Talk:The Man Who Would Be Queen/mediation

Purpose of this page
We've been discussing the meta issues on the other page. I've created this page so we can discuss the substantive content issues regarding this article alone.

Could people say what they feel is objectionable about this particular article, ignoring the other articles in the mediation request for the time being? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 20:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Summary of discussion so far
1. Relevant policies and guidelines are WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:BLP, WP:COI, and WP:CIV.

2. Under COI, Jokestress has agreed not to edit the articles in question. She may make suggestions on talk pages, but only if there are no BLP violations. I don't regard James Cantor and Dicklyons as having a COI, though both are asked to adhere strictly to reliable sources, and to make extra efforts to observe NPOV.

3. Dick is asked to observe WP:CIV.

4. Regarding NPOV, there has clearly been quite a bit of POV editing, I would say particularly from Dick. The problem with partisan editing is that it creates more of the same on the other side. One side adds, "it's not clear whether Bailey was punished or not" (which has a POV ring to it), so the other side feels compelled to add, "or exonerated" (which is seen as laboring the point). If both parties had left it simply as, "the university declined to release its findings," there would be no POV.

Everyone is therefore asked to pay close attention to the quality of the writing, and to faithfully summarize the views of reliable sources in good publications, without stressing one view over another, and without using certain words to indicate that one view might be superior, or words that hint at something without actually saying it.

5. Citations: the articles needs better citation practices. The policy, WP:V, says that anything that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, needs a source &mdash; and that source must be cited directly after the quote, or after the sentence/paragraph that has been or might be challenged. I see lots of citations in the articles that come a long way after the sentence in question, or citations that are missing entirely, and we've found one passage plagiarized from a news article, then put in quotation marks and wrongly attributed to Bailey.

6. Original research: editors should never add their own opinions e.g. adding "unconscionable" and "intimidation" to Dreger's description of what she called a campaign of harassment. We don't have to use an author's exact words when not quoting, and in fact it's better not to. But the summarizing has to be done carefully; we can't add words that express what we feel about the harassment.

7. The term/phenomenon issue is easily dealt with, in my view, by using "concept" instead. It's impossible to say whether Blanchard's two types of transsexual constitutes a "phenomenon." He doesn't know, and nor do we &mdash; these are theoretical constructs that appear to be helpful in clinical settings, or are misleading, depending on your viewpoint. They are not known to be facts about the world, and I doubt Blanchard would argue that they were.

Will add more as I think of it. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 20:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your last point The journal article I cited (smith et al) clearly states that the two types differed on many variables. They even stated "Thus, our data largely support the idea that homosexual and nonhomosexual transsexuals are different subtypes with distinct characteristics. These characteristics suggest that routes leading to a request for SR are not identical because they reflect different etiologies." That is scientific proof at least two types exist.--Hfarmer (talk) 22:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Content issues
Please add your objections to the article here.

Okay I'll start
Okay, let's start with something already mentioned on the "meta" page: Dicklyon's insertion of the following material regarding Charle's Moser's commentary: "For example, Charles Moser, of the Department of Sexual Medicine, Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, San Francisco, questions Dreger's conclusions, 'Did she uncover a pattern of lies and false allegations? No, the allegations were basically true; they just did not constitute any formal misconduct,' and concludes, 'The death of free speech and academic freedom has been highly exaggerated. Science is not free of politics, never has been, and never will be. The origins of transsexuality are still not known and the concept of Autogynephilia is still controversial. Can we all get back to science now?'".[39]" I think that aside from the issue of whether this should be considered a reliable source (despite Slimvirgin's early musings, I still think "no"), there is still the issue whether this material belongs in the article. So much has been written in reliable sources about this controversy that it cannot possibly be a sufficient argument just to say "It's in a reliable source so it belongs in the article." I think that Moser's material, in its entirety, doesn't belong, and I think that Jokestress' initial suggestion and Dicklyon's edit to put it there exemplify why we have reached an impasse. Let me count the ways that Dicklyon's edit (initially proposed, more ore less, by Jokestress) violates the spirit of accuracy and Wikipedia even assuming the likely incorrect assumption that Moser here is a reliable source:

1. As has been noted repeatedly, Moser doesn't make it clear what the heck he means by the "allegations are basically true" line.

