is that relative or comitative?
May. 1st, 2009 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkI'm pauraque on DW, though I'm not doing anything with it right now. So far no one whose entries I want to read has actually moved there exclusively and claimed they won't crosspost, so I don't have much motivation to move either.
I wish DW all the best, but there is no way they can maintain the current level of touchy-feely hands-on management -- which seems to be what everyone likes about it -- if it becomes very popular.
Actually, my experience of the touchy-feely was not that satisfactory.
I want either a free text box for gender, or preferably no gender field.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_hannelore and I wrote with this suggestion, which elicited emails from Denise that claim a) the gender field has no purpose so it kinda doesn't matter, and, contradictorily, b) the gender field is for information about their user base, like if their user base is mostly older women they don't want to add stuff that would appeal to a 15 year old boy (approximate quote, I'm too lazy to find the email right now). I'm curious, what exactly does she think appeals to women in a journaling service that wouldn't appeal to men? News updates about crochet instead of football? Looking at broad gender stats seems like an incredibly ineffective way of making decisions of any kind, especially when supposedly they are so responsive to individual complaints and suggestions.
Instead of just ditching a useless question, they provided "Other", which to me has the opposite of its intended inclusive effect. If they insist on counting everybody by gender, then I want to stand and be counted as a transgendered person. But dude, my gender isn't "other". Leaving me with only that choice or the standard "male" is actually very insensitive towards the issue of trans people disappearing into mainstream society. Every time I check male on a form, I have to think about that, I have to think about how my identity and experience is invisible to the rest of the world.
Anyway, I know the gender field exists because people are culturally acclimated to think it should -- we just can't have a form without male and female checkboxes, regardless of whether it has ANY relevance to what you're signing up for! The only reason I complain is that I think it's a funny juxtaposition, the insistence on being so very inclusive and responsive and blah blah, yet failing in this particular area. Usually I don't expect better, but it's frustrating to constantly hear how DW is soooooooo good -- but not good enough for this.
eta: On second thought, here's what I'll do. If DW adds a free text box or gets rid of the gender field, I'll move there. I'll even buy a paid account. Until then, I reserve the right to be annoyed about the whole thing.
+
RT @jonathancoulton First of May, first of May, jonathancoulton.com server not responding starts today.
I wish DW all the best, but there is no way they can maintain the current level of touchy-feely hands-on management -- which seems to be what everyone likes about it -- if it becomes very popular.
Actually, my experience of the touchy-feely was not that satisfactory.
I want either a free text box for gender, or preferably no gender field.
_hannelore and I wrote with this suggestion, which elicited emails from Denise that claim a) the gender field has no purpose so it kinda doesn't matter, and, contradictorily, b) the gender field is for information about their user base, like if their user base is mostly older women they don't want to add stuff that would appeal to a 15 year old boy (approximate quote, I'm too lazy to find the email right now). I'm curious, what exactly does she think appeals to women in a journaling service that wouldn't appeal to men? News updates about crochet instead of football? Looking at broad gender stats seems like an incredibly ineffective way of making decisions of any kind, especially when supposedly they are so responsive to individual complaints and suggestions.Instead of just ditching a useless question, they provided "Other", which to me has the opposite of its intended inclusive effect. If they insist on counting everybody by gender, then I want to stand and be counted as a transgendered person. But dude, my gender isn't "other". Leaving me with only that choice or the standard "male" is actually very insensitive towards the issue of trans people disappearing into mainstream society. Every time I check male on a form, I have to think about that, I have to think about how my identity and experience is invisible to the rest of the world.
Anyway, I know the gender field exists because people are culturally acclimated to think it should -- we just can't have a form without male and female checkboxes, regardless of whether it has ANY relevance to what you're signing up for! The only reason I complain is that I think it's a funny juxtaposition, the insistence on being so very inclusive and responsive and blah blah, yet failing in this particular area. Usually I don't expect better, but it's frustrating to constantly hear how DW is soooooooo good -- but not good enough for this.
eta: On second thought, here's what I'll do. If DW adds a free text box or gets rid of the gender field, I'll move there. I'll even buy a paid account. Until then, I reserve the right to be annoyed about the whole thing.
+
RT @jonathancoulton First of May, first of May, jonathancoulton.com server not responding starts today.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 09:46 pm (UTC)Eo - serious question - is it the case that most transgendered people do not identify as male or female? or not without qualification?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 10:39 pm (UTC)Since I had to read this several times to understand it, let me verify my interpretation -- you mean that actually typing the word "female" as opposed to checking the box makes you feel personally implicated in the whole binary-gender system, rather than just going along with it because hey, there were only two choices, what can ya do?
Eo - serious question - is it the case that most transgendered people do not identify as male or female? or not without qualification?
I don't know the answer to your question in a statistical sense, nor do I know where to get such an answer. I can only offer my anecdotal experience which is, sure, lots of trans people have identities other than "just male" or "just female". (One of Kate Bornstein's books has a rather amazing chapter that lists the answers of quite a number of trans people when asked to give a name to their gender. I would provide examples but Hannelore has the book!)
I hope it goes without saying that even if most trans people do identify as "one or the other", that would not be a good reason to ignore the rest.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 11:04 pm (UTC)To the first question, in a word, yes. That is, I mind being expected to replicate things myself more than I mind having them imposed on me. Frex: I don't really mind having a boss. In fact, in some ways I like having a boss, for work. But I don't like having to think like my boss. In fact, that's why I want a boss. I hate the idea of internalizing the boss's point of view, as if her interests and my interests coincided, or as if I should care more about her interests than about my own, just because she's my boss. I want to feel like there's some limit to how far the rules and power structures and stuff penetrate my soul.
So, in the case of the gender drop down menu vs. text box: for myself, I don't mind (very much) answering "female," which is the answer Dreamwidth is looking for, in a drop down menu. They are looking for a certain kind of answer, in a certain frame of reference, and it's *their* frame of reference, and I'm willing to cooperate with it. But I'm not going to volunteer it. I'm not going to act as if their frame of reference and mine were identical. Not because I don't identify as female, but because I don't want to be someone who talks in drop down menus, if that makes any sense - I know my way of talking about this isn't very transparent.
I guess what I'd prefer to see is a radio-button with text box option or something like that - something that didn't insult or exclude anyone, AND that let DW gather potentially helpful data, AND without my having to volunteer my gender in a way I don't care to. I don't love answering The Gender Question, but I'm more likely to do it if it's clearly stated that it's *their* question, if I have some idea why they are asking me & why they are asking me to answer in this way.
The bottom line is, if they gave me a text box, I just *know* I wouldn't type in female - or, that would be my instinct, though maybe it shouldn't be...?