this is what we call timing: LJ GenderFail

[rm]

LJ is about to require that all users specify whether they are male or female. This will apply both to new account creation and existing accounts. The current "unspecified" option will be removed.

Requiring people to specify their gender is surely just an attempt to acquire demographic data either for ad sales or an attempt to sell LJ once again. However, this is probably a bad strategy -- leave the "unspecified" option and only 1% or 2% of your userbase will choose it. Tell us you're taking it away, and watch 20% of us choose it.

Why does this matter? Really?

Well, it says people like me don't exist (although I just discovered I didn't have unspecified selected until like ten minutes ago, so I fail there, just in terms of full disclosure and all that). It tells people that they know less about their gender than a company. And that the needs of advertising are more important than who they really are. It implies that people have a right to know what's in your pants (whether you're male, female or somewhere else on a spectrum) regardless of whether they'll ever meet you.

But particularly, it's unwelcoming to many LGBTQIA people, and LJ already has a history of being, at best, clumsy towards this community (a community of which I identify with more letters than not).

Additionally, it may be (working on links) once the code push goes through, after you choose your gender when creating an account, you can't change it later (can anyone confirm that gender is to be removed from the editable profile fields? commenters are discussing, may just be rumour, leaving in here for now). That's a lovely bit of bullshit there for people who transition to deal with; I wonder what "proof" LJ will require to change it -- if they'll change it.

And what happens to people who are basically forced to lie because of only two options? Lying on account creation is a TOS'able offense. Do you really think anyone should have to ask if their man or woman enough to be on LJ? Isn't this ludicrous? And offensive? And sort of a disaster?

Practically, this is one of those things that probably has no relevance for most of you. But for some of us it's a tiny little splinter that yet somehow manages to hobble. And for some of us, it's just simply everything.

So many of us learn to construct and define our gender on LJ. It's pretty tacky when they effectively ask us to lie about ourselves and claim it never happened.

Details and what you can do here: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/366609.html

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

And leaving aside queer issues entirely for only a second, it isn't as if there aren't a ton of reasons why a woman might want to hide her gender, ranging from pay rate to personal safety. Which ups the number of people affected from a single digit percentage to more than half.

Glad I've moved my money to Dreamwidth.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

This; mine's always been set to "unspecified" simply because I've been on the internet in its various evolutions since the Bad Old Days when to reveal that one identified as female was a recipe for getting heckled or hit on or occasionally both at the same time. I still prefer not to say when I'm allowed not to simply because I don't need the aggro...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

This also true!

[weirdquark]

I've always set my gender as 'unspecified' whenever I had the option for years now-- because it isn't anyone's business, because it isn't relevant unless I want to speak from my experience as a woman, because women have a higher chance of being harassed and are often taken less seriously.

There was one forum I used to frequent and argue about gay rights -- most of the people on my side were gay men -- with some lesbians and straight people with gay relatives or friends, but more than half of them were gay men. I did not have my gender or sexual orientation listed in my profile, and I tried to phrase things such that I could avoid identifying with any particular group because I wanted to make the point that my personal stake in the fight was irrelevant to my thinking DOMA or DADT needed to be eliminated. Everyone (on both sides of the argument) assumed I was both gay and male and it was kind of fascinating.