2. There are BLP issues to that quote, obviously. The accusations are against Bailey, and Moser is making an unspecified claim that could be interpreted as "everything Bailey was accused of he did."

3. Moser contradicts himself (as James Cantor has repeatedly said, Jokestress' omissions are key). From Moser's own commentary: "None of my following remarks should be construed as supportive of them, their accusations against Bailey, or their tactics." So what does he mean? The accusations are true, or that his commentary should not be construed (as Jokestress/Dicklyon did) as support for the accusations?

4. Moser is not an expert on free speech or on academic misconduct or on transsexualism. He has written on sadism/masochism and on paraphilias.

5. Note that the Dicklyon reactions paragraph is just as long as the one before it. Dicklyon thinks that the incoherent, non-peer-reviewed ramblings of a non-expert are as worth airing as Dreger's peer-reviewed research, covered in the New York Times.

6. Moser's comments do not seem to represent even a representation of a consistent thread on the commentaries, many of which are negative toward Dreger/Bailey.

The paragraph Dicklyon added (proposed, more or less, by Jokestress) is an atrocious example of POV editing, and it should be removed in its entirety. I left it on the page so that we would not get into an edit war prior to mediation. I would like to remove it as soon as possible.ProudAGP (talk) 01:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * First, I think it's a stretch to deny Charles Moser expert status. He's an eminent sexologist; he needn't specialize in precisely the area under discussion to know what he's talking about. Similarly, he's a senior academic, so he does know something about academic misconduct.


 * The point you make about BLP is a good one, however. He doesn't make clear which allegations he thinks are true, so it could include anything Bailey was accused of. Perhaps the quote could be used without the first part i.e. we could use: "The death of free speech and academic freedom has been highly exaggerated. Science is not free of politics, never has been, and never will be. The origins of transsexuality are still not known and the concept of Autogynephilia is still controversial. Can we all get back to science now?"


 * Would that be acceptable to everyone as a compromise? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall Jokestress suggesting Moser, but it's possible. I found it by searching the commentaries for "academic freedom". I think it would be OK to leave out the first part, which I can understand sounds like a BLP issue as he's unclear on what he means by "basically true". But then we need to also leave out stating that Dreger showed the allegations to be false (not presently in this article, I think, but if her opinion on this is reported, it should be balanced with a counter). We could alternatively quote what's in the NYT instead: “Nothing we have done, I believe, and certainly nothing I have done, overstepped any boundaries of fair comment on a book and an author who stepped into the public arena with enthusiasm to deliver a false and unscientific and politically damaging opinion,” Deirdre McCloskey, a professor of economics, history, English, and communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and one of Dr. Bailey’s principal critics, said in an e-mail message.  But this was objected to as extending too far in absolving Andrea James for her pictures escapade. Anyway, we need some balance, one way or another; just putting Dreger's opinions is not good enough. The stuff Julia Serano wrote is pretty good, too, but long. Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone needs a copy of the Dreger and commentaries, I can send a copy, or Cantor can (I got mine from him). Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No, SlimVirgin, your proposed compromise is not acceptable to me. You are moving too quickly to a bad compromise, perhaps understably from your perspective. (You don't want to spend the rest of your life here.) Your acceptance of Moser as an "expert" on academic freedom is unconvincing. Furthermore, even if he were expert enough, the question is why, of the thousands of words from several relevant sources, we'd choose his/these. There are true experts who've weighed in on this, and they oppose Moser's conclusions. Balance does not require equal time/space for all ideas. Moser's quote might be one sentence out of 10, perhaps, but not the space it is now, even with the BLP-violating sentence ommitted.

