Sort of. It’s not just an arbitrary list, though. Think of it as a multi-level taxonomy where the additional terms are adding more detail.
This diagram might help, and should explain why I think Male/Female/Non-Binary/None/Unknown is the right way to treat the Gender field, while still adding a description field for more details if known:
Correct. That’s why I thought that it might be appropriate for an additional gender option.
@Nick-Hall - I think it’s clear that there need to be two fields – Sex and Gender – and I think there’s sufficient clarity above around what they should contain. The problem I see is what to do with the existing field, since it is neither Sex nor Gender per se, but rather a conflation of the two.
Since “Gender” is already used correctly for appearance in the UI, pronouns, etc. I think the simplest approach is to create a new field, “Sex” and default to copying Gender data over to it with an appropriate mapping as part of the upgrade schema migration. And then both Sex and Gender can be presented for new entries.
We will keep the existing gender field and add an extra value for individuals that do not fall under either the male or female category. This is the first step.
Next, we will provide the ability to record sex and gender in attributes. These allow us to attach sources and notes. This is still in the design phase, although we have already started a discussion about adding dates to attributes for other purposes.
In this case, we would either create two sex attributes, or one attribute with two sources attached. A note could also be added by the researcher to explain their conclusion.
I see one problem with attributes, as they are now, and even with dates added, and that’s that they are based on free text. This means that when (or rather if) I use one, I may create one named ‘geslacht’, containing something like ‘man’, ‘vrouw’, or ‘onbekend’.
This is why I prefer to have private facts, derived from the event object, because that object already has support for predefined types, and enumared values. And here, private means, that they’re embedded in the person object, like attributes, but with added semantics.
To my knowledge, this is when someone is either: intersex and it is later changed because of mutilating genitals to attempt to make them conform to male or female; or are confusing in appearance of genitalia (babies are rather small), an example being having a larger than normal clitoris that was once made smaller. Don‘t know how often this surgery happens now, it mostly starting in the early 1950s in ”civilised” countries, possibly because plastic surgery started to be done as early as 1942 because of burns, &c, in the Second World War as there was a higher survival rate in aircraft after the introduction of parachutes.
As i seem to be restricted from adding any more replies, i add to this one.
In response to @Nick-Hall post 97:
Sex is primary, i don‘t have a gender identity it being others who identify me as female; therefore, i think that it is wrong to attempt to force anyone into a gender category, as this is not how the majority see themselves instead being as their sex. As there can be only three sex categories (the classical Greeks had this intersex being as ἐρμαφρόδιτος, copied (to my knowledge) by the Romans, and who knows what unrecorded folk such as the Celts did—nudity wasn‘t an issue with these three folk so that being intersex would have been obvious) plus unknown, this thus being primary; yet there is an increasing number of gender categories of which (in my experience) are self–assigned, so this has to be logically the secondary field.
The word ’androgyny’, and related words, refers to hermaphrodites and isn‘t anything to do with gender—it has a similar meaning to the word ’epicene’ having both male and female sexual characteristics.
The purpose of genealogy is the recording of one’s ancestors, this is what the Greek-derived word means. The Greek word γένος is cognate with the English word ’kin’ which means one’s ancestors (including one’s parents), and it is usually nowadays misused; the English word ’kith’ refers to all one’s other relatives: hence the phrase ’kith and kin’. Being an ’alien abductee’ 
(forced and secret adoption) i only include actual relatives in my tree.
In response to @Nick-Hall post 108:
I disagree: this is a European ’Western’ creation.
I’m not a letter in a string of letter collectivisation, having never consented for anyone to ”re-present” me here.
I don‘t think that there is any point in my further replying here (and i can‘t add any more posts, it becoming tedious), as a ’Western’ ideology is guiding it all. Been interesting all the same, and should it come about as you plan it, i’ll see whether it is relevant to me…or not. No hurty feelings here.
I don‘t identify, i am!—the problem is the loss of being having been replaced by having.
Try, without technology: sitting in the woods or on a mountain for awhile merely being; or walk on and on in a forest without thought of return…
Also, i’m not European in appearance nor in culture. 
Adding “Other” as an option will allow a person to be displayed using a different colour from the existing male/female options in charts and also use gender neutral pronouns in reports. The “Other” option is intended to include anyone who doesn’t identify as male or female including non-gendered individuals. This is the only field we really need for Gramps to function properly.
Using enhanced attributes (maybe based on events as Enno suggested), will give the user much more flexibility in recording information such as sex, gender, chromosomes, sexuality or whatever else is required. This approach will also allow notes and sources to be attached.
The concepts of sex and gender are complex. I found an article, Sex Redefined, in Scientific American which describes different ways we can define sex. Even three sex categories may be insufficient in some cultures. Gramps aims to cater for an international audience not just a European one.
