Gender specifications on your Mumsnet account: update

[SarahMumsnet]

Morning folks,

Following on from last week’s thread about our asking you to sign up to Mumsnet as male or female, here’s where we’ve landed.

We’ve had a careful read of the thread, and done some more general reading around and investigation into how this is handled elsewhere, and we think the best way to proceed is to add the option “other” to the list of responses to the question of gender. Viz

Female
Male
Other (please specify) _

This is how lots of other sites navigate this, so we hope it’s not too controversial.

As ever when it comes to questions around gender, we’re aware that not everyone will agree, but this seems to us to be the most inclusive and sensible route to take.

Do let us know what you think.
MNHQ

ItsAll

*SEX!

SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX!!

NOT GENDER!!!!*

SEX please. Be a little island of sanity.

I agree with everything HairyLittleCarrot has said.

Oo, theres a loaded question!!

You still don't seem to be getting the point!

Did you not read the last MNHQ update?

As long as you're not asking specifically about gender, I don't mind.

"The question will be worded, simply, "Are you..?", and underneath that there'll be a drop-down menu, which will show "Female" as the default answer (based on the site's current usership). If you click on the menu, you'll be able to change it to "Male" or "Other". If you pick "Other", you'll be shown a box saying "Please specify"."

"Other"? I must have missed that day in biology class.

It's not meant to be nice or not nice. I'm just saying that asking people's gender and then showing them ovulation calendars if they tick 'female' might not always work.

Bloody hell Cote - that's not on picking on a named individual. FWIW there's plenty of posters of female sex for whom an ovulation calendar is useless.

You will get trans people like Ego utterly convinced of their femaleness ticking the 'female' box. Fat lot of good the ovulation calendar will do then

1- totally out of order to pick on a poster by name
2- I don't think ego is convinced she is female unless I have misunderstood
3- so what if trans people pick the option they feel like picking? The point of mumsnet data gathering isn't to get fully accurate statistics on its users and surely the point of this request to remove gender from the options is symbolic/figurative rather than to improve the quality of their data gathering? I don't care if 95% of mners tick the 'wrong' sex box as long as it doesn't ask us for our gender or refer to male and female as gender options.

I agree, it's a spectacularly nasty thing to taunt someone trans for what their body can't do. I don't care how 'correct' your wording is, it's fucking bullying and it's not on.

Well if seeing your name bothered you so much, I'll ask for it to be deleted and replace it with one that doesn't have your name in it. As if that changes anything, but hey ho.

"ie not to show you an ovulation calendar at the side of the thread you're on if you're male"

Well, good luck with that.

You will get trans people who are utterly convinced of their femaleness ticking the 'female' box. Fat lot of good the ovulation calendar will do then.

You should ask for SEX and not GENDER if you want meaningful answers.

This thread is becoming as predictable and depressing as all the others.

Thank you, HQ, for the clarification. I have to ask how a drop down set to Female by default can be left unanswered. Presumably you left out the "decline to state" option, which doesn't fall under "other".

I would suggest that for the vast majority of users, there won't be any hesitation over the answering of that question. Hand wringing over how one particular person answers is none of our business, provided that that person is happy with her response. It won't make a statistical difference.

It feels a bit like hammering on about someone's grammar when they're asking an emotional question. We frown on that.

I think the mention of the ovulation calendar was a very telling exemplar. Almost raw biology. That apparently wouldn't sit well with men.

'That apparently wouldn't sit well with men.'

i doubt men care . they would most likely ignore it as they have joined a site called mumsnet

"The point of mumsnet data gathering isn't to get fully accurate statistics on its users"

It's not? [puzzled]

Bloody hell, seriously...who gives a shit. This is a free site and this is a minor, teeny tiny non-issue in the scheme of things. I think MNHQ have been very obliging aver thus.

I'm not concerned how I am asked for my personal info, I'm more concerned how it is USED.