Re: How to modify ENUM datatypes?

[brian <brian(at)zijn-digital(dot)com>]

Scott Marlowe wrote:
> 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.

Scott, there's absolutely nothing in that FAQ about their database, let 
alone whether or not they use ENUMs.

(heh)

> 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.

Absolutely true. Which is odd, because this example is trotted out 
whenever there's a thread about ENUMs.