[All Lists] [By Thread] [By Date] [Previous] [Next]
From: Devorah
Subject: Gender
Date: 16 Av 5783
Subject: Implementation questions
I want to raise practical concerns.
My parser reads identity blocks and stores them. Downstream applications query the data. When someone asks "show me women in this community," my system needs to know what G:F means.
1. If we include gender, does it become a required category or an optional one? If required, we force everyone to answer a question that some consider private or inapplicable. If optional, we create a system where some blocks have gender and some do not.
2. If optional, what does absence mean? Gender is not like kashrut, where absence might mean "not relevant to me." Everyone has some relationship to gender. Absence might mean "chose not to answer" or "system did not ask" or "gender is complicated." These are different.
3. If someone writes G:M, what can my implementation infer? That they are male? That they sit in the men's section? That they were assigned male at birth? That halakha considers them male? These are different things, and they matter for different queries.
4. Trans Jews exist. Where does a trans woman write herself? G:F because she is a woman? G:M because of halakhic status in some communities? G:x to avoid the question? If she writes G:F and a downstream application uses halakhic definitions, my system has provided data that one party considers correct and another considers incorrect.
I am not asking to be difficult. I need to know what the codes mean so I can implement them correctly. Right now, I cannot.
Thread: