Current norms and best practices for collecting and representing sex/gender in linguistics: Towards ethical and inclusive methodologies

Abstract

Amid changing ideas about sex and gender, there is a growing need to reexamine norms around their operationalization and theorization. This talk presents results from a survey exploring linguists’ practices for collecting information about research participants’ sex/gender. Based on 157 complete responses to date, we explore the popularity of different methods for gathering information about sex/gender and the methodological and theoretical implications of those choices. We closely analyze the way questions around sex/gender are formulated and differences among linguists by subfield, training, identities, and gender politics, and offer best practices for ethical and inclusive approaches.