62 replies to this topic

[Doomsday]

Have you ever answered an online form that offered more than 2 options of Gender (nowadays some forms often allow for another option as 'other' for Trans Gender people)

 

Apparently, a study performed by a Sydney University (Australia) University online there are now a total of 57 different possible answers.  The survey was conducted after a Sydney (Australia) resident won the right in the High Court of Australia to not fall under any specific gender (Non-Specific).  Article here on this topic

 

 

HOW many genders are there? If you answered two, or even three or four, you’re way behind the times.

A Sydney University online survey now offers a staggering FIFTY-SEVEN different possible answers to the simple question: “What is your gender identity?”

It comes following a High Court decision upholding the right of transgender Sydney resident Norrie to be classified as neither male or female.

The survey, composed by Sydney University newspaper Honi Soit, includes such options as:

• Gender Nonconforming (those who act contrary to expected gender roles)

• Bi-gender (identifying as male and female at different times)

• Intersex (born with a mix of male and female sexual anatomy)

• Gender Fluid (those who display male and female behaviour at different times)

• Gender Questioning (those who haven’t worked out their gender)

• Transmasculine (a female who identifies with some male characteristics, but not entirely as a man)

• Pangender (all genders)

• Neutrois (no gender)

• Two-Spirit (an American Indian term for someone with male and female characteristics)

Remarkably, there are no actual options for basic male or female. Instead, respondents must choose between “Male (Cis Male)” and “Female (Cis Female)”.

The prefix “cis” indicates that your gender role conforms with your birth sex. For example, if you’re a woman who acts like a woman, you’re a “Female (Cis Female)”.

“We decided to provide non-binary gender options to make our survey as inclusive as possible for our readers,” Honi Soit’s editors explained in an email to the Daily Telegraph.

“Most of our respondents have not commented, albeit for a small minority who did not immediately understand terms like ‘cis’. Several respondents have also privately expressed their appreciation for not prescribing gender-binary options.”

Other responses weren’t so enthusiastic. “Where is ‘bloke’?” asked one commenter after the list was published online by the Daily Telegraph.

“This has to be a joke, right?” asked another.

It is not the first time the university newspaper has courted controversy in August last year after publishing a graphic cover featuring 18 unconsored vaginas.

The newspaper lifted its gender list from Facebook, which now offers the terms for reader profiles in the US (Australian Facebook users are stuck with “male” or “female”).

One of the software engineers who helped compile the list, Brielle Harrison, is herself undergoing gender transformation from male to female.

“All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it’s kind of disheartening,” Harrison told Associated Press in February.

 

You can view the article at the The Daily Telegraph Australia (with a link to a blog the actual article is exactly as quoted)

 

So... what gender are you?

Edited by Doomsday, 22 April 2014 - 12:35 AM.

[Dan]

That's it, guys, we're officially doomed as a human race.

[Fikri]

all of us started as female. some of us end up males because of the Y chromosomes.

[Eefi]

I don't know, can't we just use sex instead of gender?

 

If you include how you act and behavior into the gender term, maybe you should also add what you like to eat or what kind of hobbies you have.

This is ridiculous.

[MichaelA]

I don't know, can't we just use sex instead of gender?

 

If you include how you act and behavior into the gender term, maybe you should also add what you like to eat or what kind of hobbies you have.

This is ridiculous.

amen 

[Doe]

I'm a dude, but people would probably describe me as being gender fluid since I'm told I have some feminine qualities, great for attracting bi chicks. <3

[Sweeney]

Since when has it been unreasonable to make people feel more comfortable?

[Ali]

Since when has it been unreasonable to make people feel more comfortable?

Can't take equality too far or whatever Gervais said the other week.

 

I can see it being OTT to include all 57 options on every Equal Opportunity Monitoring form going but it's important to recognise that there a number of people who don't conform with traditional gender stereotypes and it can be highly distressing to try and shoehorn them into pre-existing categories when they know that's not at all how they feel. Similarly, I use sex and gender interchangeably (probably, I can't say it comes up in conversation all that much), because I'm a woman who identifies as female, there's no discord. If you do identify differently, I imagine it is very difficult to hear someone acting as if they're the same thing when for you they're not.

 

Mostly I find it interesting that there are that many different possible answers. My brain is so limited, I couldn't have thought of even half that many if I tried.

[Elindoril]

I'm surprised they didn't include all the tumblr terms for identifying yourself as a wolf or under sea creature.

[Kat]

I'm surprised they didn't include all the tumblr terms for identifying yourself as a wolf or under sea creature.

57 options and they didn't include otherkin?? Oh lordy..

[Magical]

Agree with you @Kate. It's great that people who do not identify as male or female have an option to declare it.

