I know “male, female, FTM, MTF, other” is a standard gender/sex question, but I don’t know why. A problem is that it implies that “FTM” is a distinct category from, rather than a subset of, “male” (ditto for female). This would be better if other questions had answers that were subsets of other answers, but you seem to try hard not to do that. This could be fixed by phrasing it as “cis male”, but then you’d get people complaining about “cis” and “trans” not being a perfect dichotomy and complaining about the confusing word and so on. This could also be fixed by splitting the question into “gender (male/female/other)” and “Are you trans? (yes/no)”, but then you’d get other complaints.
I wouldn’t have been too far off on the Newton question if I had been able to remember the mapping between century numbering and year numbering. I ended up two centuries off. Fortunately I took that into account when calibrating.
Also, for the record: I’m not “considering cryonics”. I’m cryocrastinating. Cryonics is obviously the best choice, and I should be signing up for it in the next five seconds. I will probably die while not signed up for cryonics, and that will be death by stupidity, and you will all get to point and laugh at my corpse.
I know “male, female, FTM, MTF, other” is a standard gender/sex question, but I don’t know why. A problem is that it implies that “FTM” is a distinct category from, rather than a subset of, “male” (ditto for female).
I don’t think that implication creates confusion in the mind of anybody answering the survey, i.e. most people know what to answer. It’s somewhat debatable whether it makes “more sense” to classify a FTM transsexual as male because of the gender role to which they identify, or as female because of the chromosomes they have, so sidestepping the whole question by using four categories seems like a reasonable solution for a survey (or at least, if I was doing a survey, that’s why I’d use those four categories).
Using things like “cis male” might make the questions more technically accurate, but it won’t make anybody less confused about how to answer, and will probably make some more confused.
FTM transsexuals usually consider it offensive not to be classified as men (either by being classified as non-men or by avoiding the question), though arguably we could take the stick out of our asses.
Unless you actually do a karyotype test on an individual you don’t know what chromosomes they have, and that can’t be inferred with certainty from assigned gender at birth, primary or secondary sexual characteristics, or similar macroscale traits. A non-negligable portion of the population have chromosomes that don’t correspond to XX/XY, and said anomalies do not reliable correlate to a transgender identity.
I don’t want to point and laugh at your corpse. Please implement what you consider to be the obvious best choice. If you don’t know how to get started, contact Rudi Hoffman. He will walk you through the process. Get started today.
This could also be fixed by splitting the question into “gender (male/female/other)” and “Are you trans? (yes/no)”, but then you’d get other complaints.
I was going to raise exactly that issue and suggest that solution. What complaints would you expect, though? I don’t know if I’d really expect any non-trans LWers to be insulted at the mere suggestion that the question is worth asking.
Also, for the record: I’m not “considering cryonics”. I’m cryocrastinating. Cryonics is obviously the best choice, and I should be signing up for it in the next five seconds.
I know “male, female, FTM, MTF, other” is a standard gender/sex question, but I don’t know why. A problem is that it implies that “FTM” is a distinct category from, rather than a subset of, “male” (ditto for female).
Is that a standard gender/sex question? As someone who’s been programming market research surveys for several years, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Yes, as someone with no skin in the game, so to speak, I was nonetheless uncomfortable disclosing not just the gender “male” but also the initial state of my genitalia. What kind of person asks about a baby’s junk?
I know “male, female, FTM, MTF, other” is a standard gender/sex question, but I don’t know why.
Yeah, that confused me too. What’s the point of asking that question in the first place ? Just to collect more features for some clustering model, or what ? Then why not ask people’s age or weight or hair color, as well ?
Then why not ask people’s age or weight or hair color, as well ?
More people on LW care about the gender of LW participants than care about the weight or hair color of LW participants. As I recall, the survey did ask for age.
Yes, the ‘race’ question was particularly weird since it did not have reference to the country of origin. Normally, surveys conducted in different countries have very different breakdowns of what ‘race’ is supposed to mean.
At least it had both the British and American versions of “Asian”.
Yeah, I don’t think many people outside North America would break up White into Hispanic and non-Hispanic. (At least, it didn’t say “Latino”—I didn’t find out what it’s supposed to mean until recently, and as a result, being Italian, I had classed myself as a Latino a few times.)
