Friday 17 July 2015

Gender Identity Stats


If you only asked people with which gender they identified, you would mess up a pile of clinical applications where a standard diagnostic flowchart will depend on biological sex. You don't suspect prostate cancer for a bundle of symptoms if the person presents as a woman, but you might if she was born male.

From the FAQ:
How will asking for gender identity information affect me? 
You may notice in the future that some government forms will ask for your sex and others will ask what gender you identify as. Other forms may ask you both. A question about gender identity will only be included when there is a clearly defined need for the information to be collected. 
Why would some forms ask for sex and others gender identity? 
In some situations knowing someone’s sex as recorded at birth is important. For example, in clinical situations when various medications react differently to each sex; or to calculate population growth. In other situations, knowing someone’s gender identity is important to ensure adequate services are provided, and that the individual is addressed correctly. Other times, both types of data may be required.
What are the categories?

Classification of gender identity

The standard classification of gender identity is a hierarchical classification of two levels. Level 1 of the classification has three categories. Level 2 has six categories.

Classification of gender identity

  1. Male
    11   Male / Tāne
  2. Female
    21   Female / Wahine
  3. Gender diverse
    30   Gender diverse not further defined / Ira tāngata kōwhiri kore
    31   Transgender male to female / Whakawahine
    32   Transgender female to male / Tangata ira tāne
    39    Gender diverse not elsewhere classified / Ira tāngata kōwhiri kore
Longitudinal work in 10 years will be interesting: predicting transitions across categories, identifying effects of those transitions conditional on the factors predicting transition...

Update: In case you wondered, here's the Encyclopedia of New Zealand on gender diversity in Polynesian cultures.

2 comments:

  1. That is a
    very good approach. Another area that could benefit from that approach would be
    disability/impairment. You could have a question about whether the person has
    an impairment and then ask whether they identify as a disabled person/a person
    with a disability.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The world has officially gone mad.

    ReplyDelete