Talk:Outing

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The word is used in both meanings in both American and British English --Mjausson

Rose, how come the second meaning of outing is now a noun? I've usually heard it used as a verb, as indeed it is within that entry. Is it used as a noun more often, in your experience?

--Mjausson

This is the same as: to find is a verb, but the present participle finding is a noun. Therefore, in the sentence, "Finding fossils is a great hobby." finding is a noun. Just like outing is the act of ..., so finding is the  act of.... Such words are nouns. Compare: create (verb), creation (noun). Again, creation is the  act of.... Here, I think it is more clear that creation is a noun. If outing were a verb, one could run through (conjugate) the present tense, like find. Compare:

First Person Singular   I find                 I outing Second Person Singular You find              You outing Third Person Singular He/She finds        He/She outings First Person Plural    We find            We outing Second Person Plural  You find           You outing Third Person Plural  They find          They outing

If outing is used this way either in Britain or America, I would be surprised to hear it. Compare: I out You out He/She outs

We out You out They out For this reason I think out is the verb.

To complicate matters, this present participle outing does serve as part of a verb clause in various other tenses, like: Present Continuous:       I am outing Past Continuous:          I was outing Past Anterior Continuous: I had been outing Future:                   I will be outing In this case they outing is considered part of a complex verb tense or a compound verb, — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoseParks (talk • contribs) 17:47, 20 May 2001 (UTC)


 * OK, I've moved the second meaning to "out" and changed the link from "closeted". --Mjausson — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conversion script (talk • contribs) 15:43, 25 February 2002 (UTC)

Here's some evidence that "out" is now used more generally and politically:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/121703D.shtml — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ann Kyslowski (talk • contribs) 02:39, 17 December 2003 (UTC)

‘Support of outing’ section should be a list
It's really hard to follow as a paragraph. Use an unordered list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeclark (talk • contribs) 17:00, 25 June 2005 (UTC)

People who have supported outing as of 1993
On the paragraph "People who have supported outing as of 1993". This is a nice list and I'm sure was useful at one time, but that was over ten years ago, and times have changed. Do we want to keep this? Can we get or create a more recent list? At what point is the cut-off for "this is no longer really relevant"? - 4 december 2005 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.141.99.160 (talk) 18:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

alternate sexuality
I'm not sure I like the phrase "alternate sexuality" in the last paragraph. It sounds too much like "alternate lifestyle" and has a slight connotation of choice to my ears. Any opinions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chesaguy (talk • contribs) 18:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