Regarding IRBs, two published experts have weighed in on the controversy. In Jack Katz's "Toward a Natural History of Ethical Censorship" he reviews cases in which IRBs have been used by those trying to censor research or ideas. About the Bailey case he writes: "Any ‘hot button’ issue may tempt opponents of a study’s substantive arguments to reach for the IRB as a tool of repression. The targets of critical studies, as distinct from the subjects contacted in gathering data, have increasingly appreciated the leverage value of IRB regulatory authority. When he was chair of the psychology department at Northwestern University,Michael Bailey was attacked by transsexual professors at other universities who were outraged at his argument, in a popular-readership-oriented book, that some candidates for male-to-female sex change operations are aroused sexually by the idea of being a woman (Dreger, forthcoming)."

AU: Jack Katz TI: Toward a Natural History of Ethical Censorship SO: Law & Society Review VL: 41 NO: 4 PG: 797-810 YR: 2007 ON: 1540-5893 PN: 0023-9216 AD: UCLA DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2007.00325.x US: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2007.00325.x

Zachary Schrag is an Assistant Professor of History at George Mason who maintains a blog about IRBs in the social sciences. He has a book under contract with Johns Hopkins Press on this topic, and he has published an article on it as well. He has no evident interest in transsexualism or sexuality. He wrote a blog about the Bailey case: http://www.institutionalreviewblog.com/2008/06/psychologist-who-would-be-journalist.html Among key quotations from the blog: "Of the commentators in the journal who take on the human-subjects angle, most recognize the flimsiness of the human-subjects case against Bailey." He notes that "only two argue that Bailey's work should have been subject to IRB review." He critiques both of these, noting that Richard Green was focusing on practices before 1981 when the current definition of human subjects research was adopted (and hence his observations were irrelevant). He says of Gagnon: "Gagnon did not read Dreger's article very carefully." (Note that an expert's blog on the issue of academic freedom, the Dreger article and the commentaries didn't even mention Moser.)

Finally, as Whatamidoing noted, "the question of whether Bailey's interviews were IRB-qualified is addressed by a reliable source in Wilson, Robin. 'Transsexual 'Subjects' Complain About Professor's Research Methods.' The Chronicle of Higher Education 25 July 2003, Vol. 49, Issue 46. The text can be found here . (Note that this was published several months before the DHSS formally clarified that the critics of the everything-goes-to-IRB rules were right.)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by ProudAGP (talk • contribs) 16:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Charles Moser's credentials
SV, Moser is a physician in private solo practice who teaches part time at a non-accredited school. Is that really your definition of a "senior academic"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * For WP purposes, I'd regard him as fairly senior, yes, given that he's studied or worked in the field for around 30 years. His entry at IASHS says: M.S.W. 1975, University of Washington; Ph.D. 1979 Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality; M.D. 1991 Hahnemann University, ACS, specializing in sado-masochism, medical sexology, sexual minorities, sexologic theory. Currently Dean of Professional Studies in IASHS.


 * The problem here is that people are treating his views as though he's just some guy off the street who wrote a letter to the editor. The point made above that there is more interesting material in his commentary than the sentences people want to quote, is a good point, so I'm not defending that particular quote. But I see nothing wrong with using it either. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Studying and working in sexual medicine for thirty years makes Moser a experienced physician. It does not give him an academic rank at all.  His only claim to being an academic is a part-time position at a non-accredited school.  Your willingness to accept Moser's "expert opinion" on academic freedom is based on your belief that Moser is a senior academic.  I believe that you have seriously misunderstood the nature of his career.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you may be right. It's just that I don't know who would be regarded as an expert in academic freedom. Bailey isn't, yet he makes claims about his academic freedom being violated. Dreger isn't, but made similar claims. And so on. My concern is only that there's a danger of defining expert so narrowly that the articles end up excluding some quite legitimate views.


