![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 |
@ Newimpartial: As I mentioned in my edit summary, the Atwood material is sourced to two passing remarks in different interviews, with no indication of lasting significance. (Both interviews are mainly about Atwood's views on other topics.) If this article included every time a feminist mentioned trans issues in passing, it would be unending. Cheers, gnu 57 18:12, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
no indication of lasting significance, seems to me not to be borne out by the evidence. Newimpartial ( talk) 20:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
see much difference between including Atwood's views and Rowlings, maybe check your prescription? :) Newimpartial ( talk) 23:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Judith Butler was interviewed by the New Statesman about this topic, and her stature and the weight given to her statements by other outlets suggests a short summary of them could be appropriate / due, if they express anything not already covered in our existing (four-sentence) summary of her views. (Some of what she said may also be relevant to the article TERF.) -sche ( talk) 06:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Rereading this section, today, I think I can see why problems keep cropping up. Unlike much of the rest of the article, this section consists overwhelmingly of a series of issues raised by trans-exclusionary feminists, while also allowing that #notallfeminists hold these views. It would better reflect the topic and avowed scope of the article if it were to include more of the positions held by mainstream and/or intersectional feminists (terms which are not equivalent but which do overlap) on trans-related issues, rather than only discussing a litany of more marginal positions. Newimpartial ( talk) 00:07, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
This section needs to be broken up into two sections, or at least, have a neutral section title, and a separate subsection for TERFs. The fact is, TERF is now something very different from "Trans-exclusionary radical feminist", in connotation, formality, and pejorativeness. For me, this section title is the rough equivalent of, == Japanese civilians in World War II (JAPs) ==. If that made you wince, that was the intention, but it's not far-fetched. But it isn't only the section title; although the confused title probably influences the confused content. Sentence 1, in theory the definitional sentence, describes TERFs. Sentence 2, in theory an expansion, defines "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". The third paragraph talks about coinage, but it's impossible to determine from that which term she coined, and flits back and forth between them as if they are indistinguishable. This whole section needs some conjoined twin surgery, which admittedly is a complex operation, but as things stand now, it really doesn't enlighten the reader about either TERF, or Trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Mathglot ( talk) 08:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
... /info/en/?search=TERF you're welcome — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.15.96.125 ( talk) 17:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I think this article could use a Globalise tag ("The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject") - a lot of the page deals with the UK/Canada/US (and a little bit of Australia) in terms of organisations/laws/controversies/etc.. with very few mentions of anything related to the issue from anywhere else in the world. Is this an issue with the article worth tagging? NHCLS ( talk) 12:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I've removed an unsupported claim about second wave feminists being "often" in conflict with trans women. There is a massive corpus of writings by and about the second wave, and only a miniscule splinter of that total concerns trans-anything, which was not a major concern at the time. The word transgender had not even been coined yet, when Friedan's Feminine Mystique burst upon the scene. When it did, there were a thousand things of importance to the growing feminist movement, of which trans women were not even #999 on the list. This changed slowly as the movement matured, with some significant and well-reported attention by individual feminists to various aspects of the growing awareness of trans issues, but they were the exception, and most feminists of the second wave were busy with other things, and when trans issues came up, were mostly accepting or held no opinion.
This leaves the opening to the lead a bit choppy, as it starts off in the second sentence talking about the *third wave*, without having said anything about the second wave, and that needs fixing. Probably it should say something about the second wave not paying much attention to trans issues through the 60s and 70s, at least until the appearance of Raymond's book in 1979, which kind of marked the starting point, or even later. It's not by accident that the article section is entitled #Early history (before 1989), which is nearly three decades into the movement, when most of the second wave theorists were already senior leaders with much of their major work already behind them. Another approach, and a more typical one for the course of most feminists (since Raymond was hardly typical), might be to mention Gloria Steinem, as someone who wrote and spoke very widely, and hardly mentioned trans-anything in her writings until 1984 (iirc), and when she did, it was kind of off-the-cuff and frankly marked by her obvious lack of having considered it much before, and also followed by an interview later where she retracted her earlier views. That probably represents as much as anything, that trajectory of most second wave feminists: starting out by lack of knowledge/lack of interest, and not having anything to say about the topic because "transgender" simply wasn't a concern of feminist women in the 60s and 70s; followed by slow, increasing awareness, and maybe some off-hand response to some interviewer who asked about it; finally involving some considered responses in the 80s or 90s, as the topic of trans issues started to come more to the fore, either because they felt it necessary to "take a side" in response to Raymond, or on other considerations. One has to put it in perspective to recall how far down the list trans issues were for the second wave; remember that it was at the outset white and upper middle-class; even lesbians had to fight for their place in the movement, and the early leaders were not sure what role, if any, lesbians should play. As that played out, the movement had to deal with the concerns of black women, and other PoC, which didn't fit at all with the issues raised in the Feminine Mystique. This took some time to play out; recall that intersectionality was only coined in 1989. And it was only *after* dealing with all that, that the much smaller, and far less well-known topic of trans issues and trans women in particular could rise to occupy some amount of attention among feminists; but by then, it wasn't mostly the second wave responding to it, although they did, somewhat, but they were hardly the opinion leaders of that subtopic of feminism.
In any case, whatever is said about the second wave in the lead, it should follow addition or organization of properly sourced material in the body, and needs to keep WP:DUEWEIGHT in mind; that is, compared to the reams of ink that were spilled on the topic later, virtually nothing was said about trans issues in the 60s and 70s when the second wave was publishing widely, and by the time the topic really arose to wide attention in the feminist community, it was mostly younger feminists from the third wave and beyond addressing it, from whatever point of view, and not the second wave, who were by that time, the "senior stateswomen" of the movement. It simply wasn't on the radar when they began writing. Mathglot ( talk) 19:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Casspedia, your recent run of edits which pretty much replaced feminists with Trans-exclusionary feminists everywhere it appeared in the article in the context of those using the term gender-critical as self-identification, was WP:BOLD to say the least. For one thing, I saw no change to any of the sources in the article to support your changes. Secondly, must of the wording has been exhaustively discussed and agreed upon in previous discussions; if you are not aware of these, check the archives. I won't revert your series because I don't have time for it right now, but I don't think it will survive scrutiny, and I just wanted to give you a heads-up, so that if you wanted to support your effort, you could start thinking about what sources you want to use, and how to support a change of this nature. Simply coming to the article and systematically changing the wording to your own preference without justification, is not likely to survive very long at the article without it. Good luck, Mathglot ( talk) 23:45, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Anyone wanna fix the two instances in the lead of citation overkill? There may be further instances of death by citation lower down the article, but I've not checked yet. -- Ineffablebookkeeper ( talk) 10:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
I respectfully submit that Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce be added to Further reading. The author, who holds a PhD in mathematics from University College London, is Britain editor at The Economist, where she has held several senior positions, including Finance editor and International editor. Since its publication on July 15, 2021, Joyce's book has received highly favorable reviews in leading publications.
