Talk:Womyn-born womyn/Archive 1

Help
I have tried to present the pro arguments for WBW spaces as I have heard them argued by proWBW individuals. However, I would greatly appreciate someone who is actually in favor of this policy to review them, change as necessary, or add to them arguments I have not developed.

I know the best rhetorical technique is to argue one's opponents view as strongly as possible, but I'm not fool enough to believe that I've adequately presented it as well as my own. So I would appreciate feedback on the pro-side.NickGorton 20:45, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

This article really needs someone to judge it for NPOV. Some of the adjectives/phrasing, etc. are a tiny bit loaded.24.10.102.46 20:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

There are some things here about WBW spaces that include post-operative transwomen. I know there are spaces which exclude pre-operative individuals, but allow post op--ie define gender by genitals. I know of trans-exclusive (ie, wbw) spaces in which transwomen enter in secret such as the hundreds of transwomen at MWMF, but they are doing so against the policy. But I've never heard of any self defined WBW space that includes post-operative people by policy. Can someone think of any? (kathygnome)

NPOV
I added the NPOV tag because I felt that the anon edits to the "History" and "Scope" sections, while adding another viewpoint that could be valuable, were phrased in ways that are somewhat POV. Examples:


 * "the exclusionary and oppressive repercussions of misogyny" -- very strong wording, clearly from a feminist viewpoint
 * "Some have argued that the term was created solely in response to the increasing visibility of transgender women" -- I've heard, and I am willing to believe, that what "some have argued" is the major impetus behind the development of this term. However, I do not know enough to actually judge.
 * "a unforgettable means of unlearning internalized misogyny completely unrelated to and independent of transculture and politics" -- I think that this one is pretty obvious. ;)

I don't have a good enough knowledge of this to edit down the POV in a way other than reverting the anon additions. Someone else want to take a crack at it?

Hbackman 22:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * There's nothing wrong with expressing a feminist POV if the subject is a feminist subject. What I see in this article is a lot of back and forth -- "this is what it is" in one sentence followed by "other people think this is what it is".  I think some of the NPOV / POV issues might be cleared up by allowing a POV to be presented throughout an entire paragraph (or more), and then presenting the other POVes. -- Tall Girl 20:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I read the article today and think the past POV issues may well have been resolved now. There was no obvious POV as far as I could tell. MrsPlum 10:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Draft Edit, Please Check
Hiya. I've attempted what I hope is a reasonable edit of this section. I've endeavoured to tweak the sections most directly either saying that Feminism is explicitly correct or that Womyn-born-Womyn is correct. Im a total amateur, however, so please double check me!

KenKills 18:36, 24 March 2006 (UK)

Overall, I think this looks pretty good. In the argument section, I've removed the two pro arguments at the end, since the earlier statements already make the claim that a late transitioning transgender woman did not grow up as a woman and that she has had the outward advantages of growing up with a male gender.

Otherwise, I think we're good on the NPOV. With MrsPlum's concurrence, I'm removing the tag. - KellyLogan 16:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Women vs. Womyn
The majority of events with a women born women policy do not use the alternative spelling, MWMF being a notable exception. As such, the article should use the standard spelling primarily. Neitherday 22:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Section to be reconsidered
On August 2nd, 2007, user:24.86.112.71 added the following section. It was the second paragraph of the "Scope" section. It appears to have generated some concerns about POV issues and non-wiki-standard wording etc. I'm moving it from the article to the talk page for discussion. Here we go:

"However, this denies the existence of females socialized as boys either due to the Gender Experimenting Culture of the 1970s, David Raimer, "As Nature Made Him," the most famous but not the only one by any means. Yes, females socialized as male or at least as "boys," during that period exist too. There are also many females socialized male as a deliberate form of Abuse. Both groups of female, many times, grow up to be feminine and yet face many of the same complaints Transwomen face: we are too aggressive, too opinionated, to active, too loud, in other words, regardless of how feminine we look, we think and act too much "like a man," and thus, many times, face exclusion and ostracization from girl groups in childhood and lesbian or womyns communities in adulthood. There has been no study, feminist or otherwise on us, but we exist and we'd have no problem getting into Michigan. There are more of us out there then people thing, born female, born feminine socialized male or masculine in childhood. Thus, until we are studied and acknowledged as existing and until Butch females (females born masculine regardless of orientation and considered "normal," in homosexual society as are feminine born males, ie: "Homonormative Gender") are acknowledged as existing and studied the arguement is based, once again on assumptions of a standard form of socialization for every female that simply doesn't exist. Even girls raised on farms don't receive the socialization that feminists refer to as standard for "girls."" Alfons Åberg 06:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

