Helloooo gender fail
Following links around, but the main points are from ilyena_sylph here and synecdochic on dreamwidth here.
Basically, for targeted advertising reasons, LJ intends to implement a requirement that you pick one, male or female. No more unspecified option (which I originally chose because I don't want to get ads) and no option to be other.
Yeah, a world of NO.
1) Reinforcing a gender binary, which is hurtful to anyone in the trans, genderqueer, that whole spectrum of people who just don't identify with one or the other.
2) Makes it easier to target crappy ads. Partly why I started out with basic all those years ago and never upgraded. Who wants to identify female and get bombarded with dieting ads?
The blogs above have links to where you can leave (politely worded please) feedback and show how you can change your current settings to unspecified before they implement.
I'm open for discussion or ranting or whatever in the comments.
Edit: The backpedaling has begun!
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. We understand that gender is not binary, and intend to respect that understanding for our users.
At this time, the code you reference is not live on the site, and will not become so in the future. We know that you, and many other users, have serious concerns about any requirement to specify gender, so we'd like to take a moment to explain events and our position further.
The intention of this code was to change the sign-up process to include a field for the selection of gender; that the code would completely disable the "Unspecified" option at the same time was deemed unacceptable. While the code in question had gone to our beta (testing) server, it had not gone to our production server, and will not do so due to this problem. Furthermore, we'd like to clarify that code posted to the changelog community is not always final, as such code must then go through the beta testing process and can often be changed before actual implementation.
Additionally, some erroneous information has been spread regarding the potential public display of the gender field. We would like to clarify that gender is not currently publicly displayed on the profile, nor anywhere else on the site, and there are no plans to change this behavior.
Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care Team
Basically, for targeted advertising reasons, LJ intends to implement a requirement that you pick one, male or female. No more unspecified option (which I originally chose because I don't want to get ads) and no option to be other.
Yeah, a world of NO.
1) Reinforcing a gender binary, which is hurtful to anyone in the trans, genderqueer, that whole spectrum of people who just don't identify with one or the other.
2) Makes it easier to target crappy ads. Partly why I started out with basic all those years ago and never upgraded. Who wants to identify female and get bombarded with dieting ads?
The blogs above have links to where you can leave (politely worded please) feedback and show how you can change your current settings to unspecified before they implement.
I'm open for discussion or ranting or whatever in the comments.
Edit: The backpedaling has begun!
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. We understand that gender is not binary, and intend to respect that understanding for our users.
At this time, the code you reference is not live on the site, and will not become so in the future. We know that you, and many other users, have serious concerns about any requirement to specify gender, so we'd like to take a moment to explain events and our position further.
The intention of this code was to change the sign-up process to include a field for the selection of gender; that the code would completely disable the "Unspecified" option at the same time was deemed unacceptable. While the code in question had gone to our beta (testing) server, it had not gone to our production server, and will not do so due to this problem. Furthermore, we'd like to clarify that code posted to the changelog community is not always final, as such code must then go through the beta testing process and can often be changed before actual implementation.
Additionally, some erroneous information has been spread regarding the potential public display of the gender field. We would like to clarify that gender is not currently publicly displayed on the profile, nor anywhere else on the site, and there are no plans to change this behavior.
Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care Team