Gender and Input Fields

 

A few years ago I was booking a flight through Porter Airlines. I kind of like filling out booking forms, which are often nicely accessible for this keyboard-only user, and Porter has a nice user flow.

This time, however, I had a problem. As usual the airline webform asked me for my gender. I had recently renewed my driver's license to use as my primary ID and, thanks to significant work by Canadian transgender activists and policymakers, was pleased to have my driver's license gender me as X rather than the inaccurate M or F.

But Porter Airlines only had male and female options.

And at the top of the screen, the form clearly instructs:

It's not a minor problem. People whose gender presentation (i.e., how they look) does not correspond with their provided ID face a litany of travel challenges:

• Gender is used as an identity verification across the entire airport, opening up transgender travelers to increased scrutiny from airline security overall.
• Transfolk risk being denied boarding if they do not appear to match their ID.
• Trans travelers are frequently flagged by backscatter machines as having anomalous anatomy/bulges that require ‘enhanced patdowns’, in which a stranger runs their hands along their limbs, torso, chest, buttocks, and crotch. Ask me how I know!

Is it any surprise that a lot of trans people hate airport travel?

 

But you, my good readers, are empathetic and responsible designers, and I know you never want to design a system that would put someone in that position. But you still need to know…

Help! How do I ask for someone's gender in a webform?

Here’s some general principles you need to enact when you ask for any personal information online:

1. Only require users to disclose what is absolutely needed. Remember, the longer your web form, the more likely people are to abandon it.
2. If you don’t absolutely need the information, make that field optional, or leave it off entirely. It’s tempting to get as much information as possible, but you don’t want your visitors wondering why you’re being so nosy.
3. If you are asking for unusual or sensitive information, explain why you need it. This will help people decide what information is safe and appropriate to provide.
4. Try to always include a ‘self identify’ or ‘other’ field, because it’s hard to come up with all the options someone might pick! Giving people a way to self-disclose will also give you information on the fields you may want to include next time. Don’t forget to have a plan for how you’ll encode those entries.

 

Your biggest responsibility: Keep us safe

Always, always be aware of what risk you are creating with your questions. If you are creating a webform where someone’s answers would identify them as transgender (or queer, or disabled, or any other kind of discriminated identity), you must be able to show how you are keeping that person safe. Ask:

• How are we storing responses? For how long? Who has access?
• Can responses be linked to an individual?
• Who gets to see the data? Would someone’s boss, parent, landlord, teacher, coworkers, neighbours, or parole officer find it?
• Is it safe in our jurisdiction to be trans?
• Is it safe in our organization?
• Are we sure? What makes us so sure?

If you can’t answer these questions or you can’t guarantee that this data will be kept safe and private, you cannot ask people to disclose sensitive information.

 

So, why you gotta know my gender in the first place, bud?

There’s lots of good reasons to know someone’s gender, and a lot of bad ones. Your reason will help you design your webform.

1. I need to validate something using a person’s legal identity and government ID

Maybe you're developing a new user flow for a legal entity such as a bank, or you are creating a web form for requesting a criminal background check.

In these cases you are asking someone to give you the information on their government identification in order to use that information for validation. Make it clear to the user that these documents need to match.

Make sure you are including all the possible gender options (and other field options) not just for your specific locale, but for the range of jurisdictions your visitors are coming from.

If this is part of a larger form, an intake process, or someone’s first contact with you, consider giving them options to tell you how they might want to be identified beyond their ID.

 

2. I want to know how I should address a person correctly / I want my system to be conversational with its users

One of my subscription services sends me personalized notifications, but my account is linked to my legal identity, so every notification includes my first, middle, and last name. In all caps. The experience is weird:

I don’t think anyone likes having their full name yelled at them like their auntie has caught them stealing cupcakes.

It’s always great to give someone the option to provide a name other than their legal name. Beyond our trans friends, lots of us know an Alex, Mike, Mo, or Hiro would also appreciate this.

