Genuine question. Why does a program need to know the user’s gender? (I’m asking in general, not in this particular case). Just use gender neutral pronouns to refer to the user, or, better yet, don’t talk to me at all!

Aside from niche things like targeted ads and gendered health tracking and stuff.

[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

For some languages gender-neutral pronouns aren't possible or aren't appropriate. It's really only in English and maybe five other languages that gender-neutral pronouns are a real thing and even in these languages if you're not used to using neutral pronouns or reading them in common writing sounds like a mistake to begin with. It's generally just easier to automate the task based on names, and the library itself comes from a time when that wasn't a controversial thought. Lol

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 points 4 days ago (6 children)

English, Dutch, German, Papiamento, Spanish

just from the top of my head. That can't be all of them?

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderless_languages

English, Persian, Tagalog, Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, Swahili, Armenian, Georgian of the more well-known languages

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