Non-Binary Gender Types

Amy Neely

What are other organizations using in the Gender field for non-binary gender types? 

Keri Barnhart

Amy Neely:

What are other organizations using in the Gender field for non-binary gender types? 

We have decided to keep it simple, but are going to be working with the LGBT Resource Center on campus to make sure that our choices match that of the university in general.

We are using:

• Male
• Female
• Non-Binary
• Not disclosed
• Unknown

We prefer "Not disclosed" to "Unknown", but the latter is a default setting for RE that appears to be unchangeable. We will use it as a sign that the record hasn't been fully created yet, since I think "not disclosed" is more informative than "unknown" anyway, in the case of folks who purposely don't share their gender because of privacy reasons.


Regarding the Non-binary, if there are specific wishes regarding pronouns or addressee format, we'll put those into a constituent note or annotation, just like we do for any other preferences, but we'll likely default to they/them for the pronouns. We're also talking with the different concerned parties about moving away from a "Mr. and Mrs." default addressee, to make data maintenance easier and more inclusive, but folks really like their formal traditions. (As a non-fundraiser and someone who strongly dislikes being called by a gendered title, I'm a little more invested in wanting to get rid of them entirely than most of my fundraising team.)


Of course, the registrar and HR systems here use Banner, which has different options, so we're always fighting against data mismatches (I wish I could figure out who to talk to so we can get international address options for the alumni updater!), and I expect that will continue to be a trouble point with the new gender fields. We'll just have to be on top of fixing them when we hear from the alumni/donors of their preferences.

Christine Cooke 2

Amy Neely:

What are other organizations using in the Gender field for non-binary gender types? 

I would think it would depend on your organization and the type of community you are working with.  Some will choose to keep it simple and others will go with the current 50ish terms that have been established.

Amy Neely

Thank you for your help, that was great information!

Phillip Bicknell

Christine Cooke:

Amy Neely:

What are other organizations using in the Gender field for non-binary gender types? 

I would think it would depend on your organization and the type of community you are working with.  Some will choose to keep it simple and others will go with the current 50ish terms that have been established.

 

I work for an animal charity. Processing an annual supporter survey, I saw for the first time a constituent who was very unhappy with the current RE7/NXT hard-coded Male / Female choice. So whilst it will mostly depend on one's organisation field of work, an internationally agreed exhaustive list would be very useful, and failing that there's lots of very unhappy database managers that have already been calling for Blackbaud to catch-up and make the background table editable.

If I were to second-guess how we'd use such a table, I'd expect the manager to be able to control which gender options are shown/available, ie, users aren't necessarily presented with the full list every time.

Robert Brown

Phillip Bicknell:

I work for an animal charity. Processing an annual supporter survey, I saw for the first time a constituent who was very unhappy with the current RE7/NXT hard-coded Male / Female choice. So whilst it will mostly depend on one's organisation field of work, an internationally agreed exhaustive list would be very useful, and failing that there's lots of very unhappy database managers that have already been calling for Blackbaud to catch-up and make the background table editable.

If I were to second-guess how we'd use such a table, I'd expect the manager to be able to control which gender options are shown/available, ie, users aren't necessarily presented with the full list every time.

 

Hi Phillip,


Actually, the gender table is editable.  It's under Config->Table in RE 7 in the Biographical dropdown.  You can add as many gender types as you like. 


What I would like it the option to do so in their ON Products.