Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 74

Transgender pronoun / identity
This edit resulted in this text being added to the manual of style:

''Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self identification). This can mean calling an individual the term they use, or calling a group the term most widely used by that group. This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the name and pronoun they use to identify themselves.''

I have seen that a few times in passing and it never seemed troublesome until now when I just read an article that is highly confusing. That article is: Brandon Teena. Here are some weird things that result from this policy:


 * This is a person born and mostly raised as a girl, yet nowhere in the article is this fact made clear.
 * As a young girl, "he" was sexually assaulted by a male relative. (We presume it is a male relative, there is no indication of how that person self identifies!)
 * "He" was raped in "his" vagina. He had female external genitalia.
 * "He" almost certainly had two X chromosomes.
 * Legally this person was identified as a female/woman and when sentenced to jail "he" went to the woman's prison.

After reading this article and the talk page, it occurred to me that a slavish adherence to this aspect of the manual of style has not led to a clear article. Among other things, it seems that the "temporality" of the gender transition would have helped. A discussion of how "She" was born a girl and then later "He" self identified as a man, would have clarified the article greatly.

Next, I considered the fact that some people self identify as Napoleon or as Aliens from another planet. Do we write the article seriously when people self identify in patently ridiculous ways? Yet this policy says we do.

Finally, I noticed that this part of the guideline was added by one editor without any discussion at all. I do not know that below the radar edits are the same as consensus, but even if they are, consensus can change and I recommend that it does so.

I am not interested in making edits that would "disrespect" transgendered people. But I think some degree of clarity is also appropriate and the policy needs to recognize that this is an encyclopedia first and foremost.

I would change the policy as follows:

''Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self identification). This can mean calling an individual the term they use, or calling a group the term most widely used by that group. This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the name and pronoun they use to identify themselves.''

''This self-identification style should not be used to the exclusion of clarity in the article. For transgendered individuals, it is often helpful to clarify declared birth gender and use appropriate pronouns for that gender up to the biographical point where a gender-association change can be identified.''

I would invite re-wording to fit what I am trying to say better.

--Blue Tie 07:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Self-identification is the only relevant standard for topics regarding transgendered individuals, as it bloody well should be. Anything else is opinion - the equivalent of an online 'pants check'.
 * Moreover, I would consider using one pronoun before 'a gender-association change can be identified' and another 'afterwards' (and requiring authors to define and straddle that point) to be much more confusing than consistently referring to an individual by their chosen identification. Phrases like 'his vagina', etc., while perhaps confusing for some, are neither factually incorrect nor inherently confusing in the context of a biography of a person with gender identity disorder. It may be outside your experience, but it's not wrong, nor unclear.
 * To me, this is a classic situation where using proper editorial skills to avoid confusion is far preferable to policy wonking, to say nothing of your repeated comparisons of transgendered people's self-identification to mentally ill individuals considering themselves 'Napoleon' or 'aliens'. Such arguments are not only based on a blatantly and utterly false analogy, they are also highly offensive in and of themselves. Based on your use of such false analogies and offensive statements, I submit that you may not understand issues of gender identity well enough to offer an informed policy recommendation regarding self-identification. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You seem to be taking offense needlessly. Your personal attack regarding my understanding is not appreciated.  I was looking at a specific article where I considered the issue to be handled wrongly.  I note that you argued vociferously there as you are dong here.  Are you too close to this subject matter to comment objectively and politely? --Blue Tie 04:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't make a personal attack, I pointed out your false analogy between delusion and gender identity disorder and the general concern it raises for me regarding your general knowledge about the issues involved in gender identity disorder. In any case, I'm honestly sorry if you felt attacked. Cheers! -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This quote: "I submit that you may not understand issues of gender identity well enough to offer an informed policy recommendation regarding self-identification." was what I considered the personal attack. You used ad hominum argument to suggest that my points were invalid. However, you apologized and I accept it completely.


