Re: How to modify ENUM datatypes?

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Karsten Hilbert
<Karsten(dot)Hilbert(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:38:48PM +0200, Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum wrote:
>
> > Yes. You should/can use ENUM for something like 'gender':
> > male, female, unknown. You don't need to add other values ever (yeah, i
> > skipped some special cases).
> I was gonna say ! :-)
>
> Add
>
> hermaphrodite
> transgender with female phenotype
> transgender with male phenotype
>
> and you should be set from current medical science's point
> of view ;-)

Actually, hermaphrodite specifies complete male and female genitalia,
which is impossible in humans. While various forms of address are
available for people born with parts of both male and female
genitalia, the most common and easiest is intersex.

The folks here: http://www.isna.org/faq/ have a lot more to say about
it, and seeing as how many of them ARE intersex, I'd leave it up to
them.

While most transgender folks prefer to be referred to as their assumed
gender, there are some gender queer folks who prefer other forms of
address.

I would put it that gender is not so easily defined, which makes it a
poor choice for enum.