 * Another point, which I mentioned before, is that articles really shouldn't be lists of quotes, or lists of names of who did, or didn't, approve of something, and The Man Who Would Be Queen does have quite a lot of that. So it might be worth looking to see what the value is of any of these quotations, not just Moser's, or of posting names of who supported/opposed. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

IASHS is not accredited? That's news to me (and to them, apparently). Maybe this quotation from Moser's commentary will help:

"As Dreger did, I believe it is important to detail my background. I also have been on the receiving end of a withering and unfounded personal attack for my professional writing (see Kleinplatz & Moser, 2005; Moser & Kleinplatz, 2005). I am a physician who cares for a large number of transsexual patients, and a psychotherapist who regularly evaluated and counseled transsexual patients prior to my medical career. I am a sex researcher who has been quite critical of the ‘‘Autogynephilia Theory,’’ but critical of the ‘‘Feminine Essence Theory’’ as well."

If you have evidence that IASHS is not accredited, please provide it. I believe the comment above explains both why he is an expert and why his commentary is being suppressed. Jokestress (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Academic accreditation is not the same as having a business license, which is what their statement amounts to. Also, the California BPPVE no longer exists (closed in 2007), so their statement is not only misleading but also now false.
 * In the past, IASHS was 'accredited' by National Association of Private Nontraditional Schools and Colleges, a distance-learning organization that has been repeatedly rejected by the US Department of Education as a national accreditation agency. IASHS hasn't been accredited with them for several years now.
 * The following points may interest those less familiar with the US educational system:
 * In the USA, neither the state nor federal governments directly accredit schools beyond the 12th grade level. (Some states have an "accreditation system" for private schools up to 12th grade.)  In California, all academic colleges and universities are accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges, from your local community college on up to UCLA, Berkeley, and Stanford.
 * National accreditation agencies are usually for vo-tech schools (or religious seminaries). Regional accrediting agencies are for normal academic institutions.  If an "academic" outfit is trying to get vo-tech accreditation, then that alone suggests that there's a serious problem with the program.
 * There are a lot of accreditation mills out there.
 * If the DOE doesn't approve the accrediting agency, then the students can't get any kind of federal financial aid for attending the school -- not even student loans. The rules for students qualifying for student loans are simple:  the school must be accredited by any agency on the DOE list, and they must not screw up in several specific ways that are unrelated to their educational program (like refusing to admit people of a certain race).  That's it.  What they say about financial aid on their FAQ tells you everything that you need to know about their accreditation.
 * I hope this explains the situation. Let me know if you have more questions about it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I do have another question. I was involved in the Pacific Western University WP:OFFICE matter some years ago, and I recall some of these issues from that debate. How do you feel we should apply the information above to the "expert" status of Anne Lawrence, whose Ph.D. in sexology is from IASHS and who is another key supporter of Bailey (blurbed on the book cover, etc.)? Jokestress (talk) 00:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I will note that Moser refers to the "feminie essence theory", which is something Dicklyon, Jokestress have called a straw man Blanchard brought up. I'm just saying.  Carry on with the discussion. --Hfarmer (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting; thanks for pointing that out; he puts it in quotes, so one has to wonder what he is referring to; probably not the Blanchard theory, which hadn't been articulated yet unless he got an advance copy of his commentary. There's no reason to think he means the "literal" theory the Blanchard and Cantor hold up as a strawman; and whatever it is, he doesn't support it, and so it remains the case, I'm pretty sure, that there are no adherents to Blanchard's so-called "theory".  Dicklyon (talk) 07:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Presumably Moser refers to Dreger's (summary of Bailey's and others') description of this idea, since he was reacting to Dreger's paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that seems likely. Dreger's concept of "feminine essence narrative" was of course nothing like Blanchard's "literal" theory, so the right answer to Hfarmer's question above is probably that Moser didn't refer to Blanchard's theory, the one Cantor wrote up for the article, as it didn't exist yet.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that Lawrence's expert status, like Moser's, is based on professional scientific publications. This means that IMO Lawrence's self-published opinions on issues about sexuality are equally expert with Moser's (given appropriate adjustment for specific specialties) and equally non-expert with Moser's on issues issues outside the area of professional publications (e.g., liberty and what I should eat for dinner tonight).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

