![]() | 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 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 |
Phenomenon vs. term was the first of several issues here. This article still needs a lot of work, starting with the lede. It needs to have wikilinks for gender identity and the four new articles for groups to which this term has been applied. Jokestress ( talk) 00:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Please stop removing the NPOV tag. This article is full of misinformation and NPOV violations. We will address them one at a time. This term is used by some researchers, not all. Jokestress ( talk) 18:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Homosexual transsexual is a controversial term used in sexology and psychology to describe transsexual people with a "homosexual" sexual orientation, defined by their sex assignment at birth.[1] Some sexologist and psychologist use this term to describe transwomen who are attracted to men,[2] though occasionally they use it to describe transmen who are attracted to women.[3] Other sexologist have criticized this type of terminology as being confusing, ignoring the psyche of those it is used to describe, and scientifically questionable.[4][5][6] They to describe such transpersons as heterosexual.[4][5][6] It is also used in a controversial theory due to Ray Blanchard. The term "homosexual transsexual" is controversial because it defines transsexual sexuality based on a person's birth sex.[7]
Here's why that's worse. It's inaccurate to say the term is used in sexology and psychology, which implies it's widely used. It is not widely used and is only used by some (not all) psychologists and sexologists. The second sentence is inaccurate, because it is not just some psychologists and sexologists (again, please note these words have a plural form) use it. That's why proponents is more accurate. It doesn't describe you, but you use "homosexual transsexual." That's why proponents is more accurate. In the next sentence, it's not just other sexologists (again, please note these words have a plural form), which is why critics is more accurate. "Psyche" should say "gender identity" instead, because that's a key element of this debate. After we get consensus on these issues, we can address the other NPOV violations. Jokestress ( talk) 21:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendenting) This is the actual passage that I paraphrased.
From all that has been said, it seems evident that the question "Is the transsexual homosexual?" must be answered "yes" and " no." "Yes," if his anatomy is considered; "no" if his psyche is given preference.
What would be the situation after corrective surgery has been performed and the sex anatomy now resembles that of a woman? Is the "new woman" still a homosexual man? "Yes," if pedantry and technicalities prevail. "No" if reason and common sense are applied and if the respective patient is treated as an individual and not as a rubber stamp.
Again the thought clearly emerges that what we call "sex" is of a very dubious nature and has no accurate scientific meaning. Between "male" and "female," "sex" is a continuum with many "in betweens."[16]
To bring the discussion regarding the three deviations of the title of this chapter to a close, a nutshell characterization would be this:
The transvestite has a social problem. The transsexual has a gender problem. The homosexual has a sex problem.
As you can see it is not all that progressive. The word I have as pedantic comes from "pedantry" and "psyche" comes from "no" if his psych is given preference." The only place where gender appears is in that last little hit "the transsexual has a gender problem". That is the closest the passage comes to gender identity. On balance given the use of words here it would not be a faithful paraphrase to insert our contemporary PC terms into this very un PC by our standards composition. Dare I say if he wrote this now he would catch more hell than Bailey...what with using the word "his" and "him" in reference to transexual females.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 15:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
(outendenting)Uhh no. Look at the last edit I made to the article before you wrote the above comment. What I have done is re arrange the last paragraph of the lede in to sort of chronological order. Which places what Bagemihl wrote into some context and by being the last impression in the lede gives it added emphasis. The Benjamin paraphrase is still there, I feel it makes the issue very plain. I hope this is good enough now. Suppose I had been comitted to that then what? :-| Look like I said it's all about sources and verifiability. I don't have what this person or that person wrote on top of my mind right now. I did not recall all of what Bagemihl wrote. Had I remembered it I would have added it when you first brought up this issue.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 14:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Jokestress, can you tell us why you want the POV tag at the top of the article until every issue is resolved to your satisfaction? Is it to warn readers that the article is imperfect? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendenting) Now you say it has WP undue issues. Just what part has undue weight in your opinion? Is is Blanchard's theory? Is it... just what is the problem. Instead of WP:JUSTA tell me what the freaking problems are so I can fix them. Or do you just want the article to appear to have problems to prevent it's promotion as a good article because in your words that would somehow "legitimate" that term? I suppose then that Hitler has been "legitimated" by the fact his Bio waas a featured article... oh wait OF COURSE NOT! :-| -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
This article now meets the good article criteria. This article has undergone massive and agonizing work and improvement. Passionately disagreeing editors have clashed and finally come to a solution for this former good article which is now much better than it was when it was a good article before. The article is comprehensive, yet concise, every claim has a RS reference, the language is as simple as it can be for such a complex topic. A person who has no idea about the subject who reads this article will come away with a good summary understanding of the topic. I feel that aside from minor tweeks no major work is needed on this article in terms of adding any information that is missing, and not covered in some linked article or the other. I am sure this article is not perfect, I am sure it is at least a "Good Article" once more.