huh?
just from the first sentence, there is no question that this is not neutral POV; is this deliberately uninformative or what? wbw is a pretty basic and understandable concept, any politicized 'spin' in either direction is not really needed right from the first sentence of the article, it's wikipedia. 206.248.168.241 21:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have nominated it for deletion. I don't think the subject is noteworthy enough to merit its own article and feel that it should be integrated into the "womyn" article. The article also doesn't conform to Neutral POV, and contains words such as "we" to describe subjects of the article. This isn't a soapbox; this is Wikipedia. Graymornings 21:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify: This article was POV tagged once before, but the article was improved and the issue was resolved - see above. The current tag dates from March 2007. I must remind the two editors above that we should distinguish between _describing_ existing points of view within a subject and the article _itself_ being POV. This article is an example of the former. Quoting from Wikipedia'sNPOV policy: "Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular.". This article adheres to this policy. The article describes at least two opposing viewponts on Womyn-born-womyn: one insisting on unambiguous separatism as a prerequisite for women's advancement, and one arguing that this concept is ultimately futile. Both sides are adequately represented. As the article does not violate NPOV policy there is no need for the tag, so I'm removing it. If anyone believes that there are actually POV issues, please specify those problems here. By the way, POV problems is not sufficient reason to delete an article. The article should be improved instead. Alfons Åberg 08:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Lead paragraph and referencing throughout.
I couldn't find a reference calling womyn-born-womyn a "political term", so I removed that claim. The next part is also confusing: ... used by some feminists to establish themselves as feminist, woman-identified women and is an extension of the concept of womyn. I don't think using this term establishes anyone as anything; I think identify is a better word. What is a feminist, woman-identified women? Also our article on womyn doesn't call it a concept, but a word. I'll try to make changes addressing these issues.

Referencing throughout the article is very poor. I'll try to add references for statements where I can, and make requests for them inline where I can't. Sancho 16:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

lmao
lmao — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.161.170.125 (talk) 15:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC) this is nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.101.172.61 (talk) 00:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

What is this article about?
Is this article about the term "womyn-born womyn" or is it about transgender exlusionism? We need to decide. Sancho 17:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't believe it's possible to seperate the issues - "womyn-born womyn" is basically little more than a justification for running a trans-exclusionist policy Zoe O'Connell ⚢⚧ (talk) 22:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * They are not trans-exclusion policies they are male-exclusion policies. Trans are the other sex in name and surgery only.--Tallard (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't understand how your comment is helpful to the article. Yours is one of several points of view, but the article can only use verifiable facts. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We're not talking article modification here, we're in a discussion of redirecting this page to a POV page, I am against any such move.--Tallard (talk) 03:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're also against science. Your opinion doesn't mean much. La Maupin (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Then the article is about trans gender exclusionism, with the term womyn-born womyn being simply one of the associated terms. What do people think about a page move to rename the article? Sancho 20:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That works for me, although I don't think any other editors are active here so I don't know how much response you'll get... ~ Zoe O'Connell ~ (talk) 01:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

First bullet point of the pros and cons contains both pro and con arguments
"Most transgender women do not have the experience of growing up female in a sexist society and as such have no embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of "girl", unless of course they witnessed the way society around them treated girls."

The end of this sentence should be in the second bullet list.

"Most transgender women do not have the experience of growing up female in a sexist society and as such have no embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of "girl"." - this is an argument in favour of womyn-born womyn spaces.

"Unless of course they witnessed the way society around them treated girls." - this is an argument against womyn-born-womyn spaces. Also has the feel of original research, but if it can be correctly cited, I'd suggest adding it in as a separate bullet point in the second list. Something like:

"Transgender women may have identified more strongly with the girls around them than the boys, and therefore witnessing the way the society around them treated girls is similar to the embodied experience of the culturally prescribed position of 'girl'."

