male - female - other

[Suradit69]

Just did the Overseas Voter Foundation post election survey. When it came to supplying personal info, there was a drop-down box for gender that gave you the choice of male or female, but then below that there was a fill-in box for "other - please specify."

Is this "other" choice commonly available these days in the US or is this something out of the ordinary?

Allowing for "please specify" must result in some strange responses along with some of the expected non-traditional answers.

[Costas2008]

OP, don't think the question applies to the gender.

Probably they wanted to ask for other comments.

Again, this is my opinion only.

[Suradit69]

OP, don't think the question applies to the gender.

Probably they wanted to ask for other comments.

Again, this is my opinion only.

No, there were further questions previous to and following this, none of which had options for "other" and there were places designated for comments at the end of the survey. It was definitely connected solely to the question of gender.

"Other" implies they would accept alternate answers to the question asked. The whole survey was well written and unambiguous as to what information was being sought ... nothing else and nowhere else in the multi-page survey asking for "other" to be inserted by survey-taker, although in some cases you were offered the choice of "I don't know/I don't remember" as an option.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Suradit69

[Caitrin]

Increasingly so, yes. There's increasing recognition in the US and elsewhere (Australia's X designation comes to mind) that there are non-binary gender identities, and in fact, there are non-dimorphic physicalities, too, such as intersex individuals.