In which her gender is unspecified

[zeborah]

It turns out that I never bothered to specify it anyway. But after reading that gender will be a mandatory field at LJ account creation I sent the following note to the LJ feedback folk:

I've read that LJ plans to make the gender field mandatory when people create new accounts, and that "unspecified" will no longer be an option, so that people must choose "male" or "female".

This would have the effect of either excluding people from becoming LiveJournal members or forcing them to violate your Terms of Service just to register: your Terms of Service state that "During registration, all users are required to provide accurate, complete and current information about themselves in all required fields," but how can intersex, transsexual, and genderqueer people provide accurate information about themselves when the drop-down menu has no option for the truth?

Please therefore reconsider this decision and include options for "other" and/or "unspecified".

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Zeborah (gender unspecified)

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads-up. I've sent my own note to LJ Feedback.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Thanks for making me aware of that. I don't know why people have to go changing things that have worked perfectly well for years. :(

I mean, just because I personally don't mind identifying as female, doesn't mean that I feel that everyone else has to conform to a simplistic binary M/F option.

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

See explanation on nhw's journal -- apparently this is not actually going to happen. Which is a good thing.

[zeborah]

Thanks! I've received the second email he quotes.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they claim it was a beta-test code bug. Further discussion at james_nicoll.