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Alternative Genders option

Mibbzz
Mibbzz
Community Member

Why on the web app (my.1password.com) can I not choose an alternative gender such as non binary or even other. This is the 21st century, I think you should be more inclusive for others.

xd


1Password Version: *
Extension Version: *
OS Version: *
Sync Type: Not Provided
Referrer: forum-search:Gender Bias... Did you just assume my gender?

Comments

  • Hi @Mibbzz

    The field is sex, not gender, but I think it is definitely worth taking a serious look at updating this. I'll pass the suggestion along to the development team for consideration. Thanks for the feedback on this. :)

    Ben

  • christin
    christin
    Community Member
    edited July 2019

    Please do this ... reading maybe in german always the male version like Organizer (Male "Organisator" Female " Organisatorin")
    is not nice .. this is like if you always have to read "Hello MS Ben... "
    This is not big "deal" in programming to give a gender option... in english it is easier but in other languages there are more versions of the same word.

    Regards Christin

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Ah, good point. It wouldn't be an easy change, and work would be done across seven apps to support it. So I don't want to get your hopes up, as this is something we'd likely do as part of a larger overhaul of how templates work. But we do have an issue filed for this for when we're in a position to undertake that. Thanks for your feedback! :)

    ref: b5/b5#4790

  • meiqimichelle
    meiqimichelle
    Community Member

    +1 to finding a solution for this issue. tl;dr: It is annoying on multiple levels, and is displayed Every. Time. I. See. My. Account. :-/ If nothing else, there should be an easy way to remove the sex line in my profile; ie, make it optional, even after you've chosen one or the other. Honestly, I feel a bit tricked into providing that information.

    Here's my user experience for feedback for your team:

    • I was a new customer, and was getting things set up, and was encouraged to add more info to my 'card' / 'profile' (not sure what you call it)
    • When I clicked 'Edit', it looked like 'Male' had already been selected (Inner dialogue: "Huh, interesting, why was that the default? I must have missed where it was displayed on the previous screen, better fix it."). I looked for an opt-out -- I don't normally provide such information (no need, why should it matter?)
    • No opt out. I guess I need to 'correct' it to something less wrong, though not correct.
    • Now, when I see my 'card', 'Female' comes up as like the third piece of information. This is not only useless, it is also annoying because it makes it harder to see useful info that I and others need to remember. I don't need to remember that I'm 'Female', and my family/people I share info with are not looking that up in 1Password, either.

    • It doesn't matter if it's called sex or gender, the first thing that came to my mind was: why the heck does my password manager even have that drop-down? The only idea I came up with was that you use it to internationalize for gendered languages, but given @christin 's comment above, it sounds like this is not happening...

    • ...so now I'm guessing the reason it's there is for 1Password to collect analytics -- sad face :( -- especially since I can't seem to get rid of it now (along with my birthdate, come to think of it...)

    But! Y'all do some great user experience work at 1Password -- I'm sure you can solve for this problem as well :)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 2019

    @meiqimichelle: I see what you mean. I'm sorry for the trouble. Indeed, there isn't currently a way to save an Identity without it in some cases. It looks like this needs to be addressed in 1Password for Mac, so I've filed an issue for that. Thanks for bringing this up! If you are able to use another version of 1Password, you may be able to save the identity without anything being selected. However I did want to address this explicitly as well:

    ...so now I'm guessing the reason it's there is for 1Password to collect analytics -- sad face :(

    That is absolutely not the case. While we didn't think everything through with regard to each individual field, and I'm sorry about that, security and privacy are always at the top of our minds, and we only collect information needed to provide service; sex/gender is not one of those things. We'll try to do better in other areas as well though. Thanks for your support and encouragement. <3

    ref: dev/apple/issues#4416

  • meiqimichelle
    meiqimichelle
    Community Member

    @brenty thank you for your quick reply, and filing that issue. For your troubleshooting: I just tried on Android as well -- no dice, the Android app also requires a response.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @meiqimichelle: You're very welcome, and thank for you confirming that for me. I was away from my Android device yesterday and today so I wasn't able to check it for myself. I've filed a separate issue for that as well. Greatly appreciated! :chuffed:

    ref: dev/android/onepassword-android#884

  • iamkimiam
    iamkimiam
    Community Member

    Came here to request this feature. It is offensive and appalling that not only is the field called 'sex' and not 'gender', but the options are binary? Unbelievable.

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited March 2020

    @iamkimiam

    I'm really sorry we offended you here. No offense was intended. Sex was (and largely may still be) commonly the field asked for by websites at the time the template was created. We built most of the templates that we have over a decade ago, and they've essentially remained unchanged because of the large coordinated effort it would take to change them with our current platform. We are working toward more shared code between our apps, which would hopefully make things like this more feasible to address. We're not trying to make a political statement with this... we're just trying to fill the forms that are out there, many of which are still asking for male or female, unfortunately. I'll brainstorm with our team and see what we can come up with on this. Certainly we don't want to be in a position where we're making anyone uncomfortable. Thanks for taking the time to bring this issue up.

    Ben

    ref: dev/projects/customer-feature-requests#58

  • iamkimiam
    iamkimiam
    Community Member

    Thanks for your reply. It is true that in the early years of web design, it was common to see binary gender categories (usually mislabeled as 'sex') and other simplistic representations of identity characteristics. It is largely not the case today, and such descriptions are outdated and not reflective of best practice or cultural norms. Not addressing it and letting it stand is in itself a political statement, whether or not intentional. Especially when the field is part of a category called 'Identities' where people are meant to self-describe. There is a not-insignificant segment of your customer base who recognise this form of subtle exclusion and the message it reinforces. Again, this isn't about the intention of your code, but impact of the experience on your users.

    It is also important to recognise the difference between sex and gender. At minimum, you should change the label from Sex to Gender, as the former generally refers to biological characteristics and the latter refers to social characteristics and how a person self-identifies. While a bit more complex code-wise, there are better conventions about how to handle this sensibly on web forms today without resorting to binary options.

    I would recommend that you include some additional perspectives in your discussion with the team so that you can be sure that diverse voices are represented and that you are iterating toward a more inclusive user experience, rather than unintentionally perpetuating an outdated model.

    I love 1Password and have a lot of trust and goodwill toward the team to keep on improving it, which is why when I saw this I went, 'ooof, yikes' and signed up to the Forum to add a feature request (and thereby stumbled upon this). Good luck and I hope I've helped!

  • Thanks @iamkimiam. :) I don't disagree a bit that the current template is based on old thinking and could use a re-think to meet the needs of today's society. I'm not in a position to make any promises, other than to say that I'll be happy to advocate for changes here at any opportunity.

    Ben

This discussion has been closed.