Good news, we've been waiting for this. Thanks.

The new gender field will operate just like other code tables in RE, which means it will be customization by each organization. Male, Female, and Unknown will remain as system defined, uneditable (or deletable) options, but you will be free to add as many others as you need to meet the needs of your Constituent base.

Jarod: Will the gender field be customizable by the organization (us), or will it still be a drop-down menu with options set by Blackbaud? If they’re user-defined, we will start thinking of the best configuration for this field so we can implement it ASAP.

Hey all, just wanted to provide another update. Sorry its taken so long. We had some issues with our planned November deployment that included this change and elected to not risk introducing issues during end-of-year giving season with a RE update. We're currently working on getting Patch 8 for RE 7.96 deployed in made available to self-hosted customers in coming weeks. That patch includes the changes for gender code as well as many other bug fixes and product changes. My apologies for the delay but I am looking forward to marking this Idea as shipped in coming weeks!

We totally understand the importance and are working on the solution currently. Please see my comment above for specifics. This is still on track for a November 2017 release as part of the 7.96 patch in that month. 

This is an issue that needs to be addressed asap!  Either allow RE users to add in additional options or have them available.  Many BB competitors are making options available under gender.  The work around of using attributes is not acceptable.

"Planned" - WHEN? This has been outstanding for 4 years...

While not all organizations may share the "perception vs. biology" argument, especially religious organizations, I do agree that any field that can be customized by the nonprofit to better reflect and track demographic data is an improvement for the better. Changing this field to be customizable does not in any way detract from organizations who choose not to customize it beyond the original male/female choices.

While not all organizations may share the "perception vs. biology" argument, especially religious organizations, I do agree that any field that can be customized by the nonprofit to better reflect and track demographic data is an improvement for the better. Changing this field to be customizable does not in any way detract from organizations who choose not to customize it beyond the original male/female choices.

Yay!!!

Hey everyone! I just realized it's been a while since I weighed in here. I wanted to provide you all with a quick update which I hope will be well received. This update is specific to RE7. I see many comments around EE, FE, etc and I would ask you to direct your questions to the specific communities/idea banks for those products for updates on those products.

As for RE7, we have made a decision to take this on and have been hard at work on it. We are anticipating this feature being included in the pre-planned November patch for 7.96. Stay tuned for updates as that date approaches! We still have a bit of work to do to get all reports, query, export, import, etc in a state where they can respect the changes we're making, but in the meantime here's some evidence (screen shot from a development build) that work truly is being done.

And yes, the plan is for this field to accept any user definable value (Male, Female, and Unknown will remain as system defined, non-deletable values)

I'm concerned that Blackbaud has not taken action on this crucial issue. Regardless of BB software (EE, RE, FE, NXT), we administrators need to keep our database clean - and that means having the ability to accurately document who our donors are and to where on the gender or non-gender spectrum they identify. It looks like this issue was first raised in 2013 - and there is still no resolution? I would love to hear from Blackbaud on what is being done to resolve this - an issue that should have been resolved YEARS ago.

This is about more than universities, this is about keeping up with humanity! Blackbaud should have been on to this a long time ago and made it editable so they didn't need to 'keep up' all the time. It's very offensive that this hasn't been changed yet. 

There are best practice gender options that exist. Progressive research institutions already use them. This doesn't need to be a big production but it is pretty essential to honoring a donor's intentions and identity.

Can someone merge https://re7.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RE7-I-3596 and https://re7.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RE7-I-3732 into this to consolidate votes.

Or, even better, allow this field to be a customizable table entry.

Our institution is also accommodating and supporting the LGBTQ community.  Please make the change to a Gender code table.  Time for BB to step into the 21st century!  Thank you!

It is often NGO's that are at the forefront of tackling these kinds of social issues, and their protocols and systems should be reflective of that diversity. An editable gender list is sorely needed for all of those who currently feel they are unjustly best reflected as 'unknown' at the moment.

Hi, Jarod (and everyone) - To address your question from earlier today, we use "Unknown" and then have re-purposed a field in the Bio 2 tab that I have customized with various entries for this purpose. But someone looking at a record has to be aware that the Gender in Bio 1 isn't the whole story. That's why it's so critical that the field get updated - it is front and center on Bio 1 and instinctively where someone would expect it to be. Thank you.

I understand and completely agree with your assessment. I apologize if my question came off as insensitive. I share your thoughts that in the current version of RE, there is no "closest" and therefore "Unknown" must be used, perhaps in concert with an Attribute that allows for at least some level of tracking of what is accurate. I was honestly just trying to validate that assumption before we acted upon it.