As we can't seem to reach agreement about whether Moser is self-published and/or is an expert, would Jokestress and Dicklyon consider dropping him as a source, at least in terms of this disputed quote? It doesn't add a whole lot to the article, so I'm wondering if it's causing more trouble than it's worth. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 21:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Moser is a key Cantor opponent in his area of "expertise," which is why we are getting all this COI pushback. Moser published the paper "DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal," which is why he is being challenged by advocates of expanding and codifying paraphilias in the DSM-V. WhatamIdoing wants the "basically true" part off the table, which I will concede, but I find her claim that Moser is not an expert to be wholly without merit. I don't think Cantor should be trying to suppress the work of his adversaries in the area of paraphilia on Wikipedia. Moser's views are valid, important, and cited by many. Jokestress (talk) 22:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't quite understand this response. I have repeatedly argued that Moser is an expert in sexology (see for example, less than two inches up on this very page, the line that says "Lawrence's expert status, like Moser's, is based on professional scientific publications"), and that therefore the parts of his commentary that relate to sexology, specifically including his rejection of both Blanchard's taxonomy and the 'feminine essence theory' in favor of his own idea, are acceptable under WP:SPS.
 * I only claim that Moser is not an expert on points such as whether Bailey got into bed with JMS, or whether a single scandal is the death knell for free speech. I am mystified about your apparent belief that I regard Moser as a non-expert for sexology.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Jokestress, would you be willing to leave out the disputed quote, and find a paper from Moser (non-self-published, preferably) to use instead of this commentary? Or use some other part of the commentary, rather than this particular quote? SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 06:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I can understand how the "basically true" passage could be construed as a statement of fact and have conceded that we can leave that out. But the part to which WhatamIdoing objects is Moser's opinion about the non-significance of this matter. That opinion clearly has relevance, and he clearly has expertise and first-hand experience. We could use his "Remember also that you reap what you sow," but Moser's probably not a reaping expert or a sowing expert by the logic being used here. WhatamIdoing is just continuing this ongoing pattern of narrowing "expert" in a way that eliminates opinions which challenge Dreger's (and WhatamIdoing's) opinion, mainly because of WhatamIdoing's strong feelings about "academic freedom." I don't think Moser has to be an expert on "academic freedom" to assess Bailey's book or Dreger's jingoistic defense of it, with all her "freedom" and "terrorism" buzzwords and all that.
 * I have stated (in a published source, no less) that Dreger is an irrelevant troll in this controversy. How about we leave this whole edition of ASB out and leave it at that? Their lax editorial standards have been questioned earlier by WhatamIdoing. As Moser says, "With all due respect to Dreger, was she the correct person to tell this story? She admits she was not unbiased." Jokestress (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Give us a pointer to your reliable source and let's see if we can use it. I can't tell from ProudAGP's reponse below whether she's commenting on that or something else you said here. Dicklyon (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

No way Jokestress.ProudAGP (talk) 17:38, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * @Dicklyon: In Controversy dogs sexuality researcher I was quoted thus: "'Dreger's angry mommy routine seems to be affecting her memory and grip on reality,' wrote James in an e-mail last month, and who said that Dreger refused to interview her for the article. 'Dreger is an irrelevant troll in this controversy.'" Noted historian Deirdre McCloskey said, "Dr. Dreger herself engaged in exactly the same behavior she indignantly accuses other people of using on Bailey." Award-winning historian Dr. Sysan Stryker said Dreger ignored her advice to "significantly revise and to think" about the article after reading a draft. Stryker felt that Dreger had a "genuine desire" to "shed some light on this place where there's a lot of heat," but that it was "misguided and misframed" and in the end "what Alice does is reproduce the very things that people are angry about." The best overview of Dreger's staggering hypocrisy regarding academic freedom is "Quiet Down There," a paper that Dreger tried to suppress at last year's National Women's Studies Association conference by contacting the NWSA head and trying to get the panel cancelled and the speakers uninvited. This debate on Wikipedia is merely an extension of systemic attempts by Cantor et al. to suppress opposing academic views while asserting their own "academic freedom." As I have said numerous times, these guys want to frame this as an academic or scientific debate when it is a debate about academia and science and abuse in those fields. See K. Surkan, "Transsexuals Protest Academic Exploitation." Great Events From History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Events, 1848-2006. pages 111-114. ISBN 9781587652639 Jokestress (talk) 16:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, those might be useful for alternative viewpoints. Dicklyon (talk) 01:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Another content area: Conway's role in the controversy
Although this page was nominally set up to discuss problems with TMWWBQ, the related page Lynn Conway has often been the touchstone of WP controversy, due to DickLyon getting riled whenever anyone touched it with critical appraisal of Conway's role in the controversy (even in top sources, like the New York Times and Dreger's target article in Archives of Sexual Behavior). I propose that the present relevant paragraph there be replaced with what I have below, which is shorter and clearer but which also makes clear that Dreger found Conway generated several false charges against Bailey. We certainly could add a sentence at the end, for balance, from Conway herself (if that's allowed) responding to Dreger.


