Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, that's misplaced hostility. If you wanted to deride the fact that many folks here won't spent multiples of effort on special, experimental, no-right-answers-and-likely-to-be-criticized-for-it-if-you-even-try cases that affect minuscule fractions of their potential user base, well...get in line behind the IE5 advocates, I guess. Someone recommends using a free form entry for gender. No amount of normalization wil…
ah yes, because trying to be decent & inclusive to persecuted minorities is the comparable to supporting an obsolete browser - yr analogy is a perfect illustration of the grotesque intersection between the Valley & bigotry. also, "the hypothetical case where gender matters" is a glorious illustration of straight privilege
Gender has nothing to do with orientation. Please don't propagate such normative misunderstandings.
If I may restate for clarity: in most cases of software implementation, a user's gender is not important data (obvious exceptions include medical and related fields).
Generally, gender should not be requested. Where requested, it should not be required. Where required, one should have no compunction against answering randomly.
That's prerogative, not privilege.