The Telegraph, which Wikipedia tells us "generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism," featured a 5-star review by Kathleen Stock, OBE and professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, herself author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (2021). Calling Trans a "superlative critical analysis of trans activism," Stock notes that "UK feminists are praised for their creative resistance to trans activism's institutional grip."
Writing in The Times, which according to Wikipedia "is considered a newspaper of record in the UK," regular columnist David Aaronovitch explains that "Joyce [examines] a new ideology about gender. This holds that biological sex is as much a 'social construct' as the idea of gender is. One benefit of Joyce's book is its intellectual clarity and its refusal to compromise. So she takes apart this ideology of gender with a cold rigour."
Trans has also been extolled in less mainstream venues, such as the British libertarian Internet magazine Spiked, where Jane O'Grady traces the lineage of Joyce's book back to one of the milestones of modern feminist literature.
De Beauvoir wanted to prise apart the arbitrary characterisation of woman, and separate 'gender' from what is actually ineluctable—namely, sex. This, she hoped, would break the shackles in which women had been immemorially bound. So it was that The Second Sex launched the transformative wave of postwar feminism.
Now, 70-odd years later, the question that de Beauvoir hoped to make redundant is pertinent again, and the sex/gender distinction that she opened up is, as Helen Joyce laments in her new book Trans, turned on its head. It is now used to reconfirm the very stereotypes it was designed to subvert.
Joyce is sharp, lucid and brilliant in analysing how the recent surge of sexual 'transitioning' and insistence on self-declared 'gender identity' has undermined feminism's achievements.
For the record, I added this entry on July 25, but User:Cdjp1 reverted it without explanation. Basketcase2022 ( talk) 18:41, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
Helen Joyce is a long-established journalist who took extended leave from her duties as an editor at The Economist to research and write a book that, as I showed above, has been recommended in reliable sources for its feminist insight into transgender ideology. A journalist does not have to be a serial killer to write authoritatively about that gruesome subject. Nor need she be a renowned feminist to contribute a worthwhile presentation of such views on this particular transgender topic. As for her personal convictions, I believe any fair reading of her book must conclude that Ms. Joyce is indeed a feminist—and an ardent one at that. But that is only tangential to this discussion. Basketcase2022 ( talk) 20:54, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
It is most unfortunate that User:Newimpartial has stooped to insinuate anti-Semitism by claiming "she does hold Jewish billionaires responsible for the 'trans agenda.'" On July 27, 2021, Helen Joyce addressed such spurious charges.
In my book I demonstrate that mainstream transactivism is not a grassroots movement, but a top-down one. One part of the evidence is that rich individuals and foundations make large donations to campaign groups that, among other things, lobby to erase biological sex from law and to enshrine gender identity in its place. [...]
This is in no sense "dark money", and I don't say it is. The information is readily available because all such American foundations and charities are legally required to publish details of where they get their money and what they spend it on. I found the information on their websites. [...]
I didn't deliberately select three Jewish donors; it never occurred to me to think about their religions. Two of the three, it turns out, are indeed Jewish, though that is not something I mention in my book because it is utterly irrelevant. [...] I also think it's interesting that the people accusing me of antisemitic dog-whistles are speculating about someone's religion, when I did not even speculate about it. [...]
I am lucky to work in one of the few media organisations that still has a strong commitment to robust but honest debate. When the smears against me started, many of my colleagues spoke out in my support. I am grateful to them, especially to my Jewish colleagues, for whom this appropriation of Jew-hatred as a baseless smear must feel particularly vile.
Basketcase2022 ( talk 15:51, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
rich individuals and foundationsto whom she attributes the last 20 years of trans activism are Jews, or not, is strictly secondary. The fact that she actually names rich Jewish donors is icing on the cake, but the key point is that she is blaming "money" for what is in fact a grass-roots movement, because it is more convenient for her narrative. Newimpartial ( talk) 16:24, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
In my book I demonstrate that mainstream transactivism is not a grassroots movement, but a top-down one- given the poor sourcing she offers for this and its direct contradiction with peer-reviewed scholarship on the topic, yes, it is a conspiracy theory. As to her naming Jewish billionaires as the actors behind so-called "transactivism", I will leave that to each reader to judge for themselves. Newimpartial ( talk) 22:22, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
The usual terms include "gender identity recognition", "gender identity rights", "gender identity education", etc. Newimpartial ( talk) 23:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that the issue of whether Joyce and/or her book are notable enough for an article is a separate issue from the question of whether it is appropriate to add it to the Further reading here. It pains me to say it but I fear that the notability might be there. Unfortunately any such article would almost certainly be a flaming dumpster fire from day one. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 17:48, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I am about to delete the following text, because it is not apparently relevant to this page about feminist views on transgender topics.
In August 2021, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović said the surge in attacks on transgender people and other LGBTI people "harms the lives and well-being of those affected and undermines social cohesion," and that "by standing up for LGBTI people, we defend the equal human dignity of all, protect our societies' wellbeing and the strength of our precious human rights system."
Please, if you think it is about feminist views, please explain. It's not clear from the text of the source. AndyGordon ( talk) 19:29, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? Why was Germaine Greer or Julie Bindel removed??? Nlivataye ( talk) 11:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The lead section is in reality only a discussion of the TERF ideology, which is not balanced for an article that is supposed to present "feminist views on transgender topics" in general. All the large feminist organisations in the US, such as NOW and LWV, and all mainstream feminist organisations in Europe, support trans rights. TERF is a fringe movement, with roots in a fringe group within radical feminism, itself already a minority within the feminist community. I think the best solution would be to have a separate article that could discuss the TERF ideology in detail (as suggested above), while this article could be a more balanced presentation of feminist views on transgender topics, with far more room for presenting the mainstream feminist view as advocated by the large, mainstream feminist organisations (NOW etc.). The mainstream feminist view should be presented before the TERF position in the lead. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 02:39, 24 November 2021 (UTC) (Edit: I have added some material on the views of mainstream feminists including NOW. Still, the section that discusses TERF ideology is twice as long as the material on the views of all other feminists combined including the mainstream/large feminist orgs and third and fourth-wave feminism in general, which is not really appropriate for an article on feminist views on transgender topics in general) -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 03:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Trans-exclusionary radical feminism redirects here, although we have a separate article called TERF that is said to only discuss the terminology rather than the ideology itself. That doesn't really seem like a very good solution. Obviously "feminist views on transgender topics" is a much broader topic than just trans-exclusionary radical feminism (that is often described as a fringe movement within feminism; all large U.S. feminist organisations are solidly pro-trans for example). On the other hand, where do we include views and analysis of trans-exclusionary radical feminism that is not coming from a specifically feminist perspective, for example relevant legal developments (e.g. hate speech laws in place in some countries)? Given how much attention attention trans-exclusionary radical feminism (or "gender-critical feminism" as it is euphemistically called by supporters) attracts, a separate article on that ideology is clearly warranted, and it would seem like a much better solution to have trans-exclusionary radical feminism and its abbreviation point to the same article covering both the terminology and the ideology (and analysis of it). If we really need a separate article on the terminology, we could have an article on TERF (term) in addition to a main article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism with a hatnote pointing to the in-depth coverage of the term, but TERF should redirect to the main article on the ideology. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 09:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Still skeptical here. For actual feminists who are anti-trans, I don't see any problem discussing their thinking in relation to feminism and within the scope of this article. The gap in wikipedia's coverage of these phenomena, really, is in the Graham Linehan/J.K. Rowling territory of "anti-trans attitudes of people who are not actually feminists" - I mean, wikipedia treats them individually in their bio articles for their specific views, but doesn't treat the movement of which they are a part - a movement that is not part of feminism AFAICT. Newimpartial ( talk) 12:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Some parts of this article feel like they were written by someone who already considers one of two conflicting viewpoints to be right. For example it uses the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" which is very contested. Is this article supposed to explain the different worldviews neutrally, or is it meant to advertise one worldview as the truth? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNamelessTwo ( talk • contribs) 13:19, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
I propose we remove the following sentence.
