So you would have a few pre-defined genders and then a free text field that just overrides how these genders are written on your editor profile or on an artist’s page?
That’s an interesting idea.
That way, if we see a lot of people set to a certain gender are “credited as” a more specific term for that we can create a new entity for that and split the original gender entity.
One disadvantage I see is: Entities can be translated into different languages, free text fields can’t.
So e.g. if I found a Russian artist on Wikidata who identifies as let’s say “gender neutral” I would have to find out what that is called in Russian and then add that into the free text field (probably selecting “agender” first - if that is an option).
About the option to have a quick list of all trans people: I’d like that too, but genderally (lol, Freudian typo) I agree with @arturus that being trans shouldn’t be part of anybody’s gender identity unless they explicitly say it is.
I have one idea though: If you edit someone’s gender there could be a checkbox saying “is openly transgender” (with a short explanation when to use this instead of a trans identity). If it is checked the person does not show as transgender on their profile, but can be found searching for trans people.
This probably complicates things a bit too much though.
As it is currently, MusicBrainz and it’s users (aware or unaware) use the male/female/other indicators only as some basic indication, where if you would try to analyze it, male/female is of course some unspecified mix between biological/cultural/personal identification.
You can take it as such, and understand and accept that it is not some scientific statement, nor any sort of value judgement.
(which is what I am guessing luckily most people will do)
If an artist doesn’t want to have either of these two labels put on them, it’s only fair and reasonable that MusicBrainz has the option to accommodate for that.
And in that case I would think that it is the prerogative of the artist, and nobody else, what description or labels are used in MusicBrainz’ database.
As soon as MusicBrainz is installing predefined gender categories, it is suddenly presenting itself as some authority on gender.
I am not saying that some people involved here are not well versed in the matter and have very sensible opinions and good insights on the matter. Surely I have learned a thing or two from participating in these threads.
But I have very serious doubts if MusicBrainz should assume to be some authority on genders, that predefines, steers towards or limits any sort of further-refined gender type.
You don’t have to be an expert on gender to be able to interpret an artist’s statement that reads “I identify as agender” to mean that this artist identifies as agender and therefore use the predefined label “agender”.
This is all that is going to happen.
I think I found a good analogy: MusicBrainz handles gender identity like artist names.
Meaning if someone says “I identify as …, please call me …” then that is what we do.
We don’t change anyone’s artist name based on anything else than what the artist wishes and the same is true for gender identity.
John Oliver puts it into slightly different words:
David Evans woke up one day and said: “Everyone call me ‘The Edge’.”
And we all went: “Fine ‘The Edge’, are we talking the noun or the verb?”
Its just a name, so of course anyone can have any name they like. But ‘gender identify’ should be a properly defined list, otherwise anything could be added and then it becomes meaningless.
While I disagree that “other” is incorrect when an artist’s identity could be described as “none” or “both” (both are a term /other/ than male/female), I do take the point that it could be seen as pejorative.
I have no problem with renaming it to “non-binary” (or genderqueer, although that might be interpreted as pejorative too). And if an agender identity is not generally considered to be included in non-binary/genderqueer, I have no problem with that being added as a fourth option either.
Anything beyond that seems to be out of scope for MB; more detailed info would then typically be found in other resources, like Wikipedia.
I suppose one issue might be tracking changes to the value (e.g. for trans people). I suppose for that it makes the most sense to create a new artist entity; if we separate performance names, we should probably also separate, say, a trans man’s previous female identity from their new male/… one. That might then require a new AR, e.g. has new/old identity" (possibly specifically including extra language, so that it does not get used only for a name change); “performs as” would not be appropriate.
I’m ok with just a minimal variant, but - as proposed in STYLE-1012 - this should at least mean split “other” into “non-binary/genderqueer”* and “not applicable” and give the option to select more than one value.
*I prefer “non-binary/genderqueer” over just one of the two terms as “non-binary” is more self-explanatory, but “genderqueer” is more inclusive.
This was already discussed in the previous topic too and I don’t think it’s helpful to repeat it here. My proposal - allowing more than 3 options - does not touch the issue you describe, so it’s probably best discussed separately. Just FYI: trans people don’t usually transition from one gender identity to another, so for the vast majority there is no change in the value.
