If you had the chance to create a form asking about sex/gender, how would you word the questions

[daisychainer]

My organisation want to change the way they ask about sex/gender.

I will have to be deliberately vague.

They need to establish:

Current gender
If current gender is the same as birth gender

(Their terminology, not mine).

So, how would you word it to get it right?

Why do they need to know? is it just for equalities monitoring, or something more useful like medical reasons? Or so they address people correctly?

Birth sex
Gender identity
I have started crossing out gender on forms and over writing with sex. No confusion as to what i am then!!

Maybe something like
1.Sex
M
F
Prefer not to say

1. Gender identity

M F Other Prefer not to say

Not perfect but allows you to record sex which is what they probably need to record.

Cross posted

Sex (some people consider this as the sex assigned at birth)

Gender identity as posters sbove

I'd ask for sex (maybe specify at birth) giving M/F/other/prefer not to say as options.

Then I'd ask "do you have a gender identity?" with a yes/no option, and then have "if yes, what is your gender identity?" with a M/F/Other/prefer not to say.

For Other in both questions I would have a space to give their answer if they wanted to specify.

What teen says

The organisation should not be collecting information beyond that which they need.

If they are wanting to explore equity/inequity in pay, I hope they record sex and not gender, unless they wish to explore both.

Biological sex:
M/F

Deeply held belief in gender identity
Yes/no

Gender Identity (if applicable)
Masculine
Feminine
Unicorn
Mermaid
Other

It’s medical insurance.

So they do need to ask for medical reasons, not pay etc.

Why would gender affect medical insurance? Or is it that you need to know if someone is trans? The thing with other protected characteristics is you find out if someone has that characteristics by asking them. Except in the case of gender identity where it's considered offensive to ask.

My organisation asks something like "Is your gender identity the same as your sex at birth?" It's pretty bulky.

Surely for medical reasons they need to know
a) sex
b) medical background including e.g. any use of hormone treatments
c) preferred prefix

If someone identifies opposite to their sex, isn't that irrelevant unless they have had medical intervention?