Work question: what is your gender identity?

[MintTeaLady]

My work has asked us to complete diversity questions. The first one is “what is your gender identity?”. The options are: Female, Male, Non-binary, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, prefer not to say, and another gender not listed.

I am drafting an email to ask for an additional option that would allow those who not believe in gender ideology to choose one. The comparator in the later questions is “what is your religion or belief?” which offers “no religion”.

Would “no gender identity” be appropriate to add to the list of options for the first question?

Thanks

Thanks all. I’ve sent the email, including that there are various options that could be added to express a lack of belief in gender ideology.

Let’s see if I get a reply!

That's disgraceful. And one of the many things I am concerned about. Is there any way you could dob them in?

On Civil Service application forms the question about gender is mandatory, there is no way to avoid it or to put a free test answer. Its just a drop down list. Its very annoying.

"whichever one gets me the best salary"

@MintTeaLady I was just wondering if you'd had a response to your email? I've received the same invitation to provide diversity info. I've sent a query and received a bit of a rubbish response - saying that they need to limit the number of responses and they'll make a note of feedback for future reference. I was wondering if you'd had any more luck...?

It should be 3 questions.

1. What is your sex? Male or female
2. Do you have a gender identity? Yes or no.
3. If yes what is your gender identity. List as long or short as they like with prefer to self identify.

@ItsNotMyName I did get a response and I’ll summarise it here tomorrow - it was pretty poor though. I have also raised it directly with the Ethics Partner. He acknowledged my email and said he would look into it but hasn’t replied formally yet.

@ItsNotMyName sorry for the delay. The summarised responses from the Inclusion team to my questions (which I realise aren’t all included in my original post) are:

• The external diversity and inclusion organisation consulted was INvolve.

• Justification of grouping trans, non binary and intersex together as gender dysphoria is also a medical condition like intersex. Disagreement with me that intersex is an outdated term.

• Disagreeing that gender was listed as a protected characteristic in the FAQs rather than sex, but agreeing to change the wording to remove “protected”.

• Justification that “prefer not to say” is sufficient instead of “no gender identity”. An apology that there is not an appropriate option for me to select (note I hadn’t written anything about my own personal views in the email) and an understanding of my concerns in relation to gender ideology. On the basis of external benchmarking and practices of other exercises, the company is comfortable that allowing people to identify their gender is appropriate.

I’m still awaiting a response from the Ethics team.

It is OK to record the views of people who have a gender identity but to require everyone to declare one regardless of whether they wish to be defined by gender stereotypes is compelling them to declare something about themselves that is not true.

Prefer not to say is not the same as not identifing with gender stereotypes.

Thank you for taking a stand even if they have decided that inclusion does not include women who do not identify with gender stereotypes and women who believe that the reason for oppression of females is based on biology and that on a global scale, women cannot identify out of their oppression and that changing the definition of women or female will not change the causes of oppression and in fact will make it much more difficult to measure the progress towards ending the oppression of women. But you know that already!!

I brought the form up with a few colleagues today and they agreed that all the fields should not all be mandatory. I do hope more people will email to complain about that. I had a great conversation about gender ideology with one (male) colleague in front of another who clearly didn’t have a clue what we were talking about. I’m hopeful he will now though!

I think that is a great idea OP, the more of us that do this when faced with such questions the better.

I really like PP's suggestion of N/A being an option. If I could tick a box saying the gender identity question is not applicable to me, that would sit really well with me.

N/A should be an option.

Not Applicable fits quite nicely with Non-Binary too.

I believe in gender identity and have no issue with them having that but I personally don't really have a gender identity and agree that no gender identity should be an option. For some people gender and how they express it is a big part of their identity and they should also have the option to tick the box that best suits them.

I usually just cross out gender and put sex if it is an option. On many forms you have a choose not to answer. I don't love this option as it is different from no gender identity but better than selecting a specific identity.

I thunk they should only have the option to put gender identity if it is relevant. So, for example, on a medical form sex is important information. However, gender identity may also be important in terms of knowing you need to consider your language when speaking to them and if they are on hormone treatment.