Talk:Rebecca Root

Rebecca's former name
I don't want to start a back and forth of edits with anyone, especially as it feels like everyone has the best/good intentions, we just disagree on something.

I should have sourced my edit, my mistake. I assume that we all know that sourcing this information shouldn't be a problem though, it seems clear to me to be the truth.

I'll try to explain where I'm coming from with this, and hopefully others can too and we can try to understand each other better.

So I came across Rebecca in the Queens Gambit, like many people here I'm sure. I was interested in her/who she was, so I looked her up on wiki to see what else she was in, see if I had seen anything etc. While I was reading through her page, I wondered what her name was before transitioning, so I scrolled to the top to where I expected to see it, but it wasn't there of course. Intrigued, I googled it, and it was... difficult to find. I found this really odd, it felt like it was being intentionally hidden, which may just be me, but I think would be wrong to hide. There's nothing wrong with it, it should be normalised, why should it be hidden?

Regarding Nardog's comment that "no, notability on Wikipedia has a very specific definition"

I don't really understand why this means that information about this specific person cant be on their specific page... isn't this what Wikipedia is for? A resource to find as much free (and true of course!) information in one place that you're looking for? This specific information is, I feel, clearly very relevant to this specific person, and warrants inclusion in a page of information about that specific person, who in this case is of course, Rebecca. NotIranian (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, here's the context. We have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rebecca_Root&action=history&offset=20210223040000&limit=4 these four edits] - two being the addition of information by, and the other two being reverts, one by myself and the other by . The edit summary for my own revert was not in cited source; and fails MOS:DEADNAME since Root was not notable under her former name - I shall break that down into two parts.
 * First, not in cited source - the phrase was inserted into a paragraph having two sources, one being The Independent and the other the BBC. Neither of these sources mentions the name Graham Root at all, so straight off, this is a WP:BLP violation (perhaps I should have linked that policy earlier).
 * Second, fails MOS:DEADNAME since Root was not notable under her former name - if you follow the link you will see the text In the case of a living transgender or non-binary person, the birth name should be included in the lead sentence only if the person was notable under that name. This is followed by the examples of Chelsea Manning and Laverne Cox. Here, we need to decide if Rebecca Root was notable under her former name. Now, in their edit summary, Nardog wrote notability on Wikipedia has a very specific definition, so I will elaborate: the question is, did Graham Root receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of that person when they were still using the name Graham? Or, to turn it around, did the media only start writing about Root after she adopted the name Rebecca?
 * So what we have here is exactly the same situation as Laverne Cox, which is amplified with If such a subject was not notable under their former name, it usually should not be included in that or any other article, even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. having a footnote A "deadname" from a pre-notability period of the subject's life should not appear in that person's bio .... -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * NotIranian, to add to Redrose64's excellent explanation, I think you could use reading Deadnaming to start with. Invoking transgender people's former names could be a distressing experience for them, so even if it feels like just another piece of biographical information to readers like you, we err on the side of respecting the subjects when it comes to articles about people who are still alive. Nardog (talk) 21:26, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses, they are very detailed and informative and I appreciate the time you took. Thanks also for providing clearer context for this topic for others who may read this.

I was wrong. By Wikipedia's rules and standards, it should only be her current name there.

In regards to deadnaming, I understand and try the best I can to empathise, but know that I will never fully understand it because I've never been close to experiencing it. This is of course something that warrants it's own in depth and delicate discussion, but in short, without diminishing peoples feelings, I believe the context is vitally important. NotIranian (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Her 1990s acting roles were performed when she was a man, using her original male name, years before her gender transition began. The article should state the name she used then because it's relevant to her career. That's significantly different to Laverne Cox, who didn't come into the public eye until after transitioning. It's closer to Elliot Page in regard to starting an acting career under their original name. Jim Michael (talk) 17:49, 22 September 2021 (UTC)