Thread: Male/female
Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing details of people in a database? I've done it two ways: * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents one gender or the other. * Create a domain, something like: CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain AS character varying(7) NOT NULL CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there any other/better way of doing it? --Ray. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Raymond O'Donnell Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Galway, Ireland rod@iol.ie ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second method might be better. Of course, you could also do a one chracter gender "M/F" if you want to save space. Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > details of people in a database? > > I've done it two ways: > > * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents > one gender or the other. > > * Create a domain, something like: > CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain > AS character varying(7) > NOT NULL > CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = > 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) > > I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there > any other/better way of doing it? > > --Ray. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Raymond O'Donnell > Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Galway, Ireland > rod@iol.ie > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq >
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/06 09:23, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > details of people in a database? > > I've done it two ways: > > * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents > one gender or the other. > > * Create a domain, something like: > CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain > AS character varying(7) > NOT NULL > CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = > 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) > > I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there > any other/better way of doing it? I've only ever seen a CHAR(1) restricted to 'M'/'F'. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFeYXkS9HxQb37XmcRAtoeAKCmupJdzyH7MzEqfmWGI9lPtM6MfwCg13X6 wdPnXc1DrLN+8oKPSusVk0g= =5Xwk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Raymond O'Donnell <rod@iol.ie> schrieb: > Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > details of people in a database? > > I've done it two ways: > > * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents > one gender or the other. > > * Create a domain, something like: > CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain > AS character varying(7) > NOT NULL > CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = > 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) What about with Hermaphroditism? SCNR. Andreas -- Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds) "If I was god, I would recompile penguin with --enable-fly." (unknow) Kaufbach, Saxony, Germany, Europe. N 51.05082°, E 13.56889°
Raymond O'Donnell wrote:
> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing
> details of people in a database?
>
> I've done it two ways:
>
> * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents
> one gender or the other.
>
> * Create a domain, something like:
> CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain
> AS character varying(7)
> NOT NULL
> CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text =
> 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text)))
>
> I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there
> any other/better way of doing it?
>
--
-- PostgreSQL database dump
--
CREATE TABLE gender (
gender_pk SERIAL,
gender character varying(9) NOT NULL
);
COMMENT ON TABLE gender IS 'This table defines currently valid gender
types (and allows for god knows what..).';
COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin;
0 (unknown)
1 Male
2 Female
3 Trans
\.
ALTER TABLE ONLY gender ADD CONSTRAINT gender_pkey PRIMARY KEY (gender_pk);
On Friday 8. December 2006 16:23, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >details of people in a database? > >I've done it two ways: > >* A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents >one gender or the other. > >* Create a domain, something like: >CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain > AS character varying(7) > NOT NULL > CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = >'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) > >I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there >any other/better way of doing it? There's actually an ISO standard (ISO 5218) for representing gender with numeric values: 0 = Unknown, 1 = Male, 2 = Female, 9 = not specified (or N/A). -- Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009 http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE
> COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin; > 0 (unknown) > 1 Male > 2 Female > 3 Trans > \. Not to take this completely off track, but isn't transgendered not so much a gender as it is a process of moving from one gender to another?
On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > details of people in a database? I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in this table. Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote!
Andreas Kretschmer wrote: > What about with Hermaphroditism? More seriously - is the gender something you always know? There are situations in the US where you cannot force someone to divulge their gender. So you may need an 'unreported' value of some sort. -- Steve Wampler -- swampler@noao.edu The gods that smiled on your birth are now laughing out loud.
Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. David Fetter wrote: > On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >> details of people in a database? > > I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that > being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in > this table. > > Cheers, > D
On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 09:31 -0700, John Meyer wrote:
> > COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin;
> > 0 (unknown)
> > 1 Male
> > 2 Female
> > 3 Trans
> > \.
>
>
> Not to take this completely off track, but isn't transgendered not so
> much a gender as it is a process of moving from one gender to another?
Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything
but Male or Female.
Joshua D. Drake
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>
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"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes: > Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything > but Male or Female. I haven't read the beginning of the thread, but will this table be used only for humans? There are animals that are hermafrodites (I hope I got the English correct...) or whose sex is only identifiable after a period of time (days or months, usually). So, for researchers it would be interesting to have more options. Also, if you're doing statistics on something where the sexual option (and transgerderness) is important, then there should be some way to point that. -- Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com>
On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: > David Fetter wrote: > > On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > >> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > >> details of people in a database? > > > > I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that > > being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in > > this table. > > Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. Let's see. Male Female Hermaphrodite Trans (MTF) Trans (FTM) Neuter and... I can't think of a seventh possibility.