The nomination of this article was failed yesterday. The reasons given were fact tags, a NPOV dispute, and a cleanup tag. The fact tags cited as one reason were placed there by a confused person. They were inside a block of text quoted verbatim which has a proper citation at the end of it for the whole quote. The [diff] clearly shows that to be the case [1]. As for the NPOV discussions the NPOV dispute you have to consider that Jokestress is not a neutral person on this. She is a person who in real life campaigns publically against the use of the very term this article is about. As it says on her talk page she is Andrea James. We have had long discussions about COI and all that. The reason she does not edit the article is because she has recused herself. She basically raises issues on the talk page, and as soon as she details just what her problems with the article are, I try my best to fix them. As for the cleanup tag, that's the reason the nomination was on hold when it was failed. There were some small spelling and grammar issues detected at the last minute. Some issues of style, (i.e. weather to use the word psyche or gender identity or both or neither). These are things that would be resolved by wednesday next week at this rate of work. Give us time. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendinting) Spelling errors and typo's are easily corrected and I have already corrected many of them. As for the lead I wrote summarizes the content of the article. The content of the article dictated what was in it. That article content is all verifiably sourced. Every assertion is stated as so and so states blah blah blah. They state it. Nothing is said to make so and so sound more or less credible (i.e. unlike in the article here on TMWWBQ which list off a mini CV for every named source.) The reviwered proposed that a whole new lead be written. So WP:BOLD discuss and revise. State what your problems are and I will address them if they are reasonable and actually neutral. Not just neutral to Jokestress. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Please voice here any concerns with the article's content providing sources for each claim. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
To summarize:
Below are some of the published points of view that should be included in the article (more soon):
Anthropologist Joy Bilharz of SUNY Fredonia:
She goes on to mention Milton Diamond, one of the most respected experts in this field, whose views have been excluded from this article. Beginning in 1997, [6] Diamond began advocating for alternatives: “When discussing intersexual or transsexual persons I prefer to use the terms gynecophilic, ambiphilic and androphilic,” [7] [8] [9]
The terms currently used by mainstream academics are gynephilia and androphilia. As an example of the experts who have become more sophisticated and accurate in their terminology, here is noted sexologist Milton Diamond:
Other notable experts such as Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg have used these terms as well. [13]
Sexologist Jim Weinrich said in an interview:
Here's a few passages from a book by Ron Langevin [15] (who used to publish with Kurt Freund at the Clarke Institute and is at University of Toronto) using the term and mentioning the confusing terminology:
Langevin then summarizes the extensive uses of standardized testing around femininity and feminine gender identity with transsexual and nontranssexual people, which I mentioned to User:WhatamIdoing earlier. Psychologist Sandra L. Johnson writes about the relationship of "male transsexual" typology to psychosocial adjustment:
Psychologist Uwe Wolfradt of Martin-Luther-University [24] describes the typological variables of male-to-female transsexuals, including androphilia and gynephilia:
Wolfradt then summarizes Hartmann et al. (1997 [25]), describing their subjects as "persons with gender dysphoria disorders (androphilic and gynephilic males)". Dutch psychologist Ditte Slabbbekoorn uses "androphilic MFs" (for which the counterpart would be "gynephilic FMs"):
I have limited my references to behavioral scientists who use "androphilia" and "gynephilia," specifically as a better alternative to "homosexual transsexual." People who are biologists, linguists, anthropologists, etc. have also weighed in on this problematic and largely deprecated terminology. I'll end with a passage from the Archives of Sexual Behavior that includes a quotation from sexologist Aaron Devor:
The Harry Benjamin and Bruce Bagemihl citations should remain, though the removal of their wikilinks should be corrected. The effect has been to downplay the extensive criticism of this term, and the notability of its critics. That kind of bias is unacceptable in a good article. Jokestress ( talk) 16:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Since this is in imminent danger of being declared "stable" by a reviewer, here is a draft of the controversy section for discussion. Many more critical views to include, but this is a start for discussion. As I said here, it's important that this be framed not as a debate of science vs. activism, because it is really a clash of worldviews between essentialists and non-essentialists.
Use of the term “homosexual transsexual” is a decades-old controversy in the debate among sex researchers between essentialism and social constructionism. Proponents of the term are generally essentialists, while critics of the term are generally social constructionsists. [27]
Proponents of the term define transsexual people by their sexual behavior and consider transwomen attracted to men to be an extreme type of male homosexual. [28] Schrock and Reid wrote “working within an essentialist paradigm, Blanchard (1991, 1993a), Bailey (2003), and [Anne] Lawrence (1998) use clinical vignettes or narratives of intimate life to categorize male-to-female transsexuals.” [29]
Critics of the term point out the terminological confusion that can result. [15] Critics argue that the term "homosexual transsexual" is " heterosexist", [1] "archaic", [2] and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. [3] Many critics prefer to define transsexual people by their gender identity. Critics include leaders in the field of sexology, such as Eli Coleman [30] and Milton Diamond. Beginning in 1997, [6] Diamond began advocating for alternatives: “When discussing intersexual or transsexual persons I prefer to use the terms gynecophilic, ambiphilic and androphilic,” [7] John Bancroft also recently expressed regret for having used this terminology, which was standard when he used it, to refer to transsexual women. [31] Other notable experts such as Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg have followed suit. [13]Anthropologist Joy Bilharz of SUNY Fredonia wrote that “it reinforces another binary system. The use of new terms to describe a person's sexual orientation seems long overdue.” [5] Transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the term, [4] calling it “inaccurate and offensive.” [32]
More soon. Jokestress ( talk) 08:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Although Jokestress attributes to DeLameter the view that this is about essentialism/constructionism, it is actually her own view. The article Jokestress cites as the source never mentions transsexuality at all, never mind its subtyping. I serve on the editorial board of that journal and am happy to supply anyone with a copy of the original article.
— James Cantor (
talk)
13:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
DeLamater's article addressed the essentialism/constructionism debate with regard to sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Applying his comments to topics that he did not do himself is OR. I do not pretend to be able to convince Jokestress of this, but I am happy to supply the article to anyone who would like to decide for themselves.