 * But your new comment says I made a false analogy between delusion and gender identity disorder. I did not do that. I do not think you read what I wrote or understood it correctly.  In essence, our policy makes no distinction between the deluded or insane and those with transgender issues of all kinds -- not just "gender identity disorder" (and some are extremely challenging, I have had exposure to them and I am very sympathetic toward them).  That our policy makes no such distinction -- or even allows for editorial insight on this is a problem.  And I think that a slavish adherence to this guideline has created a less than ideal article in the case of Brandon. --Blue Tie 05:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I read what you wrote. I simply don't see how either a comparison nor a distinction between transgendered individuals and 'deluded' individuals needs to be made, since they are entirely different situations. Since you raised the issue on 'Brandon Teena' and not here, and in the interests of accuracy, I strongly suggest you'd be better off raising the issue of 'deluded' self-identification (thinking oneself to be an alien or Napoleon) independently of pressing for alternating pronoun usage on transgender bios (to say nothing of transsexual murder victim bios). -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, let me see if I can make it clearer. The policy says: "Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification). This can mean using the term an individual uses for himself or herself, or using the term a group most widely uses for itself."   So, a person declares themselves to be half man half fish (transphibian).  Do we really write an article that says " Joe Blow is a transphibian from the aquatic planet gozog" just because he says so? I'm not trying to destroy the whole style intent here, but it became clear to me that this guideline is too sweeping and has been used too sweepingly, particularly in the Brandon article I cited.  --Blue Tie 06:06, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * 'An appropriate transition point' to refer to an individual's gender is plainly inappropriate. Their sex, not their gender, is what changes. Their sex is a different matter than their gender, and it is their gender identity, not their sex, which determines the use of pronouns. I'm not even going to answer your 'transphibian' comment except to say that it doesn't bear on pronoun usage for transgendered individuals in the slightest, and it really doesn't interest me as an exercise of policy 'in absurdum'. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 06:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You claim it is plainly inappropriate, but I disagree. I also disagree that their sex changes.  Their sex is defined by their chromosomes.  What changes is their claimed or identified gender. As far as not answering the "Transphibian" comment as being too absurd, apparently you did not click the link.  Although Prince Mongo declares with absolute sobriety and makes this claim in legal documents, in courts of law and in every venue possible, that he is an ambassador from another planet, wikipedia does not identify him as "Ambassador from Mongo", but instead says that "he claims to be an Ambassador from Mongo".  Do you really think wikipedia would be a better encyclopedia if instead, it followed this guideline and just accepted his claim as though it were fact?


 * I knew a man who as he grew older became weird. He came to believe he was Joan of Arc and had a new mission. He had lived for 67 years as a man. (He was the Y chromosome contributor to several children).  Should his final 3 years of dementia be used to determine his life long gender identity if he had been written about in wikipedia? Yet by your extreme view of this guideline... yes it should be -- no recognition of before and after should be used in the pronouns.  Something is wrong with that view. And it creates articles that are more confusing than they need to be and less factually accurate than desirable. --Blue Tie 06:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You're welcome to disagree with the practical and legal realities of sex reassignment (not gender, sex reassignment), and you're welcome to your repeated associations of the issue with extreme and absurd cases of 'weird', deluded people, and you're welcome to in essence conflate delusion with gender identity, but I'm simply not going to play with utter absurdities of that sort. Enjoy. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 06:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Basically, I have to agree with Ryan's comments above. Self-ID is where it's at. Anything else is going to be highly offensive to the subject and could easily come under WP:BLP rules. Note that a transsexual woman of note (no names!) has threatened legal action against a person for using what she considered "wrong pronouns" and for harassment on usenet. WP:COMMON applies here, folks. Furthermore, equating people diagnosed with gender identity disorder (and, yes, disorder it is) with people suffering from transient delusions is more than a little unfair here; apple, oranges and all that. Note that most reputable media organisations (like the BBC, for example (doc)) have editorial policies which either mandate or strongly suggest referring to the person by their self-identity. Can you imagine  referring to someone like Miriam as "he" because of their alleged original genitalia? Do we really want to go there? -  Alison ☺ 22:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think you exactly read my suggestion. I am not saying that we should NOT refer to the person by their chosen gender.  However, it is a matter of record that most people are born with an identified gender.  It is a matter of record and wikipedia cannot be sued for reporting such a fact.  My suggestion was that in at least some cases, there would be an appropriate transition point.  It just makes things clearer for the article, plus it is more factual.   Interestingly enough, on this issue, wikipedia guidelines on style contradict wikipedia policy on things like WP:RS, WP:OR on this matter.  For example, in some cases it is a matter of public legal record that an individual, choosing to be identified as one gender is legally considered to be a different gender. Incidentally, I do not know why you consider that I was making a comparison between gender identity disorder and people suffering from transient delusions.  I did not do that.--Blue Tie 05:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that switching pronouns mid-article is even more confusing, but I also agree with Blue Tie that the article as it stands is potentially puzzling to readers who are not used to issues of transgender identity. May I suggest a compromise: the introduction should try to describe the central situation of Brandon Teena in gender neutral language, before then moving on to using the male pronoun. Here is an example (and bear in mind that I'm not remotely knowledgeable about gender identity disorder, so I may offend those who are, but I'm just trying to provide something to work with here):
 * Brandon Teena (December 12, 1972 - December 31, 1993) was a transgendered person, born with female sexual characteristics but self-identifying as male. Born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln, Nebraska but known simply as Brandon, he was raped and eventually murdered in one of the most infamous American hate crimes of the 1990s...

