Talk:Rose McGowan

Pronouns
Poison2007, regarding this and this, what proof do you have that McGowan no longer goes by feminine pronouns? Like I mentioned in this discussion about gender-neutral pronouns at Talk:Ezra Miller, the Associated Press states, "They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases as a singular and-or gender-neutral pronoun, when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy. However, rewording usually is possible and always is preferable." It also states, "In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person's name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun. Be sure that the phrasing does not imply more than one person."

I stated at Talk:Ezra Miller that at articles for non-binary people, we should also keep in mind that a non-binary person may not use gender-neutral pronouns. Ruby Rose for, example, identifies as genderfluid, but still uses feminine pronouns. We had people jumping to use singular they for her without knowing her pronoun preference (and some seemingly did so even while knowing it). If the non-binary person hasn't expressed a pronoun preference, it might be best to go by the pronouns that the preponderance of reliable sources are using for that person. Although Miley Cyrus has identified as genderfluid, her Wikipedia article still uses feminine pronouns. This seems to be due to the fact that Cyrus didn't specify a pronoun preference and the preponderance of reliable sources still refer to her as a she.

Pinging Dawnleelynn and Cornellier, who have reverted you thus far. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pinging me, this is the first time I have even come across this type of issue on Wikipedia. Btw,, I did not mean you were writing for multiple people. I meant you were replacing a pronoun used for a single person with a pronoun used for multiple people. It did not come out right in the edit summary. Anyway, I can see I will have to pay more attention for this issue to come up in BLP articles going forward. dawnleelynn(talk) 02:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Ditto dawnleelynn's first sentence. English-language convention trumps the subject's preferences. As the guidelines cited above state "They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases ... rewording always is preferable ... use the person's name in place of a pronoun". Suggest doing that. --Cornellier (talk) 02:49, 19 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Dawnleelynn and Cornellier, you're welcome. Wikipedia does have MOS:GENDERID, though; it advises to give precedence to self-designation. Use of singular they in place of gender pronouns, however, can be an issue because of the confusion it can cause. This is why I pointed to the Associated Press statement. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:24, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

