A question asking for respondents’ sex is one of the standard sociodemographic characteristics collected in a survey. Until now, it typically consisted of a simple question (e.g., “Are you…?”) with two answer categories (“male” and “female”). In 2019, Germany implemented the additional sex designation divers for intersex people. In survey methodology, this has led to an ongoing discussion how to include a third category in questionnaires. We investigate respondents’ understanding of the third category, and whether introducing it affects data quality. Moreover, we investigate the understanding of the German term Geschlecht for sex and gender. To answer our research questions, we implemented different question wordings asking for sex/gender in a non-probability-based online panel in Germany and combined them with open-ended questions. Findings and implications for surveys are discussed.

询问受访者性别的问题是调查中收集的标准社会人口特征之一。到目前为止，它通常由一个简单的问题（例如，“你是……吗？”）和两个答案类别（“男性”和“女性”）组成。2019 年，德国为双性人实施了额外的性别指定潜水员。在调查方法中，这导致了如何在问卷中包含第三类的持续讨论。我们调查受访者对第三类的理解，以及引入它是否会影响数据质量。此外，我们调查了对德语术语Geschlecht的理解对于性和性别。为了回答我们的研究问题，我们在德国的一个基于非概率的在线小组中实施了不同的问题措辞，询问性别/性别，并将它们与开放式问题相结合。讨论了调查结果和影响。