Representing Gender in Ontologies - A Dispositional Perspective.

Like biological sex, gender is a crucial determinant of health. Its representation nonetheless remains underdeveloped in many electronic medical records and health information standards. This paper explores an ontological characterization of gender in compliance with the OBO principles for ontology development and the BFO upper ontology. In particular, we deploy J. McKitrick’s dispositional account of gender (identity). Our main proposal is that gender can be analyzed as a behavioral and “extrinsic” disposition, as distinct from the BFO category of disposition. We also briefly discuss the implications of our dispositional approach to gender for so-called “gender roles” and gender-related information entities in existing ontologies.