[Air-L] Gender and surveys

[Deller, Ruth A]

I mainly use male, female, other and sometimes 'prefer not to say' depending on how important gender is to the research. With 'other', I usually have a text box for people to write in. I don't tend to use 'trans' as a separate term because many trans people identify as either male or female rather than 'other' or non-binary, and there are people who are non-binary but wouldn't necessarily call themselves trans.  It depends on what your research involves-if you are working with trans or genderqueer communities specifically, you might want to have a selection of different identity options around that.

-----Original Message-----
From: Air-L [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Merry
Sent: 13 April 2016 11:28
To: sky c; Air-L at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Gender and surveys

In my PhD three/four years ago I used radio buttons (male / female /
trans*) plus a text box for anyone who felt they could not click one of the buttons. This was successful, in that some (about 2% IIRC) respondents used the text box.

Now I mostly just use a text box, or don't ask for gender at all.

Sarah Merry

On 13 April 2016 at 02:43, sky c <skyc at riseup.net> wrote:

> I seem to be sending a similar email quite often lately, so I thought 
> it might be worth sending out a version to the list more generally.
>
> Many of the surveys I see sent out over this list still include a 
> 'gender' option that offers users the choice of only 'male' or 'female'.
> If you're developing a survey to send out, it might be worth
> considering:
> * Whether gender is relevant to your research question/topic? (If not, 
> you may consider leaving out a question about gender)
> * Offering more options for gender. Gender is complex, and many people 
> don't identify as either male or female. Offering an option for a text 
> field is a useful way to allow people to answer the question honestly:
> http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienation/
>
> I'm also curious how people who are already addressing the gender 
> spectrum in research surveys are approaching this: do you use a text 
> field, 'male'/'female'/'other', or something else?
>
> Thanks,
> sky.
>
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