OK, this is a little clumsy, but it explains to the casual reader that Brandon was regarded as physically female by conventional society, but self-identified as male, before moving on to use the male pronoun, yet also does so without using female pronouns. How does that work? Feel free to shoot me down. Cop 633 00:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the solution is an editorial one, not a policy one. Let's discuss your suggestion on the Talk:Brandon Teena article's talk page. I'll put my comment here and there, to avoid seeming evasive of your suggestion. In my opinion, as it stands, it's got promise - except that a transgendered man is a 'transgendered person, born with female sexual characteristics but self-identifying as male'. Just linking 'transgendered man' to 'female-to-male transsexual' or the equivalent and skipping the redundant redefinition in the article space should solve the issue well. Also, the issue of how society regarded Brandon is not quite as you suggest, since there is testimony that various individuals at various times believed he was a man and did not know of his transgenderism. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 00:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * (ec - sorry, Ryan) We're kinda moving away from WT:MOS territory here and back onto Brandon Teena, but I can see your point. There's a good example of this at work in the Wendy Carlos article, which begins by ignoring her gender entirely and relying on surnames. It seems to work. Thoughts? - A l is o n  ☺ 00:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think it "works" all that well. Its kinda vague. Not so good for an encyclopedia.  Wendy Carlos' article should mention it in a bit more detail.   She has been pretty vocal and open about it, though not in a way that I would call "attention seeking".  BTW, I have been a big fan of hers since she was openly a he. --Blue Tie 05:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 'Openly a he'. Sheesh. Another little example of what is at once a factually incorrect and a simply offensive use of pronouns to refer to a transsexual. You may not accept, understand or care at all, but if you said something like that about her to her directly, I can all-but-guarantee that comment would be perceived as hurtful and seriously disrespectful. Thankfully WP:STYLE's self identification in its present, unmodified form is likewise at once more appropriate and informative. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 05:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't see the harm in keeping a very brief explanation of what a 'transgendered man' is. Many readers will assume that a 'transgendered man' is a physically male person who self identifies as a woman, and may not even think to click on the link. You have to remember that many readers who do not know much about gender identity disorders will not know the 'rules' about pronouns and may assume that transgendered people are normally referred to by their physical gender. A little potted explanation like this explains the situation quickly, so that the non-experts will know where they stand. (The same problem is there in the Wendy Carlos article BTW, which says she had a sex change but doesn't say from what to what. It would harm nobody to state it clearly). Cop 633 00:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Cop 633's idea a couple of posts up. That looks like a good solution.  But I also think that the wikipedia manual of style should be adjusted because I have seen it used (By Ryan Freisling in particular) to support confusing edits. Furthermore, how does this interact with WP:VER when you can verify that legally this person was born as a different gender than the one that they later identified with.  I note that policies tend to trump guidelines and this is a guideline. --Blue Tie 05:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 'Confusing' is easier to correct than 'patently incorrect' or 'erroneous'. Referring to Brandon Teena as 'she' and as 'he' can hardly be argued to be 'less confusing'. The issue should be addressed without creating an arbitrary and invasive 'litmus test' or 'pants check' in order to simply and properly refer to transgendered individuals. 