Emile comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Yvain 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: Emile 01 November 2011 08:41:28PM 5 points [-]

I know "male, female, FTM, MTF, other" is a standard gender/sex question, but I don't know why. A problem is that it implies that "FTM" is a distinct category from, rather than a subset of, "male" (ditto for female).

I don't think that implication creates confusion in the mind of anybody answering the survey, i.e. most people know what to answer. It's somewhat debatable whether it makes "more sense" to classify a FTM transsexual as male because of the gender role to which they identify, or as female because of the chromosomes they have, so sidestepping the whole question by using four categories seems like a reasonable solution for a survey (or at least, if I was doing a survey, that's why I'd use those four categories).

Using things like "cis male" might make the questions more technically accurate, but it won't make anybody less confused about how to answer, and will probably make some more confused.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 November 2011 11:50:56PM 3 points [-]

Unless you actually do a karyotype test on an individual you don't know what chromosomes they have, and that can't be inferred with certainty from assigned gender at birth, primary or secondary sexual characteristics, or similar macroscale traits. A non-negligable portion of the population have chromosomes that don't correspond to XX/XY, and said anomalies do not reliable correlate to a transgender identity.

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 November 2011 08:56:53PM 5 points [-]

FTM transsexuals usually consider it offensive not to be classified as men (either by being classified as non-men or by avoiding the question), though arguably we could take the stick out of our asses.