Thread by @AlexPetrovnia

Hey researchers, listen up!
Here’s a crash course thread on writing gender questions from a trans person who has designed surveys before.
We criticize this a lot, but rarely do we show what is correct, so in this thread I’ll do my best to do that. 🧵

Firstly, do you want to ask your research question about sex, or about gender, or about something else entirely? The best advice I can give is this: be specific.

If you’re asking questions about uterine health, ask if your participant has a uterus, not for their gender. If you’re researching gender bias, ask about gender. If you simply need sex statistics, ask about sex.
Think critically about what information you want.

Secondly, sex and gender are not the same.
Sex describes a set of physical characteristics that are often associated with binary gender.
Gender describes an individuals’ personal gender identity.
Make sure you do not mix these up or conflate them!

One of the most common mistakes I see in this is listing “male” and “female” (and sometimes “intersex”) as genders. None of these are genders, all three of them are sex descriptors, and should only be used if you are asking a question about sex specifically.

Thirdly, transgender is an adjective, not a noun or a verb. This means it can only be applied as an adjective. Listing “transgender” as a gender category is about as useful as listing “tall” or “right handed” as a gender category.

Transgender is an adjective, so a person can be transgender, but a person cannot be *a* transgender. A person can be transgender, but a person cannot be *transgendered*.

Fourthly, it is transphobic to list “women”, “men”, “trans women” and “trans men”.
When we say #TransWomenareWomen and #TransMenareMen we mean that creating a separate category for trans people is othering and exclusive. “Separate but equal” doesn’t work.

So in conclusion, here’s the simplest possible options that I would recommend, when asking questions about sex and gender.

For sex, list options: male, female and intersex.

For gender, list options: man, woman, nonbinary (write in).

But wait! What if you want to know if participants are trans?
Ask that as a separate question. Just as you would ask about any other adjective.
You can simply ask “are you transgender”. It really is that easy!

More options for diversity are always best, but the above framework is the simplest possible framework.
If anyone has additional specific questions, please feel free to add them here and I will do my best to answer them.

Oh! One more quick note: in general, sex when applied to humans is NOT a particularly helpful categorization. Overall, it’s best practice to avoid asking about sex (instead ask specific anatomy or physiology questions) altogether if possible.

I wrote a thread here about how the myth of biological sex is bad for medicine, bad for science, and bad for people at large.

https://twitter.com/AlexPetrovnia/status/1411063596029722627