As I began my senior year at OHS I was approached with the opportunity to begin writing for an online magazine. Upon accepting, I was bombarded with emails, texts, GroupMe messages, PowerPoints, and worst of all, glitches out the rear end.
Now, messages and PowerPoints that I can view at any moment in my perpetually filled schedule are all fine and dandy. They're convenient.
However, my first email from whatever head honcho was speaking to me included my Login information, something that peaked my interest. It befuddles me how I do not have access to the creation of my own password. How on [insert divine being]'s green Earth am I supposed to remember a string of random characters? It's like I'm being asked to remember a password with a lowercase letter, a capital letter, a number, a symbol of punctuation, a date from the Mayan calendar, the blood of a virgin, my uncle's left pinky; all between 8-16 characters in length. As a theatre kid, it took me two months to remember 218 lines! And now there are a plethora of meaningless squiggles that I am asked to remember on the Internet. Instead of being given the opportunity to generate my own Login information, I am forced to deal with this online nightmare.
Once I logged into the content creation forum, I noticed it was completely blank. I was not a contributor to the community; I was not anywhere in the world. My profile was floating in no-man's land, wishing to create content that could potentially get me disowned from my family if they were to ever see it. (Just kidding, Dad! Please don't do that!) So, instead of raising a stink, I explored the world of creation a little bit. I essentially became Willy Wonka in my own virtual Chocolate Factory.
Now here is where my biggest, most intense grievance lies. You have been warned.
Why, after dictionary definition after dictionary definition, after Supreme Court case after Supreme Court case, after North Carolina's idiotic act of discrimination toward LGBT community members, does this application ask about your gender in terms of Male or Female? How stupid is that? Everyone, here is a PSA. GENDER and SEX are not the same. By any stretch of the imagination. SEX is related to the reproductive body parts one possesses within their undergarments. GENDER is the spectrum of which a person places on a scale from boy-to-girl, masculine-to-feminine, gay-to-straight. I consider my gender to be, when asked: gender-nonconforming, gay, human person. Indeed, I am a male. I am of the male influence. I was born and raised as someone who doesn't have to wear a bra to be accepted in society. It enrages me when Gender and Sex are confused, and it is on the very website I am using to type this rant. Instead of GENDER being an option, change the wording to SEX. Unless you would like me to answer "other" on every GENDER question. It is amazing the strides that the LGBT community has come in the past 30-40 years. But this one has been fought for too long. In the future, I wish for a more commonplace knowledge of the difference between GENDER and SEX. It is painful to have to answer "other." It embarrasses me, and I'm sure others in my boat feel the same.
Ultimately, my experience with online writing forums has been short so far. I am excited to continue generating content for this platform. But please, dear [insert divine being here], get some sense and learn to differentiate Gender and Sex on every form of application.
"Here endeth the lesson."
