We recognise that gender is a highly personal matter and you may have questions about the gender-related information we request during our registration process. In this article we explain why we request this information and also what we're doing to improve how we present these questions in future.
Why am I asked to provide my gender?
Lumina Learning's mission is to transform organisations by celebrating people, one human at a time. To achieve our mission, we have designed our products to value each person equally, without treating anyone differently or drawing inferences based on their gender.
We constantly monitor our products to ensure that they do not discriminate based on gender. To help us with our analysis, we ask you to provide gender information when you complete a Lumina Learning questionnaire.
This question is optional and you can decline to answer by selecting 'Prefer not to say'.
Why am I asked to choose a 'Language Option'?
When you complete a Lumina Learning questionnaire, you receive a 'Portrait' (a personality report) afterwards from your Lumina Learning Practitioner. Your Portrait is personalised to you and addresses you directly using the personal pronoun 'you'.
Portraits are available in a number of languages. Some languages use the concept of 'grammatical gender', which means that the spellings of certain words (e.g. nouns and adjectives) change depending on the gender of the person the words are describing.
For this reason, we ask you to provide your preferred 'Language Option' when answering a questionnaire.
When will I be asked about gender and Language Options, and what options are available?
When you register to complete a questionnaire, you will be asked to provide personal details, including your name, email and gender or Language Option.
The available gender options are: 'Man', 'Woman', 'Other' or 'Prefer not to say'.
If you select 'Other' or 'Prefer not to say', you will be asked whether you prefer the 'masculine' or 'feminine' Language Option.
Do I need to provide my gender or select a Language Option if my language does not use grammatical gender?
If your Portrait is in a language that does not use grammatical gender, such as English, we will still ask for your gender and a Language Option. We ask for this information in case your Lumina Learning Practitioner later decides to generate your Portrait in a different language.
Does my selected gender or Language Option affect the questions I see or the content of my Portrait?
Gender and Language Option information has no impact on the questions you answer or the way the scores in your Portrait are calculated.
If two people have selected different Language Options and their Portraits are displayed in a language that uses grammatical gender, the text displayed may have minor spelling differences. However, the meaning and message of the words is not affected by gender or Language Option.
Do you plan to change the way you ask about gender and grammatical gender?
We recognise that gender is a highly personal matter and questions concerning it are not always welcome. We are exploring the following options to minimise or remove the references we make to gender and grammatical gender:
- We are working to remove references to Language Options where we know it is unlikely to be relevant, e.g. you visit the Lumina Learning website in a language that does not use grammatical gender, such as English
- Currently, we only offer the choice of masculine and feminine Language Options because languages that use grammatical gender typically have only these two genders. As languages that use grammatical gender evolve, third-gender, gender-neutral and gender-inclusive linguistic structures are becoming more established. We are exploring how to incorporate these into our Portraits. Our aim is to provide people with more choice, including the option to not ask this question at all and receive gender-neutral Portraits
I have a suggestion for how you could improve, how do I get in touch?
If you have feedback on the contents of this page, we would like to hear from you. You can get in touch with us here.