'Confusion' has many sources, and the source of this confusion isn't WP:STYLE. And 'gender' and 'sex' are different. Many transsexuals believe that they were born a different 'gender' than their 'sex', and their unchangeable 'gender identity' is what is at odds with their changeable physical sex. For them, their gender identity doesn't change - and gender self-identification determines pronoun usage - so how could such an arbitrary and fundamentally invasive policy demanding WP:VER of a change in their gender (not their sex) ever possibly be correct or encyclopedic? Self ID for transgendered individuals as a guide to pronoun usage is the reasonable answer. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 06:01, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I fundamentally disagree with you on what changes, but I do not see how it matters either way. What matters is that this style guideline is messed up.  It should recognize before and after some point in time where there was a change. That would make articles clearer.  I know you disagree.  No point in replying just to say you disagree.  But if you have a new point that would be good to see. But if you are not going to recognize the points I am making and just keep repeating your opinion that my ideas are no good, its not going to advance any discussion.--Blue Tie 06:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not ignoring your points, I've simply said that:
 * your desire to frame policy using absurd scenarios like your 'transphibian' and 'Joan of Arc' guys is extreme, and unsupportable. When either of them are notable, then they may rise to the level of a useful case for crafting guidelines and policies. Obviously absurd and misapplied scenarios can be (falsely) argued to upend even the most basic and generally useful of guidelines and policies, to say nothing of policies regarding issues of controversy like gender identity and sex reassignment for BLP / BIO subjects.
 * I've also stated that as per the facts of Gender identity disorder and sex reassignment, it is the individual's anatomical sex, and not their gender, that changes for the transgendered person and that self gender-identification (being inherently verifiable by first hand account) is therefore the only reasonble, verifiable standard for name and pronoun usage regarding transgendered individuals on WP. Note an appropriate test of the guideline could regard a notable transgendered person who verifies that their gender identity does change over time, in which case given their notability there should be guidelines in that person's history for such usage. Much more useful example than fish-people.
 * Creating an arbitrary and unverifiable 'threshold' below which the appropriate pronoun is somehow not appropriate for a transgendered person seems to be WP:OR, to say nothing of entirely inappropriate to the subject matter, unencyclopedic and erroneous. Moreover, as times go by we will undoubtedly finding ourselves struggling more and more with the limitations of pronoun and gender-related language rules to accurately describe what is in natural fact best described as a wide range of human gender identities and sexes, so I don't doubt that you are struggling with this issue right now. In the case of Brandon Teena, I'm not struggling with usage as the guidelines are very clear in his (tragic) case. Last, I'm honestly sorry you feel the discussion isn't advancing, I don't agree. Cheers, and goodnight (it's bed time). -- User:RyanFreisling @ 07:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The heart of the problem, as I see it, is that it's impossible to follow WP:NPOV in this situation. The nature of transgendered people is an ongoing debate with strong feelings on both sides. But where Wikipedia would normally take the middle road, in this case there's none to take. You've gotta use "he" or "she" (or a third pronoun, and those always stick out like a sore thumb, taking the reader out of the article).

