"Gender" on a form

[Beltane18]

I have just had to fill in a form for some training

It is a really unprofessional form in the sense that it's poorly formatted etc

but what they did do, very carefully, was to allocate 2 genders, male and female... and then write in the boxes in brackets that Female includes if you transitioned to be a woman - and also the same for Men.

SO ANNOYING.

I can't complain because I will be accused of hate speech at work.

@Motherofpearl

Lol, just like all those people who use to cross out "British" and write "ENGLISH!!" on official forms. I think they probably still do.

Things go round and round and round, always the same responses.

They'll just record you in the correct box (as in man or woman, just like they'd tick British if you crossed it out and wrote English).

You guys are living like first world anarchy nonsense, lol.

Here we are then - "a man who is pretending he is a woman" in order to access a training course where the spaces allocated to men were already full. Does that seem plausible to you? It doesn't to me. How would a man actually go about trying to gain this dubious advantage?

I usually don't answer those questions. I don't identify with any of the boxes.

It's not a big issue, it's not important, no lives are at stake. This is Feminism chat, we can chat about whatever we want.

I scribble it out now and write sex instead. It must be annoying to those recieving the form but I feel so fucking strongly on this issue now that I can't not do it! If there is enough space I will also write 'I have no gender!'

Yes, I am petty

Trills, have you heard of Lily Madigan?

Goodness, I've been crossing out gender and have been putting down sex since it was introduced. Forms used to be sex/gender. I used to cross out the gender, especially in schools.

Now I just cross out gender and put sex above or beside it.

They're not "female". It's inaccurate. These things matter.

Why bother actually asking at all if you don't want accurate data?

Here we are then - "a man who is pretending he is a woman" in order to access a training course where the spaces allocated to men were already full. Does that seem plausible to you? It doesn't to me. How would a man actually go about trying to gain this dubious advantage?

Lolz. Aye, however would that play out?

I might also add that 'trans girls are girls' is never used. I wonder why?

Find something important to complain about.

Sex does matter in many ways and is hugely important for shaping future policies in Health and Social Care and the subsequent funding.

GreenBook me too! For something medical their sex matters. It just does - or could. Whether they like dresses or football is of absolutely no importance.

Also a bit of a watershed moment for me, that flu vaccine form.

Since the answer is meaningless, why do they even bother asking? Its become as superfluous as asking your sexual orientation or race. They dont care about equality so should just drop the pretense.

it depends what they want to know.

Equalities info used to be around race / sex etc

If sex is replaced with gender then it gives no indication of whether the becunted (or bepenised) population are accessing it or not.

If they want to know if there is a decent uptake from the trans population then the question do you identify as transgender is more useful.

It's this question of what do you identify as rather than what you are.

I can identify as anything I like but if it's not what I am then the issues / privileges associated with the whatever-it-is are not directly relevant to me.

And the argument that what you are (feel) inside is what is relevant and not what others perceive you to be is clearly nonsense when it comes to equalities issues.

People seem to get this about race but not sex.

Oh no vertical some people don't even get it about race! Ffs!

We have three gender boxes on our forms. (M, F and U). I have to allocate shared bedrooms by gender, not sex. We don’t collect sex. I don’t have any way of telling the intact male transwomen from natal women, so they are allocated a female roommate.
This is fine and dandy for the right on posters who don’t mind sharing a bedroom with a stranger with a penis, but unfair to the many young women who have suffered male violence/ rape etc. Or who are culturally unable to share with a man.
Collecting gender on forms instead of sex is a nonsense. And allowing people to selfID is making it worse.

blackdoggotmytongue

Have any of the many, many posters who keep popping up to explain why self ID is a good thing been able to solve this one for you yet?

I wouldn't be keen on sharing a bedroom with a strange man I've got to say.

I stayed on a mixed ward when I was 18, for 1 night, I was the only female there (well by appearance ) and did feel quite vulnerable when the lights went down. Two of them in particular were just sitting in their beds staring at me. Not nice.

Vertical "If they want to know if there is a decent uptake from the trans population then the question do you identify as transgender is more useful."

but I think one reason they feel unable to ask that is that many people say "if you identify as a woman, you are a woman".

Couple of reasons this threw me

1. in a professional setting, it's the first time I've seen a form equate biological sex with what you choose to identify as - and there's literally no option to say "I am a biological woman" so it's like I only fit in the "other" box

2. It's the first time I felt if I crossed out that bit and wrote "biological woman" there would be a risk of being found out and accused of hate speech - again, because it's work.

I've certainly seen some odd things on forms before of course, but not at work.

However, given the phrasing of the question, both biologically born men and women belong in the "other" category.

I have had this both in professional and personal settings. For training at work, I crossed out gender and wrote sex. I also lightly mentioned to my colleague that the constant conflation of the two annoyed me and she asked was it because there are so many different genders. I said no, it's because strictly speaking gender is a grammatical term and sex is biological.

In a personal setting I also crossed out gender on an anonymous form and wrote sex and wrote a rather long rant about how sex is biological and please would they stop participating in female erasure.

I sent out a survey today with gender instead of sex. It really bugged me but I was asked to do it about 5 mins before we closed for Christmas and I didn't have time to change it.

I also briefly reflected on why I was sending they survey and if I needed that info and realised I didn't. I already have a record on their legal sex and I struggle to see a situation where I would need to split the information I am gathering (feedback on an event) by sex so the question is actually just pointless anyway. When I rewrite it I think I will just remove it. I suspect that is the case a lot of the time.

I work in medical education and recently all our test questions have changed from sex to gender. So for example, a question will be:
Which one of these factors is most important to consider when treating X?
A. Age
B. Family history
C. Gender

Makes my teeth itch.

Have any of the many, many posters who keep popping up to explain why self ID is a good thing been able to solve this one for you yet?

Well the solution would clearly be...bigots who do not want to share with male bodied people never leave the house. As male people are the most oppressed of the oppressed and the only possible reason for not wanting to sleep in a room with a male person is because you think all male people are rapists

Pretty much BatShite, yes.