Seven Scottish women's groups – Close the Gap, Engender, Equate Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid, Women 50:50, and Zero Tolerance – released a joint statement during the GRA consultations endorsing the proposed reforms and stating that "we do not regard trans equality and women’s equality to be in competition or contradiction with each other."
The source is here: [1] (Dead link)
Archived: [2]
The statement being quoted is in support of the Equal Recognition campaign, and the only source is the Equal Recognition website that was operated by the Equality Network. The source itself is self-published WP:SPS, not a news blog.
The Equal Recognition campaign is not a person, and so cannot be a subject-matter expert, so this part of WP:SPS does not allow us to consider the source reliable: 'Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.'
The statement being quoted is not about the Equal Recognition campaign, so WP:ABOUTSELF does not apply.
Hi @Newimpartial, I've written this out to help us understand and apply the policies (which are nuanced). What do you think?
AndyGordon ( talk) 12:31, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Crossroads has removed a detailed international human rights law analysis of the term "sex-based rights" (commonly used by TERFs) by a human rights scholar with specific expertise in this subject area, and claims the source is not reliable because it is hosted on the Wordpress platform. This is both silly and wrong, and if they had read the relevant policy, they would probably have realised that themselves: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" ( WP:SELFPUB). Duffy is an international human rights law scholar at the University of Bristol Law School and her research focuses on this specific topic area, namely the interactions of gender identities and law. She was also a founding consultant researcher on ILGA World's Trans Legal Mapping Project [3]. Quoting her opinion that "sex-based rights" is not based on accepted international human rights law jurisprudence based on her thorough analysis (even if published on her own website) is unproblematic. The reason that nobody has debunked "sex-based rights" from that specific perspective in a more conventional venue (such as a journal) may be that the concept itself is such a fringe idea that is not taken seriously in legal scholarship (it is a form of "pseudo-legalese" and was proposed by Jeffreys and Brunskell-Evans, philosophers with no legal qualifications or understanding of the legal framework that Duffy explains). -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 09:57, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I suspect it would be less controversial if the draft were initiated by almost anyone else; however, I would be happy to contribute. Newimpartial ( talk) 20:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Gender-critical feminism. I'm still unconvinced a split is necessary or good, but I will think about it more. I don't think it was best to rewrite the relevant content in a draft rather than plan on copying what we have here as a starting point. If people do eventually want to WP:SPLIT the article, then an official discussion proposing that would be best so we can get a wide-ranging consensus.
There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context.Any such article has to discuss opposing feminist views, so it makes sense to just treat it as a whole as here. Crossroads -talk- 04:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
I also support a split (and have strongly for a while) but believe that "Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism" is a more neutral title. I could be convinced otherwise if sufficient sourcing exists that "Gender Critical Feminism" is in fact the WP:COMMONNAME for it. But my opinion in the absence of strong sourcing one way or the other is that first of all, there is no 100% neutral term since the people in question believe "trans exclusionary radical feminists" to be pejorative, while their opponents believe "gender critical" to be puffery. And second, outside of the confines of that argument, "trans exclusionary radical feminists" is a good description of what the people in question believe, while "gender critical" really isn't: to someone unfamiliar, it could equally mean someone who is critical of gender in the trans-exclusionary anti-gender movement sense, or someone who is critical of gender in the neutral gender abolitionist or critical-of-gender-roles senses, or even someone who is critical of gender in the explicitly trans-inclusionary cyberfeminist/xenofeminist sense. So if there's no way to avoid taking sides, and the sourcing is equivocal, we should choose the term that is clear over the term that is ambiguous. Loki ( talk) 06:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2020 and 5 May 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
TranLQuan.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 21:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2021 and 13 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Eveattewell. Peer reviewers:
Ashthygesen.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 21:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect
Get the L Out and has thus listed it
for discussion. This discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 16#Get the L Out until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
Firefangledfeathers (
talk /
contribs)
02:15, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
I feel this is an unfortunate phrasing in the lead, because if 'biological sex' is defined as chromosomal sex, it is immutable. External sexual morphology is mutable via surgery, but they're two different things. As I understand it, gender-critical (G-C) theory bases itself on external sexual morphology as observed at birth, and mistakenly assumes this to be a purely binary classification. I wouldn't propose to discuss this in the lead, but I suggest either removing the words 'is immutable and' (perhaps expanding the point in the body of the article), and/or to defining 'biological sex' more clearly. But claiming that sexual morphology is 'immmutable' would inter alia expose the logical contradiction at the center of G-C theory described above. So I would do both: delete the 'immutable' comment because it's patently false in terms of the G-C interpretation of what 'sex' is, and define that interpretation more rigorously as per my comment above. Chrismorey ( talk) 18:29, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
We need a better citation for this claim: "Some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and have experienced some degree of male privilege." Currently this links to a news article about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; it's clarified in a later paragraph of this same page that Chimamanda believes that "there's no way [she] could possibly say that trans women are not women" because "it's the sort of thing to me that's obvious." Either we find a different citation or we change the claim to something like "Some feminists have argued that trans women experience a degree of male privilege." LarstonMarston ( talk) 23:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Aside from general discussion of transgender identity, this article mostly talks about transgender women in particular, more or less ignoring transgender men and nonbinary identities. I realize that some degree of this is kind of inevitable talking about feminist perspectives, but is there anything we can/should do to reduce this? LarstonMarston ( talk) 23:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
The text "Some feminists who define themselves as gender-critical have allied with conservative groups and politicians … in the United Kingdom" is not supported by the source: [1]. The opendemocracy article records that while some right-wing groups and GC feminists adopt similar positions, it explicitly states "There is no evidence that they are actively working together". Beyond the headline, the article makes no claim of collusion or alliance in any way.
If holding similar views on a specific topic were indicative of ANYTHING, feminists who opposed pornography would be deemed tho "have allied themselves" with the most draconian puritan religious right orgs. I'm not competent to judge the US sources (though the first appears to be an advocacy opinion piece), but the whole sentence appears 'loaded' at best and concluding that two very distinct sets of beliefs are acting in conscious collusion, (the implied meaning of "have allied with") is pretty conspiratorially phrased. As is the section title "Political alliances with conservatives". The 'tone' of both the UK and first US article is that conservative groups are happy to use GC feminists - which may well be true, but doesn't have much to do with what GC feminists have done. This is borderline 'guilt by association'.
