Gender or sex

[govuk-design-system]

Use this issue to discuss the gender or sex pattern in the GOV.UK Design System.

What

When and how to ask about people's gender and sex.

[Zeno001]

Passports have to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Doc 9303 standard.

Passports are required to show the sex of the holder and the only permitted markers are F for female, M for male, or X for unspecified. The field is the sex of the holder: there is no field for 'gender'.

Part 5 of the standard states:

"Sex of the holder, to be specified by use of the single initial commonly used in the language of the State or organization where the document is issued and, if translation into English, French or Spanish is necessary, followed by an oblique and the capital letter F for female, M for male, or X for unspecified."

and

"Where a person does not wish his/her sex to be identified or where an issuing State or organization does not want to show this data, the filler character (<) shall be used in this field in the [Machine Readable Zone] and an X in this field in the [Visual Inspection Zone]."

So, X means that the sex of the holder has not been specified, not that they are of an unspecified sex and it has nothing to do with 'gender'.

[twadepsvita]

Passports are required to show the sex of the holder and the only permitted markers are F for female, M for male, or X for unspecified. The field is the sex of the holder: there is no field for 'gender'.

@Zeno001 The marker on a passport is a gender marker, at least in the UK. If you want a passport to have a gender marker different to the sex listed on your borth certificate, then you just require a doctor's note. If you have had the sex marker changed on your birth certificate, then you don't need a doctor's note to get it changed. A driver's licence is similar, where it's a gender marker, but a driver's licence can be self declared without a doctor's note. There are two markers in that case, one being the M or F, the other being the number for the month of birth in the licence numb er (01-12 for a male gender marker and 50-62 for a female gender marker).

[Zeno001]

My UK passport says the field is Sex. What does yours say?

[twadepsvita]

My UK passport says the field is Sex. What does yours say?

Regardless of what it says, it is a gender marker, as described above in the process of how it can be changed, via a doctor's note or through having the sex marker on a birth certificate changed.

The marker on a passport is a gender marker, at least in the UK. If you want a passport to have a gender marker different to the sex listed on your borth certificate, then you just require a doctor's note. If you have had the sex marker changed on your birth certificate, then you don't need a doctor's note to get it changed.

[Zeno001]

I've provided you with evidence that the field is sex and is labelled as such including citing the international standard for passports that defines the field to be the sex of the applicant. You assert it is something different. I await your evidence.

[twadepsvita]

I've provided you with evidence that the field is sex and is labelled as such including citing the international standard for passports that defines the field to be the sex of the applicant. You assert it is something different. I await your evidence.

See here and here for the evidence that the marker is for gender and can be changed as desribed in my previous posts.

[Zeno001]

Seriously? Gender Construction Kit

But none of that negates the fact that the field is sex, not 'gender'.

[twadepsvita]

Seriously? Gender Construction Kit

But none of that negates the fact that the field is sex, not 'gender'.

The name given to the field is listed as sex, but as per the evidence shown, the UK Government recognises it as a gender field. Otherwise it wouldn't be as simple as requiring a doctor's note to change the field.

As for your earlier mention of the ICAO:

Passports have to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Doc 9303 standard. According to this document, the ICAO refers to it as a gender field themselves.

[Zeno001]

That document is a discussion paper submitted by the New Zealand Passport Office to a meeting and is nearly a decade older than the current standard.

[owenatgov]

Hey folks. I'd like to gently remind everyone that the intent of the issue is to discuss, critique and provide research findings for the gender or sex pattern in the GOV.UK Design System, a design pattern that was made in response to government digital service needs and is intended to provide support to digital teams in government building digital services. It is not a place to discuss or influence policy or topics adjacent to the pattern itself.

Please stay on topic.

[twadepsvita]

Hey folks. I'd like to gently remind everyone that the intent of the issue is to discuss, critique and provide research findings for the gender or sex pattern in the GOV.UK Design System, a design pattern that was made in response to government digital service needs and is intended to provide support to digital teams in government building digital services. It is not a place to discuss or influence policy or topics adjacent to the pattern itself.