So one side will win out where usage is concerned, and there's no point in being unrealistic about which side that'll be. First, the rule is already in place. Second, while we're gonna disagree on what the exceptions are, self-identification is a pretty sensible overall guideline. And third, Wikipedia is consensus-driven, and it lives on the internet, which (in a very broad average sense) tilts liberal. So the rule is not gonna be outright overturned -- and that's fair whether you agree with it or not, because it's how the game is played here.

That said, there's certainly room for improvement. User:Cop 633 beat me to the solution I was planning to suggest: make sure it's clear at the start of the article what the person's gender/nature/whatever is, especially in cases like Brandon Teena where that's deeply relevant to the subject matter. The article User:Alison brought up, Wendy Carlos, is a spectacular example of how not to do it. It's downright coy, deferring the subject for several paragraphs and being indirect even then. The editor clearly didn't consider Carlos' sex change important, which is fine -- and thought you shouldn't consider it important either, which isn't fine. Wikipedia is about providing facts, not making points.

So I think this principle of clarity, just giving the reader the information up front, is about as good a compromise as we'll reach. And policy-wise, that's all I have to say.

But I also want to address something about the debate itself. I've been following the Brandon Teena talk page for a while now, ever since some semirandom browsing led me to that article. It's on my watchlist because, quite apart from my own biases, I just think this is an interesting question. And I think everybody involved needs to keep in mind that reasonable people can and do disagree about this. Those like User:Blue Tie who disagree with the rule (and those like me who at least find it dubious) are not automatically bad people. I don't know if that's how you feel, User:RyanFreisling, but I do hear it in your tone -- and I'm guessing part of that comes from all the trouble User:Gwen Gale has given you guys on the Brandon Teena page. Gale's obnoxious conduct and edit warring made me wince just reading it. But that's about her as a WP editor, not her case.

Blue Tie's analogies are offensive, but that's not why he's making them. He's trying to make the point that self-identification obviously stops somewhere, something the rule as stated doesn't acknowledge. If you think that dividing line is easy to nail down, consider Leslie Feinberg, who self-identifies as a third gender and prefers pronouns like "hir." You'll notice the article studiously avoids using pronouns -- precisely because it's not obvious whether the ones Feinberg prefers would be appropriate. If it were put to a vote, I think most Wikipedians would agree with using "he" in Brandon Teena's article; I seriously doubt that most would agree with "hir" in Feinberg's.

Okay, I've spent far too long writing this. Bedtime for me too. Cheers, all. ~ CZeke 10:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your thoughtful response and I overwhelmingly agree with your post. First of all, I must say that if my tone implies that I think editors who have concerns with the style guidelines for transgendered individuals are bad people, I will conscientously work to change that, because it's not my intention. I'm a passionate editor and debater, and the internet medium can allow for or imbue the discussion with an unintentioned brusqueness. I'll work hard to combat any impression in my WP work that I judge others personally.
 * While we can disagree with one another around the useful guideline for WP, etc., it's important to note that an appropriately NPOV determination should not fall along liberal/conservative lines. There is an existing body of knowledge on the issue in the form of the existing medical standards and legal definitions of gender identity disorder and sex reassignment, and collectivelly they lend a lot of added weight to the use of self-identification around gender identity.
 * Last, I certainly don't advocate the use of what I would consider incorrect pronoun constructions like 'hir', 'zis', etc. They may become prevalent someday, but I don't think they can be considered an improvement. We should absolutely follow the rules of style grammatically while we use the guideline of self-identification to refer to transgendered individuals, which as I mentioned can potentially be fluid - but will always be first-person verifiable. The rule need not apply to the deranged, the 'part-fish', etc., because if we do so and employ an 'artificial threshold' beyond self-identification for verifiably transgendered individuals, we would be engagng in a particularly contentious and unverifiable form of original 'social' research. Again, my sincere thanks. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your open minded review of the situation. I did not realize that I was being offensive. I do not quite understand it and would also appreciate a discussion on my talk page about it.  I suspect that it was not what I said that was offensive but what people thought I was intending, meaning, implying or something else.  But not what I actually said. And I said what I meant.  So if something I actually said was offensive, I am unaware of it, but I would like to be shown it for my own edification and future improvement.  Please leave a message on my talk page explaining how I offended.


 * The example of "hir" above is also interesting. I thank you for providing it.  Because this seems to be a topic that is controversial and because my motives may be in question, I want to explain my thought process for beginning this discussion.


 * In wandering around, I found the Teena Brandon article. I have never had a problem with the "self ID" gender thing in other similar articles.  However, this article was a bit confusing and in particular, one sentence about the sexual molestation or assault as a child really stuck out in my mind.  As I read the article for the third time, I strongly felt that one sentence should read " she was".  Once I mentally put "she was" in that sentence, I realized that it created a really odd problem with the article that would not go away until there was an explanation of the pronoun transition.  When I mentally added that explanation (Gender Identity Change) at the appropriate point, I had a sort of Eureka! moment. The article suddenly seemed to read better and make more sense.


 * So I looked at the talk page on the matter and saw that the basis for the current situation was this guideline. This is where the fix should be if the guideline is being used as a crutch that makes the articles less informative and more confusing. And it seemed to me that the way to fix it would be to recognize a transition point in the life of the person.   There is more to this that I will discuss later, but that was how I first approached this guideline.


