Living with its time

* This article has been translated with a translation tool. 

Dans les derniers mois, vous avez été plusieurs à nous transférer des courriels de clients qui ne s’identifient pas au titre « Monsieur » ou « Madame ». En fait, si l’on est tout à fait honnête, peu d’entre nous aiment ces termes.

So we decided to change those two choices to three new ones: Male, Female and Non-binary. If this makes people feel better, I personally don't see a problem. However, this change does bring up some important questions.

For example, what are the most inclusive terms?

Those of you who know anything about the subject know that there are a ton of terms and it's easy to get lost. We were also given the option "Prefer not to answer". In this case, we had a concern that many people who identify as male or female would choose not to respond.

We wanted to find a term that would be inclusive without distorting the statistics, since for some cases gender is still relevant. Only time will tell if we made the right choice, but we did it seriously and respectfully.

From virtual to real

It's a good start to welcome difference in a form, but do you have processes in place to accommodate people in the room? A coed toilet or tampons in the boys' room are some of the possibilities. Change seems big, but the first step to finding innovative solutions at reasonable costs is to discuss it as a team.
 
Finally, I have a little anecdote for those of you who believe that you choose your gender. I myself raised my daughter to be gender neutral, telling her that there were no colors, toys or jobs for girls or boys. Eight years later, my daughter is into dresses, sequins, unicorns and purple is her favorite color. So while this may be true for a little girl raised in neutrality who identifies strongly with the female gender, I believe the opposite is also possible.

Thanks and talk to you soon,

a58a125f-1d26-3b8c-e56e-44a72f2be135.png
Jonathan Roy
Customer Experience Manager