If you're not offending anyone, you're doing it wrong.
Well the flap came and went about LJ allegedly forcing you to specify your gender. Turns out it was a coding mistake or some such. Imagine that! LJ did something that actually wasn't part of a nefarious plot to anger their user bse. Oh wait, actually that turns out to be the case with just about everything that gets people threatening to leave LJ.
I honestly don't understand the flap because I can't get my head around the idea that you don't have a gender. I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. I've gotten to the point where I can accept believing you're the opposite of what you are physically, but I don't think it's possible to not have one at all. And I'm sure I'm offending and alienating people by saying that, but that's my belief.
But fine, other people believe that it is. And you can live your life however you want and I'm okay with that. But people who consider themselves that way have got to make up a minuscule fraction of the population at best. So small that I doubt anyone at LJ would ever one day proclaim "we must purge ourselves of these miserable androgynes! Remove their option box at once!" It's something that unless it's an issue you immerse yourself in that most people are never going to think about. And by all accounts I'm seeing, once LJ received complaints that the notion was offensive to some people they responded very courteously and very professionally.
I don't know what point I'm trying to make here other than that we're very quick to assume the worst of people and assume cruel motives where there are none. And we all get so immersed in our own corners of the universe that we forget that our big issues are not big issues to everyone else. I don't think it's insensitivity just to fail to take into consideration an issue that is everything to some, but beyond even thinking about for most. If LJ hadn't reacted as kindly as they seem to have, then I would say they were insensitive.
I honestly don't understand the flap because I can't get my head around the idea that you don't have a gender. I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. I've gotten to the point where I can accept believing you're the opposite of what you are physically, but I don't think it's possible to not have one at all. And I'm sure I'm offending and alienating people by saying that, but that's my belief.
But fine, other people believe that it is. And you can live your life however you want and I'm okay with that. But people who consider themselves that way have got to make up a minuscule fraction of the population at best. So small that I doubt anyone at LJ would ever one day proclaim "we must purge ourselves of these miserable androgynes! Remove their option box at once!" It's something that unless it's an issue you immerse yourself in that most people are never going to think about. And by all accounts I'm seeing, once LJ received complaints that the notion was offensive to some people they responded very courteously and very professionally.
I don't know what point I'm trying to make here other than that we're very quick to assume the worst of people and assume cruel motives where there are none. And we all get so immersed in our own corners of the universe that we forget that our big issues are not big issues to everyone else. I don't think it's insensitivity just to fail to take into consideration an issue that is everything to some, but beyond even thinking about for most. If LJ hadn't reacted as kindly as they seem to have, then I would say they were insensitive.