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Comment by xdennis | Hacker News Reader

The original one about names was about exposing people to different culture's perspective (like how Icelanders have last names based on their father's first name), but this expands into nonsensical territory like "people can change genders multiple times a day"[1]. It just feels like being a rebel for rebellion's sake.

[1]: https://medium.com/gender-2-0/falsehoods-programmers-believe...

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The reason I like "people can change genders multiple times per day" is not because it suggests your implementation of gender should support that, but rather that you should not try to implement gender at all. One of the main messages from these is to stop mindlessly asking for "Last Name" or "Gender" when your system has no need for that information to do its job. Get your system to do its main job, and if there is still a free variable (e.g. what gender do we use for verbs when talking about you in German?) then ask only that, specifically. The people who change genders multiple times per day are doing it because they see their different genders as applying to different situations, and you should be clear about what situations you're asking about.

"Eddie Izzard, why do you wear women's clothes?"

Eddie Izzard: "I don't. These are my clothes. I bought them."

Some systems do require some form of gender identification, specifically any type of system dealing with naturally generated text in languages where conjugation and other semantic elements can change based on the speaker.

"They" and "their" are in fact words computers can use.

It has a name. "Gender fluid."

And just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it isn't some peoples' life experience.

Reference: I know a child who is not at all rebellious or attention-seeking but who expresses this as their inner experience.

Dismissing that experience is rude.

I've always said you can identify as whatever you want, just don't expect me to try to constantly keep up with it.

Who is a programmer to prevent others from being rebels because they enjoy it? There's freedom and creativity in nonsense, and that might be worth preserving, especially when not crucial to fulfilling the task at hand (which gender rarely is).

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