References
Pincrete ( talk) 13:24, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
some GC feminists have actively criticized working with conservatives"and clearer text and sourcing to indicate the scale and nature of 'alliance' - certainly in the UK. At present it looks an awful lot like "guilt by association" - because I think autobahns are a good idea, I must have allied myself totally with rabid Nazis! Pincrete ( talk) 11:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC) Addendum The two sources provided by LarstonMarston speak respectively of "Right-wing media and think tanks are aligning with fake feminists" - which endorses my point about "conservatives 'coatracking' themselves onto GC feminist positions" and speaks of the right-wingers 'aligning' , not the feminists 'allying' ( Media Matters). The second source says: Sian Norris investigates how far-right and religious-right groups are using ‘gender-critical’ arguments to further their anti-LGBTIQ agenda - so the conservative groups are 'poaching' GC arguments according to Byline Times, not GC feminists colluding as our present text implies. Pincrete ( talk) 11:52, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Wayy too much of this article is taken up by gender-critical/"TERF" perspectives on trans rights. Between the history recap, the nebulously-titled "transgender rights" section, (in an article almost entirely devoted to discussing trans rights, no less!) the breakdown by individual concepts, and the regional breakdown featuring a massive section on the UK, where most of the relevant ideas originate from, I feel we could stand to lose at least half of what we've said. Maybe we could start with a brief description of gender-criticalism, then expand on relevant individual topics like women's spaces etc. and recent history in the UK? LarstonMarston ( talk) 22:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
There is no reason for bolding one of two alternative names for a minority/fringe perspective, as this is a general article on feminist views on transgender topics rather than an article on TERF ideology specifically.
I have repeatedly pointed out the absurdity of the current situation where we have no actual article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism, but bizarrely an article on the term but not the actual phenomenon/movement/ideology itself while the latter is supposedly covered in a general article on feminist views on transgender topics, in which TERF is clearly a very specific minority (in most countries even fringe) perspective. Bolding one of two names of TERF here gives it undue weight in this article, which is also supposed to cover much more mainstream perspectives, which are not bolded in the lead. It also looks very odd. Why is only one of the two alternative names of TERF bolded?
Of course, for a long time the name was not bolded. This is a recently introduced change that was not discussed and for which no consensus exists.
(Ideally, the existing TERF article should be expanded to become the main article on the phenomenon/movement/ideology too, instead of its odd focus on terminology only, and to avoid this unfortunate situation where TERF is spread across different articles, some of which are about much broader topics rather than TERF specifically, but that is a separate discussion). -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 23:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Which of the following options is the best way to title an article (to be split from this one) about the subset of feminism opposed to transgender rights?
Loki ( talk) 00:59, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
What should happen now, imho, is that there should be an article Trans-exclusionary radical feminist (currently a redirect) which should have a #Terminology or #Related terms section, under which there would be two subsections, #TERF and #Gender-critical. In each of those subsections, assertions can be made that would be POV for the article title main body, but not POV for each of those subsections, as long as principles of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV are adhered to. There should be a merge of the article TERF into that article, and those who want to create an article Gender-critical should instead add their content to the subsection. Both TERF and Gender critical would become redirects to their respective subsection. This is fully supportable by the range of RSes, is neutral, and solves the problem, imho.Loki ( talk) 04:38, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
The ethnic backgrounds of other feminists in the article are not noted: Judith Butler is not called a "white feminist" and yes, her background is relevant to her, that is why it is mentioned in the page on her that she is half-Pakistani. Her heritage is irrelevant to the topic of feminist views on transgender topics, and if it were relevant, why is only her heritage mentioned and not all the other people in the article? Yoleaux ( talk) Yoleaux ( talk) 23:43, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
A recent edit changed the sentence "gender-critical feminism … … is critical of concepts of gender identity and transgender rights" to "gender-critical feminism, … … is critical of gender identity and various transgender rights".
I don't want to defend the old text too much, as it is fairly vague, but the inference of the new text is that GC feminism is critical of (for example) natal women or natal men thinking of themselves as women or men, since "Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender", being critical of such a personal sense would imply that one was critical of everyone's personal sense of their own gender. The new sentence also implies that GC feminism is critical of existing trans rights, rather than being critical of some/many/all proposed extensions of such rights.
I think I understand the intention of the first. GC feminism is often critical of terminology and concepts relating to gender identity, and ordinarily highly critical of personal gender identity being the sole basis for changes to law and to access to what have been women's spaces/sports/positions etc. but the new text is very unclear imo. Pincrete ( talk) 15:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
GC feminism is critical of existing trans rights, rather than being critical of some/many/all proposed extensions of such rightsis quite strong. In many/most jurisdictions, GC feminists are advocating for the rollback of existing rights and related health services. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
terminology and concepts relating to gender identity. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
it's very much the case that some people are critical … of gender identity as a concept.. Wording was very akin to saying "some commentators are very critical of self-image". Their own self-image? Everybody's self-image? Anybody having a self-image? It isn't clear what the sentence would even mean. Pincrete ( talk) 10:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
the bulk of controversy is about extending specific rights- I don't think the recent RS actually support this. A great deal of the "controversy" is about rolling back existing rights and access to services. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:30, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I propose merging parts of the " Gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism" section into TERF. Seen some discussion about this section having too much weight here in comparison to the rest of the article, and it seems appropriate for TERF to be the main topic page for this. My rationale for merging is said in an earlier RfC:
The article [TERF] already had the entomology and usage of the word, the debate around it, and the rejection of the term by people called this term. Moving some of the trans-exclusionary / gender critical info over there can reduce the section size here, possibly avoid the POV fork issue, and make the page for TERF more well-rounded.
How does this sound? XTheBedrockX ( talk) 16:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"missing the forest for the trees": yes, that is exactly the problem with the current TERF article, with its weird focus only on terminology while ignoring the ideas and movement it refers to. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 04:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I suggest that this section, and the TERF article, should be merged into a single new article, Gender critical movement, as it has become a thing in its own right that no longer has that much to do with feminism - for example. it now includes elements of the radical right and evangelical Christian right, for whom it advances their agenda. There should, of course, be a summary here about its origins in feminism. "TERF" is a terrible name for an article, as the term is now generally considered a pejorative, in spite of its origins as a descriptive term for trans-exclusionary radical feminism. — The Anome ( talk) 11:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I support a merger. “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist” was at one time a self descriptive term for terfs, which only fell our of use because everyone came to realize that terfs were transphobes, and so now they’ve rebranded to “gender critical”. Describing terfs as GC’s would be like describing racists as “race realists”. Snokalok ( talk) 10:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Oppose. Many gender-critical feminists aren't radfems. Also non-feminists can also be gender-critical. MikutoH ( talk) 23:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
The redirect
Sex-based rights has been listed at
redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the
redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 June 8 § Sex-based rights until a consensus is reached.
