@belgariontheking said:
@DaveK said:@belgariontheking said:@BradleyS said:As a member of
the "other" category, I'm always quite happy when somebody gives me the
option to not pick "female" or "male". It keeps me from that minute and
a half of staring at the paper trying to decide what I'm going to be
known as here. And, fyi, "other" can be transexuals, hermaphrodites,
other people with "gender issues", and some people who just don't
consider themselves to have a set gender at all.
Screw
that. You're born with a gender, just like me. That's what
you put on the form. Through the miracle of medicine, we can give
you different genitalia, so you can switch. Other does not apply
to humans. No matter who you are, you should consider yourself a
set gender. I don't think we should be defending a website
drop-down in defense of less than one half of one percent of the
population, who can't decide what gender they are. Imagine them
trying to order dinner at a restaurant.
Gender issues? Give me a break!
Sorry
(ok not really) if I sound mean, and I'm not trying to bash sexual
orientation (gay, straight, bi, furry), just people who don't
understand that there are only two genders.
You
don't sound mean, just arrogant in your ignorance, so here's clue #1:
just because YOU don't know about something doesn't mean it does not
exist. Here's clue #2: you appear to be confusing 'gender' with
'what kind of genitalia you have'; some people have no genitalia, some
have unusual congenital development which means that they have genital
structures that aren't unambiguously one or the other. Here's
clue #3: most men have two X chromosomes, most women have an XY
combination, but some people have YY, XXY, XYY or other
combinations. Here's clue #4: all of this biological stuff
is entirely orthogonal to psychosocial definitions of gender.
Gender
is a complex construct, and you don't get to redefine the english
language to make it mean something much simpler such as "what kind of
dangly bits someone has".
Why don't you actually go read that wiki article someone quoted?
Again, give me a break. You're talking about less than 0.5 percent. The wiki article puts it at 0.018%. "Prefer not to say" would suffice if you're confused about your gender. That's what we call a severe minority, and doesn't need to be taken into account when coding up a website unless you're a government organization. If it were a percentage much greater, even 5%, I would have less problem with people bitching that it's not an option in some random website that's not even been linked in this thread.
I feel educated by your post, but not swayed.
First, I wasn't bitching about it not being there. I'm actually quite used to people telling me I'm not really a boy or not really a girl, and I've learned to deal with it. I understand that I'm a severe minority, and again, I deal with it. I was just pointing out that it brings me joy when some people accept that "gender" either as physiology or as psychology, doesn't have to be a binary scale.
Your first post, though, seems to indicate that you consider somebody's gender to have changed if they get a sex change operation, i.e. they were female but are now male. If you do accept this switch as being a valid change of gender, what do you consider them during treatment? It's not an instant thing, ya know.
Of course, it wasn't too long ago that people were convinced there were only two sexualities ("gay or straight, just pick one!"), and transgendered people just didn't exist, so I guess we're moving forward regardless.
Either way, I'm still happy to be included.