— James Cantor (
talk)
14:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I said neither whether there is such a debate nor such a controversy. I pointed out only that the source you cited does not contain what you attributed to it, and my offer stands regarding supplying that article to anyone else who would like to decide for themselves. — James Cantor ( talk) 00:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Let's start with the transsexual community response to the term, since it will be the shortest part of the controversy description. We have a source that says "Transsexuals, as a group, vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage." [4] I would say that is accurate. In fact, I don't know any reliable source anywhere that includes a transsexual person endorsing or self-identifying with this term. If you have one, please provide it. The "inaccurate and offensive" comment has appeared in two separate reliable sources and is the only place in the article where transsexual people themselves are allowed to weigh in on this matter. It's not surprising that it's being challenged. I also recommend we add this comment from Aaron Devor, which summarizes a key objection: "If what we really mean to say is attracted to males, then say 'attracted to males' or androphilic... I see absolutely no reason to continue with language that people find offensive when there is perfectly serviceable, in fact better, language that is not offensive." [34] Jokestress ( talk) 14:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
So in conclusion, we have three reliable sources showing trans community opposition to the term and zero reliable sources showing trans community endorsement of the term. The section on trans community response should reflect the fact that transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the term. If you find a reliable source stating otherwise, we can discuss how we might incorporate that. Next, let's plan on discussing how we will cover the controversy within sexology, and then how we will cover the controversy within academia overall. Jokestress ( talk) 19:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
The article then goes on to express that NOT all transsexuals object to the term homosexual transsexual. Which should be enough evidence to make my demand for some kind of scientific random and anonymous poll conducted to find out just what a crosssection of the community thinks of this idea. Something like that would tell us precisely what percentage of the TG/TS community thinks of this. Any claim of Jokestress's opinion being universally held requiers that. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)What many transgender activists don't want you to know: and why you should know it anyway.
Currently the predominant cultural understanding of male-to-female transsexualism is that all male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals are, essentially, women trapped in men's bodies. This understanding has little scientific basis, however, and is inconsistent with clinical observations. Ray Blanchard has shown that there are two distinct subtypes of MtF transsexuals. Members of one subtype, homosexual transsexuals, are best understood as a type of homosexual male. The other subtype, autogynephilic transsexuals, are motivated by the erotic desire to become women. The persistence of the predominant cultural understanding, while explicable, is damaging to science and to many transsexuals.
Until Bailey or Denise Tree aka Kiira Triea come out as trans, they are not part of the community. They can be certainly listed as proponents of the term, and one of the citations I suggested above mentioned Bailey and his essentialism specifically. In fact, he'd be the first to admit to his essentialism. Do you have the passage where they claim "NOT all transsexuals object to the term homosexual transsexual"? Jokestress ( talk) 22:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Verifiability, not truth. Neither Bailey nor Triea need to be trans. A publication in a peer-reviewed RS says what it says, and it should be summarized (if relevant) here. The following is from page 529 of the aforementioned article (annotations appearing in square brackets are my own):
The transkids page itself makes obvious exactly what Hfarmer has said. The above quote also indicates
user:Jokestress' level of involvement in the issues being discussed here. (Jokestress openly acknowledges her real-world identity as Andrea James on her userpage.) I will leave to the rest of you to come to your own conclusions regarding whether
WP:COI is being properly applied here.
— James Cantor (
talk)
01:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Jokestress' claim that she does not edit the article is not what one would call the whole truth: Although she has not altered the text of the page, she nonetheless has tagged [2], re-tagged [3], and multi-tagged [4] (tag-bombed?) it.
The page would appear stable only to the extent that Jokestress is a person of her word: Either the page is stable, or Jokestress intends to edit/tag the page. The logic is simple; Jokestress has argued herself into a corner.
![]() | From WP:Etiquette: "Avoid use of unexplained scare quotes and other means of implying criticism or making indirect criticism when you are writing in edit comments and talk pages." |
— James Cantor ( talk) 19:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The pages contain multiple examples of my providing specific sources, providing extensive quotes from sources, and offers to provide copies of still other sources to anyone who wanted them.
Pointing out errors or the inappropriate conduct of other editors is not wikilawyering. Moreover, your use of that accusation is incivil. From WP:Wikilawyering:
Thus, your comment above is of the incivil type and continues your pattern of incivil comments. I ask you to correct your comment so as to abide by WP's expectations for appropriate user conduct.
— James Cantor (
talk)
20:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I find one of the hardest things about discussing this controversy with those who have an either/or worldview is that they assume everything is an either/or. It's quite clear the latter is true in Hfarmer's convoluted equation. My concern is the term "contradict." The existence of outliers does not contradict Leavitt and Berger's comment. "As a group" is a qualifier that allows for fringe views to exist without contradicting their statement. It's similar to saying "generally" or some other term that suggests "almost all." That's why it is inaccurate to say the Bailey and Tree claim contradicts Leavitt and Berger. They claim they know people who represent the exception to the rule built into Leavitt and Berger. Once we remove "contradict," we can start looking at other issues (unless we are going to have a long discussion about excluding the responses of transsexuals as a group as proposed below). Jokestress ( talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
According to Leavitt and Berger "transsexuals, as a group, vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage".[20] Bailey and Kira Triea wrote that the transsexuals at transkids.us endorse this concept, and criticize the feminine essence narrative.[21]
I have been thinking about all of this for a while. Here is a question for the room. Since it is clear that the way these terms are used is to apply to specific groups of transwomen and transmen should we not limit our "community response" section just to the effected group. In other words perhaps we should limit our community response information in the article only to those reports which give the response of people who would be labled by the term homosexual transsexual? Or would that be too restrictive?
A reason why it should be done this way is because transwomen attracted to men would be the particular group most directly effected by this. They would be the group which is least often heard from or about in all of this. Perhaps their voices should be the ones heard most loud and clear.
A reason why we should not do this sort of thing is that in a way we would be labeling someone as a homosexual transsexual who does not want to be so labeld. Or in the case of people reported on by Bailey and Triea we would have jokestress's constantly going on that those people (myself included I suppose) are not in fact real, or lying etc, ad nausem.
