I read a story about a guy from Greece who wants to delete his gender from his id and my first thought was how many 20 year-old government database schemas that is going to mess up.

That's giving me a minor panic attack just to think about.

@projektaquarius Imagine if you are allowed to have more than one genders. Good luck converting all those gender variables to arrays

I was watching it on TV earlier (here in Greece). The guy doesn't believe in gender at all (he's clearly masculine though, hairy and with a perfectly groomed beard, but he's dressed with women apparels) to the point he doesn't want to be called neither sir nor madam. I suppose they can add another "gender specification" on their schemas as "non-gendered"/"none"?

Oh, just because he might be able to erase it from his ID, the public sector is very slow in such drastic changes. Might as well just change the "Gender" at "Gender of Birth", but this will spur other controversies. Sadly, this person is going to have a nightmare with public services at some point.

That's what happens when society encourages people to live out their mental illness (gender disphoria) . It's like telling a depressed guy that suicide is OK and you support them with their plans... Instead of helping them.

I am so afraid that SJW are in this app. So many people will be triggered

@Double-A That's a long discussion. There are people who are functional within society even with mental illness, then there are others who are dangerous to themselves and to others. People with gender dysphoria at least now can come out and not be as stigmatized as in the past. In past times they could get depressive and commit suicide just for the sole reason of not being accepted. Sure, things get perplexed in this case, but then again it's hard for us to understand their position.

I doubt that his government was using digital databases 20 years ago...

@theCalcaholic Nope, but there are records kept for each citizen. And gender is written down from birth for army conscription. So when it gets fully digital, that will passed over too.

@Qaldim Yes, of course. :)

@Double-A two problems: 1. You're conflating transgender (or etc for non binary) with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria requires significant discomfort as to prevent you from going about daily activities. Their are plenty of trans, etc, gender people who don't have gender dysphoria. And the ones with gender dysphoria are treated and supported.

2. There is a world of difference between treating someone as the gender they identify as and promoting suicide as the end game of depression. For one, you're improving the mental well being of the person by respecting their identity rather than driving the person's mental well being to the breaking point. And two, and more obviously, you aren't complicit in someone's death.

Most of the people I know who share that opinion just took a hole puncher to their ID cards. Now their gender is null. Most places still accept the ID just fine.

@starless I think null gender would introduce a whole other level of dbanxiety.

@projektaquarius I'm well aware 😂😂

@starless why you do!?

In France they just use Sex (at birth) instead of gender.

@QCat I can see that. Personally I don't particularly see why it matters on official documentation. Same with ethnicity/race.

@projektaquarius here it is a legacy of the former military immatriculation, named Charmille number, that is composed of Sex, birth year, birth month, department of birth, insee identifier of the town of birth, civil number, and a validation key

@QCat i understand now. NGL though, that sounds kind of tedious.

@projektaquarius it is used to identify people regarding social security, insurances, army and social infrastructure

@QCat I guess it's better than the US social security number system but that is a lot of personal information for an ID number.

@projektaquarius well, it is considered confidential

#NoteToSelf from now on, use string type for any columns for human related table.

// #sarcasm