The US Census Bureau uses this odd system for historical/political reasons. I don’t think it reflects very much how Americans categorize the world. I don’t know why Yvain used it, I don’t think he’s even American.
I know “male, female, FTM, MTF, other” is a standard gender/sex question, but I don’t know why. A problem is that it implies that “FTM” is a distinct category from, rather than a subset of, “male” (ditto for female). This would be better if other questions had answers that were subsets of other answers, but you seem to try hard not to do that. This could be fixed by phrasing it as “cis male”, but then you’d get people complaining about “cis” and “trans” not being a perfect dichotomy and complaining about the confusing word and so on. This could also be fixed by splitting the question into “gender (male/female/other)” and “Are you trans? (yes/no)”, but then you’d get other complaints.
I wouldn’t have been too far off on the Newton question if I had been able to remember the mapping between century numbering and year numbering. I ended up two centuries off. Fortunately I took that into account when calibrating.
Also, for the record: I’m not “considering cryonics”. I’m cryocrastinating. Cryonics is obviously the best choice, and I should be signing up for it in the next five seconds. I will probably die while not signed up for cryonics, and that will be death by stupidity, and you will all get to point and laugh at my corpse.
I don’t think that implication creates confusion in the mind of anybody answering the survey, i.e. most people know what to answer. It’s somewhat debatable whether it makes “more sense” to classify a FTM transsexual as male because of the gender role to which they identify, or as female because of the chromosomes they have, so sidestepping the whole question by using four categories seems like a reasonable solution for a survey (or at least, if I was doing a survey, that’s why I’d use those four categories).
Using things like “cis male” might make the questions more technically accurate, but it won’t make anybody less confused about how to answer, and will probably make some more confused.
FTM transsexuals usually consider it offensive not to be classified as men (either by being classified as non-men or by avoiding the question), though arguably we could take the stick out of our asses.
Unless you actually do a karyotype test on an individual you don’t know what chromosomes they have, and that can’t be inferred with certainty from assigned gender at birth, primary or secondary sexual characteristics, or similar macroscale traits. A non-negligable portion of the population have chromosomes that don’t correspond to XX/XY, and said anomalies do not reliable correlate to a transgender identity.
I don’t want to point and laugh at your corpse. Please implement what you consider to be the obvious best choice. If you don’t know how to get started, contact Rudi Hoffman. He will walk you through the process. Get started today.
What a weird assortment of questions apparently only tangentially related to cryonics.
I am not sure which questions you are referring to. Some questions on the form are related to getting a life insurance policy to pay for cryonics.
Hence “apparently”.
I was going to raise exactly that issue and suggest that solution. What complaints would you expect, though? I don’t know if I’d really expect any non-trans LWers to be insulted at the mere suggestion that the question is worth asking.
I’d have liked having that option too.
Me too.
Also, I would have liked to see monogamous and non-monogamous instead of monogamous and polyamorous.
Is that a standard gender/sex question? As someone who’s been programming market research surveys for several years, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Yes, as someone with no skin in the game, so to speak, I was nonetheless uncomfortable disclosing not just the gender “male” but also the initial state of my genitalia. What kind of person asks about a baby’s junk?
Most of them, by implication if nothing else. The minute they can’t do so subtly, things get nasty.
Yeah, that confused me too. What’s the point of asking that question in the first place ? Just to collect more features for some clustering model, or what ? Then why not ask people’s age or weight or hair color, as well ?
More people on LW care about the gender of LW participants than care about the weight or hair color of LW participants. As I recall, the survey did ask for age.
As for me, I was surprised it asked about my racial background and my family’s religion but not what country I grew up in or live in.
Yes, the ‘race’ question was particularly weird since it did not have reference to the country of origin. Normally, surveys conducted in different countries have very different breakdowns of what ‘race’ is supposed to mean.
At least it had both the British and American versions of “Asian”.
Yeah, I don’t think many people outside North America would break up White into Hispanic and non-Hispanic. (At least, it didn’t say “Latino”—I didn’t find out what it’s supposed to mean until recently, and as a result, being Italian, I had classed myself as a Latino a few times.)
The survey says a lot about how Americans categorize the world. It might be more informational than the results.
The US Census Bureau uses this odd system for historical/political reasons. I don’t think it reflects very much how Americans categorize the world. I don’t know why Yvain used it, I don’t think he’s even American.