What do the rest of you think?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 01:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
This is a basic overview of what I believe should be covered, to which we can add sources as we come to agreement. Sexologists have slowly evolved in sophistication regarding their terminology since the 1960s. This has happened on two axes, both of which should be addressed here. To keep it simpler, I will use the group with whom researchers are most obsessed: transsexual women. The first axis is sex: what used to be called "transsexual males" are now generally referred to as transsexual women, transwomen, male-to-female transsexuals, MTFs, etc. The second axis is sexuality: what used to be called "homosexual transsexual males" are now called androphilic transwomen, transwomen attracted to men, etc. Researchers have variously been more sophisticated about one, both, or neither. As an example, Harry Benjamin had concerns about the use of "homosexual" in the 1960s, but he didn't seem to have any problems with using "transsexual males." Some researchers were well aware of the transsexual community response to their labels but used them anyway in clinical papers. Some essentialists would basically humor transgender people to their faces, but assert they were "really" this or that among their peers, to the press, etc. The general shift on the sex axis started in the 1980s, and toward the end of last century, the general shift on the sexuality axis started. There is a fringe element of holdouts in sexology who believe gender identity is a load of nonsense and resist the generally-held assertion that sexual orientation and gender identity are two separate issues. Gender identity is closely associated with John Money, an unethical sexologist who held a social constructionist point of view. The essentialists take the nature side of the nature/nurture debate and divide transwomen accordingly: one group is naturally feminine and is a kind of homosexual, because they wish to assert that homosexuality is a genetic/congenital trait. The other group of transwomen is not naturally feminine and is a kind of paraphilic, because they wish to assert that paraphilia is an acquired compulsion manifested under certain conditions (nurture) that can be treated with this or that. Complicating matters is that they believe reparative therapy can stop the homosexual type from becoming transsexual if it's caught in childhood. In other words, "homosexual transsexuals" are naturally homosexual but unnaturally transsexual. Early intervention can keep them on a path to being happy gay men instead of slipping so deep into pathological behaviors that the best option is to allow them to transition. To summarize, the term "homosexual transsexual" reflects the view that:
Critics within sexology have raised issues about these assumptions, which should be covered in the article. Comments welcome. Jokestress ( talk) 17:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Some investigators believe that the two conditions, TVism and TSism, should be sharply separated, principally on the basis of their "sex feel" and their chosen sex partners (object choices). The transvestite - they say - is a man, feels himself to be one, is heterosexual, and merely wants to dress as a woman. The transsexual feels himself to be a woman ("trapped in a man’s body") and is attracted to men. This makes him a homosexual provided his sex is diagnosed from the state of his body. But he, diagnosing himself in accordance with his female psychological sex, considers his sexual desire for a man to be heterosexual, that is, normal.
From all that has been said, it seems evident that the question "Is the transsexual homosexual?" must be answered "yes" and " no." "Yes," if his anatomy is considered; "no" if his psyche is given preference.
What would be the situation after corrective surgery has been performed and the sex anatomy now resembles that of a woman? Is the "new woman" still a homosexual man? "Yes," if pedantry and technicalities prevail. "No" if reason and common sense are applied and if the respective patient is treated as an individual and not as a rubber stamp.
(outendenting)Jokestress. TLDR However I did read enough to catch you trying to turn things around. I am not one here has claimed that there is a groundswell of support for the term homosexual transsexual. You have claimed that there is a groundswell of objection to that term by people to whom it would be applied. You have to prove that claim. All anyone else has said is that not all transsexuals object, which we provided one source which backs up that more modest claim. You on the other hand made and extraordinary claim, but have not presented any proof. You have cited works by correct me if I am wrong a transman (Aaron Devor), and yourself. You really can't point to one just one such work by a transwoman attracted to men? Someone who would concievably be a person this term was applied to? Your telling us...or trying to burry under a mountain of words that there are no such references?
As for calling Kirra Triea fake, calling me fake, demanding that an RS procalim me to be a homosexual transsexual (Which if one did I am sure you would find some reason to want to dismiss that.) Well we do have such RS's about someone don't we? I will not say who but why don't we talk about a person we both know who appeard in an article in the Daily Nortwestern in which she was ID'd as a homosexual transsexual and must have known that.... or how about the video she shot where she refers to herself as having been a shemale and how she prostituted herslef.... I don't want to be a bitch, but those are RS's. They could be used here and I have had the discretion to not go there. Do you want to make us go there?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 17:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Bailey, who bites his cuticles and shifts in his seat during a dinner one evening with his children and a reporter, seems more comfortable later on at the Circuit. He mixes easily among the transsexual women he knows, and buys a round of drinks. Most of the women are what Mr. Bailey would call "homosexual transsexuals," and unlike their academic counterparts, they count Mr. Bailey as their savior.
