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kproductions — dA now REQUIRES gender
Published: 2010-05-19 00:06:12 +0000 UTC; Views: 11668; Favourites: 93; Downloads: 46
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Description
READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST: In the morning (US Central Time) of May 23rd, deviantART changed their setting to now include a hide/show option for gender! I don't know for sure if it was directly linked to our petitions or not, but it appears to have worked! Good job guys!I'm not sure when this happened, possibly with this new v7 of the site, but dA has recently removed an option for unspecified gender on users' profiles.
Not only is "Male" or "Female" REQUIRED by dA now, but it's public information by default and cannot be hidden. This not only violates the privacy of those who simple don't want their gender known to the world, but totally excludes those who don't feel that they belong to one gender, which greatly affects the LGBT community, namely androgynous, gender-queer, third gender, etc. people (of which there are many in my own group, #LGBT-on-dA )
Please, if you feel as I do, kindly and courteously petition deviantART staff to reverse this change. I can't believe deviantART has joined the endless list of websites that follow this trend.
Please also re-post this deviation in your journals to spread the word.
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Comments: 202
Good. I enjoy being male and everyone should enjoy their gender too, male or female.
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I'm gender-queer...... I suppose. Isn't that the word for being female, knowing that you ARE female, and yet being a bro?
Because I have no qualms about my gender, other than that I'm a female guy. If that makes any sense.
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Female guy? HEY! IM A MALE-GIRL!
Nice to meet you~
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what's with the 'other' option? AND WHY THE HELL THE FUCKIN' PPL THER JUST CANT DO WHAT THE DEVIANTS WANT? O_O i mean it's all about community and ppl are leaving because of such thing but WHY THEY DONT MOVE THEIR BUTTS AND DO IT?
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I just found this out.
It's ridiculous. It's one thing to post it publicly, but then say you have to pick female/male? Absolutely ridiculous.
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... But it has also got a "show" and "not show" function, so you are able to hide your gender from the rest of the web, lol. It's really not that big of a problem when we have that function.
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The "Not Show" function doesn't completely work. It specifies on your Gallery Stats through pronoun usage.
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They added that function in response to this article.
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It was added several days into the uproar, and a staff member informed me of it personally, although she did not say whether or not it was specifically because of our outcries (she didn't know - it was someone else's job)
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Oh, okay than, that's good.
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I'm glad they 'fixed' it so you can hide that info, but they're still requiring the info right? Is this census taking or an attempt to put us in to marketing demographics? This important to me because my father has dealt w/ this issues years before she had the operation. She's a proud grandma and fan-fic writer but would avoid putting any of her work on a site that was going do to something narrow-minded. Even outside of the glbt community, some artists would rather no one including the staff know their gender because they're private people or because they would rather their work be judged on its quality instead of characteristics of the artist.
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You can't hide it, it still shows in "Gallery Stats"
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Yeah, I asked them about it:
Hi,
Thank you for the inquiry. Originally the option to not specify your gender was removed, though not with any malicious intent. We collected and reviewed information concerning the decision and decided to make it possible for you to hide your gender. You can do this by going to your Edit Settings page and select whether or not you wish to show this information. We appreciate your input and patience concerning this matter.
So... gj guys!
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It's no longer an issue; you still have to specify a gender, but you have the option to hide it from public view.
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Yeah the description up top reflects the change.
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That is so silly! Especially since it HAS to be made public :<
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Not anymore, there is an option to hide it now.
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Ahh, yes. xD I noticed that after posting the comment.
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They added:
Gender Display Show; Don't Show;
box under the Gender one
The Unspecified option is still unavailable.
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I put this in my journal. I hope you don't mind, I linked this picture, copied your description verbatim, but I also put your name and icon to credit you.
I'm gender variant. I feel comfortable being identified as a woman because that's how most know me as and while I sometimes identify as a man, or neither, I let people refer to me as a woman. I know this isn't the case with most gender variant, androgynous, transmen and transwomen and so I think the option for "unspecified" is needed.
-Alika613
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WTF?? That is so stupid! Sign me up for petitioning.