Erithrocyte (talk) 09:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to put this here if I should have put it elsewhere! - I'm not sufficiently credentialled yet to edit this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erithrocyte (talk • contribs) 09:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sentence needs rewrite
"All oppressed peoples should be allowed to make spaces aligned through a commonality of oppression to heal and recover without explanation and solely through the ease of lived experience." This sentence makes no sense to me. If it is using feminist-specific jargon, the meanings should be linked to. People outside of academic feminism presumably won't get it either. 86.174.188.81 (talk) 20:01, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Outright Bias
I know it's the first sentence on the page, but can something be done about the phrase "Womyn-born womyn (an alternative spelling of women-born women) is a term that describes women, as opposed to transgendered freaks."?
 * Yes that indeed is quite laughable. Us women should not need extra labels! Those who imitate us, whether freaks or not, are the only labelling required. Biologically, scientifically speaking, a woman is someone who has female phenotype and female genotype. There is no scientific evidence of the existence of a soul or an mind "ID". So, given lack of evidence, it becomes matter of opinions/ideologies, not facts. Anyone requiring patriarchal institutions to realise their desires, are in fact contributing to the patriarchal domination of the world.--Tallard (talk) 09:13, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt that displays an NPOV perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.124.128.33 (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The word you are looking for is 'karyotype.' The only gene associated strictly with sex is SRY, which can malfunction or be transposed onto an X chromosome and produce a healthy, male child (this has happened in the medical literature). If "female phenotype and female karyotype" is required, that would require the exclusion of women who were born and raised female but had an XY karyotype due to androgen insensitivity syndrome. XO females (Swyer's syndrome) would also be necessarily excluded, since "female karyotype" undoubtedly by your definition is "XX only." Further, there may be no scientific evidence of soul/mind. There IS scientific evidence of a BST(c) region of the brain that varies in neuron number and size by sex. There IS scientific evidence for variation in white:grey matter ratio by sex. There IS scientific evidence for variation in size/shape of androgen receptors by sex. There IS evidence that living in a non-identified-sex role consistently for a long period of time has negative psychological effects (since you clearly disbelieve every transsexual, of both sexes, ever, see also Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent). And there IS evidence that the most grossly trans-misogynistic "feminists," such as yourself, may be self-suppressing transsexual men (just as the most grossly homophobic politicians and ministers are often themselves closeted gays). The weight of opinion is wholly on your side - the weight of facts are on mine; and in a fair debate, facts should outweigh opinions. La Maupin (talk) 11:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Another example - "some of them may feel that their comfort is more important than the safety of trans women". How difficult can it be to phrase something in a non-partisan, non-loaded way? 89.240.173.140 (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

This whole article has a huge problem with POV and original research. A lot of it reads as feminist-vilifying and trans-bashing. The article isn't necessarily POV, but many heavily biased users such as Tallard]* are what often flock to these types of articles. "Those who imitate us, whether freaks or not, are the only labelling required." is a giant red-flag of transphobia. I'm not even touching the rest of her paragraph, and I'm not about to turn this into a debate club. I just want to point out that this article either needs to be heavily monitored and maintained or some kind of action should be done ASAP. [[User:MirandaStreeter|-Miranda (talk) 18:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

This needs to go
"some of them may feel that their comfort is more important than the safety of trans women"

This is nothing but a biased way of framing the controversy and has no place in this article. One could just as easily say the trans women feel their comfort is more important than the safety (physical or psychological) of the FAAB women. 71.255.44.31 (talk) 23:22, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Edit request from, 29 October 2011
Many women's only spaces provide a safe shelter for cisgender women who have been abused or sexually assaulted. Such cisgender women might feel threatened by the presence of transgender women.

Please remove "and some of them may feel that their comfort is more important than the safety of trans women." because it is heavily biased and unsourced, OR change to "sexually assaulted women may feel unsafe in the presence of women who they read as men".

