My Gender Studies lecturer has asked me to canvass suggestions for Gender descriptions on forms as the University wants to move to a more inclusive position. 

One obvious one is "undefined", but what other suggestions are there?  There can be more than one new box on the forms.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Karen.

Well ideally it would be removed. Or, it would be a blank space where people could write whatever they wanted.

1. Many institutions have replaced the multiple choice with a free text field (a blank line on the form to be filled on by the person; in the computer system, it might have say 30 characters of text available).

2. Another option, if they do need to track M and F for some regulatory or other reason, they can still accomodate all variations with a three way:
Gender: Please Select All That Apply M__  F__ Other(describe):_______________________

3. The buffet approach:
Gender: Please select all that apply:
Male
Female
Bigender
Agender
Intersex
Androgyne
Pangender
Two Spirit
Hijra
Genderqueer
Questioning
I'd Rather Not Say
OTHER (PLEASE DESCRIBE):_____________

Hi Karen,

You are now the teachers pet? A true tassie Tiger

Can I suggest an alternative approach to the question? What do gender markers on documents mean? Why are they there? How is the information they give processed? What is the outcome of the information process?
You can have multiple gender and or sex labels, but so what?

So we have a marker for an MtF lesbian who rides motorbikes, great! so we have to supply society with more motor bikes?

Why have gender markers? I never fill them in and have never been questioned. I left my gender marker blank on my passport and they approved it (about five years ago now).

I think that may provoke a nice discussion.

The coffee room topic will be that tomorrow

Cindy

Is this a good place for me that to say that that almost anything other than only "M" or "F" on even some of the forms one has to regularly fill out would be an improvement?  At the point society is at on this question, I would happily settle for a third choice of merely "other" or, at the very least  being allowed to leave gender blank—which I have not been able to do with online forms, for example.

"None of the above"

Seriously, though why even have it? What is it there for?

I say go for functionality instead. Have a preferred pronoun box and a preferred title box. And otherwise let people be.

Unless you are talking surveys, in which case a blank write-in box in addition to the standard male/female would be most sensible.


Also, have a really clear privacy policy. Anyone who puts something other than male or female is essentially outing themselves. They need to know to what degree.

Put me down as another vote to simply not have it.

Personally I can't see the point other than keeping records for proof of gender equality in enrolments etc.

I completely agree with just not having it entirely. However, in today's society I don't feel that this would ever occur, as everyone is always anxious to figure out everyone else's (irrelevent) personal business. With this in mind, I'll have to agree with even the addition of an "other" option being an improvement, at the very least. Alongside that, an "I'd rather not say" option inclusion should be mandetory, in my opinion. I'm not too keen on the whole "fill in the blank" option, though, as I could imagine that only causing more problems, it's good in theory as gender isn't always so cut and dry, as they make it out to be. The "buffet approach" as stated above, is probably even less likely to occur than the lack of having the marker at all, because as stated previously, even the addition of "other" is a big step for the general public.