 * Conway has been a prominent critic of the Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory of male-to-female transsexualism, objecting to the hypothesis that all transsexual women are motivated either by feminine homosexuality or autogynephilia. She was also a key person in the controversial campaign against J. Michael Bailey's controversial book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Northwestern University professor Alice Dreger published an article about the controversy that concluded that the campaign against Bailey was an attempt to "ruin" Bailey via false accusations, including that he conducted research without required supervision, that he had sex with a research subject, and that he practiced clinical psychology without a license. ProudAGP (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

What gets me "riled" is when the critical appraisals are not balanced by anything. In particular, if we're going to cite Dreger saying that the campaign was against Bailey personally, then we ought to be able to balance that by some other interpretation in response to Dreger. I don't think the NYT said the campaign against the Bailey book was directed at Bailey personally, except via a Dreger quote. Hfarmer seems to be unable to understand the issue when she adds such content, but I think the others get it. I've also objected to the amount of weight this topic gets in her bio, but that's obviously a squishier issue. Dicklyon (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, when working with such contentious material, one should be careful about what one attributes to a source; ProudAGP's footnote is to Carey's 2007 NYT article. It does not at all support the statement "Dreger published an article about the controversy that concluded that the campaign against Bailey was an attempt to 'ruin' Bailey via false accusations," for several reasons; the report wasn't published yet at the time that article was written; the "ruin" was from a quote from Dreger, not from the report. We could look at the report and cite it for what it says about ruin, but we can't cite the NYT as attributing it to the report, since it doesn't do that. And if we're going to pick things from Dreger's report, we need to also pick things from the co-published responses. Also note that the NYT article was written by a guy who had seen only Dreger's side, as the responses weren't written yet. So let's try to be fair, and it shouldn't have to be an issue. Dicklyon (talk) 17:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * So would you be happier with a statement that says something like this: "'Conway's role in the campaign included filing complaints that Bailey conducted research without required supervision, that he had sex with a research subject, and that he practiced clinical psychology without a license. All of these charges were denied by Bailey and dismissed by investigating authorities.'"
 * This eliminates the "ruin" language and focuses specifically on Conway's own (publicly admitted) actions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think she's the one who filed all those complaints; let's just make sure it's accurate and cites a good source. If you want to cite her own pages for that, that's OK by me, as long as what we say is directly supported by the cited pages. Dicklyon (talk) 20:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I was also thinking there needed to be more in her article about this controversy. She's arguably more notable because of it than because of her professional life, given that the former ended up in the New York Times. If I were writing the article, I'd have her involvement in this in the lead, per WP:LEAD, which says (or said, when I last looked) that any notable controversies are supposed to be included.


