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brycelelbach/email_to_iso_council_on_gender_action_plan_and_survey.md

Last active June 3, 2020 02:02
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Form email to [email protected] regarding the treatment of gender as binary in the ISO Gender Action Plan and survey
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email_to_iso_council_on_gender_action_plan_and_survey.md

To: [email protected]

Subject: Please don't treat gender as a binary in the ISO Gender Action Plan and survey

Dear ISO Council,

My name is NAME. [I participate in ISO_TECHNICAL_WORK through NATIONAL_STANDARDS_BODY|I use ISO_STANDARDS].

I am glad to hear that ISO is taking steps to address gender equality in ISO technical work.

However, I am concerned that the ISO Gender Action Plan 2019-2020 and ISO expert gender survey treats gender as a binary, thus excluding part of the population who doesn't fit in this binary.

I recommend that the ISO Council retract the current survey, publicly acknowledge this oversight, and engage diversity and inclusivity consultants and experts to assist in revising the ISO Gender Action Plan and survey to be inclusive.

One way to make the survey more inclusive would be to add an additional "Specify" option to the gender identity question. This option should allow the input of arbitrary text instead of selection from a limited set of options. There are many excellent resources on best practices for surveying gender identity and sexual orientation:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/ask-survey-questions-sexual-orientation-gender-identity

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