How to make radio buttons in a form "not required"

Here is part of my form that asks for a user's gender. If I leave it blank when testing it,

					  <cfinput 
					type="radio" name="USER_GENDER"
					value="male"/>
					  Male
					  <cfinput 
					type="radio" name="USER_GENDER"
					value="female"/>
					  Female

Code (markup):

The only way I was able to workaround this, was to place a third option that I marked as checked:

					  <cfinput 
					type="radio" name="USER_GENDER"
					value="male"/>
					  Male
					  <cfinput 
					type="radio" name="USER_GENDER"
					value="female"/>
					  Female
					  <cfinput 
					type="radio" name="USER_GENDER"
					value="It's a secret!" 
					checked="yes"/>
					  It's a secret!

Code (markup):

How else can I allow a user to leave this field blank? I tried using cfset USER_GENDER="" before the input fields, but this didn't correct the issue.

 

What happens?

 

I guess, when you submit the form, without checking any radio button.. it would complain that

#FORM.USER_GENDER# is not defined

______
If that is the problem, add this to where you are reading that field in the second cfm page:

<cfset userGender ="">
<cfif isDefined("FORM.USER_GENDER")>
   <cfset userGender  = FORM.USER_GENDER>
</cfif>

Code (markup):

 

Typically this is what the <cfparam/> tag is for:

<cfparam name="form.user_gender" default="" />

Code (markup):

If no value is passed form.user_gender will be blank. Otherwise it will be overwritten.