An issue is that many systems presume pronouns, and for some people, this is decidedly uncomfortable and significant. For others ... not so much.

There's virtually always the option to leave the option blank, or to make up a garbage or meaningless value. The first system on which I recall the option being offered was Google+. My response was "trans-krell", playing of my pseudonym's character.

For age, I usually try to find the earliest possible birth year acceptable to the system. For Google this seems to be about 140 years prior to the present date. Again, I avoid providing this information if possilbe (most of my various little-used Google accounts have either no value provided or a ridiculously early age).

I'm of the view that we don't need to be formulated, sprawling on a pin, within some global surveillance database(s). If I can evade classification and feed garbage to the system, I will, for as long as that is viable, and probably for some time after that point.

The gendering or nongendering agenda concerns me far less than the Total Information Awareness agenda. Services demanding anything from me other than some random username and password (I tend to use password generators to create both values), and possibly a contact email address ... tend not to get used.

As I just commented to a friend a few days ago, I can't remember the last time I did create an account, with the exception of some recent Mastodon and Diaspora* migrations in the past year or two.

For my most recent Android device (the Android aspect of it being among the least attractive characteristics), I bailed out of Google Play Store registration, which requires creating a Google account. (Even if not formally associated with other identities I have, those could all but certainly be trivially linked.) Instead I'm relying on F-Droid, APK-Mirror, and the Aurora Store. I've kept actual app installations to a bare minimum, and most of those through F-Droid. There are I think three apps with actual accounts associated to them, though only one has been so configured.

My use of the Internet dates to the 1980s. I've seen a lot. And am disliking increasing amounts of it. Read Dan Geer if you haven't recently.

  > There's virtually always the option to leave the option blank, or to make up a garbage or meaningless value.

Right, but it's an uncommon option that relates to a controversial subject. That's why I mentioned to leave the option setCustomerPronoun() available without making it a necessary step: show it in the UI options but it doesn't have to be front and center in the sign-up form.

  > The gendering or nongendering agenda concerns me far less than the Total Information Awareness agenda.

Sure, without a doubt. I may have inadvertently picked a flamebait example!

  > Read Dan Geer if you haven't recently.

Thanks, added to the list.

What sort of agenda was selecting Mr./Mrs. from the drop down pushing?

For me - it becomes an agenda when they’re collecting the information for no other reason than to collect the information - or - they’re using the field to show how progressive they are. Unless gendering language is somehow critical to the operation of the software - why collect it at all? I have the same feeling about birthdays - I’m automatically assuming it’s because you have “sell customer data” on the 5-year business plan.

Some of us are still old enough to remember when "Ms." was a contentious or at least novel title, though few are old enough to have seen its original proposal in 1901.

The New York Times formally adopted use of "Ms." as a title, distinct from "Mrs." (a married woman, often referred to by her husband's full name, e.g., "Mrs. John Q. Smith"), or "Miss" (an unmarried woman or girl, addressed by her given and maiden names, "Miss Jane Q. Jones"). Ms. Magazine was a direct and deliberate challenge to that practice, and was launched in 1971 by Gloria Steinem. Interestingly, all three words, "miss, "missus", and "mizz" originate from "mistress", which was at one time the single title applied to any woman, adult or child, married or not.

(For men, the terms "Master" (unmarried child) and "Mister" were both represented as "Mr.".)

And then as now, "Ms." resulted in much gnashing of teeth, changing of forms, and updating of databases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/magazine/25FOB-onlanguage...

I mean pronouns of type VARCHAR, not ENUM.

It's not really an agenda to leave the option open - people not identifying with male or female (or fluidly between the two) doesn't harm anybody. Surely for it to be an agenda, it has to be putting somebody else out?

Sure, present the option in the UI options. But it doesn't have to be front and center in the sign-up form.

I don't get the issue. Making gender-nonconforming people's options the same level in the UI as male and female is a bad thing? Seems like pretty standard egalitarian design to me.

I don't celebrate Christmas, why not ask me my religion in the sign up form? I certainly don't want to see the Christmas themed website or get the "holiday greetings" newsletter. Is making non-Christian people's options the same level in the UI as Christians a bad thing?

Same with the Last Name field. I happen to know someone who doesn't have one. Why isn't he accommodated?

How about colour blindness? Why isn't there a colour-blind accessibility option in the sign up form? Is making colour-blind people's options the same level in the UI as regularly-sighted people a bad thing?

I think that my point is made.

There was a time when asking for religous affiliation was fairly standard, though also often associated with prejudicial practice.

Forms of address --- Mr., Mrs., Miss., Ms., and often professional titles (Dr., in German Ing. (engineer), esquire (lawyers), Reverand, etc.) is at least fairly common if not entirely standard practice.

I suspect, again, some motivation on the part of a requestor. A magazine's circulation department, for example, might want to know the number of lawyers and doctors among its subscribers as a proxy for advertising value.

Many business information request forms provide detailed rosters of who you are, what you do, and your company title. For similar reasons, I suspect.

(I also feed those bogus information as a matter of course.)

Wait, so because other people aren't accommodated, we also shouldn't accommodate gender non-conforming people?

Having a separate first-last name is often brought up as a UX failure for exactly this reason, and UX designers often design websites so that colourblindness doesn't hamper usability (in my experience working with designers at big companies). The Christmas one isn't as much of an issue because AFAIK very few people are meaningfully put out by seeing Christmas decorations on websites from majority-Christian countries. In other countries these things often /are/ turned off depending on cultural sensitivities.

We should be trying to design our processes to fit the world around us, not rejecting the parts of the world we don't like.

To be fair, the equivalent solution for the name field example would be solving it by insisting everyone specify how many names they have before letting them enter their name - there's a reason that isn't the recommended solution, people don't want to deal with minutia that doesn't matter to them, one field works fine for everyone.

The obvious solution is to just not use pronouns - it's a messy part of the language that is currently in flux, so why wade in?

Obviously, some sites are dedicated to these issues, so they can justifiably ask on sign up, but if you don't _need_ to care about people's personal details, better not to ask at all.