William percy's rewrite of the entire article
As far as I can tell, William percy (talk · contribs)'s rewrite of the entire article without any talk page discussion has left fairly little in the article that was there before. There is a difference, I think, between being bold and being arrogant; William's complete replacement of the work created by all other editors with his own work which might incorporate the work of other editors in places strikes me as crossing the line into arrogance. Unless there is substantial support for using William's version as the new base, I propose reverting to the old version and then studying William's version to see what in it can be incorporated into the base version. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Outting of anonymous bloggers
The term "outing" has been used frequently to describe revealing personal information of anonymous bloggers. Should this be added to this page? 141.154.82.59 21:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Whopper: Motives section should be cleaned up
The motives section is rife with original research statements (much of this article is, but that section is glaring), it almost reads like a college paper rather than an encyclopedic article. It really needs to be cleaned up. I'm happy to give it a try but I'm worried about doing it before there is some discussion here, given the controversial nature of the subject. Anyone agree/disagree?NYDCSP 22:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Ethics of Outing
I think that there should be a section on the ethics of outing somebody in daily life and how it should not be done. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.149.56.251 (talk) 06:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Ted Haggard
Curiously, the reverend was not mentioned. Wasn't he outed by his own escort/companion?--Bud 00:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Jamie Lee Curtis rumor
I think that it was most often that she was Androgen insensitive, not really "intersexed"... AnonMoos (talk) 14:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Singling out Aiken and Hilton on Wikipedia Outing page unfair
Outing is a very well-read page in Wikipedia. Thus singling out Clay Aiken for example as a typical outing example is so unfair and may be considered injurious. Aiken is one of thousands of publically out gays now. But what does it help in our understanding to have his picture on the top of this page for outing? Similarly outing is considered problematic for many many for various reasons. But why single out Perez Hilton as if he is the main culprit for this phenonemon? At best, Hilton is a secondary media figure. There are tens and tens of individuals who have resorted to this practice towards other public figures and Perez Hilton is not one of the prominent or flagrant users or abusers of this process anyway and is subtle in what he says. So why him specifically? Is it meant as a compliment, as a blame or as a free publicity? Another majour problem with choosing Clay Aitken and Perez Hilton photos for our Wikipedia page purposes is that the choice conveys an obvious bias that is clearly Americocentric as if we must actually know these people for some reason. Sorry to hurt your misconceptions, but both Aiken and Hilton are secondary even tertiary even in the States and as for outside the States, they are practically non-entities and not many, besides the very very savvy observers would recognize either. That's also a reason to delete their photos as non-significant for the subject of outing and as non-significant performers and entertainers themselves (outside the close circles of Entertainment TV and American Idol followers). So I took the liberty to remove both Aiken and Hilton pictures with complete explanation. If there needs to be a picture on top, I would suggest for example Michelangelo Signorile a veritable pioneer of this process and an obvious and some say overzealous activist. So if there needs to be a picture of anybody, I would suggest Michelangelo Signorile werldwayd (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Excluded Groups?
The outing article intro clearly says: "publicising that someone is gay, transgender, or intersex". Two groups are left out. Lesbians (are they included in "gay" or do they need to be mentioned separately in intro) and Bisexuals (can you out a bisexual or not?) This needs to be addressed actually on an article about "outing" werldwayd (talk) 01:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Dubious 'fact'
Under criticism section state: "Some gay activists, however.." Exactly who determine what 'some' gay activist, not 'most' activist? Any proof to back that only 'some' gay activist?

Another quote: "Many gay rights activists defend outing as a tactic." Exactly who are these 'many' gay activist? Again, is there any proof (link source) that majority actually support outing tactic compare to minority of the gay activist supporting this? These words "many" and "some" are quite suspiciously like someone's opinion which violate the wikipedia code of conduct when it comes to writing articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.216.53.250 (talk) 05:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll make the change since no one object to it, gonna make it more balance and unbias —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.216.53.250 (talk) 01:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The same section of the article also says: President of Finland Tarja Halonen released a book for the reelection campaign in 2006, where she mentions her legal work in promoting sexual equality in the effect of the president of SETA, a LGBT rights organization. She criticizes the people in the closet for "not daring to do anything themselves, but being happy when we [SETA] did their work for them".[citation needed]. Nothing in this anecdote (can I call it that, as it must be considered WP:OR without a proper citation) indicates support for outing. If we believe the statement, Ms Halonen merely expressed frustration about closeted people. If Ms Halonen ever supported outing, let alone engaged in it herself, it would merit a mention in the article, but there will have to be a reliable citation confirming the fact. 84.93.168.245 (talk) 00:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Rewording of lead