 * But once I read the guideline, I suddenly also realized how weak it was: self identification does not always deserve respect. Just because someone self identifies, it does not mean that we always present that assumption on their part as a fact. Prince Mongo self identifies as an alien ambassador.  But wikipedia only says that this is what he claims, it does not respect that self identification as though it were a fact.  And that is appropriate.  But according to this guideline we should call him "Prince Mongo, Ambassador from the Planet Mongo" rather than say that he claims to be an ambassador from another planet.  Immediately one can see that this guideline has a failure mode.


 * Extending that logic to gender identification we could say: "just because someone self identifies as a particular gender does not make it an automatic fact". The fellow I was talking about who felt that he was Joan of Arc is an example.  He had lived his life for years as a man (with a different identity and life occupation) and only in some sort of age syndrome did he change.  Of course, I am not sure he exactly gave gender an explicit thought, but another person, a homosexual black man, in his last 6 months of AIDS did. He explicitly began to claim he was a woman, down to speaking in a high voice, wearing women's clothing and self mutilation (to a degree -- he really didn't like pain enough to do the full job).  But the nursing staff chalked his behavior up to AIDS related dementia, not to a rational choice.  Should that self-identification of gender identification get respect?  The guideline says "yes". And the example given above, per this guideline, Leslie Feinberg should be labeled "hir" because that is the self identification. This guideline gives us just black and white choices on an area full of greys.


 * So, how do you fix that problem? Is there a way to have a somewhat universal rule that provides for the greys? Another Eureka! moment.  WP:NPOV is the answer.  The article does not have to make a judgment call on such things.  It does not have to have either a pro or negative pov (whichever side is pro or negative... I cannot tell).  It can just rely upon WP:NPOV standards such as verifiability and reliability, using pronouns appropriately according to the context .  For example, take Walter - to Wendy Carlos.  Historical events prior to the gender identification change should be "He". This can be verified, for example, by reading contemporary interviews with Carlos (and also liner notes) where Walter is described as a "he" "his" and "him".   Later, however, after the gender-reassignment, Wendy is a "she" and "her".  Also, when speaking generally and not in reference to any particular time frame, use the chosen pronouns.  This solution entirely respects the individual's choices while at the same time remaining neutral and fact based... just as wikipedia should be.


 * I am not sure this entirely clears up the problem in all areas, but it makes many of them easier and improves wikipedia. For example, it can be verified that Prince Mongo was born to human parents.  It cannot be verified that he came from another planet with ambassadorial credentials.  So, wikipedia just reports the facts and stays neutral.  It can be verified that Feinberg was born female and that later, she changed her gender identity.  Wikipedia just reports the facts and stays neutral.  If the article were to address historical events prior to a gender identity change, it would be appropriate to use "her" and "she". After a gender identity change (third gender) "hir" and "ze".


 * So too, with Teena Brandon. Use "she" was sexually assaulted as a child and then use "he" and "him" for historical events after an explained gender re-identification.


 * A tag explaining the use of pronouns in such article should also be developed and included.


 * That was my thinking. I was thinking of clarity and factual neutrality in articles to make them better.  I am not on some gender bashing hunt. I think this manual of style can be improved by looking to NPOV.  --Blue Tie 10:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

