Write better survey questions about gender

Every year, some of you are inevitably going to collect data about people’s genders. Maybe you’re a psychologist, or a social science student doing an experiment or a survey. Maybe you’re a club executive trying to create an application form. So, how do you do it respectfully?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these questionnaires that I’ve been satisfied with or haven’t roundly mocked in group chats with my trans friends. Even at my surgeon’s office, in the pre-consultation questionnaire for vaginoplasty (yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like), they still fumbled around with gendered terminology in ways that anyone who’s spent a few weeks on Tumblr could tell, that you are clumsy and outdated.

Because I’m a blue-haired transgender lesbian communist in queer studies (and a sucker for the novelty of getting my voice in print), here’s a guide for writing gender data collection questions to collect data about gender that I won’t laugh at. It may seem nitpicky—and indeed, I intend to pick nits—but it’s a powerful framing device through which to interrogate what gender is, what function it serves, and why we have it in the first place.

First, a few caveats. Gender is culturally specific and socially constructed. If you aren’t on board with this, then you aren’t going to like the rest of this article (or frankly, me as a person). Gender is a cultural phenomenon that emerges from social customs and habits. As those customs change, so too does the way we see gender. It’s deeply entrenched and important to lots of people (including myself)—but so is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That doesn’t mean gender isn’t real; it affects all our lives! But we collectively participate in its construction and can work to construct it better.

I’m also not the ultimate authority on gender. People outside the gender binary aren’t a monolith, and I’m still learning more about gender every day! Others have their own experiences, opinions, and concerns, and might give different advice. Listen to them too.

Often, you don’t actually need to collect respondents’ genders—you just need to know their pronouns so you can talk about them in the third person. Don’t ask whether they’re male, or female, or neither, or etc. (we’ll talk about that later); just ask whether they use she/her, he/him, they/them, etc. Let people respond with multiple pronouns, or none, or with neopronouns like ey/em or ze/hir; include a write-in option! This circumvents the entire question about gathering gender data and is best for club applications and the like.

But if you do need gender data, what will save you from my mockery? Well, here’s a possibility:

Gender
□ Male
□ Female
□ Cisgender
□ Transgender
□ Nonbinary
□ Other ______
□ Choose not to respond

Let’s break it down piecemeal. First, the term “Gender,” specifically: why gender and not sex? Well, if you ask “Sex” and have a write-in option, I’m going to put “Yes please!” and it’ll be no one’s fault but your own. Moreover, the difference between gender and sex is important to recognize—and someone’s assigned sex is no business of yours.

Sex and gender are entangled in deep and complex ways. Historically, gender came first. Then, we dis-covered things like chromosomes and hormones and started using them to justify existing classifications—and to punish gender nonconformity. Feel constrained by your social role? Tough titties. Your chromosomes say you have to perform it. It’s a method of social control: “biological sex” might be a great and useful abstraction for people whose genders and physiologies conform to social norms, but for those of us who differ, it’s nothing but a stamp that says we can never escape our coercive and traumatic birth assignation.

Obviously, that sucks. No one owes you information about their assigned sex. It’s a fancy way of asking “What’s in your pants?” and that’s rude and gross unless we want to sleep with each other and we’re figuring out logistics. I’m taken, by the way. Sex (the noun, not the verb) doesn’t matter at all for how you should treat someone: does my DNA have a specific set of pronouns encoded in it? No. Simply chill, and acknowledge that I am who and what I say I am.

Moving on, let respondents select multiple options. People often use multiple words to describe their genders or are multiple genders at once! Let us represent our genders in full, instead of picking and choosing which facets to emphasize based on what we think you’re looking for—or what will least endanger us.

Male and Female are there for convenience. Most people who answer your survey are going to click at least one of the two. Obviously, they can’t be the only options, even if 95 percent of people answer that they’re male or female. So much violence has been done to people of marginalized genders by simply omitting our experiences, or by assuming that our experiences are something that they aren’t.

Transgender and cisgender are there if people want to specify whether their gender is the same as the one they were so rudely assigned at birth (cis) or if they’ve decided to cast off the shackles of their birth assignment and claim their own selfhood (trans). Don’t put trans and cis in as options if assigned gender isn’t going to be relevant; it rarely is. No one has to specify either—plenty of trans people keep their transness to themselves because it’s no one else’s business; plenty of cis people don’t think about their cisness to the point where they need an explainer about what cis means.

Importantly, trans is only there because it can be selected alongside other options. Most of us prefer to be recognized as a specific gender, instead of merely lumped together into one generic, nebulous other. For example, if you have me pick one of “Male,” “Female,” or “Trans,” I’m going to submit Female. I’m trans, too, but on its own, all that tells you is who to discriminate against. Please don’t.

Now for nonbinary and fill-in-the-blank. Nonbinary, like trans, is an adjective and an umbrella term. It’s remarkably self-explanatory: it covers pretty much any gender that isn’t one of the binary ones—male or female. Some people do identify outside of the nonbinary umbrella, and they have good reasons for doing so beyond the scope of this article. Just one pet peeve: please don’t write “Gender non-binary.” Everyone knows we’re talking about gender. You don’t need to clarify ad nauseam.

Even in progressive systems of gender, any closed taxonomy is going to exclude peoples’ experiences. There are so many different ways that gender affects peoples’ lives and for a survey to be accurate, you have to give people a write-in option. Agender, genderqueer, maverique…because gender systems are socially constructed, this option lets people share in constructing them. Also, if someone uses the write-in field to be a bigot, you know not to hire them!

Finally, regarding people of Indigenous genders like two-spirit; I’m white and obviously can’t speak about how they want to be represented on questionnaires, or if or when they want to be. Data collection has been used and is used today to determine who to assimilate and destroy. If someone tells you that your work is harmful, listen. You are not immune to critique. I’m not either. Take it humbly and in ear-nest, make amends, and stop doing harm.

Any question—for any demographic data you collect—is going to be a mess of compromises between utility, idealism, detail, legibility, and ease-of-use. It makes concessions to data amalgamation and ease-of-graphic; input sanitation; and the need of readers to educate themselves on what cisgender or nonbinary even mean. It will never be perfect, but trying—responsibly, respectfully, and in good faith—puts you ahead of the curve. It’s not everything, but it’s a start.