Anonymok (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. This is not a minor change, so I'm not comfortable making it without a discussion here first.  Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  22:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll see you and raise you: Consider that most pre/non op trans women have at best an uneasy detente relationship with their bodies. Consider that by making that body the focus of rejection from needed sanctuary you are not only physically but psychologically endangering a highly vulnerable woman. The debate IS very much "feelings of comfort vs. actual physical and psychological safety." La Maupin (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * One could just as easily say the sexually assaulted FAAB women's physical and psychological safety is threatened. Furthermore, as the poster above mentioned, it is unsourced (for the obvious reason that none of these women would describe her concerns in that way). It adds nothing but bias. 71.255.44.31 (talk) 23:29, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Sloppy Terminology
I propose that "new women aka post-op transsexuals" be changed to either "postoperative transwomen" or "postoperative transgender women." As it is, this line is a very informal, poorly formated--where's the punctuation?--and rather out of line with accepted nomenclature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vodis (talk • contribs) 18:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Really? I'm trying to get my head around this.  At some point in time, people have to get used to the idea that there are "men" and there are "women".  One would have thought we'd have been used to that for a few thousand years.  Certainly there are shades of grey, but 90% of the time there are men or women.  Who really cares whether the "nomenclature" is "new women aka post-op transsexuals" or "postoperative transwomen" or "postoperative transgender women."  One is either a man or a woman, and whatever you want to call yourself at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter beyond that.  We are what we are, whether we like it or not.  Eastcote (talk) 06:26, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Eastcote, you need to read the article on intersex. Quodfui (talk) 23:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

More refs needed
There's far too much WP:OR in the "arguments" section. Looking around for good refs that further expand and explain the term I've found a few things like: To me, and various feminists I've known through the years, it's just a way of women saying that they have had certain experiences through their 20 - 30 -40 years of life that most male to female transgenders or transexuals do not automatically have, even if they have surgery. I'll have to see if I can find the article about a MTF who said it took her 10 or 15 years living entirely as a woman among people who knew her only as a woman to really understand what it was to be a woman. And there's the issue of women - and feminists - being angry when they are forced to accept as women individuals who still treat women with the same arrogance, dismissal, and even abusiveness of many males, including by claiming themselves to be "superior" women to women who have lived as girls and women since birth. So there are definitely relevant competing "oppressions" going on that by now should have been treated somewhere in a rational manner without hysterics and name calling. (Haven't looked at news.google archives yet for magazine articles, etc.)
 * This definition: “Term used to identify women who were born woman as opposed to transgendered persona who may have had, and retain, male privilege. Identifying or declaring oneself women born woman helps keep women only or lesbian separatist space."
 * This comment: "Kate Bornstein notes that lesbian separatists excluding transexuals from events should not be taken as “oppression” because “lesbians just don’t have the same economic and social resources with which to oppress the transgendered.”

I don't know how readily I can find WP:RS that mentions these views; perhaps some other term explores them more. Reading the first page of books.google returns on Womyn-born womyn I find most books about transgenders ticked off about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, which makes me feel that male privilege in getting books published may be shaping the WP:RS available. But I'll keep looking. It's also important to look at existing refs since they may have more relevant material that has not been properly used. My thoughts for now... User:Carolmooredc  02:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this article needs work, and those look like good references ^^^ who CAN edit this article? and is anyone going to? I wanted to edit just for grammar/clarity. Purplerhinoceros (talk) 05:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Attribution needed throughout
I did some revising to reflect that this term affects not only transwomen, but transmen as well. I also started a reference section. The "Arguments" section in particular needs to be sourced to stay within policy of no original research. I believe the article could say the same things in about half the words. This is a bit verbose as it stands. Jokestress 23:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I was looking for a source to attribute the use of "womyn" to "second wave" feminists to improve this article. Under "History" it starts: The term was developed during second-wave feminism to designate spaces for, by, and about women who were identified as female at birth, then raised as girls, and then who chose to live as women.[citation needed] All I could come up with so far, is this link: https://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/womyn.html which is a discussion page, and contains the following quote from Max Dashu (suppressed histories curator): "I agree with Deborah Louis: "wimmin" was already in common use before the  second wave. (as in, for example, 50's comics with male characters rolling   their eyes and saying, "Wimmin!") This got adopted in the second wave as a   slangy, dashing, somewhat humorous way to say "women."   70s feminists invented "womyn" to circumvent the "man" perceived in   "woman," and "men" in "women," as a way of declaring that women were not   secondary or derivative from a masculine default." Does this work for citation? I inserted it and EvergreenFir took it down and said: "ref makes no mention of sex assignment or transgender"Purplerhinoceros (talk) 06:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

