The required ‘legal sex’ v. optional ‘preferred gender’ in the CAS systems is a decent entry point to thinking about sex/gender as a core data point within the Tufts data ecosystem.

Incoming Data

There are a variety of ways that this data is offered.

The CAS systems are detailed here; in

AMCAS https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication-chapters/gender-identity-and-pronouns

“You should answer the gender question based on the gender with which you identify, which may or may not be the sex you were assigned at birth. Gender Identity is a separate, optional question intended to draw out additional layers of student body diversity, including diverse perspectives from applicants who have experienced major life events or transitions related to their gender identity.”

In AMCAS, the reference table for this past 2024 season has the following values:

Code: SELECT * FROM AmcasDES.amcas.REFERENCE_Gender WHERE APPL_YEAR = 2024 ORDER BY DISPLAY_SEQ

Tthe 2024 applicant data has a "sex" column:

Code: SELECT sex,COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM [AmcasDES].[amcas].[AMCAS_Applicant] WHERE app_year = 2024 GROUP BY sex ORDER BY cnt desc

I also see 2024 applicant data on gender identity. I'm currently ignoring this data in terms of SIS and Stuart:

Code: SELECT  gender_identity_code,gender_identity,COUNT(*) AS cnt FROM [AmcasDES].[amcas].[ApplicantPersonalInfo] WHERE app_year=2024 GROUP BY gender_identity_code,gender_identity ORDER BY COUNT(*) desc

For interfacing with SIS, the SQL view uses these values:   O, U, M, F, U

 CASE

           WHEN vw.GENDER = 'Another Gender' THEN

               'O'

           WHEN vw.GENDER = 'Decline to Answer' THEN

               'U'

           WHEN vw.GENDER = 'Man' THEN

               'M'

           WHEN vw.GENDER = 'Woman' THEN

               'F'

           ELSE

               'U'

       END AS SEX

And lastly, Stuart supports these values currently, though Bruce suspects this will change very soon:

Code: SELECT DISTINCT sex, gender.Gender FROM student st INNER JOIN register re ON re.StudentKey = st.StudentKey LEFT JOIN gender ON gender.GenderCode = st.Sex WHERE re.RegType = 'DegreeProgram' AND sex IS NOT null

Slate to SIS

This is mapped from the delivered, person-scoped Sex field in Slate.

If gender does not match within

SIS

Everything ultimately has to flow into SIS.

Interestingly enough, there are other (delivered) options for tracking this data in SIS that have been added since 2017, when we added new sex/gender options.

From SIS

Of course, any changes in SIS affect downstream things!

Medicat

Jonathan Pritchard 6/24/2024:

Sex in Medicat, has 4 options. In reviewing the SIS file, only M/F/U are populated (outliers mapped to U), but a [staff] user in Medicat can change the sex if needed.

• Female

• Male

• Transgender

• Unknown

There are also user-defined options to capture pronouns and gender identity--these are updated manually.