Comments on: Caster Semenya, Alan Turing and “ID Management” products

By: David Brodbeck

David Brodbeck — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:22:51 +0000

It sometimes surprises me what websites demand to know my gender. I can understand this when there’s some need to match it up with official ID or the like…but why do Facebook and Second Life have a pressing need to know about my biology? Sure, it’s simple for me to answer, but I’ve known people for which it was a more complicated question, and that’s made me more aware of the burden that’s created by asking unnecessarily. I think often the question is asked for no good reason, just because it seems like an obvious and harmless one.

By: Chris Walker

Chris Walker — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Programmers are often required to implement poor ideas. Having a set list of characteristics for a person can be problematic. The root cause of the problem is that the athletic bodies want to have two classes of competition ignoring the Special Olympics for now. We now understand that this is too simplistic.
The Seattle schools had a problem a while ago when they were trying to balance race in schools. A child was assigned only one race which allowed some parents to pick the race that would get their kids into preferable schools.
You can either stop discriminating or allow for these sorts of cases. But if you allow for them, you need a policy no doubt.
In the end, I agree that it is terrible for this athlete that this is playing out in public. But in the end, it has probably raised the public’s awareness of these conditions and may eventually reduce or eliminate the stigma surrounding these conditions. (Always looking for the silver lining)

By: rob sama

rob sama — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:00:04 +0000

Adam? Everything ok with your genitals there buddy? There isn’t something you want to tell us now is there?

By: Edmund Blackadder

Edmund Blackadder — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:49:18 +0000

> vague data-hoarding desires, and perhaps for statistical reasons
This leads toward discussion of where people ask questions on things like ethnicity (e.g. job applications) and marital status (e.g. opening bank accounts) where I prefer not to answer and they usually begin by saying I have to or the application will be rejected.
I won this argument with Lloyds TSB bank and although their computer insisted on some sort of an entry we “pinned the tail on the donkey” to give it something random.
Employers tend to think that a stated ethnicity is necessary – I think it’s fairer not to ask. And I think fairness is a better goal than equality.

By: Steven Murdoch

Steven Murdoch — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:01:41 +0000

My answer would depend on why information on users’ sex is being collected in the first place. If there isn’t a good answer, I’d recommend not collecting it in the first place.
The reason it matters for sport is (I assume) that if there were mixed events in many sports, sportswomen would be unable to effectively compete.
For other purposes it could be the answer to that question is different, which points to one of the problems of online identity management systems.
But more realistically, I’d probably make it an optional question. People in edge-cases could leave it blank. I’d guess most people ask that question out of vague data-hoarding desires, and perhaps for statistical reasons. Here, having some missing entries isn’t a big deal.