discussion?
The blanket reversion of sugardpeas edits, which I thought were well cited and thoughtful. Why EvergreenFir? Purplerhinoceros (talk) 04:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I was looking for a source to attribute the use of "womyn" to "second wave" feminists to improve this article. Under "History" it starts: The term was developed during second-wave feminism to designate spaces for, by, and about women who were identified as female at birth, then raised as girls, and then who chose to live as women.[citation needed] All I could come up with so far, is this link: https://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/womyn.html which is a discussion page, and contains the following quote from Max Dashu (suppressed histories curator): "I agree with Deborah Louis: "wimmin" was already in common use before the  second wave. (as in, for example, 50's comics with male characters rolling   their eyes and saying, "Wimmin!") This got adopted in the second wave as a   slangy, dashing, somewhat humorous way to say "women."   70s feminists invented "womyn" to circumvent the "man" perceived in   "woman," and "men" in "women," as a way of declaring that women were not   secondary or derivative from a masculine default." Does this work for citation? I inserted it and EvergreenFir took it down and said: "ref makes no mention of sex assignment or transgender"Purplerhinoceros (talk) 06:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Regarding this revert:
 * The removal of "assigned male at birth" was less accurate. By using the AMAB language, it includes intersex people, but is sex assignment is not only something that occurs to intersex people. All babies are assigned a sex.
 * The sentence This was a specifically lesbian attempt--the logical outgrowth of the feminist consciousness raising movement--to define and center the material circumstances of the female body under patriarchy, particularly given the social exclusion and specific biological oppression experienced by females as a direct result of misogyny and homophobia. was unsourced. Especially with the "biological oppression" statement.
 * has asked all attendees to respect and honor a female centered space is POV.
 * Regarding Trans activists assert that there is no such thing as a female experience, or more specifically, that all trans women are, in fact female, and thus that the concept of living as a female has no specific relevance... While this is indeed what trans folks say, it remains unsourced. Also "assert" is somewhat POV.
 * The example section was unsourced (still is), but specifying a number makes a source even more needed.
 *  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 18:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Hyphen
"womyn-born-womyn only policies" should be "womyn-born-womyn-only policies"; compare "women-only policies". 86.132.138.215 (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

spelling. Women or Womyn
If the word womyn is being given as an alternative spelling, not a separate word, then we should be using the most common term for the benefit of our readers. Obviously Women is the more common term. Also, as the non-standard spelling of the word is only used by certain minority sections of society it does not benefit those who are unaware of the term, especially non-native speakers of English.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/womyn makes it clear that it is a very rare spelling http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/womyn states that it is used by some feminists

I don't personally care what someone calls themself, but Wikipedia should not be about a political agenda, it should be about making accurate information available to as many people as possible, using the most common and easily recognized terms.

I can't think of any legit reason for having a non-standard spelling that is only used by a tiny minority of society. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The phrase itself is almost always with a Y. The sources use that spelling too. That's the reason I moved it back. I understand your reasoning, but this specific phrase uses the alternate spelling.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 06:20, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm looking at it, purely as an English spelling issue. I was unaware of the term as to five minutes before I edited the article, so if the term is common within it's usage, then I guess it makes sense. Besides, I'm old and traditional, it would do me some good to learn a little more about spellings/cultures that I have zero experience with. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:35, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

MORE Outright bias
"Womyn-born womyn is a term that describes women who were assigned female at birth and raised as females. "

The VAST majority of women are not assigned female. They are born female.

Gender studies "facts" are not biologically supportable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.118.172.151 (talk) 03:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 December 2015
I would like to be added to references episode 9 of season 2 of "Transparent". The whole episode treats this thematic. Thank you.