{{
cite journal}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)
{{
cite journal}}
: Check |doi=
value (
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)
OK, possibly an archaic term, but it was used to conduct investigations. The new structure highligths how the term was introduced, what results investigations with this term achieved and what criticism there is. Wandalstouring ( talk) 17:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought the article was good before, now it is even better. The question I have is has enough been done that I can now work on the final lead? IMHO it has what say the rest of you?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 23:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a question. Is transcribing a date into the text next to each reference to research needed. I mean is it a wikipedia style guideline for an article like this one or isn't it? :-\ Do we really need to use both parenthetical referencing and footnotes? :-/ Most <ref> tagged references in this article have the dates within those references. The research dates are findable by scrolling down or clicking. (The dates of the research found and used range from 1923 to 2005.)All one needs to do to see this is scroll down or click. I mean do we think our readers are so lazy that they would never do that? I am going to do this just to get along, but I really think this needs to be justified. This needs more than the current reviewer likes it justification. :-| -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
This article is still a mess. Magnus Hirschfeld did not coin this term. The whole description section makes a lot of factive assertions. It is also set up to make assertions about "homosexual transsexual" prostitution, because Hfarmer self-identifies as a "homosexual transsexual prostitute." The best way to think about this article is as a way for Hfarmer to assert an unsubstantiated self-identity. I believe a "good" label affixed to this will be used to keep further changes from being made, part of a long-running WP:OWN strategy by Hfarmer. The description section is best when it outlines how researchers who use this term do so because they think these people are "really" or a "type" of homosexual males. We are still getting a lot of conflation of the term and the phenomenon, as in the last sentence of the lede's first paragraph. I also think the use of names in the intro suggests lots of people use the term and only three people object to it, all of whom happen to be scientists. I know I owe a criticism section. This article remain unstable and non-neutral. I am on jury duty right now, but I'll have additional thoughts soon. Jokestress ( talk) 13:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Wandalstouring can we at least remove the cleanup tag at this point?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I outlined six key unresolved issues on the talk page today. Jokestress ( talk) 16:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
So far. I'll ask for a second opinion on the open issues. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The article has once again shifted to conflating the term (which is the subject of this article) and the concept/phenomenon (which is the subject of this, this, and this). Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Criticism is not limited to sexologists. It has been well-known for decades that transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage. I am still working on gathering all the criticism, but this is a glaring omission that has been consistently removed from this article. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The recent changes that reorganized the critical commentary were done without discussion and has made the lede no longer reflect the structure and content of the article. The lede will remain unstable until the other controversies are resolved. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
There are two key reasons this term is a flashpoint for controversy:
The article needs to outline these issues for unfamiliar readers, and explain why this term is such a hot button for both of these controversies. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
user:Jokestress has no authority to assert (quite repeatedly, without consensus, and arguably disruptively) that this article is about the term and not the construct.
The RS's that use the term quite clearly address the construct, and criticism appearing in RS's is quite clearly disputing only the term. To my eye, asserting that this page is only about the term is POV-pushing to restrict the page to contain ónly the comments that match Jokestress' long-standing off-wiki attacks against the idea, and nothing else.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that criticism about the term should not appear on the page; I am saying that sweeping under the rug all the other information is in Jokestress' interests, not WP's.
— James Cantor (
talk)
16:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed that tag but not disregarded that tag. What I did is add a hat note, invisible to the reader, which gives the needed reference. The reference is to "Heterosexual and homosexual gender dysphoria " Blanchard, Clemmensen, Steiner, 1987. In the reference tags in the article it is named classicblanchard. In the abstract Blanchard writes...
This study investigated why more males than females complain of dissatisfaction with their anatomical sex (gender dysphoria). New referrals to a university gender identity clinic were dichotomously classified as heterosexual or homosexual. There were 73 heterosexual and 52 homosexual males; 1 heterosexual and 71 homosexual females. The average heterosexual male was 8 years older at inception than the homosexual groups. The heterosexual males reported that their first cross-gender wishes occurred around the time they first cross-dressed, whereas the homosexual groups reported that cross-gender wishes preceded cross-dressing by 3–4 years. Some history of fetishistic arousal was acknowledged by over 80% of the heterosexual males, compared to fewer than 10% of homosexual males and no homosexual females. The results suggest that males are not differentially susceptible to gender dysphoria per se, but rather that they are differentially susceptible to one of the predisposing conditions, namely, fetishistic transvestism.
Blanchard would a couple of years latter "lump" heterosexual, bissexual, and analloerotic transsexuals and give that group the name autogynephillic transsexuals. Calling their condition autogynephilia. I hope this is sufficient. As Wandalstouring pointed out in the good article review citations don't generally appear in the lead.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 11:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The full scholarly reference for this tidbit is in the article already, there are also three other references but they are not online and as accessible as that one. Is that clear enough?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 18:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Between 12 and 18 years(of age), the homosexual transsexuals had experienced sexual arousal while crossdressing significantly less often (Z =&3.4, P=0.0007) than the nonhomosexual transsexuals (Table 2). When comparisons were made within the sexes, the homosexual MFs were significantly less often sexually aroused while cross-dressing between 12 and 18 years than the nonhomosexual MFs (Z =&3.0, P=0.0026), whereas no such differences were found between homosexual and nonhomosexual FMs (Z =&0.04,P=0.69).
The article currently summarizes several of the characteristics that have been shown to differ between homosexual and non-homosexual transsexuals. There is a comparatively important such characteristic that is missing: age. Homosexual transsexuals come to clinics much earlier in their lives, by nearly 20 years on average, than do non-homosexual transsexuals.
— James Cantor ( talk) 12:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
You might want to consider whether the sentence about penis usage belongs in the lede. ("It has been suggest to subdivide them into three groups based on how they use their penis during sexual activity before sex reassignment surgery.") Although there was indeed a researcher who made such a proposal, the usefulness of such a criterion has not been replicated nor has the idea caught on among clinicians or other researchers. A one-off comment by a single paper, IMO, receives undue weight by being the lede.
— James Cantor (
talk)
14:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
On another note, I think it's inaccurate (as well as OR) to say "Far less research has been done on female-to-male homosexual transsexuals, partly because the existence of transmen attracted to men was historically denied by researchers." It is certainly true that less research has been done on that group, but I don't see how one can say that there is less research because researchers didn't think it existed. Little research was done and some researchers questioned whether such a phenomenon existed only simply because such folks are so rare; it took longer to document their existance.