 * Should the lead be broadened in order to include the examples already listed in the article? Acoma Magic (talk) 01:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Note:This RfC was started nearly a month after initial discussion ended. Insomesia (talk) 01:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how "conflicted gender identity" is the wrong language to use. I was going to just change that and undo the edit but I can't think of better language to use. I'm not aware of any outings of transexuals, so it must be referring to people who cross-dress. I think "conflicted gender identity" is the best description, though I'm open to others. Acoma Magic (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Cross-dressing ≠ transgender. A good starting place for learning about the 'T' in LGBT might be our article, Transgender, which currently has 154 footnotes and doesn't contain the word "conflicted". Rivertorch (talk) 19:05, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem is that "outing" somebody can include publishing a single photograph of a guy in a dress. That doesn't necessarily make him transgender. Acoma Magic (talk) 19:08, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you need exceptional reliable sourcing to support the exceptional claim that "conflicted gender identity" is the generally accepted term to cover the umbrella transgender communities. Insomesia (talk) 22:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I said I'm open to others. Propose a better wording if you don't like it. I don't think that somebody who cross-dresses once is in the transgender community. Acoma Magic (talk) 22:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming good faith here, I must say that firstly it's not your decision who is or is not in LGBT communities, it's the person's choice. And cross-dressing once unlikely is an issue at all. Further you're replacing well known and accepted concepts gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) person's sexual orientation or gender identity with history of same-sex sexual contact or transgender practices. You are fundamentally disregarding what the concept and article is about. If you have reliable sources that shows the definition has changed to your preferred meaning then please share them so we can look at how to reconcile them. Until then your changes are disputed and you need consensus to re-add any of it. I will look at the other changes when I have time but I feel the opening sentence has been stable and fine for a long time. Insomesia (talk) 23:47, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not replacing any concepts. I changed it because a single instance of same-sex sexual contact or cross-dressing being revealed is considered "outing" but that person may not be bisexual or transgender. Acoma Magic (talk) 23:57, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll follow your logic for the sake of discussion. Please present reliable sources that illustrate your concern, maybe that will help show that a change to what we have is needed and possibly what that change should be. At this point I think adding a phrase like "or assumed to be" would cover it. Historically this has been about outing gay men and to a degree lesbians, bisexual and transgender people. We should keep the main definition clear although I can see adding a phrase may help. Insomesia (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * What about this: Outing is primarily the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. However, someone may be outed through the revelation of a single instance of same-sex sexual contact or cross-dressing. Acoma Magic (talk) 00:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You're trying too hard. The lead is fine the way it is and defines it perfectly. A person who isn't LGBT is not considered outed. There's no general understanding that it would be considered such. Your examples are not defined under this term. ツ Teammm   T  M  02:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Edward Schrock isn't LGBT yet he's in the article. Acoma Magic (talk) 02:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * There's another problem with the lead. Schrock is considered "outed" according to this article, yet the allegation is not confirmed. The lead needs to address this sort of thing as well. Acoma Magic (talk) 02:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Does this address the problems? Outing is primarily the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. However, someone may be outed through the revelation of a single instance of same-sex sexual contact, cross-dressing, or even when these are unsubstantiated. Acoma Magic (talk) 03:08, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that's undue and is compounding the problem. Do you have a reliable source where someone has been outed for cross dressing? It's so common now for people to try cross dressing so i just don't see the concern. Insomesia (talk) 08:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm finding it hard getting any sources on cross-dressing and outing as I keep running into blogs about minor incidences or just people detailing going out while dressed as the other gender. Cross-dressing as a joke isn't rare but that's obviously not what the lead would be referring to. Acoma Magic (talk) 10:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The current wording seems satisfactory. I honestly don't see the relevance of cross-dressing to outing, and in the absence of reliable sources showing such relevance I suggest we leave well enough alone. Rivertorch (talk) 19:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not because it excludes several circumstances that are considered outing. I went over all three and addressed them as best I could in my proposal for the lead. I even gave an example of Schrock that this article uses right now, yet excludes according to the introduction. Needs to be fixed! Acoma Magic (talk) 23:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * We need reliable sources to show us what to change and suggest how to make those changes. Without some compelling reliable sources I agree that the stable version seems satisfactory. If you do find some sources we can certainly have a look. Insomesia (talk) 01:07, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You're just being difficult. Sourcing is in the fact that Liberace and Schrock are here and considered to be "outed", yet the bisexuality or the allegations are not confirmed. Acoma Magic (talk) 01:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This is an issue of WP:undue and adding what seems unnecessary without properly weighted and reliable sources (or even with them in my opinion), there would be a WP:coatrack issue as well. The current version describes outing perfectly. Teammm   T  M  01:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It couldn't be considered undo since the wording is just stating what outing includes. If I added a whole lot of information going into a lot of detail, then it would apply. Liberace and Schrock being sourced as "outed" is reliable enough. Explain where in my proposed wording that the 'rack' would be covered with bias because of the 'coats'. I don't want to remove content (the more the merrier) but if the wording stays, then a lot of content is going to be cut because it doesn't meet the currently stated definition of outing. Acoma Magic (talk) 01:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No. The lead, as discussed above, is fine as it is, pointy and POV editing are not what's needed. Insomesia (talk) 01:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * POV editing? It's fixing the contradiction in the article. Acoma Magic (talk) 02:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The material you added was irrelevant and no one saw the relevance but you. No offense. Teammm   T  M  03:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The cases of Liberace and Schrock must not be irrelevant, otherwise they wouldn't be in the article. Acoma Magic (talk) 11:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The WP:Lead doesn't need the additions you are proposing. There are many many nuances of outing and we don't need to discuss everything in the summary. Insomesia (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Read through the article again, it is filled with examples. They are not nuances. Acoma Magic (talk) 20:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No, per points made already. The article seems fine without these proposed alterations.Cluetrainwoowoo (talk) 09:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No I'm not seeing the problem that these edits would solve. Dori ☾Talk ☯ Contribs☽ 23:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Question - What specific examples are being proposed for the lead? Specific individuals?  Or classes of persons?  It's hard to respond to this RfC without more detail.  I looked above in the talk page, but it is not clear what the proposed addition is. --Noleander (talk) 13:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Name of page should be Outing (LGBT) or similar.
Why? Because the word doesn't just refer only to LGBT outings. You can be outed as an anonymous contributor to a website. You can be outed as the secret contributor to a powerful Political Action Committee. You can be outed as a powerful political player behind the scenes in the White House. You can be outed as a CIA agent. The LGBT community does not have a monopoly on this, and to portray this one certain kind of outing as the only really important type is doing the average Wikipedia reader a disservice. Anyone searching for "outing" should be first directed to the disambiguation page, though the search results should probably at least show this page at the top, as this particular context is, imho, the most widely used context.Pär Larsson (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I haven't studied the ins and outs (dammit, no pun intended) of all things dab, but if this is the most widely used context then isn't it the primary topic and deserving of having the one-word name? I'd think the goal would be to get a majority—or at least a plurality—of readers directly to the article they're looking for. Rivertorch (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * When looking at this article in the past, I've also thought about the fact that "outing" doesn't just refer to LGBT. However, I don't believe that there is any doubt that its reference to LGBT is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. We shouldn't have an Outing article for all of the other instances, with a disambiguation page pointing readers to that. We should instead mention in this article how the term is not exclusive to the LGBT community, but by giving it its WP:DUE WEIGHT. Flyer22 (talk) 22:24, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Disagree. "Outing" as a strictly gay/LGBT-concerned term is almost purely a US-centric and very myopic way of looking at an inflammatory topic, that a select few care a lot about, and the vast majority only encounter cursory in passing. The agenda activists will of course see this one aspect or facet as THE most important thing, and wikipedia pages tend to reflect this. Doesn't mean the public worldwide is best served by such. If you mentioned "being outed" to a English speaker outside of America and perhaps the UK (native speaker or not), that person is more likely to respond "oh, you mean as in 'being revealed'?" than the person saying "oh, he's gay?" But hey, wikipedia being what it is this isn't an argument that the LGBT community is going to allow me to win. Enjoy the myopia and not serving the public other than by forcing said public to look at things you favour controlling the flow of information and narrative of.Pär Larsson (talk) 02:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Please don't claim to know who cares about what and who has control where. You seem very bitter. What you should be doing is coming up with a better reason why Outing refers primarily to the things you mentioned rather than the LGBT reference, how it fits under WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and whether those other non-LGBT references are even notable enough to have their own articles - thus providing a basis for your argument in the first place. Teammm  $talk email$ 04:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Parjlarsson, I didn't state that "'Outing' [is] a strictly gay/LGBT-concerned term." Neither did anyone else. I agreed with you that space should be given to other ways that the term is used; however, I did pretty much state that "outing" or "outed" primarily refers to LGBT. If you can provide WP:Reliable sources showing that it isn't primarily used that way, then do list them here. Flyer22 (talk) 04:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, when you stated "though the search results should probably at least show this page at the top, as this particular context is, imho, the most widely used context," weren't you referring to LGBT? Flyer22 (talk) 04:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I also see that the lead does mention other ways that the term is used, meaning outside of a LGBT context; per WP:LEAD, that information should be covered lower in the article as well. Flyer22 (talk) 04:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Apparently my assumptions of good faith were misplaced. Sorry I bothered to inflict my agenda-driven activist myopia on the page, even if it was only to ask an obvious (and still unanswered) question. Rivertorch (talk) 07:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Uh, what was the question? I don't see any above.   little green rosetta $central scrutinizer (talk)$ 12:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Look for the sentence immediately preceding the question mark. ;) Rivertorch (talk) 18:51, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Wanted: Timeline
A lot of this information would be better served by breaking it out into a timeline format. Much of the information here, while cited, is not organized well, is ambiguous, incomplete, or not reflective of current policy and thinking. It would be a lot easier to see these gaps in a timeline format. For example, currently the page says "Military policy and legislation had previously entirely prohibited gay individuals from serving, and subsequently from serving openly, but these prohibitions were ended in September 2011 after the United States Congress voted to repeal the policy." But there's no citation here from a government source, and it omits that transgender people did not gain such protections until this year (2016), and that such protections are not a matter of law, but rather of policy -- in other words, the military leadership has informally dropped enforcement, but the laws remain on the books. I don't know how I'd go about creating and formatting such a section; I've seen them elsewhere on wikipedia but the styles seem to vary from one topic to the next. If someone who is a wiki expert can come and frame that in, I can start plugging in citations and dates. 76.17.167.78 (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

