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Male or female, honestly? In 2016?


[deleted]


Not really. Despite it going on for a while now sadly quite a few sign-up processes[0] haven’t yet caught up. I understand grandparent’s irritation about a freshly created social network making such a blunder.

I may be stating the obvious, but for those who are wondering…

* One issue is that this information is sensitive for many, and begs the question why do you require it.

* Even if it’s not that sensitive for me, I still don’t get why are you asking. Are you planning to pivot into a dating app later?

* I personally know quite a few persons whose legally determined[1] sex may well differ from how they’d describe themselves for the purposes of, say, dating. Are you intending to compare this information with my gov records in future for ID verification purposes later? The straightforward binary selector kind of hints at it.

* Could it be that you just went with the cargo cult—didn’t really think about whether you need it or not and decided to collect as much info as used to be perceived acceptable just in case?

[0] Most popular ones like Twitter and Facebook, of course, are not among those.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment#History_2 (criteria in various countries are evolving and can be difficult to keep track of)

See also:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Gender_taxonomy

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment#Challenges_to_r...




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