If McGowan uses they/them pronouns and does not also use she/her pronouns, then the article would use them, per the MOS, that much is straightforward and unproblematic: compare the articles on Emma Sulkowicz, Jill Soloway, River Butcher, etc. But as Flyer says, not all non-binary people use they, e.g. Rebecca Sugar accepts they but also accepts she so Sugar's article retains she. Hence, we would need to find RS clarifying what pronouns McGowan uses before changing them. I don't have much time to search at the moment, and my cursory attempts to were overcome by the large number of (irrelevant/chaff) news articles which mention McGowan using the pronoun they to refer to Rain Dove. (Btw, re "English-language convention": singular they is older than singular you—by the time singular you displaced thou, singular they had been a part of English for centuries—so there's no problem with using it as far as "English-language convention" is concerned, heh.) -sche (talk) 07:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * -sche, as you know, per previous discussions at the MOS talk page, I subscribe to what style guides such as the Associated Press style guide states on the matter of using singular they in place of gendered pronouns -- "rewording usually is possible and always is preferable. In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person's name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible." As you also know, some style guides mentioned in the Singular they article suggest the same thing. We have discussed at MOS that use of singular they in place of gendered pronouns for non-binary people can be confusing. If it were never problematic, there wouldn't be guidance to be careful with it and to limit its use, and Dawnleelynn and Cornellier wouldn't have stated what they stated above. It wouldn't keep coming up at MOS. I'm not stating that we shouldn't use singular they at all for non-binary people in articles about them or referring to them, but I do believe limited use is best. MOS does not state that we should use singular they, just like it doesn't state that we should use "ze," "sie," "hir," "co" and "ey" for non-binary people who go that route. As noted in that "keep coming up at MOS" discussion, I linked to, editors still have not agreed to add advice on use of singular they to the MOS because there "is no consensus on what to do with it." Like SMcCandlish (who I'm only pinging because I'm quoting him) stated, "Conflicts about singular they come up often enough we should probably try to come to a clear consensus on what to do with it, but we have no need to declare in the guideline itself 'we have no consensus'. The few times we've done things like that in the past it's led to nasty messes (like years of battlegrounding over capitalization of common names of species). We have no need to 'signal that we are aware of' singular they, since everyone familiar with English is aware of it. Our WP:P&G pages serve a 'do this, don't do that' purpose, not a 'catalogue what we're aware of' purpose." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's rare, but this is one case where AP Stylebook and MoS are actually consistent (MoS is just less specific, and doesn't recommend they explicity, but what we say at MOS:IDENTITY certainly permits it). At any rate, I don't think there's any longer a real WP editorial concern about whether singular they is ever permissible. Rather, it's about when it's applicable to a particular subject, and writing to avoid it when possible.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:53, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish, I'm not completely clear on what you mean by the "AP Stylebook and MoS are actually consistent." I see similarities. The AP states, "In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person's name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun. Be sure that the phrasing does not imply more than one person." The MOS states, "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article. Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example 'man/woman', 'waiter/waitress', 'chairman/chairwoman') that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and '[sic]' may be used where necessary)." Both the AP and MOS give respect to self-designation, but the AP (except for the "if essential" part) advises that that we use the person's name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible when we do this. The Emma Sulkowicz article that -sche pointed to is a good example of how we should do this. It aligns with what the AP states about using singular they since it doesn't go overboard with it, lets the reader know early on that Sulkowicz uses singular they pronouns, and it seems to be careful that the phrasing does not imply more than one person.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:52, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * With regard to "what we say at MOS:IDENTITY certainly permits it," this, as you know, is how some editors feel about using "ze," "sie," "hir," "co" and "ey." They feel that MOS:GENDERID supports those choices. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:00, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * On the second paragraph: They're just misreading. MOS:IDENTITY says "Avoid confusing constructions", and later has an explicit cross-reference to MOS:NEO, which is pretty clear on this: "Neologisms are expressions coined recently or in isolated circumstances to which they have remained restricted. In most cases, they do not appear in general-interest dictionaries, though they may be used routinely within certain communities or professions. They should generally be avoided ...." One the first paragraph: "Compatible" would have been a better word than "consistent". MOS:IDENTITY has: "When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources."  Since everyone who is the subject of news-event coverage and/or popular-culture coverage (entertainment journalislm, etc.) – that is, virtually everyone to whom this "transgender people and their pronouns" question ever pertains – RS are automatically going to be either using they or using the subject's expressed preference or he or she, or in many constructions re-writing to avoid. They are not going to be defying the subject and everyone else by referring to a transwoman as he, nor adopting made-up "pronouns" like zim or s/he from the subject's own website or whatever. This will be true because AP is explicit on these matters, and the rest of the news style guides are, too, and they agree with AP on this, producing a very dominant result in contemporary RS coverage.  Even some non-news style guides are being updated to agree (they tend to have much slower publication cycles).  Since we have a rule to follow the sources on this (which we often do not on style matters, or our video game articles would read like gamer zines and our legal articles would be impenetrabble to anyone without a law degree), there is no conflict on this matter between AP Stylebook and Wikipedia's house MoS.  It would be ideal if we addressed the matter more explicitly, but it's politicized. Every RfC and similar discussion on the matter turns into a shitshow, mostly because of far-left and far-right attempts to attach other concerns as "riders", dragging the discussion into off-topic debates, e.g. about rewriting history with things like "Caitlyn Jenner won the men's decathlon gold medal in the 1976 Summer Olympics" (or writing confusing nonsense like "She fathered her first child in 1978"), versus going to the opposite extreme and demanding to suppress every mention of the newer name – even "Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn Jenner)" or "Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce Jenner)" – in any context that pre-dates the coming-out/transition. We'll get MoS more clear on the matter (and surely in explicit instead of implicit agreement with AP, et al.) at some point.  But WP:Writing policy is hard, and WP:There is no deadline. It's better to get it right, with strong community support, than have a questionable consensus push in something that causes more dispute than it solves (like early versions of MOS:IDENTITY did in the first place). In the interim, WP:GNL is actually good advice, even if it's "just an essay". I don't see any evidence of contention about it, and many essays enjoy guideline-like acceptance (BRD, AADD, CIR, COMMONSENSE, etc.).
 * SMcCandlish, I did at first wonder if you were referring to the general part of MOS:IDENTITY as well. The general part of MOS:IDENTITY is not specifically about gender identity, though. MOS:GENDERID is, and it states, "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources." So, if the subject has expressed a pronoun preference, it doesn't go by the "use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources" aspect when sources disagree. As for WP:GNL, I've known about that essay. I like what it currently states in its "Precision and clarity" section. What it states there is what I have tried to get across regarding the vaginismus matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:50, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * "The general part of MOS:IDENTITY is not specifically about gender identity, though." Well, yes, that's why it's the general part. That doesn't make it inapplicable, just a level of generality higher. As for "self-designation", that means a name; it doesn't refer to use of inflectional morphemes in the language (i.e., pronouns).  It's often helpful to switch examples: "Jaguar XJ-6" is a designation of a specific automobile; "it" is not. If the manufacturer likes to say write "she", by away of analogy to traditional language about ships, in their marketing materials, WP would never in a million years follow suit.  Could the wording be clarified about this? It should be, but any attempt to revise that section in the slightest tends to produce weeks or months of venting, and we generally don't have a real problem with it interpretation anyway. It's rare for someone to try to mis-read it as an instruction to insert "zie" or "hirm", and when we revert the occasional cases of people doing this, they let it alone.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish, no one has interpreted "self-designation" as simply applying to names; MOS:GENDERID is not focused on names. It's focused on gender identity. This is why it uses "self-designation" when stating "When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers." That section is focused on "pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns." The only focus it has on names is when it states "The MoS does not specify when and how to present former names, or whether to use the former or present name first." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I appreciate all of this discussion of "they", and don't want to cut it off (feel free to continue if you like), but just want to say that as far as this specific article, it looks like McGowan still uses "she", since her own website uses "she", and American and British media from the last month use "she". (I understand why a few users saw McGowan was non-binary and assumed all non-binary people used "they" and tried to switch the pronouns, but not all non-binary people use "they"; Rebecca Sugar is another who uses "she".) -sche (talk) 07:36, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep. For this article, this is essentially a settled matter as far as both WP:V and WP:ABOUTSELF go (the policies on which MOS:IDENTITY is based in the first place). On the more general matter, the huge multi-thread debate about this stuff at WP:VPPOL a few years ago raised this issue.  People who are, in one sense or another, transgender are not some kind of hive mind.  They all have their own preferences and self-projection.  One-size-fits-all approaches are basically fiction invented by "allies" with a language-change advocacy hobby/agenda.  Several of them were criticized in that debate, by actual TG editors, as terrible allies who are making assumptions and trying to impose their own preferences just as much as homophobes and TG-denial people do, just in a different subjective direction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the notion (or rather implication) that all transgender people or non-binary people think alike is something that I've countered more than once on Wikipedia. It's part of the reason I noted above that some non-binary people continue to use gendered pronouns for themselves. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I just saw the exact same thing come up at another talk page yesterday: someone lecturing everyone on the One True Way to refer to TG people as if none of them were capable of having their own preferences. I'll refrain from linking to it here (as an individual "shaming" matter, and unrelated to McGowan directly), and just take it to user talk.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish, I'll link the talk page. I think you mean Talk:The Matrix (franchise). I was there. And, clearly, I have no qualms about pointing to it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:38, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's not even the thread I was thinking of, though the issue seems to be happening there, as well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * At the risk of straying off-topic, I can't believe no-one on that page has directed WW to WP:BLUDGEON. -sche (talk) 03:07, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish did give the not a hive mind statement there as well. So in addition to that, what else is stated there, and not seeing a similar matter when looking at SMcCandlish's edit history, I figured I had the right page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:11, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Regarding this, we should probably leave a WP:Hidden note. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:34, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅. -sche (talk) 05:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps update the ten year old photo?
Jontel (talk) 05:48, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Iran Controversy
Should this be added in the controversy section and how — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClaybourneAmans (talk • contribs) 20:44, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