181.169.132.98 (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. sst✈discuss 10:11, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

New Edits
Hi, I am a student at Rice University within the department of Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities, and I would like to edit this article in terms of adding more historical background, a balanced and detailed outline of debates over "womyn-born womyn" in feminism, and the effects on the transgender community. DCirillo14 (talk) 05:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)DCirillo14
 * Feel free to be bold in your editing! Honestly this article is a rather contentious one so your edits may be reverted as part of the bold-revert-discuss cycle. You see to know the ropes already though. :) I'm just a page watcher btw.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 19:55, 9 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Great edits so far! My suggestion would be to make sure that all the sections and statements are appropriately cited, as well as correcting a few of the older citations. I think the section on the Etymology of “womyn” that was made in a previous edit is very helpful for understanding why this term is used and how it came about. I also did not see a comment explaining why this edit was deleted, so I would vouch for it being added again. Other than that, it would be helpful to add some images to the article. I look forward to seeing your progress on the page! Dmaldonado08 (talk) 02:36, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Womyn-born-womyn v. womyn-born womyn
This page is legitimately the first time I've seen "womyn-born womyn" rather than "womyn-born-womyn". Am I crazy or is this an unusual title? Ogress 02:06, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I've only seen the former version. Womyn-born is an adjective/descriptive of the following noun.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 04:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I see many occasions where it is used, including by the MWF. Ogress 21:22, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review
This page is beautifully written in a way that is strictly educational. While some parts are slightly repetitive, everything is clear and well-sourced. I can tell a lot of work went into the reconstruction of this page. Well done.Gilperkins (talk) 01:34, 29 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. This article got turned around really quickly, the editor seemed to be able to keep NPOV very well.  Can we discuss removing the issues banner across the top of the article now?  It would be great if people from different backgrounds can agree on the article's quality or make suggestions for improvements. Farabeeandrew (talk) 21:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I also agree - I think this article is great and removing the header would make people feel more confident in its content — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.225.94.141 (talk) 16:12, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

trans and cis???
WTF is the deal with the last section using the word 'ciswomen' to describe genetic women? just cos cis is the oposite of trans doesn't mean it makes sense in this context, the word ciswomen is totally ridiculous, this isn't chemisty youknow. It's totally unused, it's not a real word or even a widly acepted one, and it makes no sense.
 * Hi, please remember to sign your comments. Thank you. Alfons Åberg 05:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * "Ciswomen" is both precedented and sensible (see, for example, the Julia Serano book cited in this article). "Genetic" women is not exactly the same idea, because a small percentage of ciswomen do not actually have exactly two X chromosomes. Seb144 (talk) 09:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There are also cismen with XX chromosomes. When discussing transwomen and the prejudice against them it makes sense to use the term cis, which is neutral, rather than weasel words like "normal women" or "born women/womyn/wimmin/wymyn". Gymnophoria (talk) 21:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Feminism ... or Transgenderism?
How did this article about radical feminism become an article about transgenderism with a transgender portal, transgender see also, transfeminism section, etc.? Pyxis Solitary (talk) 10:38, 27 June 2017 (UTC) Because of this shift, I added the Confusing template. Pyxis Solitary (talk) 11:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

It seems like point of the term in practice is specifically to exclude transwomen, as otherwise it would just be another way of saying "female only space(s)" or "womyn", both would be inherently neutral regarding the question of transwomen being women, that disambiguation, at least to me seems like the only reason this is considered a term on its own merit. ShimonChai (talk) 16:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)


