User:YBNBookworm/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Childhood gender nonconformity

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I often find LGBTQ-related topics difficult to address in an objective way. I was curious how Wikipedia would deal with the politically-charged rhetoric around gender non-conforming children. Because adults often turn to the internet when their children begin to behave in ways that are unfamiliar or foreign to them, I think having an up-to-date and unbiased Wikipedia page is particularly important for this topic. My preliminary impression is that this page seems disorganized and out of date because of the way the headings are organized, the particular terms used, and the age of the sources cited.

Lead section
The opening sentence offers a definition for childhood gender non-conformity, and the first paragraph offers examples of gender non-conformity in children. However, only one source is sited and it is a book about lesbians and gay men written in 2002. The examples of gender non-conformity in children are also not cited, implying that they could just be someone's anecdotal experience or assumptions on the topic. The lead section does not include a description of the articles sections. The headings seem haphazard without the sign-posting to link the topics or order together. The lead is brief but is missing an overview of details contained in the article.

Content
Some of the article's content is relevant to the topic. "Manifestations," "Needs of gender non-conforming children and families," and "Gender dysphoria" are all relevant subtopics. However, the labels of "Sexual Orientation" and "Influence of androgens" require further linking to the topic. The heading "Influences of androgens" is about different studies regarding gender non-conforming children and not just studies regarding androgens in children. The content in the headings "Parental reactions" and "Peer reactions" has fewer citations and includes theoretical but unsupported examples of reactions. While I believe that mentioning gender dysphoria is important, the language used in this article is out of date with current scientific standards. The expression "gender identity disorder" or GID is out of date with current DSM-5 standards. The article acknowledges this change but uses the language of GID throughout.

The article deals with Wikipedia equity gaps by addressing an LGBTQ-related topic, and it is labeled on the talk page as an article of interest to WikiProject LGBT studies.

Tone and Balance
The tone feels inconsistent throughout with assumptions, scientific studies, and generalizations intermixed. The claims about sexual orientation and gender non-conformity are heavily presented. There is also a lack of information about transgender identities compared to sexual orientation. "Sexual orientation," "gay," "lesbian," and "sexuality" appear more than 25 times throughout the article, whereas the word "transgender" only appears four times. Transphobia is discussed during the "Parental reactions" section, but gender identity (separate from dysphoria) is underrepresented in this article about gender non-conforming children.

The viewpoints of "Behavior modification therapy" and "Supportive professionals" are both presented. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, an advocate of behavior modification therapy, is contextualized with critiques of his viewpoints. "Supportive professionals" is a biased title for the subject of professionals choosing to let children exhibit gender variant behaviors without modification, and the section lacks citations or references to practitioners or advocates of this style.

The section of "Parent reactions" does seem to have a particular bias or persuasion about how parents should treat their gender non-conforming children without scientific basis about actual child outcomes.

"Social and developmental theories of gender" is written informally with information that doesn't feel relevant or necessary to the subject without further expansion. It is not relevant to know that Anna Freud continued her father's research without knowing the content of the research in regards to theories of gender.

Sources and References
I have already talked about a lack of citations throughout, but I'd like to attend to a couple of key examples in this article. "Social and developmental theories of gender," while relevant, is lacking in references within the corresponding scientific literature about gender nonconformity. A couple of the sources are news articles and one is a resource website called "Gender spectrum." These sources are less reputable and have more biased language and persuasive purposes than the scientific articles and books cited.

Many of the studies and books in this article are from 90s or early 2000s. The most recent scientific source cited in this article is from 2017. Upon looking up "childhood gender nonconformity" on Google Scholar, there were 15,500 results for scientific articles written since 2018. The term "bisexual" is also not mentioned in this Wikipedia article, although contemporary language around sexual orientation and gender nonconformity often include "bisexual" alongside "gay" and "lesbian" when exploring the relationship of sexual orientation and gender non-conforming children. The current literature from my Google Scholar search also brings up many studies around gender nonconformity and transgender children, and includes studies regarding the mental health effects of parental and societal reactions to gender nonconformity. These subjects should be updated and expanded upon with scientific rather than anecdotal evidence.

Some of the sources are also improperly cited. Source 6 lacks the full title, "Listening and Learning from Gender-Nonconforming Children," source 38 has "200" as the year of publication when it was published in 2000, and source 27 lacks proper punctuation, "If You Are Concerned About Your Childs Behavior."

Organization and Writing Quality
The article does not seem well organized. Reactions of peers and adults could be consolidated under one larger heading about external reactions to childhood gender non-conformity. "Clinical treatments for gender dysphoria" belongs closer to the heading "Gender dysphoria." One of the other complications of the page is the general conflation of gender and sex in different sections. The gendered terms "girls" and "boys" are often used to refer to children assigned female or male at birth, respectively, without a clear separation that is necessary when describing gender non-conformity in children.

Images and Media
There is only one image in the article. It depicts a rhesus monkey in a section about research regarding rhesus monkeys. However, this image feels less relevant to the overall topic of gender non-conforming children because the image is not regarding the research which is relevant to the topic of the article.

The Talk Page
It was interesting to read that some folks had suggested removing the article or consolidating it with Wikipedia's article on gender variance. The article was nominated for deletion in 2010, and the discussion led to a decision that it should be kept separate because of its individual contributions to the topic. Some discussion about the relationship of sexual orientation and gender nonconformity, as well as a conversation about "past lives" as the "opposite sex" are present. The page has a C-class rating from the WikiProject in LGBT Studies. It is also earmarked as part of the WikiProject in Gender Studies, but it doesn't have a rating for quality or importance.

Overall Impressions
This article overall needs a more coherent tone and balance throughout the different sections. Some suggestions for improvement:


 * Explain the overall structure and connections of the headings to the topic in the lead section
 * Overhaul of the language to be more consistent and contemporary
 * Use articles published within the last five years
 * Fix incorrect citations
 * Remove generalizations, anecdotes, and assumptions that do not have a scientific basis
 * Reorder sections for overall flow

This article is poorly developed at the moment, but the topic has plenty of research relevant for inclusion to make it a more relevant and reliable resource once improved.