[ludicast]

I like this from a usability standpoint. Just as some forms auto-fill the city/state based on the zip (and might get it wrong), this enables something similar. And it might get it wrong, but if your mom gave you a girl's name* blame her.

It also seems accurate:

Pat = about 50/50 David = All man Jessica = All woman

Also, wrt to "binary gender identity" complaints, are we all college freshmen here?

* my own name (Nord) sucks and gave a gender of null. Spent my whole life being called Nerd, Nora, etc. I'm not flipping out.

[masklinn]

> wrt to "binary gender identity" complaints, are we all college freshmen here?

We aren't, which is exactly why it's a problem.

[ludicast]

Nobody is saying a form can't have "other", etc. as an option. Just that someone's MVP that guesses gender is allowed to do that without political-correctness police.

I fail to see how this API needs to accommodate transpeople in its 0.1 release.

[eksith]

  I fail to see how this API needs to accommodate transpeople in its 0.1 release.

You have failed at empathy.

Speaking to the fluidity of human gender, "Other" is the majority of the spectrum and defaulting to binary is just as naïve as defaulting to ASCII as expected input in an application/API written in 2013.

Restricting yourself that early in the release cycle (and I'm still dubious of the merits of this project), doesn't bode well for its future.

Edit: I just read your comment history and, if I'm not mistaken, you're already biased. Or would you care to elaborate what you wrote here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451454

[ludicast]

>> Speaking to the fluidity of human gender, "Other" is the majority of the spectrum

I agree 100% about the fluidity of human gender, but rather than lecture people via a form/api etc. it is probably simplest to have words that most people use like male and female and something ("other", "trans", "enlightened", whatever) for the 3rd option.

>> I just read your comment history and, if I'm not mistaken, you're already biased. Or would you care to elaborate what you wrote here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451454

First of all that was a joke in the spirit of the Hangover 2. Might not have been that funny, but was an attempt at humor based on what it was responding to.

Secondly, I believe you are "biased" :) because though it is chronologically juxtaposed to this comment that's probably a coincidence because if you go through my comment history it might be the only one touching on the subject (I think, no guarantees).

edit - I did make a prison rape joke a year+ ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4148572) but I actually heard from people that it was hysterical* because of the play on "backbone".

* hysterical is a sexist word, I know.

[eksith]

  it is probably simplest to have words that most people use like male and female and something...

The simplest is a text field with: "What prefix would you like us to use?" The End.

There are no assumptions, no assignment of labels, not one bit of imposing your cultural norms on anyone else. The hardest part of getting over biases is acknowledging that you have them.

Learn some sensitivity, please.

[ludicast]

I'm either being trolled or bullied here.

A text field adds time to type out (which can lose customers, alienate handicapped etc.), all to accommodate an exception, rather than a rule.

I don't care if you have a slider, dropdown, circle, whatever, but for usability, a gender option should have poles that require 0 or 1 clicks to get to (though a text-field for further elucidation is okay). Continuing down this path, the further step is saying a shoe-size option insults amputees and lymphedema victims and should be a text-field...

Edit - Another fact is that the person filling out this form might not be the person described by the form (say for a CRM tool) in which case it matters more to KISS.