gender-brainstorming

Just some loosely collected thoughts on how to represent gender.

sex and gender identity

Gender as seen in the gender-examples and gender-formats typically has two components, sex, which is a biological indicator, and gender identity, which is social/cultural/personal.

A simple proposal is to use a two-part property: 1) a small taxonomy for sex, and 2) a freeform field for gender, e.g.

• sex: M(ale) F(emale) O(ther) N(one or Not applicable), or U(nknown)
• gender-identity: string

gender property

A shorthand or compound property "gender" could be created to represent both, while leaving the freedom of personal expression.

A compound "gender" property could be used like this (using the "Dude" alternative gender label from Pownce/Digg in the gender-examples page).

<span class="gender">
 <span class="gender-identity">Dude</span>
 (<span class="sex">male</span>)
</span>

genealogy

Gender could be represented with a genealogical microformat, but that seems like overkill.

tags

You could use tags/categories to tag people's hCards with their gender, "male", "female", or any other tag you feel is appropriate. See gender identity for more on the topic.

See also vcard-suggestions#Gender.

external brainstorms

• original offline: http://pownce.com/ijustine/notes/1551822/
  • Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20080411192728/http://pownce.com/ijustine/notes/1551822/

see also

• gender
• gender-examples
• gender-formats