Application.
Someone wrote…
Filling out an application form for a job today, I noticed that in the ‘tick your gender’ section, alongside the Male/Female boxes they had FTM and MTF transgender boxes. While I was pleased that they acknowledged there is more outside the gender binary, I started wondering, shouldn’t there have been an Intersex/Genderqueer box? Or an ‘Other’ box? Should there have been boxes at all?
What’s your experience?
Posted by julian on September 17th, 2009 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 14 comments »
September 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm |
Back when I was on Orkut my friends were surprised that “Lesbian” was not in the list of options for profiles. We came up with various tags/labels for ourselves while chatting. I collected them all and sent the list to Orkut’s “Wish/Suggestion” dept. It was funny enough I took a screen shot of the list. Took me a while but I dug it up. Thought you might find it funny.
Lesbian
Dyke
Byke
Boi
Grrl
Queen
King
Butch
Bitch
metrosexual
ubersexual
not-straight
not-narrow
bent
homobanana
snugglebutch
incompetent butch
and instead of other a text box / fill in the blank
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September 17th, 2009 at 5:50 pm |
Snugglebutch sounds so cute :)
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September 17th, 2009 at 8:45 pm |
My emploer does this as well, only they want you to simply write on the line what you are; sadly, I doubt they’ll understand if one writes anything other than male or female. I’m wondering why it’s necessary to have gender boxes at all. If they have to have them, I’d like one that just says ‘me!’ on it.
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September 17th, 2009 at 11:46 pm |
Frankly, I’m stunned they are progressive enough to include boxes for transexuals now. Though that makes the lack of any option for genderqueers all the more frustrating.
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September 18th, 2009 at 8:21 am |
Tick them all! :p
I don’t think the boxes should be like that. More like F/I/M for sex, and a line for gender. It *is* nice to see they’re trying, at least.
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September 18th, 2009 at 10:07 am |
My school has anonymous surveys that we’re “encouraged” to fill out. I always skip the sex/gender boxes. I’m certain I’m probably one of the few that do so, so they could probably figure out who it was just from that. -shrug-
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September 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm |
As a trans person, honestly, I’d just tick “Male” if I saw that. As much as I appreciate being acknowledged, I don’t think it’s really anyone’s business what chromosomes I may or may not have. I would like to see an “other” box for gender, so people would have the option to write in whatever they feel comfortable with. But I think it’s rather invasive to ask what someone’s sex is, and by including “transgender” on there, that’s basically what they’re doing.
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September 19th, 2009 at 7:17 am |
Does anyone have any idea *why* job applications ask what sex you are? Is it because there are laws prohibiting discrimination and they need to meet a certain quota of both genders? Is it for recruiting purposes, so they can see which sex their job ads appeal to the most? Or some other reason I’m too lazy too look up right this minute? ;)
While Cher’s gendered list makes me grin, that’s another difficulty I sometimes have with creating enough words to describe all aspects of gender orientation: there’s so many it’s overwhelming, even for someone who’s into this stuff the way I am. If all job applications looked like this, it would make everyone happy, but that would be one heck of a form!
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September 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm |
As an MTF, I’d tick Female.
It’s actually pretty offensive including MTF/FTM as SEPARATE genders.
Either have M/F/Other, or get rid of the thing anyway.
The idea of quotas to prevent discrimination is actually ENCOURAGING discrimination, in that even more emphasis is put onto something that shouldn’t mater.
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September 20th, 2009 at 7:15 pm |
What Lilybean said…
And this sounds pretty damn illegal (at least in the US). o.O
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September 21st, 2009 at 8:51 am |
I’m not sure if there are federal or state guidelines in the US, but most companies do keep a quota on how many females they have. College do too and use it for advertising.
I hadn’t thought about it until now, thanks Asher, but I do agree separating out MTF and FTM does sound a intrusive, at least for an employer. Probably more appropriate for dating sites to give more options. I know Tangowire offers liek a dozen options under looks which nice instead of the usual athletic and toned to big girl.
Maybe instead of different or more boxes we should worry about non-gender/sex specific bathrooms. My college got press for “having gender-neutral” bathrooms. They just added the male/female sign to all the single person handicapped bathrooms. Which, honestly, I think works.
I’m not sure I’d want gender on a job app. I’d probably need a paragraph not a single line. hehe
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September 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 am |
I hate binary ticky boxes but at least they’re making the effort. I love what Jezebel said abot ticking them all though lol. I am so doing that the next time I fill out a form ^_^
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September 24th, 2009 at 2:14 pm |
I think we need to be careful of what are steps FORWARD and what aren’t.
As I and others said, this is insulting AND invasive.
It seems to me to be a step back disguised as a step forward, like a gendery moonwalk.
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April 20th, 2010 at 11:00 pm |
I think they’re genuinely making an attempt to be more inclusive. It’s just going to take a while before they actually end up as such.
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