XX or XY

My friend Mallory taught me this game called XX or XY, where you try to guess the gender of gender ambiguous people out in public. I don't really get to play this game very often, except for maybe every once in a while at the Springville Wal-Mart.

Today at work, one of my co-workers gave me the opportunity to play the game. She sends me this email with a link to an article and asks me, "do you think this editor is a guy or a girl?" I open up the link and my first impression is that it is a woman. A woman with an ambiguous Mullet-like haircut, but looks like a woman because of the business suit she's wearing... or is that a man's oxford shirt. I just couldn't tell. So before I emailed my co-worker back, I decided to do a little Internet investigation to see if I could ascertain the person's gender before I got back with a verdict.

Ususally, magazine Web sites will have a bio page of all of the authors and editors, where pronouns such as "he" or "she" are often used to describe the individual. Did this magazine have a bio page? No, it did not. Strike one! My next resource was a PR database thingy we use at work that lists a lot of contacts for different media organizations. Usually, before the individual's name, there is a prefix like "Ms." or "Mr." Out of every editor and author at this magazine, this person was the only one without a title in front of it's name. Which brings me to this... the person's name. It's Layne. That could be a guy or a girl.

I'm at a loss. I peek my head up over the cube and whisper to my co-worker, "probably a woman. A very manly woman, but probably a woman." She stands up and says to me, that's what I thought, but I called it on the phone and it sounds like a man. That just adds more confusion. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, sounded like a man on the phone because she had chronic bronchitis. Another co-worker often gets mistaken for a teenage girl on the phone. He is an adult man. So, you never can tell. We had a few good laughs about "It's Pat" and then both sat back down in our cubes. But the thing is, it's been bothering me all day. XX or XY?

I'd post a picture and do a poll, but I don't want to jeopardize my employment or the reputatation of my company. I'll e-mail you a picture if you just can't stand it.