Sex/Gender: []Male []Female []Other If you marked "other", you may explain your answer or not, below: [_________________________________]
That wouldn't give a whole lot of tidily checked-off categories to do statistical calculations on, but it would a) gather an idea of just how many people identify as "other", with some additional clues for what categories should go on a more detailed form when you're not worried aboout confusing people, and b) make the form only the tiniest bit more complicated than most forms currently are, which should help with the not-confusing-people thing.
(Come to think of it, I've heard of folks getting confused by forms that just say, "Sex: ___" with a blank instead of check boxes. One of my neighbours, as a teen, asked his mother, "Do I put zero, because I haven't had sex yet?" while filling out such a form. An easy mistake in retrospect. I wasn't confused by a form, but I do recall seeing lots of classified ads in the newspaper that said, "EOE: M/F/H", and I figured it meant, "Equal Opportunity Employer: Male/Female/H____" and my brain kept filling in "Hermaphrodite", but I had trouble believeing all those employers were that cool. But wow, I'm veering way off into tangent-land now. I should sleep.)
(no subject)
Sex/Gender: []Male []Female []Other
If you marked "other", you may explain
your answer or not, below:
[_________________________________]
That wouldn't give a whole lot of tidily checked-off categories to do statistical calculations on, but it would a) gather an idea of just how many people identify as "other", with some additional clues for what categories should go on a more detailed form when you're not worried aboout confusing people, and b) make the form only the tiniest bit more complicated than most forms currently are, which should help with the not-confusing-people thing.
(Come to think of it, I've heard of folks getting confused by forms that just say, "Sex: ___" with a blank instead of check boxes. One of my neighbours, as a teen, asked his mother, "Do I put zero, because I haven't had sex yet?" while filling out such a form. An easy mistake in retrospect. I wasn't confused by a form, but I do recall seeing lots of classified ads in the newspaper that said, "EOE: M/F/H", and I figured it meant, "Equal Opportunity Employer: Male/Female/H____" and my brain kept filling in "Hermaphrodite", but I had trouble believeing all those employers were that cool. But wow, I'm veering way off into tangent-land now. I should sleep.)
(no subject)