AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2015 Nov 5;2015:611-20. eCollection 2015.

Mining Twitter as a First Step toward Assessing the Adequacy of Gender Identification Terms on Intake Forms.

Hicks A¹, Hogan WR¹, Rutherford M², Malin B³, Xie M⁴, Fellbaum C⁵, Yin Z³, Fabbri D³, Hanna J¹, Bian J¹.

Author information

1: University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
2: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR.
3: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
4: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR.
5: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

Abstract

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends that health care providers collect data on gender identity. If these data are to be useful, they should utilize terms that characterize gender identity in a manner that is 1) sensitive to transgender and gender non-binary individuals (trans* people) and 2) semantically structured to render associated data meaningful to the health care professionals. We developed a set of tools and approaches for analyzing Twitter data as a basis for generating hypotheses on language used to identify gender and discuss gender-related issues across regions and population groups. We offer sample hypotheses regarding regional variations in the usage of certain terms such as 'genderqueer', 'genderfluid', and 'neutrois' and their usefulness as terms on intake forms. While these hypotheses cannot be directly validated with Twitter data alone, our data and tools help to formulate testable hypotheses and design future studies regarding the adequacy of gender identification terms on intake forms.