Ask HN: How should I report my gender when applying for a job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How should I report my gender when applying for a job?

8 pointscyorir6 comments

Sometimes a job application will request certain demographic information - race, gender, etc. In the gender field, I most often find that there are only 3 options: male, female, and decline to self-identify. There are almost never alternatives like "other" or the option to write-in. My question is, how should a transgender individual fill this in? Does it even matter? Is it better to use the gender I identify as or the sex I was born as? Is it better to just always select "decline to self-identify"? What about non-binary/gender-neutral individuals?

I am already selective in which companies I apply to, in that I won't apply to companies in states that lack protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity. However, I'm not sure about whether I should be open to potential employers about my gender identity or whether I should try to hide it; it's hard enough to get an entry-level job.

Given your reluctance to be open about your gender identity, what is your aversion to marking "Decline to self-identify"?

Although I am a white heterosexual man, I have always refused to provide such information as gender (I have recently made a new passport without gender information). Your gender should not be of concern neither for the state and administration, nor for any organisation or company. By law in certain countries (in Europe) it is illegal to ask about things such as gender, marital status or age, and it should be illegal to ask for adding photos to your CV.

Even if they ask you to fill a form, just leave these fields blank.

Any company I worked for, that info never got out of the job tracking system, and I dont remember even seeing it as a hiring manager, though maybe it was there. It was basically just a legal cover to have evidence we weren't being racist/sexist/etc. So I'd say do whatever you feel comfortable with, and I doubt it will have an effect.

How would you expect or want colleagues to refer to you as? For example if a lead programmer asks another one of your colleagues "who's looking at this bug?" and that colleague points to you do they say "he is" or "she is" or something else?

Leave it blank if you can. It shouldn't be required as it's really none of their business.

Look at it from their point of view. If you identify as something other than what you were born as, what is to stop you from changing that from time to time? You may, at a later junction, feel more comfortable with your birth gender.

Thus the option "decline to self-identify" gives you everything you need to say.

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