Please stay on topic.

Sure. I was just explaining to @Zeno001 about their confusion due to them not understanding how it worked. Carry on with the relevant stuff.

[gjvnq]

Hello, Brazilian trans girl here giving my two cents.

First, I see here not one but three or more design patterns. We need one for legal sex, one for gender identity, and one for "biological sex".

My overall recommendation is that gender identity should be the question asked most of the time, specially for diversity statistics purposes.

The legal sex and biological sex questions should only be asked when it's absolutely necessary.

Legal sex

Question title: "What's your legal sex?" or "Legal sex" Options:

• M - Male
• F - Female
• X - Other
• Prefer not to say

Help text: your legal sex is the one listed on your birth certificate, passport, id card, or similar.

Note 1: I used the word "other" instead of "intersex" because some countries like Brazil quite literally have multiple possible third values. Most intersex people here have their legal sex as ignorado (ignored) on their birth certificate but some people got court orders to change that field to não-binário (non binary) and one person got it changed to intersexo (intersex).

Note 2: I know that some countries (including Australia iirc) let people get passports with their sex as "X" even if their birth certificate says something like "male" or "female". I don't really know how best to handle such cases. Perhaps the help text could say "if you have different documents listing different legal sexes, pick whatever option you prefer among them".

Note 3: if the exact legal sex is really necessary, as a text input to the option "X - Other" so that people can write in whatever their legal sex is.

Gender Identity

Question title: "What's your gender?", "What's your gender identity?" Help text: "Pick your preferred gender regardless of your legal sex" Options:

• Male
• Female
• Non-binary
• Prefer not to answer

Add an optional self description box below the radio buttons regardless of the selected option.

We could add a ton of gender options but they don't seem me very useful for most government forms.

Gender orientation

If you absolutely need to know if someone is trans or not, I recomend making a question titled "What's your gender orientation?" with the options:

• Cisgender (my gender identity matches the one assigned to me at birth)
• Transgender (my gender identity differs from the one assigned to me at birth)
• Prefer not to answer / I don't know

While it is possible to join the gender identity and orientation into a single question with 5 possible choices (cis woman, trans woman, cis man, trans man, enby) I advise against it for a few reasons:

• Having separate questions means people can say that they are a man or a woman without having to say of they are cis or trans.
• Having separate questions makes data analysis easier.

Note: the term "gender orientation" is rare but it's the best I could find so far. I know that at least one old book on trans people used the term "sex orientation" (not sexual orientation) to refer to whether people were cis or trans but that's way back when the term transsexual was the standard one instead of transgender as it is today.

Biological sex

This is the one I have the most trouble with as I'm no biologist. Strictly speaking either biological sex doesn't exist as a single question or it has at least possible categories since many trans and intersex people show biological traits of "different sexes", e.g. a trans woman might have a penis at the same time she has boobs and an estrogen-based hormonal profile.

In medical contexts I get a feeling that biological sex is better understood as at least two questions:

• Hormonal profile
• Reproductive/genital anatomy

The hormonal profile question is about the levels of sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen. I see at least four values:

• Pre pubescent
• Adult male
• Adult female
• Other

However, I'm unsure if the menopausal and andropusal should be their own distinct values.

Now for genital/reproductive anatomy, I see at least three values:

• Male
• Female
• Intersex

The obvious problem is that this doesn't capture more nuanced cases like a trans men who had penileplasty surgeries but haven't undergone hysterectomies. I.e. this question conflates internal and external anatomy.

While we could have additional options for the various possible anatomical configurations one might have, I think that's misguided.

The best I can think of when it comes to asking for "biological sex" is having a dropdown with many common profiles (e.g. cis woman, non-op trans man, etc.) that is used to autofill a bunch of sex related traits that are each their own questions.

