StateOfJS-Vulcan

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What is the goal of asking for gender/sex in the "state of JS" and "state of CSS" surveys?

Right now, the current questions ask about gender but have a mix of gender and sex.

I'm not sure what the answer to "why is it being asked", but here are a few thoughts:

• maybe you just want pronouns?
• do you need to know the genitalia a person was born with?
• do you need to know how someone is perceived by others?
• you probably don't need to know

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This article "Designing forms for gender diversity and inclusion" may be a helpful thing to read through.

Some notes from the article:

It’s possible that they will identify with one of the options. But when they don’t, it may be a hurtful reminder of how their journey is not reflected in the world.

If you don’t know why you’re asking, then you probably don’t need to know the answer. If you can only provide users with options that force them to lie, don’t ask.

A little question is a big deal when it comes to shaping people’s experience with your product.

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For reference, here's the current gender question

      - id: gender
        template: single
        allowother: true
        options:
          - id: female
          - id: male
          - id: non_binary
          - id: prefer_not_to_say

The goal is so that people can yell at us on Twitter for not being representative enough…

More seriously though, I do think it's important to track this because 1) the industry has a significant bias towards males and this data might help understand that bias better and 2) our survey probably has an additional bias compounded by the pre-existing bias in its distribution channels (Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News), so that data also helps us see how much work we have left to do to diversify our reach and make our audience more inclusive.

As for the questions themselves, I did some research at the time and copied them from an article about the topic but I have to confess I can't remember what it was right now. I agree the phrasing seems to mix sex and gender but I think that was probably by design in the original article? Anyway if you have a better phrasing I'm happy to consider it. I'll also try and find that source.

It's hard to be representative enough, as it can be hard to reach all corners of the tech world. I imagine it's especially hard on a team that isn't very diverse. It might be helpful to reach out on Twitter to some more prominent accounts and ask if they would be willing to spread the word about the survey.

I'm more than happy to help with the phrasing.

For purposes the purposes of data, would you prefer to be collecting info on how people view themselves? If so, I'd suggest just asking for pronouns. In which case, pronoun.is would be helpful

Oh we definitely reach out to people on Twitter.

Regarding pronouns, I don't see a way to ask about that in a way that's not english-specific, so it's probably not a good idea for us?