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!
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.
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-