 * It's important, of course, to make sure the writing isn't slanted and that sources are identified and summarized very accurately. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * She's actually much more notable for the other work; this is not the first time she has been discussed in the New York Times and other big-name publications, and that article probably didn't get nearly the attention of the big writeup in the LA Times. Our dispute here remains pretty unknown in the larger world. Dicklyon (talk) 20:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, fair point, thanks for that information. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure that's accurate. Conway is far more famous for her work on the microchip, AI, DARPA, etc. In the grand scheme of her life, this Bailey thing is a rather minor event. Remember, we are talking about an obscure out-of-print book that sold about 4000 copies when available. The only reason this has generated any news is that this book was marketed as a "controversy," because the press laps that stuff up. For instance, Ben Carey, the guy who wrote the New York Times piece you mention, did so after Conway and others got him in trouble in 2005 for his pro-Bailey piece "Straight, Gay, or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited." That's why Conway refused to be interviewed by Carey. We already knew what kind of story it would be. Even within Conway's trans activism, the Bailey thing is not really a major element. The only reason this is still going on is because these guys are trying to assert their version of what happened wherever they can (and are meeting ongoing resistance). This "controversy" was over in 2005. Everything else is just tired attempts to revive or spin it by various parties, or ancillary arguments about issues raised. The trans community has way bigger fish to fry than this little dust-up. This book will in my opinion be seen as a tipping point in the depathologization of gender variance, but it has little relevance to what's going on these days. It certainly has little relevance to Conway's career, and I believe its significance is overstated in the Bailey bio as well. He is more notable for his earlier work. Jokestress (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Further to Andrea's point, there are around 10X as many books that mention Lynn Conway in the context of VLSI than in the context of transsexual. Most of the people I've ever worked with are well aware of her work with VLSI and/or AI and/or DARPA, but relatively few know she's a transsexual; just the ones that know her, or the ones I've told, mostly. So, while there's no problem discussing these topics in her bio, they should be kept in proper perspective; the fact that she attacked Bailey's book and his methods is easy to understand; and the fact that she got a lot of pushback is, too. If Dreger hadn't blown it all out of proportion, we probably wouldn't be having such a problem in wikipedia right now; but let's just report both sides and get on with our lives. Dicklyon (talk) 08:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No one is saying that Conway's transsexual activism should eclipse her computer science contributions on Wikipedia. But my take on its relevance to her notability is different from that of Dicklyon and Jokestress. For example, if one googles Conway, the first 8 hits include her website, her Wikipedia page, and trans-related links. The first clearly technological link is #9. And the assertion that the controversy over TMWWBQ is minor is news to Conway, evidently. If you look at her very popular "Trans News Updates" page (http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/News/News.html), she leads with attacks on Bailey and his "collaborators" (Dreger, Zucker, BLanchard, etc.), and she mentions Bailey's name 29 times! Andrea James' website also has many many pages attacking Bailey et al., since 2005 when the controversy was "over." I believe that Dicklyon and Jokestress are incorrect that this controversy is minor in Conway's career or in the world generally, although I expect that since Alice Dreger's paper they wish it were. I will certainly insist that the controversy be mentioned properly on Lynn Conway, and it is not yet.ProudAGP (talk) 17:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC


 * Google pagerank relates to the rich interconnectedness of her pages with others. I prefer to consult books when examining notability, as I think they're much more reliable.  I just reviewed the opening paragraphs of her page that you linked, and it's really not clear to me what sentences there you are referring to when you say she leads with attacks on Bailey and his "collaborators" (Dreger, Zucker, BLanchard, etc.).  I can see where she has strong critisms of the actions of Zucker and Dreger and Carey; you can interpret these as attacks, but so what?  She's reporting her (and her community's) interpretation of their actions, viewed as attacks against them; we all know this dispute is going on.  I didn't say it was over; I think Jokestress didn't either; I think she had it had been over until Dreger came along and opened it up again, which is pretty much what Conway is reporting there, isn't it?  And did I say it was minor?  No, I did not, so don't call me wrong on that; I said she's much more notable for her technical work, which is certainly true outside the academic sexologists and transsexuals communities, which are tiny compared to the technical communities in which she is very well known.  Dicklyon (talk) 22:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)