Other gender options besides male/female

Sadly I think a lot of the algorithms calculating your performance like VO2max and other calculated performance indicators - are dependent your birth "gender" - so changing that might lead to some data calculation issues.

But maybe Garmin could add a "Preferred Gender attribution" where you can select outside of what the algo's need to work (so you would provide both) - and your account profile would then show your chosen gender identity. 

I have no idea how it works for people who transition - but I guess Garmin are keeping tabs on relevant studies. 

Then it should be labeled as Sex (anatomical characteristics) rather than Gender (social construct), and should have an intersex option.

The moment you introduce a 3rd option for sex - I think the watches would "loose" their ability to calculate performance figures. So your watch would loose part of the "value proposition" 

So if you would be happy about loosing calculated data like Vo2 Max, Training Status, Stamina, Stress Tracking, Bodybattery & race predictor  etc - I think Garmin would listen.

But there are so much data calculated that is dependent on your biological sex being "your birth sex" 

Intersex is biologically a sex, as valid as male and female. Intersex people have innate sex characteristics that do not fit medical norms for female or male bodies. This can be discovered at birth, during prenatal testing, at puberty or even when attempting to conceive.

 
You may argue they don’t know how to calculate values such as vo2 max due to not having much data on intersex variation, but my argument would be this would be a great way to COLLECT that data and do some proper research with it.

Such studies are done in controlled environments - and I doubt any current watch and user would qualify as valid test subjects without participating in a "real controlled" lab / Uni study. 

And while it is interesting - the commonality of intersex people is estimated to be about 0.018% of the population - so for the US that would be about 57600 people. That is a very small "target group" to select from as a study group. It is not impossible - but it would be very expensive and time intensive to get enough recruits for a study. 

So if Garmin did the study - and came to some results - the maximum US potential customer group with be 57600 people. Then remove the people who have no interest in a sports watch (75%?) - and then filter it to people who would have an affinity for Garmin - and you are down to maybe 1000-10000 potential watch purchasers.  

So the question is - how much extra would you be willing to pay for a Watch that had an intersex setting? The R&D/studies cost would probably be a few million $ - which Garmin would have to recoup somehow. So a few million $ in expenses vs 1000-10000 extra watch sales - I doubt that would ever happen from Garmin nor Apple.

Sorry not trying to burst your bubble - but it is about realism. 

The other factor is medical as Intersex is not just "one thing" it can be quite a few things our gene pool have "mixed" - so can you define medically 100% what changes are in every Intersex person? (I'm not a doctor - so genuine question) - or can it be 1 intersex person is very different in "build" to another intersex person?) - so do all intersex persons have the same range of male/female hormone spreads? 

So I think both from a financial / products consideration AND from a medical perspective - it is sadly neither a simple nor cheap way forward.

SMH.

There should be. I was stopped setting up my Garmin watch by "What's your gender?" A) Female, B) Male. All the "Calculating cannot work without binary gender option" is BS. Thank you for asking the questions. I'm sad Garmin doesn't have a solution...

You're assuming only people directly affected by this care. Why is that?