On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 11:05, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 09:31 -0700, John Meyer wrote: > > > COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin; > > > 0 (unknown) > > > 1 Male > > > 2 Female > > > 3 Trans > > > \. > > > > > > Not to take this completely off track, but isn't transgendered not so > > much a gender as it is a process of moving from one gender to another? > > Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything > but Male or Female. In thailand, there are highschools with bathrooms for the transgendered MTF girls. Not sure if the country itself recognized MTF trans as a gender or not though.
Joshua D. Drake wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 09:31 -0700, John Meyer wrote: > >>> COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin; >>> 0 (unknown) >>> 1 Male >>> 2 Female >>> 3 Trans >>> \. >>> >> Not to take this completely off track, but isn't transgendered not so >> much a gender as it is a process of moving from one gender to another? >> > > Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything > but Male or Female. > ... Yet.
Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: > >> David Fetter wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >>> >>>> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >>>> details of people in a database? >>>> >>> I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that >>> being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in >>> this table. >>> >> Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. >> > > Let's see. > > Male > Female > Hermaphrodite > Trans (MTF) > Trans (FTM) > Neuter > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. > "Unspecified"
Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: > >>David Fetter wrote: >> >>>On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >>> >>>>Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >>>>details of people in a database? >>> >>>I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that >>>being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in >>>this table. >> >>Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. > > > Let's see. > > Male > Female > Hermaphrodite > Trans (MTF) > Trans (FTM) > Neuter > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. > As has been pointed out, some governments forbid the collection of gender information, so the seventh would be unknown/unreported. brian
I guess in the end it really depends on what the client wants to track and what they don't. But this does actually have a serious implication, and that is how do you code for something that is mutable vs. something that supposedly is or very nearly immutable (i.e. the alphabet).
That not including Genetics, where and individual could have multiple X Chromomes individuals Or be XY - female times those other 6 (or 7). ----- Original Message ----- From: "brian" <brian@zijn-digital.com> To: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:19 AM Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Male/female > Scott Marlowe wrote: > > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: > > > >>David Fetter wrote: > >> > >>>On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > >>> > >>>>Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > >>>>details of people in a database? > >>> > >>>I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that > >>>being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in > >>>this table. > >> > >>Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. > > > > > > Let's see. > > > > Male > > Female > > Hermaphrodite > > Trans (MTF) > > Trans (FTM) > > Neuter > > > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. > > > > As has been pointed out, some governments forbid the collection of > gender information, so the seventh would be unknown/unreported. > > brian > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not > match >
Jorge Godoy wrote: > "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes: > >> Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything >> but Male or Female. > > I haven't read the beginning of the thread, but will this table be used only > for humans? There are animals that are hermafrodites (I hope I got the > English correct...) or whose sex is only identifiable after a period of time > (days or months, usually). > > So, for researchers it would be interesting to have more options. > > Also, if you're doing statistics on something where the sexual option (and > transgerderness) is important, then there should be some way to point that. > Some people argue that gender is a spectrum. If you want to be very inclusive. Maybe you could use a 'float' and stick with 0 = woman, 1 = man (self documenting after all) with the option of '0.1 - 0.9' for people who feel "in between". How efficient is 'float'? This would also work for animals that fall outside then normal male/female designation. Madi
Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: >> David Fetter wrote: >>> On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >>>> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >>>> details of people in a database? >>> I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that >>> being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in >>> this table. >> Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. > > Let's see. > > Male > Female > Hermaphrodite > Trans (MTF) > Trans (FTM) > Neuter Just went in for my every-8-week blood donation. They have a new question in the screening form: "gender at birth". So if you decide that you can classify gender (or more properly "sex", as gender primarily relates to grammar) into a data type consisting of male and female, you can create whatever columns are necessary for your app: anatomical_sex_at_birth anatomical_sex_current anatomical_sex_desired_for_self chromosomal_sex preferred_anatomical_sex_of_partner Of course this breaks apart when dealing with that very rare syndrome (name escapes me) where the child appears female at birth but is actually a male whose male sex-organs descend and appear at puberty so I guess we need to add apparent_sex_at_birth. I realize that preferred_anatomical_sex_of_partner leaves a variety of unresolved possibilities but none as severe as those introduced by tetragametic chimerism. And there are others still resulting from the situation of in-progress transgender. But nobody said database design was easy. :) Cheers, Steve
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/06 09:31, John Meyer wrote: > Second method might be better. Too much heat from declaring "Males are True, Females are False"? > Of course, you could also do a one chracter gender "M/F" if you want to > save space. > > Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >> details of people in a database? >> >> I've done it two ways: >> >> * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents >> one gender or the other. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFebelS9HxQb37XmcRAqBEAKC+j4K1JBaGmDT97ZZTWzkH9mnHLACg2nhZ dc5p75EU28La2LM7blNseEg= =/Wt6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/06 09:40, Leif B. Kristensen wrote: > On Friday 8. December 2006 16:23, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing >> details of people in a database? >> >> I've done it two ways: >> >> * A bool column, with the understanding that true/false represents >> one gender or the other. >> >> * Create a domain, something like: >> CREATE DOMAIN gender_domain >> AS character varying(7) >> NOT NULL >> CONSTRAINT gender_domain_check CHECK ((((VALUE)::text = >> 'male'::text) OR ((VALUE)::text = 'Female'::text))) >> >> I personally prefer the second, as it's self-documenting...is there >> any other/better way of doing it? > > There's actually an ISO standard (ISO 5218) for representing gender with > numeric values: 0 = Unknown, 1 = Male, 2 = Female, 9 = not specified > (or N/A). Well, I guess that's what I'll be using next time. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFebhKS9HxQb37XmcRApRrAJ9nzAPIsJEDfKEv1SmIOCxQYV7sjACZAUZc RTxnJcStattu74wwPcp/VR8= =1IYS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 11:13:03AM -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 10:44, John Meyer wrote: > > David Fetter wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 03:23:11PM -0000, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > > >> Just wondering.....how do list member represent gender when storing > > >> details of people in a database? > > > > > > I usually use a table called gender which has one TEXT column, that > > > being its primary key. For one client I had, there were seven rows in > > > this table. > > > > Seven genders? Even San Fransisco thinks that's over the top. > > Let's see. > > Male > Female > Hermaphrodite This read, "Intersexed" > Trans (MTF) > Trans (FTM) > Neuter > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. "Decline to state" Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote!
Isn't that why we have null? On Fri, 8 Dec 2006, Steve Wampler wrote: > Andreas Kretschmer wrote: >> What about with Hermaphroditism? > > More seriously - is the gender something you always know? There > are situations in the US where you cannot force someone to divulge > their gender. So you may need an 'unreported' value of some sort. > > > -- > Steve Wampler -- swampler@noao.edu > The gods that smiled on your birth are now laughing out loud. > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster >
On 8 Dec 2006 at 15:12, Jorge Godoy wrote: > I haven't read the beginning of the thread, but will this table be > used only for humans? There are animals that are hermafrodites (I hope Many thanks to all who responded - I had no idea of the monster I was creating in starting this thread! Yes, the table is used only for humans; it's part of some administrative software I'm writing for an educational institution, and the primary purpose of the gender column is to help the users cope with a problem new to the west of Ireland - the large influx of immigrants from Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere means that it's no longer possible to tell a student's gender just from their name....! --Ray. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Raymond O'Donnell Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Galway, Ireland rod@iol.ie ----------------------------------------------------------------------
