It is probably used for analytics purposes.
73 Likes
Nonetheless it harms the user experience for non-binary folks, if you really wanted to specify your gender i think it should be an option in settings but not enforced.
Or do it the way google does it. Choose male or female, or prefer not to say, or a custom option.
46 Likes
I like this solution for two reasons:
Firstly it allows roblox to open up new doors in starting user experience, allowing them to expand the default avatar collection with ease,
Secondly it still provides virtually the same function as the gender picker, allowing roblox to continue to get a fairly accurate grasp of the gender divide while also not offending those of a non-binary gender.
Removing the switch entirely would not work, since roblox wouldn’t know what starter avatar to give you therefor potentially causing new damage to new user experience.
25 Likes
Although it may sound trivial to add more options for gender, it really isn’t. Adding more than two options for gender will likely be confusing to most kids under 6 year olds creating a bad UX experience.
I think @Tiffblocks did a good job on summarizing a better solution by allowing people to pick between two or more starter characters rather than gender options.
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/what-does-gender-even-do-on-roblox/178509/21?u=undermywheel
42 Likes
Roblox shouldn’t be using gender as an analytics dimension, it enforces stereotypes.
The symptoms/correlations of “gender” can be analyzed as a spectrum from the user’s behavior without the user needing to actually specify it.
46 Likes
I think it’s pretty outdated to be asking for gender. The only reason why it might be useful is to collect data for analytics purposes. With that in mind if the loss of this data is not acceptable, simply providing a third, “Something else” option is best for user experience.
There was a new sign up page floating around under an AB test that offered the choice of a bunch of preset avatars, with a super simple image-based initial character customizer, but I can’t remember if that flow also asked for gender.
32 Likes
There’s this article on the official Roblox help website, which is titled “How do I make my Avatar a girl or boy?” I’d like to add this as another example of how Roblox forces you to either be a boy or a girl.
I know this isn’t explicitly on the Roblox website, but this is the closest I’m going to get for the Roblox help page.
8 Likes
It feels counterintuitive to the idea of “powering imagination” to force new users into a gender. If the intent is to provide recommendations or default clothing/accessories, the choice should instead be based on preference instead of gender. If that’s not the intent, why are you asking?
Regardless, gender is not meaningful on Roblox and shouldn’t be a required part of signing up.
17 Likes
Roblox has solved a part of this feature request. Selecting a gender when creating an account is no longer required! 
However, there still isn’t an option yet to deselect your gender in the account settings. It would be amazing to have an option to do this!
20 Likes
I think the best option where everybody will be satisfied is to keep the gender option, but not requiring you to add a gender, so, the gender option would not be needed in order to sign up.
That way, they can get a customised avatar if they want it. This would also be helpful in case Roblox decides to add gender statistics in the Developer Stats page.
9 Likes
I wouldn’t go as far as to call a binary choice customization.
You don’t really want to know what genders play your game. What you actually want to know is what other content/games your players are interested in. That’s the underlying information you actually want to know, not any (correlated or not) symptoms of that.
If you know what genders play your game you still need to interpret those genders yourself as a developer, which is both an extra headache and also leads to enforcing stereotypical male/female content which is bad for diversity, because you as a person have implicit biases about what content you think appeals to male/female/other. It’s a bad idea overall, it’s not actually the best insight Roblox could give you on how to improve your game.
22 Likes
With the newest release of an improved sponsoring system, I highly feel like this should be viewed closely and considered to be added because Roblox is still forcing people into two genders and will now market gender-specific games to them. Given how literally every other modern website lets people add a custom or just an other gender, it’s upsetting that Roblox hasn’t yet.
5 Likes
Although gender may be optional when creating an account, you’re unable to remove gender with an existing account, essentially giving users the same binary decisions. For anyone feeling like they aren’t male or female, they won’t be able to deselect any of the icons.
Are you questioning? Too bad! You’d have to either make a decision on account creation date or never make a decision at all. If you’re feeling dysphoria of any sort, too bad! You can’t be non-binary.
Just like @mircostaff said, users must be either male or female save for when singing up. Try it yourself! It’s a one-way trip. Non-binary now or non-binary never.
8 Likes
I would imagine in the next few months Roblox will update the settings page to allow for a genderless option. Users whom already created their accounts are easily able to express their gender via the outfits they wear and on their profile, so maybe just the internal setting is taking a little longer to be rolled out.
(I was right)
3 Likes
I saw no one mentioning this but, there is an API hack you can use to get rid of your gender if you set one. I used this myself after coming out lol.
First, (if you have an account pin), unlock your settings using this API
https://auth.roblox.com/docs#!/AccountPin/post_v1_account_pin_unlock
Then, go to this API where you can then change your Gender to 1 of three options
https://accountinformation.roblox.com/docs#!/AccountInformation/post_v1_gender
- No Gender/Undefined
- Male
- Female
And, to answer the OP thing, the gender thing isn’t required, though it should be better stated
13 Likes
Ah! Great find. I thought this might be possible, but I couldn’t find the the correct API that would accomplish it.
You should post this around on places like Twitter to spread the word about this to help people who wish to remove the gender on their account.
4 Likes
In my ideal vision, the gender thing should be a dropdown, not two buttons, both for UX sake and to make it easily expandable if they were to ever add more options.
introducing: my terrible html editing skills
26 Likes
Hi everyone, thanks for your patience! We’ve incorporated your feedback and you should now be able to unselect gender on both signup page and account settings page.
57 Likes
Great news! Is there any plans to outright remove this option or introduce NB as an option?
19 Likes