Talk:Caitlín R. Kiernan/Archive 1

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WikiProject Comics B-Class Assesment required
This article needs the B-Class checklist filled in to remain a B-Class article for the Comics WikiProject. If the checklist is not filled in by 7th August this article will be re-assessed as C-Class. The checklist should be filled out referencing the guidance given at Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria. For further details please contact the Comics WikiProject. Comics-awb (talk) 15:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

C-Class rated for Comics Project
As this B-Class article has yet to receive a review, it has been rated as C-Class. If you disagree and would like to request an assesment, please visit WikiProject_Comics/Assessment and list the article. Hiding T 14:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Separate list
Is it time to think about splitting the list of into a separate bibliography / list of works article, as done at Arthur C Clarke & List of works by Arthur C. Clarke.

The continuously growing list here is swamping the article imo, and makes it more diffcult to navigate (ie, if i wanted to see the external links). A list also has the advantage of being a better redirect target for the books, as descriptions of the works can be added. If no opposition, i'll so such a split soon(ish).Yobmod (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it is a good idea for all the reasons you stated. I'd been wondering about it myself. Aleta  Sing 22:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oki, i've done the split, and added a "main" link here at the bibliogrpahy. I left what i considered the major works, the novels and collections. If anyone knows better, feel free to move important works from the list article - in the future, i think the novels and collections list should also be reduced (to the most recognised works), but that can be done when the list gets long again.Yobmod (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

personal bio details
Though the following is sourced, I question it's appearance in the article:

"Kiernan is a transsexual,[5] a lesbian,"

How many articles on cisgenered, heterosexual authors bother to point out that the author in question is not transgender and is heterosexual? I might also question the inclusion of the fact that the author's Wiccan, though it seems less questionable than mentioning gender and sexual orientation. There's a distinct double standard here, guys. And unless someone can come up with a very good rationalization for including this information, I'm going to remove. And no, it hardly matters that the author has made the information public in her blog and elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moosalot (talk • contribs) 19:16, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I would add, I'm going to make this edit tomorrow, unless someone can demonstrate a substantive argument that justifies this singling out of TS/queer persons. --Moosalot (talk) 23:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Did you even bother to read the source? "So, as a transsexual, how can I not write about the transmutation of flesh? How can I not write about having one mind, and a body that doesn't match? So when I'm writing about parahumans in a story like 'Faces in Revolving Souls', it's partly autobiography -- writing about what I've been through. I'm never going to be comfortable in this body, for a lot of reasons, and I'm constantly drawn to the subject of transformation, in a lot of different aspects."


 * The subject identifies it as an important factor in her writing. Who are you to declare, on the basis of your own views of political correctness, that something an author says is important to her writing is to be censored out of Wikipedia. If you remove this, I'll revert and cite you for vandalism. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course I read the source. It's not a question of whether or not Kiernan finds these things relevant to her fiction. Having read many CRK interviews, there are many things she considers very relevant to her fiction that she's publicly discussed (the sea and Lewis Carroll, for example) which aren't noted here. Singling out highly personal, sensitive facts about her gender and sexual orientation – when it's not routinely done with cisgendered, straight authors - is, at best, a questionable double standard. Removing it would hardly constitute vandalism, and I feel like you're resorting to a threat right away, instead of trying to make a reasoned argument (which you've not yet made). --Moosalot (talk) 00:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that she considers it important and discusses it is a good reason for keeping it in. It sounds likeer you have a better case for adding those other details than for removing these. Lady  of  Shalott  00:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

If we added everything that she's cited as extremely important – from her blog and interviews, for example, you'd need to write an entire section regarding influence, which you'd be doing, of course, to justify keeping the information that should be edited out. Look at the Stephen King article. Anywhere, does it say, "King is a cisgendered heterosexual"? No, of course not. It's not included in the King entry because his sexuality and gender are considered normative states. --Moosalot (talk) 00:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In his case those details are not particularly pertinent. In hers they are. It is a question of relevance, not normativity. Lady  of  Shalott  00:36, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Do you honestly, for even a moment, believe that King's wife (a reflection of his heterosexuality) and comfort with his birth sex have not played a huge role is his writing? --Moosalot (talk) 00:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, and they are discussed in the article about him, contrary to what you seem to be claiming. Lady  of  Shalott  00:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I do not claim they aren't discussed. I claim that he is not classified or singled-out socially because of them. There's not a special category for "heterosexual American authors." Why not? I'll simply report this to "the biographies of living persons noticeboard" and see how it goes. It's an important issue, well beyond this article, and needs to be addressed. --Moosalot (talk) 00:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe I'm going to create categories like "cisgendered scientists" and "heterosexual writers." It baffles me how people fail to see these categories/double standards as discriminatory, or how Wikipedia allows it to persist. It's certainly time it be brought to the attention of the GLAAD and other groups. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moosalot (talk • contribs) 23:31, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * In Wikipedia Frank Yerby is identified as African-american, Phillip Roth as Jewish and Samuel Delany as gay so there is precedence unless trannsgender is somehow different than racial, religous and gay.Nitpyck (talk) 05:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. Shouldn't this article be rewritten to use "he" instead of "she"? If this author is a transsexual that means he has an XY chromosome pair which means male. Unless he has somehow changed that to XX, then she is not appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.117.67.34 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 13 May 2013

Born a male, but no mention of sexual reassignment. Why?
This seems an important point to me, more important than sexual preference. Because it is important, and nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the subject was born as a male, I call the hiding of this fact extremely intellectually dishonest. I came to Wikipedia to get the answer as to whether I was looking at and listening to a male (male physiognomy and male voice), but I did not get that answer. What does that say about the usefulness of this article?