In addition, McGowan issued this tweet regarding the previous tweet. It seems relevant to the "controversy" because it acknowledges the extreme backlash and justification of the above tweet. I can't edit the page but here is a BBC article where both tweets are cited: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50987759 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.199.16.150 (talk) 04:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Kobe Bryant controversy - heroes
The material setting out the subject's congratulations of Bryant as a "hero" for apologising for having raped (he conceded she did not consent to sexual intercourse) a woman has been deleted by an editor on the basis that there is no controversy. The subject of this article has the status of a social pundit who is widely reported when expressing her views and opinions. Clearly, the subject deliberately seeks this kind of coverage. Having acquired this standing, the subject's opinions should properly be incorporated into the article. This particular opinion (the heroism of a rapist) is highly controversial on any view. It has been reported widely. That it is a controversial view is plainly the reason it has been so reported. Whether or not the word "controversy" has been printed in association with it is irrelevant. It is controversial, it is part of the subject's public posture (pundit on such matters) and should be published here for those reasons. sirlanz 03:10, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We do not decide what a controversy is ourselves. We go by whether or not WP:Reliable sources have called something a controversy. It's that simple. But then again, like I recently stated on your talk page, your competence editing BLPs is lacking. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:56, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
 * For the benefit of editors, I reproduce an exchange published on my Talk page regarding material I had included referencing the Weinstein apology and the subject's not having applauded him for his (in contradistinction to the subject's response to Bryant's apology):


