What? You covered every case. I guess 'other' refers to eunuchs and bigender, but why does there need to be a transgender entry? Don't they identify with the sex they switched to?
In MY opinion--mine only, can't speak for anyone else--i think "other" is fine if you don't want to include a big list of stuff. "Other" and "transgender" is probably also fine, but i would have been pretty comfortable with just "other" myself.
You're an interesting case, because you claim to have voted 'other', and so I might learn something from you. What is this list of stuff, I really believe their are the two natural cases[^], with bi-gender, eunuch, and trans-gender being the only other possibilities. What are the other possibilities, if you feel comfortable speaking generally, the thread is practically dead.
For me, the word gender refers to a configuration of organs and only has a secondary meaning for speaking about identity, but the secondary meaning is weak and it is better to speak about sexual identity, a phrase that covers the concept much better and directly.
[^] I was looking for a word that wouldn't be insulting. I hope I succeeded.
Well, first we have to define what exactly we're talking about: physical sex, mental sex, behavioral sex, or some sort of combination. Since it wasn't spelled out i'm just assuming it's "whichever you feel is most important" :)
So for physical sex the "bonus options" (i'm excluding transgender in all cases, since it has its own explicit option) would include, but not be limited to: intersexed (itself an enormous list of totally different and interesting conditions), eunuch (a couple of options here as well), someone who has altered their body in a way that does not fall into eunuch or transgender, or that sort of thing.
Mental sex is a big one, since we don't really understand it and lots of people have slightly different ways of describing themselves. Just a short list: bi-gendered, neither, androgynes (who might say they're different from the bi-gendered--not both, not neither, but somewhere in between), non-conformist male or female (to the point where they would put "other" despite falling more into one category), various cultural versions, and so on.
Behavioral sex almost defies categorization, since it's often explicitly an attempt to defy categorization. You've got crossdressers (who might or might not choose "other" over male or female--or over transgender too, i suppose--and who might be aiming at "passing" or who might be explicitly aiming at perceieved crossdressing), androgynes, various quasi-genders that show up in the queer community ("butch", "femme", etc--though i wouldn't expect these to choose "other", they certainly could if we're talking about behavior and presentation), those who choose to "perform" gender as a political act, etc.
I'm kind of being lazy, but it's a complicated question...
I don't think your answer relates as lazy at all; I appreciate the follow up. If I should accidentally piss someone off in the future, I'll now be able to see how our assumptions differ and we will be able to avoid talking past each other.
Thanks for expanding my perspective in a useful way.
What? You covered every case. I guess 'other' refers to eunuchs and bigender, but why does there need to be a transgender entry? Don't they identify with the sex they switched to?