Mathglot (
talk)
17:00, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 |
@ Newimpartial: As I mentioned in my edit summary, the Atwood material is sourced to two passing remarks in different interviews, with no indication of lasting significance. (Both interviews are mainly about Atwood's views on other topics.) If this article included every time a feminist mentioned trans issues in passing, it would be unending. Cheers, gnu 57 18:12, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
no indication of lasting significance, seems to me not to be borne out by the evidence. Newimpartial ( talk) 20:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
see much difference between including Atwood's views and Rowlings, maybe check your prescription? :) Newimpartial ( talk) 23:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Judith Butler was interviewed by the New Statesman about this topic, and her stature and the weight given to her statements by other outlets suggests a short summary of them could be appropriate / due, if they express anything not already covered in our existing (four-sentence) summary of her views. (Some of what she said may also be relevant to the article TERF.) -sche ( talk) 06:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
Rereading this section, today, I think I can see why problems keep cropping up. Unlike much of the rest of the article, this section consists overwhelmingly of a series of issues raised by trans-exclusionary feminists, while also allowing that #notallfeminists hold these views. It would better reflect the topic and avowed scope of the article if it were to include more of the positions held by mainstream and/or intersectional feminists (terms which are not equivalent but which do overlap) on trans-related issues, rather than only discussing a litany of more marginal positions. Newimpartial ( talk) 00:07, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
This section needs to be broken up into two sections, or at least, have a neutral section title, and a separate subsection for TERFs. The fact is, TERF is now something very different from "Trans-exclusionary radical feminist", in connotation, formality, and pejorativeness. For me, this section title is the rough equivalent of, == Japanese civilians in World War II (JAPs) ==. If that made you wince, that was the intention, but it's not far-fetched. But it isn't only the section title; although the confused title probably influences the confused content. Sentence 1, in theory the definitional sentence, describes TERFs. Sentence 2, in theory an expansion, defines "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". The third paragraph talks about coinage, but it's impossible to determine from that which term she coined, and flits back and forth between them as if they are indistinguishable. This whole section needs some conjoined twin surgery, which admittedly is a complex operation, but as things stand now, it really doesn't enlighten the reader about either TERF, or Trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Mathglot ( talk) 08:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
... /info/en/?search=TERF you're welcome — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.15.96.125 ( talk) 17:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I think this article could use a Globalise tag ("The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject") - a lot of the page deals with the UK/Canada/US (and a little bit of Australia) in terms of organisations/laws/controversies/etc.. with very few mentions of anything related to the issue from anywhere else in the world. Is this an issue with the article worth tagging? NHCLS ( talk) 12:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I've removed an unsupported claim about second wave feminists being "often" in conflict with trans women. There is a massive corpus of writings by and about the second wave, and only a miniscule splinter of that total concerns trans-anything, which was not a major concern at the time. The word transgender had not even been coined yet, when Friedan's Feminine Mystique burst upon the scene. When it did, there were a thousand things of importance to the growing feminist movement, of which trans women were not even #999 on the list. This changed slowly as the movement matured, with some significant and well-reported attention by individual feminists to various aspects of the growing awareness of trans issues, but they were the exception, and most feminists of the second wave were busy with other things, and when trans issues came up, were mostly accepting or held no opinion.
This leaves the opening to the lead a bit choppy, as it starts off in the second sentence talking about the *third wave*, without having said anything about the second wave, and that needs fixing. Probably it should say something about the second wave not paying much attention to trans issues through the 60s and 70s, at least until the appearance of Raymond's book in 1979, which kind of marked the starting point, or even later. It's not by accident that the article section is entitled #Early history (before 1989), which is nearly three decades into the movement, when most of the second wave theorists were already senior leaders with much of their major work already behind them. Another approach, and a more typical one for the course of most feminists (since Raymond was hardly typical), might be to mention Gloria Steinem, as someone who wrote and spoke very widely, and hardly mentioned trans-anything in her writings until 1984 (iirc), and when she did, it was kind of off-the-cuff and frankly marked by her obvious lack of having considered it much before, and also followed by an interview later where she retracted her earlier views. That probably represents as much as anything, that trajectory of most second wave feminists: starting out by lack of knowledge/lack of interest, and not having anything to say about the topic because "transgender" simply wasn't a concern of feminist women in the 60s and 70s; followed by slow, increasing awareness, and maybe some off-hand response to some interviewer who asked about it; finally involving some considered responses in the 80s or 90s, as the topic of trans issues started to come more to the fore, either because they felt it necessary to "take a side" in response to Raymond, or on other considerations. One has to put it in perspective to recall how far down the list trans issues were for the second wave; remember that it was at the outset white and upper middle-class; even lesbians had to fight for their place in the movement, and the early leaders were not sure what role, if any, lesbians should play. As that played out, the movement had to deal with the concerns of black women, and other PoC, which didn't fit at all with the issues raised in the Feminine Mystique. This took some time to play out; recall that intersectionality was only coined in 1989. And it was only *after* dealing with all that, that the much smaller, and far less well-known topic of trans issues and trans women in particular could rise to occupy some amount of attention among feminists; but by then, it wasn't mostly the second wave responding to it, although they did, somewhat, but they were hardly the opinion leaders of that subtopic of feminism.
In any case, whatever is said about the second wave in the lead, it should follow addition or organization of properly sourced material in the body, and needs to keep WP:DUEWEIGHT in mind; that is, compared to the reams of ink that were spilled on the topic later, virtually nothing was said about trans issues in the 60s and 70s when the second wave was publishing widely, and by the time the topic really arose to wide attention in the feminist community, it was mostly younger feminists from the third wave and beyond addressing it, from whatever point of view, and not the second wave, who were by that time, the "senior stateswomen" of the movement. It simply wasn't on the radar when they began writing. Mathglot ( talk) 19:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
User:Casspedia, your recent run of edits which pretty much replaced feminists with Trans-exclusionary feminists everywhere it appeared in the article in the context of those using the term gender-critical as self-identification, was WP:BOLD to say the least. For one thing, I saw no change to any of the sources in the article to support your changes. Secondly, must of the wording has been exhaustively discussed and agreed upon in previous discussions; if you are not aware of these, check the archives. I won't revert your series because I don't have time for it right now, but I don't think it will survive scrutiny, and I just wanted to give you a heads-up, so that if you wanted to support your effort, you could start thinking about what sources you want to use, and how to support a change of this nature. Simply coming to the article and systematically changing the wording to your own preference without justification, is not likely to survive very long at the article without it. Good luck, Mathglot ( talk) 23:45, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Anyone wanna fix the two instances in the lead of citation overkill? There may be further instances of death by citation lower down the article, but I've not checked yet. -- Ineffablebookkeeper ( talk) 10:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
I respectfully submit that Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce be added to Further reading. The author, who holds a PhD in mathematics from University College London, is Britain editor at The Economist, where she has held several senior positions, including Finance editor and International editor. Since its publication on July 15, 2021, Joyce's book has received highly favorable reviews in leading publications.
The Telegraph, which Wikipedia tells us "generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism," featured a 5-star review by Kathleen Stock, OBE and professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, herself author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (2021). Calling Trans a "superlative critical analysis of trans activism," Stock notes that "UK feminists are praised for their creative resistance to trans activism's institutional grip."