 * After this edit was made, you made this edit. In what way do you think it is appropriate to add this pointy WP:Synthesis? And by "pointy WP:Synthesis," I mean you (not sources) essentially stating, "But look, everyone, she didn't give Harvey Weinstein the same pass. Hmmm." And, yes, I reverted both additions.


 * I see that you were blocked by Nick-D just last year for a BLP violation. This latest edit by you further shows your lack of competence editing BLPs. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:51, 13 February 2020 (UTC)


 * First of all, there is no need to get all worked up about this, so relax for starters. Yes, it was pointy - no question about that. What was the point? Balance. If the heroism went in, (and I have no objection to your deleting it altogether), the factual material I provided gave readers the opportunity to make up their minds about its value for themselves. I'd like to see how you frame your suggestion that it was WP:BLP, though. What was not factual? And you are out of line questioning my competence. Don't make this personal. sirlanz 00:46, 14 February 2020 (UTC)


 * --sirlanz 05:33, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
 * There was no need to copy that here, especially since I linked to the discussion on your talk page.


 * On a side note: Regardless of what one thinks about Bryant's innocence concerning the rape case, he never conceded to the accusation that he raped her; he stated, "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." Obviously, people are going to take from that what they will. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 22:57, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Rose McGowan 2012.jpg

Is it necessary to mention she is an activist in the lead?
She's more notable as an actress. It doesn't say in the lead of Leonardo DiCaprio that he's an activist, although he is such. --Thedarkknightli (talk) 09:29, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * She's definitely more notable as an actress, but her activism is still a main contributor to her notability. I'm not sure if that's the case for DiCaprio, but if so, you might consider adding the descriptor there or bringing it up for discussion at the talk page. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:40, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In my opinion I feel that her activism, especially with the last 10 years go hand in hand with her notability as an actress. Realhypnoticd (talk) 06:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)