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Online Forms: When Gender is Flexible, but Relationship Status Isn’t September 26, 2021

I’m glad that online forms are more and more offering non-binary gender options. Every time someone filling out a web form sees additional options beyond “male” or “female,” a little bit of society’s ingrained transphobia and genderism (is that a word?) is dismantled. But unfortunately, these forms are not offering the same progressive option for relationship status.

Per below, one of my doctors’ intake questionnaires allows patients to opt out of identifying their gender. Yay! (I would have preferred them to offer a “non-binary” option instead of “prefer not to say,” but. . . baby steps). The same form, however, forces patients to choose a relationship status. Boo!

Does your status not necessarily fall into one of the seven couple-focused categories? Tough! Pick one! Do you prefer not to share your status? Tough! Pick one! You can try to advance without selecting one of the amatonormative options, but you’ll get the nasty red star telling you to correct your error and rethink your life choices. 

We here at Onely have fumed about how Facebook provides only a narrow range of relationship options (anything beyond the standard choices must be labelled “complicated”). The doctor’s form, however, has an additional problematic layer. . . (more…)