This is really about ideas that other people have come up with, but I think they're worth popularising. (See last slide for links.)

1. why GENDER
should be a TEXT FIELD
Brianna
identi.ca/pfctdayelise

6. Pros:
●Using the wrong pronoun is very jarring
●Helps translators
●Helps statistics/metrics
●Helps advertisers
●How dare you disrupt my neat view of the world!
My perspective will rule!

7. Cons:
Can alienate potential users
●

8. Sarah Dopp:
I’ll give you a hint: If you’re still asking about race
in a required drop-down menu, you’re way behind.
Because doing it that way says to a user:
●You have a race.
●It’s really important to me.
●It’s one (and only one) of these listed here.

9. What do you really want to know?

12. More reading
●Facebook's decision on gender:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2108918713
●Sarah Mei on Diaspora:
http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienatio
●Gina Trapani:
http://smarterware.org/7388/the-case-against-drop-do
●Bagcheck asks for pronouns:
http://bagcheck.com/blog/01-the-gender-question
●Metafilter on analysing their open field:
http://metatalk.metafilter.com/20050/Gender-Go-nuts-