Gender Change -- best practices?

How about a custom fact “Gender Identity,” which is what we’re really talking about. That can be associated with different dates.

I know that I am going to offend some people by saying this, but a male has a Y chromosome, a female doesn’t. How they view themselves doesn’t change their DNA, which is the determinant of gender.

There are those that are going to argue that you are mixing up sex and gender. They will say that your chromosomes determine your sex.

I just checked dictionary.com (though I’m not sure how authoritative it is) and
Sex is defined as the male, female, or intersex division of a species, especially as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions.
And
Gender is defined as either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated by social and cultural roles and behavior.

So, you are right that I missed that fine distinction. But I still think it’s a good idea to have a Gender Identity fact. That will reduce the confusion some people might have when reading the reports, etc.

Nothing will reduce the confusion people have over these issues. I for one am totally confused! It seems you can change your mind on how you identify on gender at will. I don’t really care what anybody wants to be - I don’t have any in my tree that I am aware of and I concentrate more on going backwards to my forebears. I don’t do much on the present generation which is where this is all happening. How people identified in the previous generations we will probably never know.

This is a really interesting discussion. I’m always slightly amused to see the ‘purists’ talk about blood lines, given how many children in their ancestors may have been born on the ‘wrong side of the blanket’!

I think having a change of gender fact would be the most useful. You could set the gender to be what the legal situation is currently so that reports would read correctly (though that wouldn’t help those who prefer different pronouns).

Trans people have difficulty enough in being correctly gendered without the reports bring wrong. The old name could be set in the change gender fact, perhaps?

To say adopted children are not truly part of the family is deeply upsetting to adoptees and adoptive parents. You can use an 'adopted" fact if you want to, but for many parents they are truly part of the family. Foster children are different,as they are part of the family for usually shorter times, though long term foster children might like to be included.

I would like to see Roots Magic (and I’m a user since Family Origins days) have the functionality for people to reflect current family relationships eg gay marriage, gender change etc the pure DNA genealogists dont have to use them but it would good for those of us with,‘messy’ families.
Thank you for this discussion.

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This whole thread seems to ignore physical reality. One is born with a biological gender which is the basis of genealogy. One can flip a mental switch and/or have cosmetic surgery but the underlying DNA/RNA remains. A miscellaneous fact type could be used for mental identity, addoption, etc.