SignalBoost - DeviantArt Doesn't Believe You Exist
I'm not an artist, so I don't use deviantART. Though I have browsed the art there on more than one occasion, I'm sure. Lots of cool stuff!
Apparently they changed their gender options to Male or Female, making it more restrictive than it had been. And then completely failed all the way around in response to an inquiry about it.
Read about it here
I had actually created an account, I believe to try to see content that had been marked adult. So I just logged in to have a look.
My 'Sex' (note: not gender) was set to 'Male' and 'Not Shown'. Now I honestly can't tell you if that's what I picked when faced with only 2 options. Quite likely it was. Or if it defaulted to Male at some point.
However, it will let me change it to 'Other'.
So either they half-fixed the problem they created, or 'Other' is only there on accounts of a certain age. (Mine is less than a year old, but more than a few months. Wait.. maybe it'll tell me when I created it. Ah.. it says 2 months. Which is probably closer to 3, IIRC.)
deviantART would hardly be the first place to force people to choose a gender and only give them 2 options to do it with. Facebook implemented it sometime after I created an account there. I have no gender on Facebook, but that's not an option for newer joinees. Or, sorry, I have no 'sex' on Facebook.
For the curious, I'm Unspecified/Other here on LiveJournal.
It always makes me wary of going into my account on places like that and updating anything, but the form might say 'You left this blank!' and then I'll be forced to pick one when I didn't have to before. Or it might default to something. 'Male' because male is the default or 'Female' because it's alphabetically first.
I don't generally angst when forced to pick one, but it does tick me off. Whether I pick Male or Female when forced to depends on a lot of factors. Mostly related to the site itself and not my mood. If I feel putting Male would be safer and less harrass-y, I'll do it. If I feel putting Female will make them realize women use the site, I'll put that. If it's a medical site where my actual sex, and not my gender, might matter to things, like BMI and whatnot, then I'll put that. If it's a game where it might affect my choice of avatar, definitely Male. I prefer male avatars.
But reading this post made me think maybe I need to protest more. Rather than, like, pretty much not at all. When sites see other sites doing it, they think it's okay. Then when they're coding theirs, they don't even think about it. Maybe even they copy and paste the code in from something else.
I'm going to take a look at work too. I don't think we ask for gender at all, but I'll doublecheck. We're getting a new system, and you never know what new 'feature' a company has introduced that's entirely pointless.
ETA: I meant to add a few paragraphs up that while I don't angst about it, that doesn't mean nobody does or nobody should. Especially when policies also state you shouldn't provide false information. These sites are forcing some people to provide false information. They're forcing them to lie and forcing them to break site policies all in one go. That causes moral squeamishness right there. Add to that that then on some sites that person will constantly be confronted with their lie in the form of pronouns, and it's at the same time silencing and hurtful. In the case of Facebook, daily, hourly hurtful. (All those apps who haven't learned to do without pronouns or to use 'they' when posting your latest achievement.)
Why does it matter that you know your users' gender, let alone their sex? And how hard is it to provide a third and fourth option? Nobody's even asking that you add several more options to better reflect different stops on the continuum. Nobody's even asking you to use third gender pronouns. Though, y'know what, maybe we should.
Grr.
Apparently they changed their gender options to Male or Female, making it more restrictive than it had been. And then completely failed all the way around in response to an inquiry about it.
Read about it here
I had actually created an account, I believe to try to see content that had been marked adult. So I just logged in to have a look.
My 'Sex' (note: not gender) was set to 'Male' and 'Not Shown'. Now I honestly can't tell you if that's what I picked when faced with only 2 options. Quite likely it was. Or if it defaulted to Male at some point.
However, it will let me change it to 'Other'.
So either they half-fixed the problem they created, or 'Other' is only there on accounts of a certain age. (Mine is less than a year old, but more than a few months. Wait.. maybe it'll tell me when I created it. Ah.. it says 2 months. Which is probably closer to 3, IIRC.)
deviantART would hardly be the first place to force people to choose a gender and only give them 2 options to do it with. Facebook implemented it sometime after I created an account there. I have no gender on Facebook, but that's not an option for newer joinees. Or, sorry, I have no 'sex' on Facebook.
For the curious, I'm Unspecified/Other here on LiveJournal.
It always makes me wary of going into my account on places like that and updating anything, but the form might say 'You left this blank!' and then I'll be forced to pick one when I didn't have to before. Or it might default to something. 'Male' because male is the default or 'Female' because it's alphabetically first.
I don't generally angst when forced to pick one, but it does tick me off. Whether I pick Male or Female when forced to depends on a lot of factors. Mostly related to the site itself and not my mood. If I feel putting Male would be safer and less harrass-y, I'll do it. If I feel putting Female will make them realize women use the site, I'll put that. If it's a medical site where my actual sex, and not my gender, might matter to things, like BMI and whatnot, then I'll put that. If it's a game where it might affect my choice of avatar, definitely Male. I prefer male avatars.
But reading this post made me think maybe I need to protest more. Rather than, like, pretty much not at all. When sites see other sites doing it, they think it's okay. Then when they're coding theirs, they don't even think about it. Maybe even they copy and paste the code in from something else.
I'm going to take a look at work too. I don't think we ask for gender at all, but I'll doublecheck. We're getting a new system, and you never know what new 'feature' a company has introduced that's entirely pointless.
ETA: I meant to add a few paragraphs up that while I don't angst about it, that doesn't mean nobody does or nobody should. Especially when policies also state you shouldn't provide false information. These sites are forcing some people to provide false information. They're forcing them to lie and forcing them to break site policies all in one go. That causes moral squeamishness right there. Add to that that then on some sites that person will constantly be confronted with their lie in the form of pronouns, and it's at the same time silencing and hurtful. In the case of Facebook, daily, hourly hurtful. (All those apps who haven't learned to do without pronouns or to use 'they' when posting your latest achievement.)
Why does it matter that you know your users' gender, let alone their sex? And how hard is it to provide a third and fourth option? Nobody's even asking that you add several more options to better reflect different stops on the continuum. Nobody's even asking you to use third gender pronouns. Though, y'know what, maybe we should.
Grr.