LJ's new Gender policy

[asterroc]

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

---

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 repeat myself often.