— James Cantor (
talk)
15:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Sexual Orientation of Female-to-Male Transsexuals: A Comparison of Homosexual and Nonhomosexual Types. J.M. BaileyTranssexualism in genetic females has previously been thought to occur predominantly in homosexual women. Clinical presentation by nonhomosexual female transsexuals (i.e., gender dysphoric genetic females who are sexually attracted to males) is extremely rare. Blanchard et al. (1987) reported that only 1 of 72 transsexual women seen at a Canadian gender identity clinic was primarily attracted to males. Because these individuals have been so infrequently seen by gender clinics, some researchers have thought that this form of female transsexualism was nonexistent or was incorrectly diagnosed homosexual transsexualism (Blanchard et al., 1987).
Hirschfeld writes in "Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 23.", in 1923(page 1-27) in the introducing article "Die intersexuelle Konstitution. erweiterung eines am 16.März 1923 im hygienischen Institut der Universität Berlin gehaltenen Vortrags von Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld"(That can be translated as "The intersexual constitution. Epansion of a lecture from March 16, 1923 in the hygienic institute of the University of Berlin.", nothing about pathology, he presents things as facts of how mankind is and not about how they can be cured. He even goes so far to claim that all men or women have some part of the opposite sex.) about different forms of sexual orientation including hetreosexuality. He perceives the sexual orientation as part of each persons individuality and apart from fetishism he presents his subjects in a neutral or favourable light. For transvestites(p. 11-14) he takes as an example the famous and then adored German Richard Wagner(in contemporary American context this could be Elvis Presley). According to him transvestites exist with different sexual orientations, such as heterosexuality, bisexuality or homosexuality. Under this last category falls homosexual transsexual in his scheme. I have problems quoting directly from the source because it's on microfiche and the reader is in a different section of the library. However, if there are any open questions dare to ask. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
(outendenting) Ahh so you see what I was driving at there. God knows what Hirschfeld was talking about unless we can find a dictionary from back then. I agree totally that we should not use the word coined. As for the transsexual community response that is still unsettled. I can stipulate to the following things,
Though this could look like I am laying out some WP OWN violating guidelines, think about them they are all to ensure a fair and balanced doccument. Number 1 is a great compromise from me because I would really like it if more of those community responses would come from transwomen attracted to men, but it seems that many of us either haven't tried, or haven't been able to find a publisher for such literature. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 11:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I wonder whether we should briefly mention that according to ICD-10, issue F64.0 transsexuality is considered an illness. Wandalstouring ( talk) 13:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Many readers coming into this controversy cold ask "What is the alternative term?" That's not the main issue, though. This controversy has two facets. Besides those who advocate for more precise and less confusing language, there are also people who argue that the entire concept of conflating gender identity and sexual orientation in this manner is scientifically problematic. Correlation does not imply causation. It's very similar to race and intelligence. Until there are agreed-upon precise scientific working definitions for the two factors being correlated, any "science" is going to be pretty soft and will easily succumb to confirmation bias, etc. Prefixes homo-, bi-, ambi- and terms like "the opposite" implicitly assume a binary of sex and sexuality. Trans- means across, and Hetero- means more than one, but both have come to be part of this assumed binary. "Most alternative models of sexuality... define sexual orientation in terms of dichotomous biological sex or gender.... Most theorists would not eliminate the reference to sex or gender, but instead advocate incorporating more complex nonbinary concepts of sex or gender, more complex relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality, and/or additional nongendered dimensions into models of sexuality." [3] Several editors here have expressed a strong belief in things like IQ and other problematic measurements or taxonomies of humanity that emerged from the eugenics movement, including homosexuality. These concepts are so pervasive as a social reality that many people assume they are "natural" or "real." Asking the question "what is the alternative term" operates under the assumption that these are "real" categories. "Homosexual transsexual" assumes two binaries, when the move among more progressive scientists is to incorporate more complex non-binary concepts. Jokestress ( talk) 14:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
The GA3 transclusion is causing some sort of problem with the collected references. We should either discuss content in the GA3 section or here, not both. Jokestress ( talk) 14:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
As this article is clearly still the subject of edit warring and dispute the current GAN should be failed. When the contributiong editors can agree on a stable article, it can be renominated. Jezhotwells ( talk) 17:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone else who thinks this article needs to be totally reorganized as User:Jokestress says?
As discussed here, I believe the best way to organize this article is an introduction that describes the term and controversy, a section on use by proponents of the term, and a section on criticism of the term. The lede should reflect this organization: description, proponents, critics. If we can get back to working on the article rather than all of these distractions, we can keep making progress.
Anyone at all.
Or does the article need at most minor tweaks. Which is all I could see being wrong with the article. i.e. if there is some bad syntax somewhere, fix it. If there is a word mispelled somewhere fix it. But not a total rewrite (more or less simply to make it reflect Jokestress's way of thinking of this topic.)-- Hfarmer ( talk) 12:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I ask because Jokestress's personal idea that this article needs a total rewrite is her only justification for the cleanup tag, and hodling up the good article nomination. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 12:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The section heading "Introduction of the term" is kind of weird. For one thing, the section isn't primarily about the introduction of the term itself: it's about sexologists deciding that transwomen could usefully be classified according to their sexual orientation. About all we can say about the "introduction of the term" is that it was first mentioned in print in a given year, that the words chosen were socially acceptable back then, and they aren't any longer.
In the bigger picture, this seems to be symptomatic of an ongoing effort to make this be about "we hate the two words he chose" instead of the idea. This article really needs to be about more than just the name of this idea; it needs to be about the idea that there are two types of transwomen (which idea, in turn, is apparently just one small part of a much larger "unified field theory" of human sexuality). Even if the two types were labeled "Perfectly normal women" and "Amazing ideal women", we'd still need to have articles about the ideas instead of about the words.
