Various thoughts:
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Around 20 people weren't properly covered by the gender categories, obviously we're trying to be as inclusive as possible and a different approach will be tried next time
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There were about 600 respondents, which gives us a accurate sampling of the active userbase. If you multiply any number by 3, you'll get a fairly accurate representation of the full userbase each week. This means there are around 800-900 people who don't identify fully as cis each week on this site.
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Nearly 300 trans/gender diverse/questioning people unanimously agree that hexbear is an inclusive space
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There was so much data on gender that I was really struggling to find a way to convey the data that wasnt a pie chart, graph, or an incomprehensible kalaeidoscope. If you have an idea on how to beautify the data, you can download the raw data here: https://pad.artemislena.eu/file/#/2/file/xzy4pck8on+oZp9yGRUIezR+/ - I further anonymized this data by removing time of response and any specific comments, I don't think it would be easy for anyone to figure out who is who.
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There were a couple of text responses that really needed further elaboration, I noted hexbear's rules next to these comments
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I'll probably be doing a demographics survey sometime in the future, including basic fairly anonymous stuff like "what region were you born in" "where do the languages you speak originate" "would you describe yourself as a POC" "what age range are you in".
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The percentage of people answering they were cisgender increased by 8% than the previous survey. This could be for a myriad of reasons, such as cis people being afraid trans people will hunt them down in the public thread and assassinate them. Anonymity may have made them feel safer to respond. Regardless, way more people responded this time, which signifies that people felt safer responding to the cryptpad or it was easier to do. The leading question was a bit more inclusive than last time, but I think I'll include both questions (are you transgender / gender diverse and are you cisgender) to see how people respond.
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We have a lot of people that aren't binary trans on this site.
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Some of the questions were pretty funky and we got a lot of fuzzy responses on them as a result. In particular "After you realized you were trans/gender diverse, how long did it take for you to begin to act on it?" and "At what age did you begin transition?" caused a lot of friction, I think I will ask more vague questions in the future that lead to a path of more specific questions to capture better data, and to save people time. Questions like "Do you feel your gender transition had a defined starting point?" and some further ones.
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Around 20 people each week on this site are cis she/hers, which is very low and roughly the same as last time. I feel like if hexbear ever starts hosting other federated stuff (like a federated tiktok or something) and can hook into it natively with lemmy, we'd see a better ratio.
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I tried to be very sure any data with >2 people on it was clearly legible, I think some people might find it fun that there are others with their same fairly specific classifications per this survey lurking around on the site.
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Overall I feel like the survey was a success despite some bumps.
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You can find the other surveys/links here: https://hexbear.net/post/3016455
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I made these graphs on company time
Great work! Re: low cis women, I know one of them IRL, and she's trying to basically wean off all Social Media, so she very rarely posts or comments here (but she did respond to the survey). Not sure how to get more ciswomen or transmen to join, honestly, but it's great to see that everyone feels safe here!
Edit: it's clear that misogyny is one of the most commonly pointed out issues with this site, based on reading replies and input from other comrades. I am fully in favor of a purge, even if it would be unpopular, it's better to confront issues and remove the problem elements. It's important for every user to feel as safe and comfortable in every bit of this site (except the EM/POC community threads for whites and trans community threads for cis, obviously safe spaces would be maintained as such). Maybe another weekly megathread as a safe space? A Feminism community sounds cool too and would be a good place to hold that, I think. Maybe include comm sidebars with feminist literature and theory? Just spitballing here.
On that note, if anyone has felt that I have been guilty of misogyny, I'd greatly appreciate being re-educated so I can be a better comrade and make this a safer space for women, enbies, and other non-masculine comrades.
Also techically I at least am one of those "has lived a life of a cis woman" who answered "maybe" types that might be able to voice that maybe only in a space like this. I am thinking of a kind of autigender thing and the way women mask and have to mask their identities.
Yep, the person I am referring to doesn't list her pronouns, she tries to mask more online more often than not. Same concept.
Yeah it makes sense.
I also wonder if in a space like this the high number of maybes reflects the gender in flux that sort of isn't either ready for a signifier or just fully refuses one, which I think my own identification is becoming. So there could be a lot of people in motion in there who might have at one time answered differently or might answer differently somewhere else.
Plus I think leftism itself helps people to reconsider things like gender so in leftist spaces I would assume people will be selecting more open categories.
Yep, leftism reframes existing cultural norms, hence why more people tend to reject them in leftist communities compared to others