Gender on My Profile

[Darth Caesar]

I think you should have a option to select and show your gender under Your Profile, it wouldn't be required it would just be like your age.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

This would be a good idea except that 99% of people on at least OT are male. The "I'm female!" part of the sig came because people kept thinking I was male.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

What's next? Gender orientation soon to follow? And after that? Sexual orientation too?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Lots of forums have the option where you can make it public if you're male or female. People have different reasons for wanting to make it clear. For me, part of it is avoiding the frustration of not knowing if I should refer to a person as "he/she" or "him/her."

And it might also stop the silly instances of people referring to one of our admins as "she" and "her" - Padma is male; his username is that of a male character from Gordon Dickson's Dorsai novels (aka the Childe Cycle). The name is not a misspelling of a certain Star Wars character.

 

[GenMarshall]

It would be nice, especially with male users who use female avatars (like myself and others) that are oftenly misslabeled as female by newer posters. On and the occasionall mixup with Padma and the star wars prequel character.

 

[Methos]

Why does it matter what gender someone is? It has no bearing on the discussion. If a person desires to state their gender, there are ways to do so.

Personally, a persons gender isn't going to change how I communicate to them, so I could care less what they are.

Having said that, the OPs suggestion is fine IMO, so long as it was a user option that was turned off by default.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Why does it matter what gender someone is? It has no bearing on the discussion. If a person desires to state their gender, there are ways to do so.

It matters to some people. And sometimes it does have a bearing on the discussion. If you doubt me, read some of the gender-themed threads in OT sometime.

Personally, a persons gender isn't going to change how I communicate to them, so I could care less what they are.

That's your preference. As long as you're not coming down on people for stating what gender they are, it's all a matter of personal choice.

Having said that, the OPs suggestion is fine IMO, so long as it was a user option that was turned off by default.

I belong to another vBulletin forum (TrekBBS) where we have the option to make our gender public or not. It's not obtrusive - just a small graphic under the avatar. I got tired of people assuming that I'm male, so I toggled the gender indicator option, and saved a few arguments.

 

[Bill3000]

Doesn't even have to be on the posts, just in the profile. No reason why it can't be included considering we can put our age, location, interests, and occupation.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I would put it under location or something in the miniprofile

As a joke they should put "Unknown" for one of the choices

 

[Lord Baal]

I agree with this. Though "transgendered" should be an option, though I'm sure it is one that will be abused.

 

[Darth Caesar]

Having said that, the OPs suggestion is fine IMO, so long as it was a user option that was turned off by default.

Thats what i'm talking about, just like age.

 

[Xanikk999]

I agree with this. Though "transgendered" should be an option, though I'm sure it is one that will be abused.

Transgendered people don't like to call themselves as such for the most part. The whole point of their condition is that they feel like they are the other sex from birth and want to resemble that sex so labeling them as anything different would defeat the purpose of that.

 

[Lord Baal]

Transgendered people don't like to call themselves as such for the most part. The whole point of their condition is that they feel like they are the other sex from birth and want to resemble that sex so labeling them as anything different would defeat the purpose of that.

I was thinking more of hermaphrodites, who also seem to be classed as transgendered officially - at least over here - than transexuals.

 

[Cutlass]

Girls on a forum overwhelmingly dominated by guys may be wise to keep a low profile and not advertise it though........

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The image below is how other posters see me on TrekBBS. Note the little pink graphic at the bottom. It's unobtrusive, but clearly tells people "this poster is female."

 

[Zelig]

I assume people are the sex of their avatar, if their avatar is ambiguous, I assume they're sexless.

 

[Cutlass]

So you're a crazy cat lady?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So you're female? What about people who have non-human avatars - or even inorganic avatars?

I once used the Roman Coliseum as my avatar. On another forum I use Carl Sagan as my avatar. On TrekBBS I use a smiley driving a tractor.

Obviously I can't be all these at the same time!

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Girls on a forum overwhelmingly dominated by guys may be wise to keep a low profile and not advertise it though........

Why?

 

[classical_hero]

Know your place.