Sex and gender in ChurchSuite
Overview of 'Sex' in ChurchSuite
Throughout ChurchSuite we refer to Sex (i.e. the legal and biological assignment of either Male or Female or Unknown/Unspecified) rather than Gender (i.e. the social or cultural characteristics of masculine or feminine or gender neutral). This is an important distinction when considering the data you might store in your ChurchSuite database. As a Data Controller you should consider carefully whether you need to store personal information about people's gender i.e. does it serve a purpose, do you have a lawful basis for processing people's gender, and do you have appropriate safeguards in place to prevent that data being used incorrectly, which may result in discrimination? If gender is an additional field of personal information you wish to process then you can do so by creating a Custom Field - see our related support article for guidance on Adding custom fields for people.
When adding or importing people to the Address Book and Children modules, in addition to First name and Last name, Sex is a required field - a person cannot be saved to your database unless their sex - male, female or unknown (the default) - is specified. But what does this look like from the data subject's and data controller's perspective in the platform?
In all ChurchSuite member-facing and public-facing forms where personal information is submitted and the 'Sex' field is shown, the options for the submitter (the data subject) are Male, Female or - (dash) - the dash is the option for those who prefer not to state their sex as male or female. From the submitter's perspective, the 'dash' reflects that they are not stating their sex; that their sex is unspecified.
However, from a User (data controller) perspective in your admin-facing ChurchSuite modules, the presence of that 'dash' is translated as sex being Unknown - in other words, ChurchSuite doesn't derive or assume data but informs the module User viewing a profile page that the person has not specified their sex as either male or female and that the person's sex is currently unknown to your organisation.
With this in mind, in ChurchSuite's admin-facing system, you have the option of setting whether a person's sex is 'male' or 'female', or 'unknown' (the default). So, for example, when processing paper visitor cards and adding new people to your Address Book or Children module, if the person has not specified their sex on the form, you can leave their sex as Unknown as it was not specified by the person completing the form - you should not derive or assume a person's sex based on their name, marital status or because you think you know their sex.
Similarly, when importing people data into the Address Book or Children modules, you can specify the 'Sex' of each contact to be imported; either 'm' (male), 'f' (female) or 'u' (unknown). If a contact's sex is not specified in the data being imported, the person is added with Unknown unspecified sex.
In ChurchSuite member-facing pages, like the embeddable My Details form and the Sunday-facing Connect My Details form, where people are submitting their details directly into ChurchSuite, a person can specify their sex as Male, Female or - (dash) - the 'dash' perhaps suggesting they prefer not to specify. It is not possible to set the 'Sex' field as requiring a 'Male' or 'Female' response - but where the Sex field is present on the form and neither 'Male' nor 'Female' is selected by the submitter, the dash (i.e. 'not specified') is selected.
In ChurchSuite's member-facing My ChurchSuite, 'Sex' can be set as an editable field in the Address Book and Children module's settings, so organisations can choose whether people can edit their sex. Those with My ChurchSuite access can choose between Male and Female or, where they prefer not to state their sex, select '-' (dash).
To change whether the field 'Sex' is editable in My ChurchSuite, navigate to the Address Book module's settings via the cogwheels icon in the top-right corner of the module. On the My ChurchSuite options tab, scroll down to the Fields options. Here you can set whether to allow contacts to edit their sex within My ChurchSuite - click Edit to make changes.
The same options exist in the Children module settings as it relates to parents/carers and children with My ChurchSuite access being able to self-manage their sex.
Scroll down the My ChurchSuite options to the Fields options. Click Edit to make changes to the editable child fields for My ChurchSuite.
Finally, one of the reports available in the Address Book and Children module is the Sex Check report, which enables you to quickly review the contacts and children in the respective ChurchSuite modules and, if permitted by the data subject, to assign the correct sex (if sex is currently 'unknown') or amend the sex of a person where the data held is known to be incorrect.