Perhaps this section should be recast as "Concept in modern sexology". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
This strikes me as unnecessarily beating around the bush about Jokestress' POV on this article. If there existed much high quality research showing that Blanchard was wrong in his taxonometric ideas about transsexuality, then those findings would be the subject of this discussion. The reason folks are discussing opinions of the term is that there is no actual research showing that Blanchard was wrong about the idea, leaving the anti-science activists no strategy other than to distract editors (and readers) with the political correctness of the terminology and to declare the science as irrelevant or subservient to that.
Moreover, it is an error to say that "we hate the two words." There are transsexual folks who hate the term (as Jokestress details on her off-wiki sites), and there are groups of transsexuals who are perfectly fine with the term (e.g., www.transkids.us), making even these other transsexual folks the target of Jokestress' and Lynn Conway's off-wiki attacks. I believe discussion of the term is getting undue weight only because an off-wiki opponent of the term is pushing for it on this talk page to distract from the evidence for the actual idea. There is a reason that the better regarded the RS, the more frequent the acceptance of the term; it's the term's opponents who have to keep asking "Is this one good enough to be an RS?" The sources that use the term are rarely in question.
I think the whole page should be about the idea, and there need be only a section about language to indicate that some people have an issue with the political correctness of the term, whereas other transsexual folks do not.
— James Cantor ( talk) 00:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
About this statement:
This term and the concept of a taxonomy based on transsexual sexuality was first proposed by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1923,[4]
The ref is a 1923 paper in German. Did any editor here actually read the ref? Because you must WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, not read someone else's work and copy their footnotes.
Can we confirm that Hirschfeld actually proposed "a taxonomy based on transsexual sexuality" instead of a simple definition of transsexuality that demanded a specific sexual orientation? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Wow. I'm really not sure what to say at this point. I'm really opposed to adding voluminous fact tags but if I didn't know better I sure would. This is relatively uncharted territory and quite unique for the vast majority of our readers. Unfortunately it remains convoluted still. I've added a tag to the "Controversy and Criticism" section. These sections are inherently POV and generally a sign of bad writing. I'm pretty sure the article would do better if the content was integrated appropriately. -- Banjeboi 12:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
(Undent) Benjiboi: about your statement (As I understand it the term and concept themselves are controversial and being promoted to further a few scientist's agendas - whatever those might be - with many other scientists, activists and others finding the term misleading and offensive.)
I don't think that's a reasonable description of the actual state of opinion about the concept in academia. The concept has been (sometimes quietly) embraced by nearly all experts. It's clearly loathed by certain vocal TS activists, including our own Jokestress, but the idea that (for example) a transwoman who is attracted to men is less likely to 'de-transition' than other transwomen is pretty well established. The concept (but not the term) is also embraced by some TS people that fall into this category. (What TS person wouldn't appreciate being voted "most likely to have a successful transition"?)
I also don't think that it's appropriate to attribute the goal of "further[ing] a few scientist's agendas" to this idea. It really is widely accepted among sexologists. So unless "a few" means "nearly all" in your books, then this is incorrect.
That the term is offensive to clients is widely acknowledged, but (1) the term isn't the idea and (2) terms can change. You may recall that Down syndrome used to have an offensively racist name. In a few years, we'll probably be moving the page to androphilic transsexual or some such label, with a section describing the "historical" name. We shouldn't do that now, but this page is really about the idea, not about the two words chosen decades ago as a convenient handle for it. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Outdent. Perhaps I missed something but ... no. It's not my job to fix problems although I certainly do also often do that. Characterizing me, or anyone as a bellyacher seems completely unhelpful. As the editor who added the tag I immediately posted my concern here and was met by trenched opposition. This is not terribly surprising but perhaps a bit disappointing. I expanded my comments and the tag itself has handy links that explain the issues better than but I still offered constructive criticism. Not one iota of my concerns were about WP:I DON'T LIKE IT, they were, and continue to be, about making this subject clear to our readers. I think we are falling way short on this point but WP:TLDR is likely part of the problem. This thread is evidence of the voluminous ability to write yet the skill of communicating is still not translating effectively enough to the article content. To Hfarmer, I was pointing out - admittedly rather poorly - that this article doesn't cover a compare and contrast. It sounds like we really shouldn't have those articles but instead summarize relevant content in this and the transsexual sexuality article. I will note that less than 24 hours after tagging the section it has been completely migrated. I hope this helps the article improve but I may have to avoid this for another few months and return then to see the progress. -- Banjeboi 13:31, 27 March 2009 (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 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 |
Phenomenon vs. term was the first of several issues here. This article still needs a lot of work, starting with the lede. It needs to have wikilinks for gender identity and the four new articles for groups to which this term has been applied. Jokestress ( talk) 00:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Please stop removing the NPOV tag. This article is full of misinformation and NPOV violations. We will address them one at a time. This term is used by some researchers, not all. Jokestress ( talk) 18:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Homosexual transsexual is a controversial term used in sexology and psychology to describe transsexual people with a "homosexual" sexual orientation, defined by their sex assignment at birth.[1] Some sexologist and psychologist use this term to describe transwomen who are attracted to men,[2] though occasionally they use it to describe transmen who are attracted to women.[3] Other sexologist have criticized this type of terminology as being confusing, ignoring the psyche of those it is used to describe, and scientifically questionable.[4][5][6] They to describe such transpersons as heterosexual.[4][5][6] It is also used in a controversial theory due to Ray Blanchard. The term "homosexual transsexual" is controversial because it defines transsexual sexuality based on a person's birth sex.[7]
Here's why that's worse. It's inaccurate to say the term is used in sexology and psychology, which implies it's widely used. It is not widely used and is only used by some (not all) psychologists and sexologists. The second sentence is inaccurate, because it is not just some psychologists and sexologists (again, please note these words have a plural form) use it. That's why proponents is more accurate. It doesn't describe you, but you use "homosexual transsexual." That's why proponents is more accurate. In the next sentence, it's not just other sexologists (again, please note these words have a plural form), which is why critics is more accurate. "Psyche" should say "gender identity" instead, because that's a key element of this debate. After we get consensus on these issues, we can address the other NPOV violations. Jokestress ( talk) 21:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendenting) This is the actual passage that I paraphrased.