 * This whole page could just be split into sub-topics in Women-only space and Feminist views on transgender and transsexual people instead of having it's own page. The current article is barely even about the term itself, as said. WBW-only space and women only space literally mean the same thing, whether you're a radical feminist or a trans activist (or apolitical!): it's a difference of opinion on what the word woman means that matters (see: this and this) TLDR: conflating sex (what radical feminists base women/female-only space on) and gender (what trans activists based women/female-only space on) has caused the difference in terminology. Making WBW a subsection of WOS makes sense, regardless of which 'side' you come from.  For some background, radical feminists subscribe to the idea that "women-only" should be/is/already means female, or "women-born-women" (or, from the trans perspective, a cis women only space). Transgender women/trans activists disagree, saying that trans women either a) are women-born-women/female, or b) that there is no reason for female-only/cis-woman-only space. In the present, "woman" tends to mean how you are 'read' socially and "female" means your sex, so female-only space has come into use by radical feminists. Basically, WBW was used to point out that, because radical feminists/lesbians/even non-radical feminists want(ed) a space for females (afabs/genetic women/XX-ers/menstruators/insert term for the half-ish of the population that, due to a combination of things, are hypothetically able to create ovum) they had to specify that women-only space meant female-only (as they define it) space, and their solution to that was calling it a "womyn-born-womyn" policy/space/etc.  I apologize for the summary of the issue.  The issue is that this article is a mess and doesn't make sense in it's current form. The difference between basing the definition on sex vs gender could be explained in a new subsection of women-only space. It could link to feminist views on trans people in order to explain the criticism, or the criticism could be included on the aforementioned women-only space subsection. Woodsy lesfem (talk) 01:18, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Woodsy lesfem, that’s a pretty good analysis, thank you. I might have some minor quibble about which article(s) the content could be shipped out to, but I largely agree with you. A question remains about whether the article should remain in shorter form, or simply be a section redirect to one or another article. What do you think?
 * Going all the way back to Pyxis’s original question that opened this section, How did this article about radical feminism become an article about... : answer: it was never about radical feminism, that’s why the title of the article is not "Radical feminism"; that’s a separate article. This article is about womyn-born women. That’s why the topic of trans-women comes up in every section. Mathglot (talk) 21:21, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Third-wave feminism
The section has been tagged as confusing because the information provided in it is tilted towards the subject of transgenderism more than it is about the politics of third-wave feminism. Before edits turn into accusations of bias and lack of neutrality, we need input from other editors about what material should be included in this section and what this section should present to readers. Pyxis Solitary  yak  10:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Per WP:AT, the article title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles. The article topic is about non-trans women who define themselves and stake out political positions based on the distinction between themselves and trans women. Putting it another way: without trans women, there is no such thing as womyn-born women. Every section of the article needs to deal with whatever the section is about, within the context of what is relevant to the article topic. The section on third wave feminism is no different. That said, Third wave feminism was concerned with a lot of things, of which trans issues was not one of the major ones.  ThAt makes the length of this section WP:UNDUE and it could stand to be cut back. Mathglot (talk) 13:29, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Re summary comment: regardless of the reason why the term "womyn-born womyn" became part of radical feminist and radical lesbian lexicon, this is not an article about transgender and transgenderism, and the amount of material that has been devoted to it has tilted the balance scale. If readers want to learn more about the subject of trans, they can read Transgender, Trans woman, Trans man, Causes of transsexuality, Sex reassignment surgery (male-to-female), Sex reassignment surgery (female-to-male), Transgender sexuality, Attraction to transgender people, Transgender rights in the United States, and History of transgender people in the United States in this Wikipedia. Pyxis Solitary   yak  15:55, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Glaringly Misquoted Statistic
The section on the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival states that "surveyors calculated the results as indicating that 'less than 1 in 100,000' attendees would be against the exclusion of transsexual women from the festival" (emphasis mine). The word "exclusion" here seems to be a typo, as it contradicts both the cited source and the results quoted in the previous sentence; presumably, it ought to have been "inclusion". This is a really glaring error, completely changing the meaning to the exact opposite of the survey's results.

That aside, the phrase "less than 1 in 100,000" is also a misrepresentation. The result—per the cited source—is a less than 1 in 100,000 probability that the majority of attendees are against the inclusion of trans women. In other words, they concluded with 99.999% certainty that most attendees don't oppose letting trans women attend.

