![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessTo give a summary of the event if you haven’t been following it (as far as I understand it).
Basically, LJ, in it’s rather less than infinite wisdom, decided to look at compelling new users to choose a gender for their profile. In fact they’d get a ticky box - Male or Female. Removing the unspecified
Which kind of sucks to several kinds of suckness if your gender doesn’t neatly fit into that binary.
So, in the wake of criticism, they added the option “Unspecified” (or returned the option) which, well, also kind of failed. because people who don’t fit the gender binary may very well be able to specify their gender - it’s just that LJ isn’t giving them the option. Still it’s something many can grit their teeth and deal with albeit not happily.
So, now we change again to “personal.” Which is rather worse, methinks. Since we go from “I can‘t answer this question so am going to have to tick unspecified and suggest I am witholding information because I am somehow ashamed or embarrassed” to “I can’t answer that question, it’s embarrassing and private” which, y’know goes from implying a non-binary gender is a shameful thing to all but declaring it to be.
If you check your user info now “Male,” “female” and “personal” are the current options. It’s not made public and LJ says they have no intentions of making it public. Which rather leads me to question why they’d do it at all? Better directed advertising, perhaps? I don’t know - women who see advertising on LJ, do the adverts seem directed at women? (Which usually means “Barbie pink and sparkly” in the world of advertising). I’m also leery of “never will be made public” turning into being quietly made public in the future and hoping no-one notices (it IS LJ after all).
How to do it right?
Well, how to do it better would be what Dreamwidth does: Male, Female, Other, Unspecified. My my, 4 options. ‘Other’ is a wide term, naturally, but people do use a wide range of terms to describe their gender.
Or maybe an empty text box that allows the user to fill in what they want?
Or maybe accept that there is absolutely no particular reason to demand gender information anyway and scrap the whole thing?
The depressing thing about this is the “why don’t you just include “other” and “unspecified” has been suggested since 2001 (hence why Dreamwidth has done it) and it’s such a very simple thing...
Basically, LJ, in it’s rather less than infinite wisdom, decided to look at compelling new users to choose a gender for their profile. In fact they’d get a ticky box - Male or Female. Removing the unspecified
Which kind of sucks to several kinds of suckness if your gender doesn’t neatly fit into that binary.
So, in the wake of criticism, they added the option “Unspecified” (or returned the option) which, well, also kind of failed. because people who don’t fit the gender binary may very well be able to specify their gender - it’s just that LJ isn’t giving them the option. Still it’s something many can grit their teeth and deal with albeit not happily.
So, now we change again to “personal.” Which is rather worse, methinks. Since we go from “I can‘t answer this question so am going to have to tick unspecified and suggest I am witholding information because I am somehow ashamed or embarrassed” to “I can’t answer that question, it’s embarrassing and private” which, y’know goes from implying a non-binary gender is a shameful thing to all but declaring it to be.
If you check your user info now “Male,” “female” and “personal” are the current options. It’s not made public and LJ says they have no intentions of making it public. Which rather leads me to question why they’d do it at all? Better directed advertising, perhaps? I don’t know - women who see advertising on LJ, do the adverts seem directed at women? (Which usually means “Barbie pink and sparkly” in the world of advertising). I’m also leery of “never will be made public” turning into being quietly made public in the future and hoping no-one notices (it IS LJ after all).
How to do it right?
Well, how to do it better would be what Dreamwidth does: Male, Female, Other, Unspecified. My my, 4 options. ‘Other’ is a wide term, naturally, but people do use a wide range of terms to describe their gender.
Or maybe an empty text box that allows the user to fill in what they want?
Or maybe accept that there is absolutely no particular reason to demand gender information anyway and scrap the whole thing?
The depressing thing about this is the “why don’t you just include “other” and “unspecified” has been suggested since 2001 (hence why Dreamwidth has done it) and it’s such a very simple thing...