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Restructuring article
I just went through this article, mostly touching up copy errors, but I notice that there is much potential room for improvement in structure as well. Most glaringly, the arguments for and against outing are currently spread out, with some in the history section, some in the motives section, some in the support section, and some in the criticism section. They should be presented together in a clear fashion. Another big absence is any sort of discussion about how views about outing have changed over time, particularly as LGBTQ acceptance has grown in society at large. My sense is that it's looked upon much less favorably now than it was a decade or two ago, but I don't have RS for that. Editors with more knowledge than me should be bold in updating this page — the topic deserves a better article than this one its current state. Sdkb (talk) 09:47, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggested edit
This should have a much more specific title since it erroneously shows up when you Google the word "outing" which means excursion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1005:b05e:5265:954c:553c:5da:47d4 (talk) 18:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent changes (February 2021)
Hi, I've reverted your recent changes to the lead section of the article because they are inconsistent with the body of the article, which focuses almost entirely on LGBT aspects. If you have reliably sourced information on "outing" that would not be more appropriate in the article on Doxing, feel free to share it. —  Newslinger  talk   04:12, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:NPOV violations
This article, especially the section, very aggressively violates WP:NPOV. All the moral postulates made by Signorile (and other authorities on "outing" associated with Outweek) are presented as fact and absolute truth. I'll be editing it and trying to save as much of Signorile's postulates but some could go. It all needs rewriting per WP:NPOV. 2A01:4C8:802:E282:BCD0:6E65:9343:6CB0 (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Yikes. I've cut redundant information and large quotes from Signorile. There's a lot of weight given to him there. The tag should probably be kept unless we agree it should be removed. Maxx-♥ talk and coffee ☕ 12:23, 12 May 2023 (UTC)