The article is protected, so I'm unable to edit. Someone with edit privileges, please change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.160.73 (talk) 10:51, 15 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The source states the following:

"A total of 633 surveys were collected. There were about 7500 women at MWMF, so this represents a response rate of approximately 8.4%. The survey asked, "Do you think male-to-female transsexuals should bewelcome at Michigan?" *Yes* responses to this question numbered 463 (73.1%) and *no* answers totaled 143 (22.6%). Twenty-seven surveys (4.3%) had indeterminate responses such as "I'm not sure" or did not answer this question. The margin of error is 3.8%. Given these results, the chance that the majority of 7500 MWMF participants believe transsexuals should not be admitted would be less than 1 in 100,000. This calculation assumes that our sample was randomly selected, which it certainly was not. However, even if half of the *yes* answers are attributed to the bias of the sample and eliminated from the calculation, there is still a better than 999 in 1000 chance that most Festigoers would welcome transsexuals....The results strongly suggest that the majority of Festigoers would support a "no penis" policy that would allow postoperative male-to-female transsexuals; that they want the policy to be unambiguously stated and well publicized; and that they oppose invasive verification of sex....Results of the questions that asked about *female-to-male* transsexuals have not been tabulated in detail, but 80% of respondents were against their inclusion."


 * The paragraph has been edited for better understanding of the "survey" and what is reported in the source. Pyxis Solitary   yak  12:08, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

The topic of the disputed sentence in question is "people assigned male at birth"
Male children are a subsection of this group, but so are trans women and cisgender men. Seeing as those two groups are mentioned in the sentence, it's fairly weird to exclude non-binary people AMAB from the sentence seeing as those are also assigned male at birth and I'm assuming they're also banned from these spaces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deviantdreamer (talk • contribs) 15:06, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Furthermore, if the issue is that the lead supposedly wouldn't correspond to the text's main body if non-binary people are mentioned, "male children older than a certain age" should also be removed from the lead? By leaving non-binary people out of the sentence, you're effectively implying they don't exist. Deviantdreamer (talk) 16:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, if the body doesn't mention male children, then it shouldn't be mentioned in the article. When I reverted your edit originally, I thought that it had, but I was actually remembering the MichFest article, which goes more into the specifics of who was excluded than the section discussing it here. For now, I've reverted the article to the WP:STATUSQUO version which doesn't mention AMAB non-binary people but mentions boys. I'm not opposed to including mention of both if sourced and included in the body of the article, but I think it would be much easier to find RS for the exclusion of boys above a certain age rather than the exclusion of AMAB trans people other than trans women. --Equivamp - talk 18:58, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

"Women-only spaces" section
The current text of the "Women-only spaces" section reads as follows:
 * A women-only space is an area where only women are allowed, thus providing a place where they do not have to interact with men. Historically and globally, many cultures had, and many still have, some form of female seclusion.

The problem with this title and description is it's not really relevant or specific to the content below. "Womyn-born womyn" spaces specifically ban trans women. All of the sources we have for this section specifically talk about these events in terms of their exclusion of trans women.

The current title and description would be fine if these spaces were women-only spaces and were talked about in that capacity by the sources, but they are not. In an attempt to correct this, I made this edit. I changed the title to Cis women-only spaces and added the following text to the end of the existing description:
 * Organizations and events with womyn-born womyn policies specifically exclude trans women from these spaces, restricting access to only cisgender women.

I didn't expect this to be controversial, as it mirrors the text in the lead:
 * Events and organizations that have womyn-born-womyn-only policies bar access to anyone who was assigned male at birth: men, trans women, and male children older than a determined age.

CatCafe reverted this edit with the edit summary Not as per sources. CatCafe, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Is my reading of the sources and the article body for this section mistaken? Is there some source I'm missing that contradicts this? I'd love to hear your or anyone else's thoughts. Sr ey Sr os talk 23:08, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think your edit was good and it was a bad revert. The sources and the content both back up your edit, which of course they do, or they shouldn't be in this article. --Equivamp - talk 23:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Re this edit on 18:29, 7 January 2021. As of this writing, there is only a creation of this topic on the talk page by the editor that made the edits and one response to it by another editor. It is quite a stretch of the imagination and overconfident to describe a response by one editor as a "consensus". I will need to read the sources first before deciding whether the content merits inclusion. It is important to remember that most editors are juggling more than one ball on Wikipedia and none of us are at anyone's beck and call.  Pyxis Solitary   (yak) . L not Q. 23:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement with ' edit, both the section title and description change. I don't have anything to add but support for the comments made by SreySros and Equivamp; it seems quite a straightforward change. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)