This may just involve including a ‘nickname’ field, but if you are going to be writing about that person, introducing them at an event, or making a nice name tag for them, you can expand your ask a little:

You may have noticed I snuck in a little ‘pronoun’ field there – this is a great addition for any intake form or onboarding flow so you can be using the right words for someone right away. Typically you should include the usual ‘He/she’ pronouns, and add ‘They/them’, which is used day to day by many non-binary people like me. Neopronouns, like ‘xi/xem’ are less common, but still worth capturing so that you can give someone a great personalized experience.

 

3. I want to know the makeup of a group or audience, and gender is part of that information / I need to matchmake across gender lines

This one is all about you – you want to know the demographics of your user base, or you’re running an employee D&I survey. In this case it’s best to use an expanded set of identity markers, and to include both an ‘Other’ field and a ‘Prefer not to say’ option for people who would like to keep that information private.

The number of options you include should be informed by your usage. For general large gender breakdowns, a set of 4 broad categories can capture most people.

The dating site OkCupid, by contrast, has a multiselect list of 22 gender identities, as it’s important in love and sex to be able to clearly identify yourself and the people you want to connect with.

Descriptions of each gender expression can be found here: https://www.okcupid.com/identity/

There’s nuance in how expansive you should be with these options; if I’m signing up for your newsletter about socks and you require me to find my gender alignments from a list of 2 dozen options, I tend to get a little suspicious about why you want me to be pinned down so specifically.

 

4. My organization has services or only serves a single gender or subset of genders/I want to personalize a journey through gender

There are many services that are geared towards specific groups like women, men, queer people, people of colour, disabled people, etc.

If you have services that may be targeted to different kinds of people, it’s tempting to craft a personalized experience about that person. You may start by asking them to identify as a certain identity or group (“I am a… [designer/UX practitioner/business owner]”), and then serving them what you think they'd be interested in.

Personalized experiences are great, but when applied to personal and often private things like gender, sex orientation, disability, your helpful personalization questions may come across as nosy or invasive.

You can, however, make the question more neutral and offer the services as topics themselves. After all, many people seek help for their friends and loved ones.

What not to do

We see this all over, and we’re not sure what it means. ‘Transgender’ is not a complete gender identity;  it simply means that someone’s current gender is different than the one they were assigned when they were born.

This approach positions ‘men’ and ‘transgender men’ as separate, which is nonsensical and rude.

Remember that the overall category of ‘man’ is sufficient to capture all people who are men, which includes both transgender men and cisgender men.

If you really want to know how many cis vs transfolks are in your space, ask properly:

But I can’t think of many reasons why you’d want to know this level of detail about me, beyond some medical needs and, perhaps, some anonymized demographic surveys.

 

Conclusion

Look, I’m going to be honest, it’s been a bad few years for transfolk who are experiencing a global surge in malicious and violent anti-trans agitation. Whether it’s laws that prevent us from accessing medical care, employers that seek permission to openly discriminate against us, or people we barely know asking us about the configuration and look of our genitals, we’ve all got our backs up right now.

Your webform is an opportunity to be respectful of my dignity, my body, my identity, and most of all, my time. Don’t ask for stuff you don’t need. When you do need it, let me know why. When you need to ask, give me a range of options that make sense for your ask. Give me an opportunity to self-disclose if I don’t see myself in your options. Give me the opportunity, wherever you can, to opt out of disclosure.

Circling back to Porter Airlines. I reached out to the customer service rep on Twitter with my gender conundrum. She responded right away, apologizing for the issue and acknowledging the impact. She was able to put a note on my booking flagging the discrepancy, but also told me she’d escalate the issue to the product team.

Four months later, she DM’ed me on Twitter to let me know that they’d pushed the update so that the system accommodates all legal ID gender options.

So this week, as I book my flights for my July vacation, I’m feeling a lot less nervous about my airport visit.

 

We notice. I promise.

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K Andrews
Director of UX, Accessibility Specialist