For instance, other biographies give their subject's birth name as, William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946). We don't have anything like this in the present article. Admittedly, it is very difficult to find any reference of these facts on the subject Caitlin R. Kiernan on the web, not in the subject's own web page or others.

Another example, in a 2008 Locus interview, the name Caitlín Kiernan is repeatedly referred to in its past tense, as in "Caitlín Kiernan was born Ireland and grew up in rural Alabama." Is this true, and is it grammatically correct? Was the baby's birth name "Caitlin"? Encyclopediae should disclose these important biographic details.

Again, "She studied vertebrate paleontology, geology, and biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Colorado at Boulder"...The question being was Caitlin a "she" during this period, and if not, then I would call this a discrepancy or error of grammar. giggle 14:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory.george.lewis (talk • contribs)
 * The article does say she is transsexual. If you want it to have more details than that, then reliable sources must be found. That is true for any article; it is especially true for a biography of a living person. Lady  of  Shalott  15:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Birth name
I have uncovered strong evidence that her birth name is probably Kenneth R. Wright, based on the following sentence in the article: "In 1988, she co-authored a paper describing the new genus and species of mosasaur, Selmasaurus russelli." Going to the page on Selmasaurus, we find one reference from 1988 (Kenneth R. Wright; Samuel Wayne Shannon (March 31, 1988), "A new plioplatecarpine mosasaur (Squamata, Mosasauridae) from Alabama", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 8 (1): 102–107). Clicking on that link, we see that Wright is affiliated with Red Mountain Museum, as is Kiernan. Furthermore, if we look at reference 3 on the Selmasaurus page, we see it's by Kiernan. Accessing that article (Kiernan, Caitlin R. 2002. Stratigraphic distribution and habitat segregation of mosasaurs in the Upper Cretaceous of western and central Alabama, with an historical review of Alabama mosasaur discoveries. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22 (1): 91–103), we find Kiernan referring to her prior work in the following sentence: "Elsewhere (Wright, 1986a, b), the author has argued that the displacement of Tylosaurus as the predominant mosasaur taxon by Clidastes and the relative decrease in numbers of Platecarpus should be interpreted as an example of habitat segregation and not as a genuine reduction in the local population density of tylosaurs or of Platecarpus." Looking in that article's "literature cited" section, we see several works by a K.R. Wright, including the 1988 article co-authored with Samuel Wayne Shannon.--Robbstrd (talk) 23:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, this looks like the proverbial smoking gun. An interview with a Kenneth Wright appears in the April 24th, 1990 issue of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's student newspaper, Kaleidoscope. The article lists Wright as being 25 years old, the same age as Kiernan (who attended the same university) on that date. Though the article describes Wright as an English major, it also states that his former major was in biology, and that he was a former columnist at the newspaper (a November 3rd, 1987 edition of the paper includes a letter from Wright in which he mentions his contributions to the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, his affiliation with the Red Mountain Museum, and the University of Colorado, all which match up to Kiernan's bio). Perhaps most significantly, the 1990 article is about Wright's coming out as a transsexual AND also mentions his legal name change to "Caitlin Ramey Kiernan" (p. 3). Whilst the WP article lists her middle name as "Rebekah," I think this is pretty solid evidence that Wright and Kiernan are one and the same.--Robbstrd (talk) 23:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Caitlín Kiernan here. Though it looks as if people are having fun with this, I'll be a spoil sport and settle the matter and save everyone some time. Yes, my birth name was Kenneth R. Wright. A bibliography to be published later this year by Subterranean Press, as an appendix to Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume Two), will include this information, though it has never really been a secret. I'll post this response on my LiveJournal tomorrow, perhaps, so that you can confirm that yes, I am who I say I am. Unless I'm not. AuntBeast64 (talk) 17:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * So, three years ago the subject of the article confirmed her birth name, and it's not in the article? It is important, since some of her scientific work was published under that name. Also, it's weird that the pronoun "she" is used throughout, even when referring to her childhood, when she was a he of a different name. I won't bother to try to fix it since I guess someone will just revert it and call me a transphobe. 202.81.249.81 (talk) 05:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Whether you are personally hostile to trans people isn't relevant. It is Wikipedia policy to refer to a trans woman using female pronouns throughout an article about her. –Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The Encyclopedia of Alabama does not actually directly source anything (though general references are given), much less the source of the birth name. (talk) 9:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

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