Gender field

When collecting user information, the gender data point is often not given more thought than radio options for male and female. This binary data model is insufficient. Drupal.org made a great leap forward by including transgender as an option. We can still do better.

Gender is not a binary option. It is an open-ended set of options. Most importantly, gender is expressed by an individual; it shouldn't be imposed by deficient data models.

The gender field is a text input with an associated datalist to facilitate autocomplete. It is also an experiment in collecting gender information through an open-ended form field. This idea was most famously incorporated into the Diaspora project by Sarah Mei: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation/

I would like to expand on this idea by collecting gender data (through an opt-in) from sites that use this field to assemble a canonical list of self-expressed genders. This list would be used to prime the auto-complete of the field. The data would be available for anyone. It would be, above all, and of course, anonymous.

Ideally, site developers and builders will use the gender field on their user details pages instead of a simple radio or checkbox field. We owe it to our users to let them express themselves authentically.

The complexity of Gender

If you find yourself asking: "Why can't we just provide an 'other' option for the gender field?", I recommend you take 18 minutes and watch this TED talk by Sam Killermann. It's fun, informative and delivered in rhyme!