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?

Oh dear, I went wrong, soz, Undercrackers.

I thought I was calling on MNHQ to stop perpetuating the thoughtless use of the word gender when the correct word would have been sex. I thought I was highlighting the differences between the meanings of the two words. I thought I was petitioning the one internet forum that I respect and which allows gender critical discussion to stand up for its gender critical members. I thought this very small change might be a tiny bit of resistance against the replacement of sex with gender universally in every aspect of our society.

When actually I was just Not Getting Marketing.

(Leaving aside the point that marketers would be better off marketing power drills to me than makeup. And the fact that as a direct marketer 'gender information' would be more valuable if I knew who NOT to market makeup to)

You can argue until you're blue in the face that gender is made up and unimportant and all the rest. The fact remains that generally and for most of the population there ARE social and cultural differences between those of male or female gender...and always have been.

So just tick the box you identify most with. It's not difficult.

To be truly gender neutral is vanishingly rare and probably not at the top of mosts peoples 'things to worry about' when creating a basic personal details form.

So just tick the box you identify most with. It's not difficult.

It is if you don't identify with a gender. I don't identify as a woman, I am a woman.

It is also important as on a population level what sex you are is actually rather important for a multitude of reasons. To massively oversimplify, if every woman in the country ticked the "I identify as male" box what would happen to maternity services?

It is if you don't identify with a gender. I don't identify as a woman, I am a woman

So do you identify as male gender?

So do you identify as male gender?

No.

What does it mean to identify as male gender?

A question for those who thing gender is a thing - how many genders are there?

What would someone who identified as male gender be like?

This is so boring and so unnecessary.

You can't think of any attitudes, feelings or behaviours that are generally associated with men in our society rather than women?

Really? If so, I can't help you.

Snort

Gender IS a thing. It's out there, it exists, it's defined, it's used in society. You (general you) can huff and puff and refuse to name your gender...it doesn't matter. For those for who gender is 'a thing', they'll be calling your gender within a minute of looking at you or speaking to you. You WILL be categorised, whether you want to be or not.

I don't see the point in stamping my feet over a word...it's so pointless. Why bother?

You can't think of any attitudes, feelings or behaviours that are generally associated with men in our society rather than women?

Of.course I can. Men like football. Women like having their nails painting. But how should.you feel if you do show.both typically male and typically female behaviours?

You seem to see.gender as a binary?

"Well, you won't find much in the way of scientific "proof" [for souls] What you will find is plenty of sworn testimonies from people that point to ever growing evidence of continued consciousness following death."

No evidence, then. In that case, try not to talk as if souls are a thing.

Someone whose heart stopped for a minute talking about seeing a light and feeling peaceful does not mean there is life after death and it certainly doesn't mean there are souls.

I like football, beer, gaming, maths. I don't wear make up or dresses and I don't knit. Is my gender male or female?

For those for who gender is 'a thing', they'll be calling your gender within a minute of looking at you or speaking to you. You WILL be categorised, whether you want to be or not.

Generally by sex rather than gender. You can almost always tell what sex.someone was born. Hence why women get slagged for being butch, or men effeminate.

People see sex, if the sex they seen does.not match the gendered appearance of that person it seems to matter.

Gender has no positive purpose.

You seem to see gender as a binary?

Yes. I do. Because it is.

It's a whole other debate to get into if you want to discuss whether what society dictates are male or female behaviours/dress/feelings/whatever (ie gender) are fair or accurate or sexist or promote inequality and all the rest.

But the fact remains that our society does have defined differences and a general societal expectation that is different for males and females - and you are going to fall into one of the categories overall.

Which is not the same as saying you can't be of the male gender if you paint your nails.

Gender has no positive purpose

Nor do a lot of things. If I had to list all the things I considered to have no positive purpose i'd still be here in 2 hours in listing them.

It doesn't make them exist any less.

Peridot, so you see sex and gender as meaning exactly the same thing, just different words? Unfortunately, these days, they are not used interchangeable, and that's what this thread is about.

"Gender IS a thing. It's out there, it exists, it's defined, it's used in society."

Except that it's not. Nobody can properly define it or say if we are to have one, or two, or none. Nobody knows if it's a fickle feeling or an immutable fact.

It is a word born out of people's reluctance to use the word 'sex'. There are languages where 'gender' doesn't exist.

Peridot, so you see sex and gender as meaning exactly the same thing, just different words? Unfortunately, these days, they are not used interchangeable, and that's what this thread is about

I don't know what I've said to make you think that. But no, gender and sex have very distinct definitions and those definitions clearly do not mean the same thing.

I don't know what I've said to make you think that. But no, gender and sex have very distinct definitions and those definitions clearly do not mean the same thing.

Somas far as I can tell you think there are two sexes, male and female, and two genders, masculine and feminine?

Do you think that females are always feminine?

It is also important as on a population level what sex you are is actually rather important for a multitude of reasons. To massively oversimplify, if every woman in the country ticked the "I identify as male" box what would happen to maternity services?

On the prison trans thread, slugseatlettuce made the excellent point that as the numbers involved in the female prison population are much smaller, counting former sex offenders such as the convicted paedophile rapist Davina Ayrton as a woman would quickly skew the statistics on female sex offenders.

The key thing is that are only 24 female sex offenders in the prison system as opposed to 1141 males.

Entire prison population at time of count in 2014 was 694 women, 11053 men. So sex offenders made up rounded down 3% (3.46%) of women prisoners, about 10% men prisoners (10.32%). Adding just 7 trans women sex offenders (as trans women have been found to commit crime at same rate as males in studies, and there is a documented risk that convicted male prisoners might use any relaxation of legislation as a loophole to be moved to the female estate) would push up the percentage by over 1%. While you'd have to add rather more men for a 1% percentage increase in male sex offenders as a proportion of the male population as a whole.

And just counting Davina as a woman would mean the female sex offender population would have a percentage increase of 4% on its previous amount. Obviously you only need to add 24 women for it to double, in contrast to another 1141 men.

This is also likely to be the case for non-sexual violent offenders like Tara Hudson. The amount of female prisoners who have committed violent crimes is tiny in comparison with the overall number of males convicted of violent crimes in the prison system.

So this both skews the statistics, and makes female prisoners more vulnerable to violence.

I'm really not sure why I put the "former" in with reference to Davina Ayrton! I wouldn't do it with anyone else.

About ad targeting:

N's native ads aren't targeted. They're aimed at the MN demographic and don't look at profile stats.

The targeted ads, which might show you things such as products you've recently browsed online, are run by a company called AdChoices. You can see which ads are AdChoices ones because they have a little logo in the corner. Those are targeted based on your AdChoices profile, which won't be anything you've signed up for, but cookies which collect information about individual users across many different sites and also pick up information such as your rough geographical location. For example, a MNer browsing from Germany, like me, often sees ads in German.

if I was MN, I'd be using algorithms to read people's threads. Then target ads based on the threads. Education, atheist, Republican ads here.

I believe AdChoices does this. It takes keywords from the page it's on. Not always but sometimes.

I'm have a feeling that the sex/gender you provide when you sign up only serves to denote the pronouns used on your profile. For example, mine says "BertieBotts joined Mumsnet in January 2009. She has one child.
A son of 7 years old." I expect if I'd ticked male when I joined, it would say "He has one child." I don't believe that it's used for any other purpose, although I could be wrong. It's not used for stat gathering. They have the census for that.