AEB

 * I appreciate that you want to use factual neutrality and clarity. Here are the facts, and how basing our style guide on anything but self-ID (including to discuss childhood events) is both far more unclear and more POV.
 * Fact One: Continually using examples of deluded individuals and 'fish-men' as absurd arguments ro revise WP naming guidelines for transgender individuals is offensive. It is offensive in that 1) gender identity disorder is not a delusion and one therefore has no bearing on the other from a policy perspective and 2) since the situations are not equivalent it's logically offensive to editors seeking to avoid facilitating blatantly erroneous arguments made 'in absurdum'.
 * Fact Two: As you yourself stated, your self-mutilating Joan of Arc's caregivers (again, that's a lovely example) felt the cause of that person's behavior was 'AIDS-dementia' and so I think you'd have to agree that would be a determination that that person is not a transgendered individual under the standards of care in the U.S. - so like fish-boy and prince whatever, I don't see how that can be a valid case for establishing policy regarding transgendered individuals.
 * Fact Three The term you just employed, 'Gender Identity Change' is apparently your own invention - it has no medical basis. While indeed gender is fluid, and examples exist of people whose gender, and not their sex, is said to have changed, the overwhelmingly more frequent situation is of a person suffering from 'gender identity disorder' who changes their sex (using 'sex reassignment') to conform to their 'gender identity'. A great number of them report having these identifications in childhood. Therefore, intentionally referring to a transgendered person when describing them in childhood by the pronoun matching their 'sex' rather than their gender is arbitrarily and unacceptably POV and unsupported on the facts. Words are meaningful and you can't create new ones on which to base policy when you refuse to accept the underlying facts.
 * Practical, Useful and Non-Offensive Example Your suggestion would have us writing sentences like the following (I'm using some difficult cases to stimulate our thinking to solve them editorially):
 * "Brandon Teena (born --/--/--) was a transsexual man. He identified as male since she was a child. When she was young, she felt herself to be male.He was raped and murdered after it was discovered that she had been born female.
 * Of course it should read:
 * "Brandon Teena (born --/--/--) was a transsexual man. He identified as male since he was a child. When he was young, he felt himself to be male. He was raped and murdered after it was discovered that he had been born female.
 * Your suggested revised policy (the arbitrary threshold) would be a major disruption. It would be unverifiable, would cause 'confusion', and would be offensive to transgendered and non-transgendered people alike. Absurd extreme examples like yours aren't nearly enough for WP to impose a policy that would be so counter-productive and destructive, and to the best of my knowledge, WP policy doesn't allow non-standard grammatical constructions like 'zis' so I echo your concern that we not base policy around violations of policy.
 * Last (and again), given that you came to this issue from your response to the use of a pronoun on one sentence, don't you think using editorial skills to deal with those instances is better than making broad and offensive swipes at the policy? I surely do. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am disappointed. I had hoped that in describing my thoughts in detail a substantive discussion would ensue.  Instead you have given more details on your revulsion to the examples I raised.  (Your revulsion to the examples is not an indication of my bad faith you know).  But you have not really dealt with the issues I raised.  In particular:
 * "Fact" One is not a fact. It is an editorial opinion.  However, I did not intend to be offensive and taking my words as offensive is a failure to assume good faith.  As far as your other statements, the style guideline does not take into account any considerations of the validity of the claim.  It simply says that if a person so identifies, that is how they are to be referred to.  This extends past transgender issues, but it includes them.  Your objections on this matter suggest you are not grasping the point, but I do not know how to make it clearer.  Indeed, someone else already explained it in great clarity but you do not seem to be recognizing the issues.
 * "Fact" Two is another editorial statement by you. The discussion would go better if you were not being so quick to take offense and trying to read some imagined meaning between the lines and simply deal with the issue:  The style guideline does not handle this matter.
 * "Fact" Three. It may be apparent to you that I have invented it. But it is not in fact true.  The only fact here is that you think it is a fact.


 * Three "facts". None of them factual. But all expressed in a disdainful way. Unfortunate.


 * Now as for editing examples, it is entirely inappropriate to assume that I or other editors are idiots or that we seek to violate NPOV, V or RS as you have proposed I would suggest. Instead of setting up strawmen, why not ask me how I would edit?  Here is one example of how I might edit the opening per my suggested guidelines.


 * "Brandon Teena (born --/--/--) was a transsexual born as a female, who from the age of 14 identified as a male. He was raped and murdered at the age of 21. His life has been the subject of two movies.


 * (I used the fact tag where I was not sure of the age just now).


 * You claim that my approach would be unverifiable. On the contrary, it would be entirely verifiable. It can be verified that a person was born under some particular gender identity and then, at some age, determined a different identity.  Gender reassignment is even more clearly established.  This is not arbitrary.  The same would go for other identity changes, such as a person identifying as Joan of Arc or as Native American or as an alien from outer space.  These examples that you call "absurd" are found on the pages of wikipedia and the style policy ought to apply generally and uniformly.