We also need to be aware that some languages don’t distinguish between sex and gender. We need to be careful that our design is translatable.
Will a way to define ‘pronouns’ be needed so that Reports will be able to dynamically adjust to these new characteristics?
Gramps will want to ensure ‘he/him/his’ is used in a certain datespan to go along with ‘his’ sex/gender identity/orientation & proper name so a biography doesn’t look like pidgin.
But you’d probably have to decide whether it would be more efficient to define pronouns as exceptions stored with each non-traditional combination… or add a lookup table entry for each new combination to simplify data harmonization.
You mean like a pronoun fact or event? Sounds interesting.
Generally speaking, a report referring to a person should use their current/last pronouns throughout. Same with name changes. Referring to a trans/nonbinary person by a deadname or old set of pronouns is incorrect and disrespectful, even if speaking about them in a period prior to clarifying/announcing their gender.
Yes. I’ve been reading some wikipedia articles and they use the last pronouns throughout. It also seems better to be consistent.
Using a deadname would certainly be disrespectful when referring to living people, but in family history research it may be acceptable to mention a deadname.
For example, the wiki article on Jan Morris uses she/her pronouns, but also mentions the she was born James Morris.
Whether you decide to use the the most recent throughout or have contextual changes, you still need to store pronouns and have dates to determine which is the latest or decide context, right? We can assume that “correct” pronouns are going to be an evolving target for a while too. So only the traditional ones are candidates for being hard-coded. (Although it might happen that gender-neutral pronouns might be adopted for traditional roles too… to avoid implying bias or to keep risk-adverse lawyers happy.)
So the data structure could still be the same and you can decide the “respect” logic of social conventions later. That can even happen in the reports themselves.)
This is a good point. How do we know the sex and gender of our ancestors?
There are some legal cases. Inheritance and eligibility to vote may be based on sex. There are cases where it was necessary to determine if a hermaphrodite was more male then female.
See the wiki articles Intersex people in history and Levi Suydam.
Medical records would be another source, where available.
Whilst records western cultures will mainly record male/female other cultures may record people of other genders.
Perhaps someone with experience in researching non-binary and intersex ancestors could add to this.
My suggestion is to allow only three choices for presentation purposes: “Male”, “Female” and “Other”. “Other” would use neutral pronouns.
New enhanced attributes (perhaps called facts or characteristics) could store time dependent and sourced information.
A lot of languages - French, my native language is an example - don’t have neutral pronouns
Another problem will be that people that share the same gender often use different pronouns to address themself, so all of those needs to be individual stored, with dates and/or periods, all needs sources and notes and links to events, because any changed of this importance should also have a separate event…
I know about 3 Norwegians that say that they are of the same gender, but all three wants to be addressed with different pronouns, and one of them actually want to be addressed with two different pronouns depending on the situation, just like we in Norway have “de - dem” and use them both in single form (formal) and multi form (none formal) …
Trying to create a pre-populated list would be near impossible, unless it contains all the pronouns and all variants in the World, all languages etc.
So maybe both Gender and Pronouns should be Gramps attributes and that they are linked to the “Sex” attribute “other” in some way?
and maybe Attributes for a person also should have a relation/link to an Event, same way as you can add relations to another person in the people editor today…
So, at least 7 fields for an attribute.
| Type | Link to Sex (two way activated) | Description | Date | Link to Citation/Source | Link to Event | Link to Notes |
Or it can be easily sorted/handled with Main and sub-Events… that also can be used for other important situations…
I don’t think that this will be a problem. We can use the same strings we already use for “Unknown” for “Other”.
For example: “Cet individu est né le ” instead of “Il est né le ” or “Elle est née le ”.
The strings are already in the libnarrate library. No extra strings will need to be added or translated for the initial pull request.
We can certainly use enhanced attributes for sex, gender, pronouns, chromosomes or anything else relevant to this subject.
My proposal for step one is to just add an extra option to the existing gender field. This will be used for display and report formats, such as pronouns in narrative reports, box colours in charts and sex/gender symbols.
The enhancement of attributes will probably have to wait for a future release, but we can the design work now.
It is rare for someone who is truly intersex (having both male and female characteristics, nothing to do with sex chromosomes) to not be infertile (i am so), so i see it as should one provides the spermatozoa then they are male and should one provide the ovum then they are female. The Greek ’genos’ is cognate with the English ’kin’ and both mean ’ancestors’ (beginning with one’s parents, the word ’kith’ means all of one’s sideways relatives.
Hence, all of one’s ancestors are from the point of view of sex nuclei either male or female.
The claim that sex is a construct and is a continuum is relativism. I’m possibly a true hermaphrodite and am certainly a chimera, and rather ambiguous in male and female characteristics whether i like it or not, but get taken as female (which doesn‘t bother me)!