On 8 Dec 2006 at 11:13, Scott Marlowe wrote: > Male > Female > Hermaphrodite > Trans (MTF) > Trans (FTM) > Neuter > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. How about just plain confused?? --Ray. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Raymond O'Donnell Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Galway, Ireland rod@iol.ie ----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2006, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: > > Yes, the table is used only for humans; it's part of some > administrative software I'm writing for an educational institution, > and the primary purpose of the gender column is to help the users > cope with a problem new to the west of Ireland - the large influx of > immigrants from Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere means that it's > no longer possible to tell a student's gender just from their > name....! > > --Ray. Ray, darest I point out that that's never been possible in English anyway? There are dozens if not hundreds of androgenous names - Pat and Tracy come immediately to mind, and there are countless others! RT -- Richard Troy, Chief Scientist Science Tools Corporation 510-924-1363 or 202-747-1263 rtroy@ScienceTools.com, http://ScienceTools.com/
On 8 Dec 2006 at 12:17, Richard Troy wrote: > Ray, darest I point out that that's never been possible in English > anyway? There are dozens if not hundreds of androgenous names - Pat and > Tracy come immediately to mind, and there are countless others! You're correct, of course - but this is the reason I was given when asked to include it. --Ray. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Raymond O'Donnell Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Galway, Ireland rod@iol.ie ----------------------------------------------------------------------
On 12/8/06, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote: > On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 09:31 -0700, John Meyer wrote: > > > COPY gender (gender_pk, gender) FROM stdin; > > > 0 (unknown) > > > 1 Male > > > 2 Female > > > 3 Trans > > > \. > > > > > > Not to take this completely off track, but isn't transgendered not so > > much a gender as it is a process of moving from one gender to another? > > Yes, but further I don't know of any country that recognizes anything > but Male or Female. what if you are maintaining a database for a surgeon who performs sex changes? we may have to consider the element of time here! I'd go with a composite type with custom input and output functions (for privacy)! What about simple bacteria (unisexual)? hm. maybe a new branch of calculus is in order here. merlin
<big-snip> > > Male > > Female > > Hermaphrodite > > This read, "Intersexed" > > > Trans (MTF) > > Trans (FTM) > > Neuter > > > > and... I can't think of a seventh possibility. > > "Decline to state" ISO 5218 takes 22 pages to give us four oddly placed values for male, female, and two versions of null, "unknown" and "not aplicable." Interestingly, it doesn't include "declined to state." The values are as previously stated: 0 = unknown 1 = male 2 = female 9 = not aplicable As pointed out above, there really are more legitimate values. To track all of them and still be aproximagely ISO compatible, I propose the following. Based on the observation that ISO 5318 mathematically specifies male as odd and female as even, the y-chromosome containing sexes (which include hermaphrodites), shall be odd. This leaves unknown, as even, and perhaps neuter can be not aplicable, since we don't know. ... This does leave "declined to state" as a valid form of "null." From this I propose the following: 0 = unknown 1 = male 2 = female 3 = hermaphrodite 4 = female to male transgender 5 = male to female transgender 6 = 7 = 8 = declined to state 9 = Neuter - Not applicable One could also move the blanks around like this, which might be useful: 0 = unknown 1 = male 2 = female 3 = 4 = female to male transgender 5 = male to female transgender 6 = 7 = hermaphrodite 8 = declined to state 9 = Neuter - Not applicable Hmmm... Easy to write the various functions making this a new datatype... Richard -- Richard Troy, Chief Scientist Science Tools Corporation 510-924-1363 or 202-747-1263 rtroy@ScienceTools.com, http://ScienceTools.com/
Steve Crawford wrote: > Of course this breaks apart when dealing with that very rare syndrome > (name escapes me) where the child appears female at birth but is > actually a male whose male sex-organs descend and appear at puberty > so I > guess we need to add apparent_sex_at_birth. It turns out there are lots of ways apparent and genetic gender can differ - some experts estimate that as many as 2% of all births do not fall within strict definitions of M/F, although many might never be discovered. That and the increasing number of elective transsexuals argues that the kind of discussion we're having now may be de rigueur for DBAs in the future, at least in the medical field. - John Burger MITRE
Richard Troy wrote: > > > On Fri, 8 Dec 2006, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >> Yes, the table is used only for humans; it's part of some >> administrative software I'm writing for an educational institution, >> and the primary purpose of the gender column is to help the users >> cope with a problem new to the west of Ireland - the large influx of >> immigrants from Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere means that it's >> no longer possible to tell a student's gender just from their >> name....! >> >> --Ray. > > Ray, darest I point out that that's never been possible in English anyway? > There are dozens if not hundreds of androgenous names - Pat and Tracy come > immediately to mind, and there are countless others! Or with Irish names: Sheridan, Tara, Shay, Shannon, Rory, Ronan, Riley, Renny, Regan, Quinn, Murphy, Keverne, Keeley, Kane, Erin, Darby, Dara, Cary, ... Yes, I was researching baby names not all that long ago... :) Cheers, Steve