 * I hope that, if you reply again, it would be more constructive and that you would assume good faith. --Blue Tie 13:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Once again, you are factually misstating what gender identity disorder and sex reassignment are, by stating 'a person was born under some particular gender identity and then, at some age, determined a different identity.'. As I said already, that does not describe the majority of transgendered individuals, and we should have clear self-verifiable info on which to base article content and pronoun usage for those whom it does apply.
 * I'm disappointed as well, but only in that you seem to continue to ignore what I've posted, attribute it to some personal revulsion, and restate unfounded views of the subject matter – which is supposed to be transgendered self-identification as a guide to pronoun usage, but you have used extreme examples of deluded individuals who are not transgendered to make your case. I want to make sure the policy for transgendered individuals is factually-based, without POV bias.
 * It's not personal, I've made my points clearly and grounded entirely in fact and I don't think it's necessary to repeat them. And I don't object to your intro at all, but you might want to expand your sample to explore some of the age or 'threshold'-related pronoun usage you've proposed. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 14:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a few questions, that are tangental, so i would take them to your talk page. However, this one may be to the point and help get somewhere:  Are we in disagreement that the style guideline does not only apply to transgendered people? --Blue Tie 14:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I do agree. I've been assiduously containing my argument to the issue of pronoun usage for transgendered people on WP. I support the current version in that it specifically describes policy for transgendered individuals. That's the issue for me. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 15:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not understand your answer. I will try again.  If you agree then it means that the manual of style does not ONLY discuss transgendered individuals, but includes ALL incidences of self identification.  If you disagree it means that the manual of style ONLY discusses transgendered individuals in this identity matter. Your answer seemed to go both ways.  So do you agree or disagree? --Blue Tie 00:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My answer is very simple. I am concerned with self-identification as a guide for transgendered individuals, not any wider policy discussions. The manual of style discusses transgendered individuals and I support that specific sentence containing that specific guideline ('This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they use to identify themselves.' I am not interested in a wider policy discussion involving deluded individuals, etc. - just in properly dealing with pronouns for transgendered individuals on WP articles like that of murdered transsexual Brandon Teena, on whose page this discussion emerged. That's my context and my interest. One sentence that indicates the proper usage for transgendered individuals. Nothing more. I do hope that's a clear enough answer. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 00:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * OK. I think we do not have much to discuss, because we are talking about two different things.  I am referring to the whole section on self identification (and verifiability in regard to that) and you are talking about a subset without the context of the whole policy. I see no way to discuss the smaller issue out of the context of the larger issue; they are related by intent of the style manual. However, now it makes sense to me that you would not have understood or appreciated my examples if you were unilaterally limiting the discussion to a the subset while I was addressing the more global issue.  As an aside, though, I suppose there is a question about whether people suffering from gender identity disorders and intersexed persons should be treated under different rules of respect than other people with identity troubles.  If so, perhaps the two issues should be separated.  Then we could have rules that only pertain to GID/intersexed persons and other rules that pertain to people with other identity issues.  I'm not sure that would be proper though.  --Blue Tie 01:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to briefly add that the Jan Morris article seems like a better model than Wendy Carlos: it manages to be clear about Morris's situation, while still using the female pronoun throughout, and it does so by simply stating the facts at the beginning of the relevant paragraph; it does not have the confusing 'read between the lines' attitude of the Carlos article.Cop 633 16:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

My 2c is that Wikipedia's policy here is the fairest approach. I don't support giving an inch to those who want to describe someone who considered themselves male with a female pronoun, any more than I would support describing a black man as a "nigger". Grace Note 00:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * And if that black man self-identifies as white? Would you ban all references to him ever being black or called black by others? --GunnarRene 16:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

As an alternate solution, what about creating a template for transgender individuals to display at the top of the page explaining their birth gender and their preferred gender identification, then stating the Wikipedia standard that they will be referred to by their preferred gender? This eliminates confusion and still refers to people by the pronoun that they themselves prefer. Queerudite 18:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

For goodness sake! This has been hashed out for literally years! Respecting the identification of the subject rather than taking a "side" one way or the other is the most neutral way of proceeding. The history of a subject should be made clear where it is relevant, naturally, and can be done so by respecting pronouns as well -- it's not rocket science to treat the history of transgender or transsexual people with tact and respect (as it should be done with nontransgender people also!) unsigned comment by User:149.135.29.71 at 02:08, 28 May 2007