Writing in The Times, which according to Wikipedia "is considered a newspaper of record in the UK," regular columnist David Aaronovitch explains that "Joyce [examines] a new ideology about gender. This holds that biological sex is as much a 'social construct' as the idea of gender is. One benefit of Joyce's book is its intellectual clarity and its refusal to compromise. So she takes apart this ideology of gender with a cold rigour."
Trans has also been extolled in less mainstream venues, such as the British libertarian Internet magazine Spiked, where Jane O'Grady traces the lineage of Joyce's book back to one of the milestones of modern feminist literature.
De Beauvoir wanted to prise apart the arbitrary characterisation of woman, and separate 'gender' from what is actually ineluctable—namely, sex. This, she hoped, would break the shackles in which women had been immemorially bound. So it was that The Second Sex launched the transformative wave of postwar feminism.
Now, 70-odd years later, the question that de Beauvoir hoped to make redundant is pertinent again, and the sex/gender distinction that she opened up is, as Helen Joyce laments in her new book Trans, turned on its head. It is now used to reconfirm the very stereotypes it was designed to subvert.
Joyce is sharp, lucid and brilliant in analysing how the recent surge of sexual 'transitioning' and insistence on self-declared 'gender identity' has undermined feminism's achievements.
For the record, I added this entry on July 25, but User:Cdjp1 reverted it without explanation. Basketcase2022 ( talk) 18:41, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
Helen Joyce is a long-established journalist who took extended leave from her duties as an editor at The Economist to research and write a book that, as I showed above, has been recommended in reliable sources for its feminist insight into transgender ideology. A journalist does not have to be a serial killer to write authoritatively about that gruesome subject. Nor need she be a renowned feminist to contribute a worthwhile presentation of such views on this particular transgender topic. As for her personal convictions, I believe any fair reading of her book must conclude that Ms. Joyce is indeed a feminist—and an ardent one at that. But that is only tangential to this discussion. Basketcase2022 ( talk) 20:54, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
It is most unfortunate that User:Newimpartial has stooped to insinuate anti-Semitism by claiming "she does hold Jewish billionaires responsible for the 'trans agenda.'" On July 27, 2021, Helen Joyce addressed such spurious charges.
In my book I demonstrate that mainstream transactivism is not a grassroots movement, but a top-down one. One part of the evidence is that rich individuals and foundations make large donations to campaign groups that, among other things, lobby to erase biological sex from law and to enshrine gender identity in its place. [...]
This is in no sense "dark money", and I don't say it is. The information is readily available because all such American foundations and charities are legally required to publish details of where they get their money and what they spend it on. I found the information on their websites. [...]
I didn't deliberately select three Jewish donors; it never occurred to me to think about their religions. Two of the three, it turns out, are indeed Jewish, though that is not something I mention in my book because it is utterly irrelevant. [...] I also think it's interesting that the people accusing me of antisemitic dog-whistles are speculating about someone's religion, when I did not even speculate about it. [...]
I am lucky to work in one of the few media organisations that still has a strong commitment to robust but honest debate. When the smears against me started, many of my colleagues spoke out in my support. I am grateful to them, especially to my Jewish colleagues, for whom this appropriation of Jew-hatred as a baseless smear must feel particularly vile.
Basketcase2022 ( talk 15:51, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
rich individuals and foundationsto whom she attributes the last 20 years of trans activism are Jews, or not, is strictly secondary. The fact that she actually names rich Jewish donors is icing on the cake, but the key point is that she is blaming "money" for what is in fact a grass-roots movement, because it is more convenient for her narrative. Newimpartial ( talk) 16:24, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
In my book I demonstrate that mainstream transactivism is not a grassroots movement, but a top-down one- given the poor sourcing she offers for this and its direct contradiction with peer-reviewed scholarship on the topic, yes, it is a conspiracy theory. As to her naming Jewish billionaires as the actors behind so-called "transactivism", I will leave that to each reader to judge for themselves. Newimpartial ( talk) 22:22, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
The usual terms include "gender identity recognition", "gender identity rights", "gender identity education", etc. Newimpartial ( talk) 23:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that the issue of whether Joyce and/or her book are notable enough for an article is a separate issue from the question of whether it is appropriate to add it to the Further reading here. It pains me to say it but I fear that the notability might be there. Unfortunately any such article would almost certainly be a flaming dumpster fire from day one. -- DanielRigal ( talk) 17:48, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
I am about to delete the following text, because it is not apparently relevant to this page about feminist views on transgender topics.
In August 2021, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović said the surge in attacks on transgender people and other LGBTI people "harms the lives and well-being of those affected and undermines social cohesion," and that "by standing up for LGBTI people, we defend the equal human dignity of all, protect our societies' wellbeing and the strength of our precious human rights system."
Please, if you think it is about feminist views, please explain. It's not clear from the text of the source. AndyGordon ( talk) 19:29, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? Why was Germaine Greer or Julie Bindel removed??? Nlivataye ( talk) 11:57, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The lead section is in reality only a discussion of the TERF ideology, which is not balanced for an article that is supposed to present "feminist views on transgender topics" in general. All the large feminist organisations in the US, such as NOW and LWV, and all mainstream feminist organisations in Europe, support trans rights. TERF is a fringe movement, with roots in a fringe group within radical feminism, itself already a minority within the feminist community. I think the best solution would be to have a separate article that could discuss the TERF ideology in detail (as suggested above), while this article could be a more balanced presentation of feminist views on transgender topics, with far more room for presenting the mainstream feminist view as advocated by the large, mainstream feminist organisations (NOW etc.). The mainstream feminist view should be presented before the TERF position in the lead. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 02:39, 24 November 2021 (UTC) (Edit: I have added some material on the views of mainstream feminists including NOW. Still, the section that discusses TERF ideology is twice as long as the material on the views of all other feminists combined including the mainstream/large feminist orgs and third and fourth-wave feminism in general, which is not really appropriate for an article on feminist views on transgender topics in general) -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 03:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Trans-exclusionary radical feminism redirects here, although we have a separate article called TERF that is said to only discuss the terminology rather than the ideology itself. That doesn't really seem like a very good solution. Obviously "feminist views on transgender topics" is a much broader topic than just trans-exclusionary radical feminism (that is often described as a fringe movement within feminism; all large U.S. feminist organisations are solidly pro-trans for example). On the other hand, where do we include views and analysis of trans-exclusionary radical feminism that is not coming from a specifically feminist perspective, for example relevant legal developments (e.g. hate speech laws in place in some countries)? Given how much attention attention trans-exclusionary radical feminism (or "gender-critical feminism" as it is euphemistically called by supporters) attracts, a separate article on that ideology is clearly warranted, and it would seem like a much better solution to have trans-exclusionary radical feminism and its abbreviation point to the same article covering both the terminology and the ideology (and analysis of it). If we really need a separate article on the terminology, we could have an article on TERF (term) in addition to a main article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism with a hatnote pointing to the in-depth coverage of the term, but TERF should redirect to the main article on the ideology. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 09:19, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Still skeptical here. For actual feminists who are anti-trans, I don't see any problem discussing their thinking in relation to feminism and within the scope of this article. The gap in wikipedia's coverage of these phenomena, really, is in the Graham Linehan/J.K. Rowling territory of "anti-trans attitudes of people who are not actually feminists" - I mean, wikipedia treats them individually in their bio articles for their specific views, but doesn't treat the movement of which they are a part - a movement that is not part of feminism AFAICT. Newimpartial ( talk) 12:21, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
Some parts of this article feel like they were written by someone who already considers one of two conflicting viewpoints to be right. For example it uses the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" which is very contested. Is this article supposed to explain the different worldviews neutrally, or is it meant to advertise one worldview as the truth? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNamelessTwo ( talk • contribs) 13:19, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
I propose we remove the following sentence.