Steve Crawford wrote: > Richard Troy wrote: > >> On Fri, 8 Dec 2006, Raymond O'Donnell wrote: >> >>> Yes, the table is used only for humans; it's part of some >>> administrative software I'm writing for an educational institution, >>> and the primary purpose of the gender column is to help the users >>> cope with a problem new to the west of Ireland - the large influx of >>> immigrants from Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere means that it's >>> no longer possible to tell a student's gender just from their >>> name....! >>> >>> --Ray. >>> >> Ray, darest I point out that that's never been possible in English anyway? >> There are dozens if not hundreds of androgenous names - Pat and Tracy come >> immediately to mind, and there are countless others! >> > > Or with Irish names: Sheridan, Tara, Shay, Shannon, Rory, Ronan, Riley, > Renny, Regan, Quinn, Murphy, Keverne, Keeley, Kane, Erin, Darby, Dara, > Cary, ... > > Yes, I was researching baby names not all that long ago... :) > > Cheers, > Steve > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend > Man this thing has strayed off topic and I am joining in! Most of these "Irish Names" are family names that have been assumed as first names (Murphy, Quinn, Riley, etc) that FYI you will almost never find in Ireland! Although never heard of Ronán being used for a girl but I there is a boy called Eve and a girl called Adam somewhere! Oisín (A *real* Irish Name)
Attachment
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/06 14:40, Richard Troy wrote: > > <big-snip> > [snip] > 0 = unknown > 1 = male > 2 = female > 3 = > 4 = female to male transgender > 5 = male to female transgender > 6 = > 7 = hermaphrodite > 8 = declined to state > 9 = Neuter - Not applicable > > Hmmm... Easy to write the various functions making this a new datatype... Is TG a biological state or a social state? - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFeePuS9HxQb37XmcRAmlqAKClbhVBWXtc0QPrrg5dju4+EknmYQCgmwmo UpoNGTbY1o6zcygdKivlh5w= =vTq9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 04:15:10PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 12/08/06 14:40, Richard Troy wrote: > > > > <big-snip> > > > [snip] > > 0 = unknown > > 1 = male > > 2 = female > > 3 = > > 4 = female to male transgender > > 5 = male to female transgender > > 6 = > > 7 = hermaphrodite > > 8 = declined to state > > 9 = Neuter - Not applicable > > > > Hmmm... Easy to write the various functions making this a new > > datatype... > > Is TG a biological state or a social state? It depends. In fact, it depends so much on what kind of thing you're looking at that I'm pretty sure no single canonical list of genders can make sense. Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote!
While this thread is tangentially interesting, due to the magic of relational relationships, the point is really moot. If you are really worried about various gender states in the future, just create a table called "gender" and reference it and update it as necessary- done. -M
Madison Kelly <linux@alteeve.com> writes: > Some people argue that gender is a spectrum. If you want to be very > inclusive. Maybe you could use a 'float' and stick with 0 = woman, 1 = man > (self documenting after all) with the option of '0.1 - 0.9' for people who > feel "in between". How efficient is 'float'? This would also work for animals > that fall outside then normal male/female designation. Then you can use NULL to represent unknown information but you miss the other possibility that was pointed out: the person refused to inform the gender. To cover all these possibilities with one single column we need a set of discrete states. -- Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com>
IMHO you need at least five values:
Male
Female
Unknown (aka NULL)
Not Available
Not Applicable
BTW, my wife's grandfather's given name was "Pearl".
A few years ago I taught a lesson to a group of about 30 third grade students. There were 6 students in that class with a first name pronounced like "Meagan", though there were 4 different spellings of it. Only 5 of them were girls.
--
Mike Nolan
Male
Female
Unknown (aka NULL)
Not Available
Not Applicable
BTW, my wife's grandfather's given name was "Pearl".
A few years ago I taught a lesson to a group of about 30 third grade students. There were 6 students in that class with a first name pronounced like "Meagan", though there were 4 different spellings of it. Only 5 of them were girls.
--
Mike Nolan
On 12/8/06, Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com> wrote:
Madison Kelly <linux@alteeve.com> writes:
> Some people argue that gender is a spectrum. If you want to be very
> inclusive. Maybe you could use a 'float' and stick with 0 = woman, 1 = man
> (self documenting after all) with the option of '0.1 - 0.9' for people who
> feel "in between". How efficient is 'float'? This would also work for animals
> that fall outside then normal male/female designation.
Then you can use NULL to represent unknown information but you miss the other
possibility that was pointed out: the person refused to inform the gender. To
cover all these possibilities with one single column we need a set of discrete
states.
--
Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com>
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