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Not cool. While I personally identify as female, I know plenty of people who fall into the categories where "unspecified" would be preferred. Not only that, but frankly gender is nobody's business if you don't care to share it.
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As a note, if you go to change your gender due to the new 'rule', there's a note under the box that says "If you choose to change your gender from unspecified, you will be unable to change it back."
I, for one, am not going to be touching that damn button. As of right now, my gender is unlisted in my profile. I agree with the need to petition this- it's not fair to the trans, gender-queer, gender fluid and other identifications of gender here on devart.
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Wow. No idea they changed this. It should go back to where it was.
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...I have no problem with this personally as I am straight, but I can see where there will be controversy. It is very unfair and in my opinion is a violation of personal privacy to those who don't wish this information to be known. Bad form, deviantArt!
Has a petition been started? Link please ^_^ I'll sign as a supporter of privacy.
Of course, dA can't stop people from lying about their gender...not that that's a solution or anything, but no one REALLY has to know
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Even though I have no problem with people knowing my gender I do find it unfair that for those who do not wish for their gender to be known no longer have the option of keeping it hidden.
People are entitled to their own privacy in any matter, even though this is a public website everyone is still entitled to their own privacy.
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... and now everyone who watches me journal knows.
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This displeases me insanely. DA is actually one of the only sites where I talk with friends who know my gender. But really, I prefer to quietly keep my gender to myself. If people ask, I even go so far as to say that I'm an "it".
DeviantART, I kindly request that you get your nose out of my pants. Its my business what's down there.
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I find it rather annoying to have to throw a gender in there. As a fur, my fursona is a hermaphrodite which also doesn't have a gender marker on here so i usually kept it unspecified.......they really shouldn't do this, cause you are right there are people who don't want their genders known.
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Wh-what is this.
That's... That's simply RIDICULOUS. WHAT. THE HELL. D8
I THOUGHT dA HAD PRIVACY SETTINGS AND KEPT TO THEM. THIS IS JUST... OTL
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Pissed me off when I noticed it. I'm a member of the LGBT club at my university, so I think it's very callous to those who fall outside of the binary to force them to pick one. Also, I personally don't think we should need to list a gender (I'll never touch my gender on here again, so I can stay unspecified). It has nothing to do with art at all! This is a site for skill and talent, not dating- gender doesn't matter, age doesn't matter, and in most cases, nationality doesn't matter.
This is ridiculous. I'll be pretty livid if they don't change it back.
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I think all LGBT groups shall unite in a common petition to the dA Admins, proposing them to either revert the process and bring back the "unspecified" gender or to give a third choice.
The question of the third choice would probably be though as it's hard to define what it should be to fit intersex, gender queers and all as well as those who just don't want to tell, all at once...
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they BETTER fix this!
I hope it is only a mistake caused by the switch to V7
but the message on the page tells me otherwise
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"but the message on the page tells me otherwise" indeed
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well if it was a mistake the message wouldnt have been there
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guys, no offence... i'm one of the people who would normally use the 'gender unspecified' option... but honest to god - this was probably nothing more than a general oversight by the DA staff during the update of the website... i'm sure if somebody raises the point to a member of DA staff, it'll be sorted out soon enough. =/
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I find this kind of rude, because for those people who can't identify as male or female, or who do not want to, or maybe just does not want people to know which they are, we now have to change. Good thing I have no plans to change this, and never will.
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I remember seeing a jerry springer episode with people who had both genders but no idea of any of the ones you've mentioned...
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I'm siding with the majority of dA users on this. Why should we be forced to show our genders? People who don't like to show it (myself included) should have the choice. It's absolutely ridiculous.
What I find odd, though, is that my gender--which was hidden to begin with--is still hidden even though the v.7 has affected the layout of my account. Does this mean that it'll change to show my true gender eventually, or that it will remain hidden unless I go into my account and manually change it to show my gender?
Well, regardless of the situation, this whole idea is complete and utter nonsense. I will most certainly petition to dA staff. Thank you for bringing up the matter and notifying us of this.
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