Seven Scottish women's groups – Close the Gap, Engender, Equate Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid, Women 50:50, and Zero Tolerance – released a joint statement during the GRA consultations endorsing the proposed reforms and stating that "we do not regard trans equality and women’s equality to be in competition or contradiction with each other."
The source is here: [1] (Dead link)
Archived: [2]
The statement being quoted is in support of the Equal Recognition campaign, and the only source is the Equal Recognition website that was operated by the Equality Network. The source itself is self-published WP:SPS, not a news blog.
The Equal Recognition campaign is not a person, and so cannot be a subject-matter expert, so this part of WP:SPS does not allow us to consider the source reliable: 'Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.'
The statement being quoted is not about the Equal Recognition campaign, so WP:ABOUTSELF does not apply.
Hi @Newimpartial, I've written this out to help us understand and apply the policies (which are nuanced). What do you think?
AndyGordon ( talk) 12:31, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Crossroads has removed a detailed international human rights law analysis of the term "sex-based rights" (commonly used by TERFs) by a human rights scholar with specific expertise in this subject area, and claims the source is not reliable because it is hosted on the Wordpress platform. This is both silly and wrong, and if they had read the relevant policy, they would probably have realised that themselves: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" ( WP:SELFPUB). Duffy is an international human rights law scholar at the University of Bristol Law School and her research focuses on this specific topic area, namely the interactions of gender identities and law. She was also a founding consultant researcher on ILGA World's Trans Legal Mapping Project [3]. Quoting her opinion that "sex-based rights" is not based on accepted international human rights law jurisprudence based on her thorough analysis (even if published on her own website) is unproblematic. The reason that nobody has debunked "sex-based rights" from that specific perspective in a more conventional venue (such as a journal) may be that the concept itself is such a fringe idea that is not taken seriously in legal scholarship (it is a form of "pseudo-legalese" and was proposed by Jeffreys and Brunskell-Evans, philosophers with no legal qualifications or understanding of the legal framework that Duffy explains). -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 09:57, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I suspect it would be less controversial if the draft were initiated by almost anyone else; however, I would be happy to contribute. Newimpartial ( talk) 20:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Gender-critical feminism. I'm still unconvinced a split is necessary or good, but I will think about it more. I don't think it was best to rewrite the relevant content in a draft rather than plan on copying what we have here as a starting point. If people do eventually want to WP:SPLIT the article, then an official discussion proposing that would be best so we can get a wide-ranging consensus.
There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context.Any such article has to discuss opposing feminist views, so it makes sense to just treat it as a whole as here. Crossroads -talk- 04:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
I also support a split (and have strongly for a while) but believe that "Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism" is a more neutral title. I could be convinced otherwise if sufficient sourcing exists that "Gender Critical Feminism" is in fact the WP:COMMONNAME for it. But my opinion in the absence of strong sourcing one way or the other is that first of all, there is no 100% neutral term since the people in question believe "trans exclusionary radical feminists" to be pejorative, while their opponents believe "gender critical" to be puffery. And second, outside of the confines of that argument, "trans exclusionary radical feminists" is a good description of what the people in question believe, while "gender critical" really isn't: to someone unfamiliar, it could equally mean someone who is critical of gender in the trans-exclusionary anti-gender movement sense, or someone who is critical of gender in the neutral gender abolitionist or critical-of-gender-roles senses, or even someone who is critical of gender in the explicitly trans-inclusionary cyberfeminist/xenofeminist sense. So if there's no way to avoid taking sides, and the sourcing is equivocal, we should choose the term that is clear over the term that is ambiguous. Loki ( talk) 06:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2020 and 5 May 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
TranLQuan.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 21:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2021 and 13 December 2021. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Eveattewell. Peer reviewers:
Ashthygesen.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 21:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect
Get the L Out and has thus listed it
for discussion. This discussion will occur at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 16#Get the L Out until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.
Firefangledfeathers (
talk /
contribs)
02:15, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
I feel this is an unfortunate phrasing in the lead, because if 'biological sex' is defined as chromosomal sex, it is immutable. External sexual morphology is mutable via surgery, but they're two different things. As I understand it, gender-critical (G-C) theory bases itself on external sexual morphology as observed at birth, and mistakenly assumes this to be a purely binary classification. I wouldn't propose to discuss this in the lead, but I suggest either removing the words 'is immutable and' (perhaps expanding the point in the body of the article), and/or to defining 'biological sex' more clearly. But claiming that sexual morphology is 'immmutable' would inter alia expose the logical contradiction at the center of G-C theory described above. So I would do both: delete the 'immutable' comment because it's patently false in terms of the G-C interpretation of what 'sex' is, and define that interpretation more rigorously as per my comment above. Chrismorey ( talk) 18:29, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
We need a better citation for this claim: "Some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and have experienced some degree of male privilege." Currently this links to a news article about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; it's clarified in a later paragraph of this same page that Chimamanda believes that "there's no way [she] could possibly say that trans women are not women" because "it's the sort of thing to me that's obvious." Either we find a different citation or we change the claim to something like "Some feminists have argued that trans women experience a degree of male privilege." LarstonMarston ( talk) 23:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Aside from general discussion of transgender identity, this article mostly talks about transgender women in particular, more or less ignoring transgender men and nonbinary identities. I realize that some degree of this is kind of inevitable talking about feminist perspectives, but is there anything we can/should do to reduce this? LarstonMarston ( talk) 23:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
The text "Some feminists who define themselves as gender-critical have allied with conservative groups and politicians … in the United Kingdom" is not supported by the source: [1]. The opendemocracy article records that while some right-wing groups and GC feminists adopt similar positions, it explicitly states "There is no evidence that they are actively working together". Beyond the headline, the article makes no claim of collusion or alliance in any way.
If holding similar views on a specific topic were indicative of ANYTHING, feminists who opposed pornography would be deemed tho "have allied themselves" with the most draconian puritan religious right orgs. I'm not competent to judge the US sources (though the first appears to be an advocacy opinion piece), but the whole sentence appears 'loaded' at best and concluding that two very distinct sets of beliefs are acting in conscious collusion, (the implied meaning of "have allied with") is pretty conspiratorially phrased. As is the section title "Political alliances with conservatives". The 'tone' of both the UK and first US article is that conservative groups are happy to use GC feminists - which may well be true, but doesn't have much to do with what GC feminists have done. This is borderline 'guilt by association'.