 

At the same time, constantly having to rack your mind over PC is equivalent to swallowing a rock, so it'd be really great that when we don't get it right, we could be shown just some leniency. We're all in the same boat with the same paddle, so cut each other some slack.

57 options and they didn't include otherkin?? Oh lordy..

 

Haha! This where you can laugh at PC on the absurd side of the pendulum.

[Bone]

I completely understand this.
But I don't think it's very nice to make someone feel uncomfortable for using the "incorrect" term either, like in my example.

Personally I don't really care, I think if I was a transgender I would be really glad to see society acknowledging it by giving me options other than Male or Female, however I certainly wouldn't attack someone for using what I consider to be incorrect terminology either.. I hope I'm making sense here lol

Have you been attacked for calling a trans* person a gender they didn't prefer?

(Sorry to single you out as always, on mobile and some other responses here didn't need to be dignified with discussion)

Edited by Bone, 22 April 2014 - 04:49 AM.

[Keil]

I don't know, can't we just use sex instead of gender?

 

If you include how you act and behavior into the gender term, maybe you should also add what you like to eat or what kind of hobbies you have.

This is ridiculous.

 

The thing people need to know is that gender identification and the way a certain society carries their own stigma of how people should be boxed in puts a negative risk on human beings. I know for a fact that the trans community is clinically found to have the highest number of cases of juvenile runaways, disownments, and suicide attempts in any demograph after reading several case studies/volunteering at the LGBTQ center in NYC for high school students. To me, supporting gender equality isn't about being annoyed with superfluous labels or making people other than myself feel comfortable, it's about preventing human causualties caused by a vast majority who uncoinciously and even to some cases, ignorantly supporting a negative stigma that festers into nonsensicial mob behavior.

 

I think nowadays things are way too "PC". 
Someone on a "Mommy group" cussed me out for saying we found out the baby's gender instead of that we found out the baby's sex. 

 

I support gender equality, but that person was just a bitch. It saddens me to see more people with a good intention but with extremely poor execution towards a cause.

[Sweeney]

I completely understand this.
But I don't think it's very nice to make someone feel uncomfortable for using the "incorrect" term either, like in my example.

Personally I don't really care, I think if I was a transgender I would be really glad to see society acknowledging it by giving me options other than Male or Female, however I certainly wouldn't attack someone for using what I consider to be incorrect terminology either.. I hope I'm making sense here lol

Agreed. But the fact that some people are dicks doesn't mean that we should ignore the people whose existence is made more difficult by things like that.

[Sweeney]

No of course, I agree. 
I don't want people here to think I'm like anti-equality lol I was just sharing a particularly crappy experience. 
Keil said it pretty well, she had good intentions but a terrible approach.

I didn't mean to imply that you were anti-equality, either

It's pretty much the same thing that every movement has to deal with - some people are just fucking retards, and it's up to others to look past that and at the core of the idea, rather than some of the people representing it.

[Keil]

I forgot to answer the original question. I took some sort of quiz a few years ago in class and my ratio of male:female behavior was 7:9 but the thing is I don't think that the quiz was an indicator of gender because it had questions asking about physical activity, emotional control, and social engagement. So therefore I must be female because in high school I hated excercising beyond doing sports to get into a good college, teenage years were emotionally unstable, and I hated everyone moreso than I do now.

[Kat]

I forgot to answer the original question. I took some sort of quiz a few years ago in class and my ratio of male:female behavior was 7:9 but the thing is I don't think that the quiz was an indicator of gender because it had questions asking about physical activity, emotional control, and social engagement. So therefore I must be female because in high school I hated excercising beyond doing sports to get into a good college, teenage years were emotionally unstable, and I hated everyone moreso than I do now.

What a backwards test.

I'm all for knocking down preconceived and harmful gender roles, but I don't see the reasoning behind creating 57 new ones Maybe I'm just behind the times.

[Bone]

No of course, I agree.
I don't want people here to think I'm like anti-equality lol I was just sharing a particularly crappy experience.
Keil said it pretty well, she had good intentions but a terrible approach.

Yeah she's just an asshole.

It's just frustrating to sometimes see people who have their hearts in the right place but are too timid to talk about their support for trans people without adding a disclaimer.

[Sweeney]

I don't see the reasoning behind creating 57 new ones Maybe I'm just behind the times.

There isn't really 57 in that survey. The selection has a huge amount of overlap.

[NapisaurusRex]

If you were to put me pregnant in the kitchen with an apron and a pot roast, I'd be one happy mother fucker.

I guess I'm a 'cis female'

[Frizzle]

Just made up terms for people who wish to be difficult and complain when they aren't treated right. There are only two genders, male and female, that's a scientific fact right there.