex was a legally protected characteristic, but now gender is instead.

This shift in definition is the key point. The reason for the concern is that this is a legal issue.

Can I point out a way this might work? Say a person refuses to employ a woman because she might get pregnant in future. Being a woman should be a legally protected characteristic, and so is pregnancy but (disclaimer IANAL) if we move to gender as the protected characteristic and someone claims that my hypothetical case is sex discrimination as pregnancy is something women experience and men don't, there would be a legal basis to say, no, pregnancy is not solely an issue for women, trans men may experience it too. Therefore no sex discrimination, and the woman is not already pregnant, so no pregnancy discrimination.

So this woman could potentially fall between the cracks. ISTR there has been a case of this nature in the US or Australia or Canada or somewhere.

What might the legal definition of gender be, dratsea?
And the legal definition of sex?

This matters.

HLC I trained as a doctor not a lawyer, agree that it matters but have no answer.

Your medical definition then!

(Asking you to set aside, for now, intersex conditions as a separate area for discussion)

But on MN - if you say you're male / female, I do wonder if you get different adverts?

I imagine so. Advertisers will want to target their products.

For now - society is very much male / female - man / woman. I would never describe myself as male. I might have been born with a male body but that's my bad luck.

I sympathise. FWIW I think the current focus on gender makes it much harder to non-conform to your stereotypical gender role without being pushed one way or the other.

I think Ego has highlighted impossibility of a medical definition. Intersex is easy, 30 yrs ago I gave good advice on XY girl. I can only hope she is happy.

(And to answer Ego about ads, of course, MN always reading my other open pages, word for word.)

That is such a good point Venus, the unscrupulous employer, along with the rest of the world, can tell which of their employees has the potential to get pregnant, but the law denies this.

I think the similar case was in the US, regarding breastfeeding or expressing at work?

Dratsea, that's a huge copout.

Medicine has to reference sex - it's referenced in most published papers - you're going by a working definition, a mutual understanding!
Risk of breast cancer in women vs men?
Risk of alzheimers in males vs females?
The working definition of sex is used daily in medicine.
Drug responses in men vs women?
gender has no relevance in the majority of such studies. They use a common understanding of male/female which is everything to do with physiology and nothing to do with identity.

I'm honestly not sure dratsea is answering the question (or possibly even understanding it) so much as introducing us to a whole new flavour of mansplaining. It's hard not to make a surgeon joke.

And it's not because the content of his first post was beyond me - I am better read than the average person on the topics of both historical and sociolinguistics, and language in general really (a remnant of a former life), and I just got back from an exam on Medical Genetics, so...