References
Pincrete ( talk) 13:24, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
some GC feminists have actively criticized working with conservatives"and clearer text and sourcing to indicate the scale and nature of 'alliance' - certainly in the UK. At present it looks an awful lot like "guilt by association" - because I think autobahns are a good idea, I must have allied myself totally with rabid Nazis! Pincrete ( talk) 11:03, 17 December 2022 (UTC) Addendum The two sources provided by LarstonMarston speak respectively of "Right-wing media and think tanks are aligning with fake feminists" - which endorses my point about "conservatives 'coatracking' themselves onto GC feminist positions" and speaks of the right-wingers 'aligning' , not the feminists 'allying' ( Media Matters). The second source says: Sian Norris investigates how far-right and religious-right groups are using ‘gender-critical’ arguments to further their anti-LGBTIQ agenda - so the conservative groups are 'poaching' GC arguments according to Byline Times, not GC feminists colluding as our present text implies. Pincrete ( talk) 11:52, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Wayy too much of this article is taken up by gender-critical/"TERF" perspectives on trans rights. Between the history recap, the nebulously-titled "transgender rights" section, (in an article almost entirely devoted to discussing trans rights, no less!) the breakdown by individual concepts, and the regional breakdown featuring a massive section on the UK, where most of the relevant ideas originate from, I feel we could stand to lose at least half of what we've said. Maybe we could start with a brief description of gender-criticalism, then expand on relevant individual topics like women's spaces etc. and recent history in the UK? LarstonMarston ( talk) 22:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
There is no reason for bolding one of two alternative names for a minority/fringe perspective, as this is a general article on feminist views on transgender topics rather than an article on TERF ideology specifically.
I have repeatedly pointed out the absurdity of the current situation where we have no actual article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism, but bizarrely an article on the term but not the actual phenomenon/movement/ideology itself while the latter is supposedly covered in a general article on feminist views on transgender topics, in which TERF is clearly a very specific minority (in most countries even fringe) perspective. Bolding one of two names of TERF here gives it undue weight in this article, which is also supposed to cover much more mainstream perspectives, which are not bolded in the lead. It also looks very odd. Why is only one of the two alternative names of TERF bolded?
Of course, for a long time the name was not bolded. This is a recently introduced change that was not discussed and for which no consensus exists.
(Ideally, the existing TERF article should be expanded to become the main article on the phenomenon/movement/ideology too, instead of its odd focus on terminology only, and to avoid this unfortunate situation where TERF is spread across different articles, some of which are about much broader topics rather than TERF specifically, but that is a separate discussion). -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 23:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Which of the following options is the best way to title an article (to be split from this one) about the subset of feminism opposed to transgender rights?
Loki ( talk) 00:59, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
What should happen now, imho, is that there should be an article Trans-exclusionary radical feminist (currently a redirect) which should have a #Terminology or #Related terms section, under which there would be two subsections, #TERF and #Gender-critical. In each of those subsections, assertions can be made that would be POV for the article title main body, but not POV for each of those subsections, as long as principles of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV are adhered to. There should be a merge of the article TERF into that article, and those who want to create an article Gender-critical should instead add their content to the subsection. Both TERF and Gender critical would become redirects to their respective subsection. This is fully supportable by the range of RSes, is neutral, and solves the problem, imho.Loki ( talk) 04:38, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
The ethnic backgrounds of other feminists in the article are not noted: Judith Butler is not called a "white feminist" and yes, her background is relevant to her, that is why it is mentioned in the page on her that she is half-Pakistani. Her heritage is irrelevant to the topic of feminist views on transgender topics, and if it were relevant, why is only her heritage mentioned and not all the other people in the article? Yoleaux ( talk) Yoleaux ( talk) 23:43, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
A recent edit changed the sentence "gender-critical feminism … … is critical of concepts of gender identity and transgender rights" to "gender-critical feminism, … … is critical of gender identity and various transgender rights".
I don't want to defend the old text too much, as it is fairly vague, but the inference of the new text is that GC feminism is critical of (for example) natal women or natal men thinking of themselves as women or men, since "Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender", being critical of such a personal sense would imply that one was critical of everyone's personal sense of their own gender. The new sentence also implies that GC feminism is critical of existing trans rights, rather than being critical of some/many/all proposed extensions of such rights.
I think I understand the intention of the first. GC feminism is often critical of terminology and concepts relating to gender identity, and ordinarily highly critical of personal gender identity being the sole basis for changes to law and to access to what have been women's spaces/sports/positions etc. but the new text is very unclear imo. Pincrete ( talk) 15:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
GC feminism is critical of existing trans rights, rather than being critical of some/many/all proposed extensions of such rightsis quite strong. In many/most jurisdictions, GC feminists are advocating for the rollback of existing rights and related health services. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
terminology and concepts relating to gender identity. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
it's very much the case that some people are critical … of gender identity as a concept.. Wording was very akin to saying "some commentators are very critical of self-image". Their own self-image? Everybody's self-image? Anybody having a self-image? It isn't clear what the sentence would even mean. Pincrete ( talk) 10:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
the bulk of controversy is about extending specific rights- I don't think the recent RS actually support this. A great deal of the "controversy" is about rolling back existing rights and access to services. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:30, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I propose merging parts of the " Gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism" section into TERF. Seen some discussion about this section having too much weight here in comparison to the rest of the article, and it seems appropriate for TERF to be the main topic page for this. My rationale for merging is said in an earlier RfC:
The article [TERF] already had the entomology and usage of the word, the debate around it, and the rejection of the term by people called this term. Moving some of the trans-exclusionary / gender critical info over there can reduce the section size here, possibly avoid the POV fork issue, and make the page for TERF more well-rounded.
How does this sound? XTheBedrockX ( talk) 16:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
"missing the forest for the trees": yes, that is exactly the problem with the current TERF article, with its weird focus only on terminology while ignoring the ideas and movement it refers to. -- Amanda A. Brant ( talk) 04:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I suggest that this section, and the TERF article, should be merged into a single new article, Gender critical movement, as it has become a thing in its own right that no longer has that much to do with feminism - for example. it now includes elements of the radical right and evangelical Christian right, for whom it advances their agenda. There should, of course, be a summary here about its origins in feminism. "TERF" is a terrible name for an article, as the term is now generally considered a pejorative, in spite of its origins as a descriptive term for trans-exclusionary radical feminism. — The Anome ( talk) 11:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I support a merger. “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist” was at one time a self descriptive term for terfs, which only fell our of use because everyone came to realize that terfs were transphobes, and so now they’ve rebranded to “gender critical”. Describing terfs as GC’s would be like describing racists as “race realists”. Snokalok ( talk) 10:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Oppose. Many gender-critical feminists aren't radfems. Also non-feminists can also be gender-critical. MikutoH ( talk) 23:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
The redirect
Sex-based rights has been listed at
redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the
redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 June 8 § Sex-based rights until a consensus is reached.
Mathglot (
talk)
17:00, 8 June 2023 (UTC)