Twitter is incorrectly guessing the gender of trans users — and they aren't having it

Transgender Twitter users aren't here for the platform's gendered assumptions. And they sure aren't hesitating to make that known.

Here's the deal: Twitter released a new set of tools on May 17 which allow users to see and control the data advertisers use to target ads on the social media platform. While the move was a clear effort to increase transparency and trust between users and the social media machine, the actual data Twitter has collected is giving many users pause.

Notably, many trans and gender-nonconforming users are troubled that Twitter has been guessing the gender of users based on the gender most strongly associated with a user's "profile and activity."

Though it's not clear what portions of a user's profile or activity contribute to a gender guess, many have drawn the conclusion that Twitter must rely on some pretty bogus gender stereotypes to decipher gender. And, as we all know, stereotypes can often be wrong.

While it may be funny for non-trans users to see that the mysterious algorithm got their gender vastly wrong, trans and gender-nonconforming Twitter users are speaking out about how assuming gender can be harmful. For some of these users, the algorithm picked their sex assigned at birth, not their actual gender identity. And that can be incredibly invalidating, hurtful, and angering.

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Twitter does allow users to edit their assumed gender by selecting male, female, or writing in a gender identity outside the binary. But that's only possible after you reckon with the gender chosen for you.

Twitter did not have any comment on how the algorithm works, or the reactions of trans and gender-nonconforming users.

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Tools for guessing gender aren't singular to Twitter. Other tech giants, like Google, assume the gender of users based on their activity to better target ads and content. But given the growing ability to express a spectrum of gender identities in society, the model needs some serious updating -- or phasing out.

UPDATE: May 22, 2017, 10:53 a.m. EDT Updated with Twitter's response to inquiry.

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