Visually it's like having a fieldset labelled "Sex-related traits" full of checkboxes and selects/dropdows for things like body parts (e.g. has uterus, has penis, has boobs) and body functions (e.g. can cause pregnancy, can get pregnant). The selection of a "biological sex profile" on the main drop-down does not bar the user from tweaking the sex-related traits so that they can reflect the patient's actual situation regardless of whether or not they precisely fit in in any of the aforementioned profiles.

Biological sex (stopgap options)

As a stopgap until someone designs a perfect form, I see two ways to ask for biological sex in a somewhat decent manner.

The first option is to ask "What's your biological sex?" and show the following options:

• Cis woman
• Cis man
• Trans woman / Transfem
• Trans man / Transmasc
• Enby / Intersex

This is far from ideal but it does help medical staff to get a general idea of what to expect from a patient.

The second option is for legacy systems. Here we reduce the number of options from five to three:

• Cis woman
• Cis man
• Trans or intersex

This is bad but at least it doesn't force trans and intersex people into a binary they don't fit in.

[Zeno001]

Thanks for your comment, @gjvnq.

You raise a number of interesting issues.

First, I see here not one but three or more design patterns. We need one for legal sex, one for gender identity, and one for "biological sex".

Those are questions that could be asked but the first consideration has to be: for what purpose are the data being collected? However, I have no idea why you chose to put quotation marks around "biological sex" when it is a perfectly valid and legitimate category in its own right, the collection of data on which has many fundamental uses and implications.

You then say:

My overall recommendation is that gender identity should be the question asked most of the time, specially for diversity statistics purposes.

I think this is wrong-headed: what data are collected depends on the purpose for which the data are being collected and what lawful UK GDPR basis has been established for processing these data. Saying that a question on 'gender identity' should be used most of the time, takes no cognisance of those requirements.

Also, if the data are being collected for equality monitoring purposes, they have to align with the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. ‘Gender identity’ is not a protected characteristic: sex (and gender reassignment) is.

The legal sex and biological sex questions should only be asked when it's absolutely necessary.

These questions need to be asked if the purpose of collecting the data requires that information.

You then say:

Question title: "What's your legal sex?" or "Legal sex" Options:

M - Male F - Female X - Other Prefer not to say

Help text: your legal sex is the one listed on your birth certificate, passport, id card, or similar."

The help text is problematic as none of them definitively shows the sex of the holder and only the first can show the legal sex of the holder - ie the individual's sex or as changed by a Gender Recognition Certificate. Passports, ID cards (from whatever issuing authority), etc, will not be a reliable indicator of the person's legal sex, never mind her/his sex. This means that the data collected may not be reliable. Also, there are some purposes that require a definitive answer of female or male so 'Prefer not to say' may be invalid.

Additionally, there is no X marker on a UK passport although some countries do allow this as an option. However, under the International Civil Aviation Organization standard for passports (Doc 9303), X simply means that the sex of the holder has not been specified, not that they are of an unspecified sex (and it has nothing to do with 'gender'). The holder of a passport with an X in the sex field is still either female or male.

Your Note 1 talks about those with intersex conditions. Those with such a medical condition (sometimes also referred to as a Difference of Sex Development) are also still either female or male. These conditions are medical ones and have nothing to do with any form of identity and don't change an individual's sex.

As an aside, I note that in Portuguese (and similarly in Spanish) there are two forms of the term: "ele é não-binário" (he is non-binary) and "ela é não-binária" (she is non-binary).

Without going through the rest of what you said with a fine-toothed comb, I'll just make one observation about what you said under 'Biological sex'. I think you are confusing and conflating three different concepts:

1) Sex definition: how we define what female and male mean (reproductive role based on one of the two gametes)

2) Sex determination: how an embryo is triggered to develop as female or male (chromosomes in humans)

3) Sex recognition: how we know someone's sex is female or male.

Everyone is either female or male and sometimes it's crucial to gather accurate data on sex.