LJ's new Gender policy

[asterroc]

Edit: I have received a response, and it seems good.

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LJ is now requiring new users to specify "male" or "female" on new account creation. If you don't like this,

1. Edit your profile and select Unspecified for your gender option.


2. Give feedback to LJ about this, see sample below.


3. Send an email to Anjelika, GM of US operations, anjelika@livejournalinc.com, again see sample below.

More info here. You have until this Thursday (12/17) to make your voice heard.

I am disappointed to hear that LJ will be requiring new users to specify their sex/gender upon registration. Livejournal is a safe space for me, where I can be anonymous and not have to worry about whether people are judging me based upon my race, sex, religion, or anything else. Adding a requirement to identify one's sex in my opinion is akin to adding a requirement that I identify my race or religion. I am not willing to reveal these things when signing up for a new service.

I am a minority in many ways: I am a woman geek, and a woman scientist. In many of the communities I am in, I purposefully do NOT wish to reveal my sex so that I am not continually harassed. In addition, sex and gender are not binary characteristics - there are many people who CANNOT pick exclusively male or exclusively female. Asking this of all people would be like asking me to pick a single race exclusively - I am half Chinese and half Jewish. Picking "white/Caucasian" betrays my mother's heritage. Picking "Asian" betrays my father's. Even picking "other" isn't correct: I am very specifically Caucasian and Asian.

It's not just an issue of whether this information is revealed - submitting incorrect information but keeping it secret still shows LJ users that you don't care about their personal identity. For example, the US Census in the year 2000 was the first time that they allowed people to pick more than one race, and I finally felt validated and accepted for who I am. If LJ insists on binary sex/gender identification, you are excluding many possible members, and marginalizing those you already have.

Please reconsider your plan to require new users to specify a gender, and to only allow the two choices of "male" and "female". Thank you for your time, and feel free to contact me with any further questions you might have.

Sincerely,

Zandperl
http://zandperl.livejournal.com

Comments

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I understand why this is a bad thing, and sympathize, but I am a little disappointed that I didn't have a knee-jerk angry reaction. Maybe this is because I am completely open and comfortable with my gender identity (which falls into one of commonly-accepted binary choices) and I am not close to anyone who is not.

In any case, I have changed my profile and submitted feedback. Thank you for posting about this problem.

I'm glad I have an appropriate icon for this comment.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I did have a knee-jerk reaction, and then was surprised to find that in my profile I *had* identified my sex. I think the issue is that I'm comfortable with my sex/gender, but it's not how I want people to primarily think of me.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Which you explained and is understandable: there unfortunately exists a fair amount of misogyny in male-dominated fields. :( The only time online that I'm thought of as a male BEFORE I'm regarded by what I say is probably in the journals of hardcore misandronistic "feminists."

What's amusing though is that often in online communities, when discussion pertains not at all to gender, sex, or sexuality, people more often assume I am female than assume I am male. Is it my syntax?

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I repeat myself often.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

people more often assume I am female than assume I am male. Is it my syntax?

I'm more inclined to say it's their stereotyping of men vs. women. ;) You seem more willing to show emotions than most men on the intertubes.

Interestingly, people do usually assume I'm male in science discussions. I am sometimes pleased when this happens (as it means I have presented my ideas without overly imbuing them with my personality [or at least that if I do, my online personality isn't overly feminine]), and I am sometimes frustrated (as it reveals the bias of science==men). As long as the tone of the conversation isn't hostile, I usually reply to the actual content of their post but use this icon. I don't usually explicitly discuss my gender when they get it wrong - the science is the point of the conversation, not the speakers' genders - but I do feel it's important that people know there are women in science and that they shouldn't just assume otherwise.

Edit: But the choice whether or not to reveal my sex/gender should be mine, and I appreciate having the ability to suss out a space before deciding.