This is going to be a difficult one to police. It will need to be carefully watched for abusive edits. And how will it get checked? Enough arguments appear when a name is got wrong or someone doesn’t want a date of birth published. So there should be a clear way for an artist to put in a proper appeal for corrections of the data.
With the choices I don’t think it is right to put “non-binary” and “genderqueer” into the same box. I have an asexual non-binary friend who is not happy to be labelled as queer. They’d probably pick “not applicable” for themselves. But the trouble then occurs when someone else is updating their data and would change the option to “female” as that is what the person coming to a gig sees on the stage.
The problem with a database is it wants to put people into boxes. And this is an exact area where the “traditional” boxes don’t work. (And no, I don’t know an answer - I just know that “labels” are a big part of the problem. Databases don’t see people, they see data)
Also what happens when someone changes gender during their career? That is going to lead to a need of a totally new type of data field. Some people will want to keep those identities distinct from each other, whereas other will want to have a each stage of the career linked. (I’m thinking about Prince and his various changes of personality \ name \ brand)
Is this the kind of minefield MB wants to be involved in? Good luck to the decision makers on that one!
I don’t see how changing the name from “other” to “non-binary-genderqueer” opens the door for abusive edits.
I agree, but renaming the existing box to something sensible is a first step. I’d guess your friend is less happy to be called “other” - but I don’t want to assume.
That would be wrong, because “not applicable” is for non-human entities where the concept of gender doesn’t apply - like “Various Artists”.
I don’t know why this question keeps coming up here. My suggestions don’t affect this issue that we already have whatsoever.
Have we considered removing the gender item altogether? What will we lose as a music database, since we are only concerned with people’s work and interest in music? Their personal particulars are there only for us to identify each artist, and I think the name and main area of activity are enough to distinguish artist A from artist B.
Aside from raising issue with the wording, I haven’t seen anyone raise any issues that aren’t already present. Just to be clear:
Currently: human artists who cannot be categorized as Male or Female go into Other, along with non-human entities for whom the gender field does not apply.
Proposal: we create two separate other categories, one for human artists, and one for non-human artists. Since there are two popularly used umbrella terms in English, “genderqueer” and “non-binary”, the proposal is to use both, as “non-binary/genderqueer”.
selecting “non-binary” instead of either “male” or “female” would be exactly the same as selecting “other” instead of “male” or “female” is today, except it carries the additional information that this is a human. That people might try to (incorrectly) change it to one of the binary genders is already an issue today. That a person’s gender might change over the course of someone’s career is already an issue today, and also not limited to non-binary people, who are the only people affected by this proposal.
For myself: I’d support “non-binary” over “non-binary/genderqueer” for simplicity, but I’m not particularly opposed to the latter either.
As someone else said, we’re kind of already in the minefield by having a gender field at all. Continuing the “minefield” analogy, we’re currently just pretending the mines don’t exist while walking straight through it and hoping for the best.
I would vote for this (but I don’t feel strongly enough to lobby/argue for it). If I’d been around at the start of Musicbrainz (and assuming I was as gender-issue-aware back then as I am now) I would have argued more strongly about avoiding the minefield.
Your argument is very well worded and I can’t think of a reason not to improve the ‘male/female/other’ fields, bringing MB in line with what other organisations (some with far more red tape than MB) are doing as standard practice today. I don’t think changing these fields would cause many (if any) issues.
ps Getting rid of gender altogether has been discussed previously but I think we should directly address paula’s proposal which is pretty specific.
During the last summit, according to the minutes: “We agreed to split “Not Applicable” out of Other, and to rename the remaining Other into something else if the community can reach a reasonable level of consensus on what that something else should be.”
I… forgot about that one So, I added “Not applicable” now. We can start moving artists there as needed!
Re: renaming other - is this suggestion wide enough that it should encompass everyone else? Or do you expect some people would still say “I’m not male, female, nor non-binary/genderqueer, I’m something else entirely!” and expect yet another option? (aka: would it make sense to still keep “Other” in case someone doesn’t feel included in any of the other 3?).
If we’re just going to invent a synonym for “other” that is both cumbersome and potentially offensive to some people anyway (see the point raised about queer above), we might as well just keep calling it other.
Now that we have non-applicable and other, is there any situation where we would use other for anything but a human being? So all non-human artists should go in “Not applicable”?
So, I added “Not applicable” now. We can start moving artists there as needed!