From all that has been said, it seems evident that the question "Is the transsexual homosexual?" must be answered "yes" and " no." "Yes," if his anatomy is considered; "no" if his psyche is given preference.
What would be the situation after corrective surgery has been performed and the sex anatomy now resembles that of a woman? Is the "new woman" still a homosexual man? "Yes," if pedantry and technicalities prevail. "No" if reason and common sense are applied and if the respective patient is treated as an individual and not as a rubber stamp.
Again the thought clearly emerges that what we call "sex" is of a very dubious nature and has no accurate scientific meaning. Between "male" and "female," "sex" is a continuum with many "in betweens."[16]
To bring the discussion regarding the three deviations of the title of this chapter to a close, a nutshell characterization would be this:
The transvestite has a social problem. The transsexual has a gender problem. The homosexual has a sex problem.
As you can see it is not all that progressive. The word I have as pedantic comes from "pedantry" and "psyche" comes from "no" if his psych is given preference." The only place where gender appears is in that last little hit "the transsexual has a gender problem". That is the closest the passage comes to gender identity. On balance given the use of words here it would not be a faithful paraphrase to insert our contemporary PC terms into this very un PC by our standards composition. Dare I say if he wrote this now he would catch more hell than Bailey...what with using the word "his" and "him" in reference to transexual females.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 15:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
(outendenting)Uhh no. Look at the last edit I made to the article before you wrote the above comment. What I have done is re arrange the last paragraph of the lede in to sort of chronological order. Which places what Bagemihl wrote into some context and by being the last impression in the lede gives it added emphasis. The Benjamin paraphrase is still there, I feel it makes the issue very plain. I hope this is good enough now. Suppose I had been comitted to that then what? :-| Look like I said it's all about sources and verifiability. I don't have what this person or that person wrote on top of my mind right now. I did not recall all of what Bagemihl wrote. Had I remembered it I would have added it when you first brought up this issue.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 14:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Jokestress, can you tell us why you want the POV tag at the top of the article until every issue is resolved to your satisfaction? Is it to warn readers that the article is imperfect? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendenting) Now you say it has WP undue issues. Just what part has undue weight in your opinion? Is is Blanchard's theory? Is it... just what is the problem. Instead of WP:JUSTA tell me what the freaking problems are so I can fix them. Or do you just want the article to appear to have problems to prevent it's promotion as a good article because in your words that would somehow "legitimate" that term? I suppose then that Hitler has been "legitimated" by the fact his Bio waas a featured article... oh wait OF COURSE NOT! :-| -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
This article now meets the good article criteria. This article has undergone massive and agonizing work and improvement. Passionately disagreeing editors have clashed and finally come to a solution for this former good article which is now much better than it was when it was a good article before. The article is comprehensive, yet concise, every claim has a RS reference, the language is as simple as it can be for such a complex topic. A person who has no idea about the subject who reads this article will come away with a good summary understanding of the topic. I feel that aside from minor tweeks no major work is needed on this article in terms of adding any information that is missing, and not covered in some linked article or the other. I am sure this article is not perfect, I am sure it is at least a "Good Article" once more.
The nomination of this article was failed yesterday. The reasons given were fact tags, a NPOV dispute, and a cleanup tag. The fact tags cited as one reason were placed there by a confused person. They were inside a block of text quoted verbatim which has a proper citation at the end of it for the whole quote. The [diff] clearly shows that to be the case [1]. As for the NPOV discussions the NPOV dispute you have to consider that Jokestress is not a neutral person on this. She is a person who in real life campaigns publically against the use of the very term this article is about. As it says on her talk page she is Andrea James. We have had long discussions about COI and all that. The reason she does not edit the article is because she has recused herself. She basically raises issues on the talk page, and as soon as she details just what her problems with the article are, I try my best to fix them. As for the cleanup tag, that's the reason the nomination was on hold when it was failed. There were some small spelling and grammar issues detected at the last minute. Some issues of style, (i.e. weather to use the word psyche or gender identity or both or neither). These are things that would be resolved by wednesday next week at this rate of work. Give us time. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
(Outendinting) Spelling errors and typo's are easily corrected and I have already corrected many of them. As for the lead I wrote summarizes the content of the article. The content of the article dictated what was in it. That article content is all verifiably sourced. Every assertion is stated as so and so states blah blah blah. They state it. Nothing is said to make so and so sound more or less credible (i.e. unlike in the article here on TMWWBQ which list off a mini CV for every named source.) The reviwered proposed that a whole new lead be written. So WP:BOLD discuss and revise. State what your problems are and I will address them if they are reasonable and actually neutral. Not just neutral to Jokestress. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Please voice here any concerns with the article's content providing sources for each claim. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
To summarize:
Below are some of the published points of view that should be included in the article (more soon):
Anthropologist Joy Bilharz of SUNY Fredonia:
She goes on to mention Milton Diamond, one of the most respected experts in this field, whose views have been excluded from this article. Beginning in 1997, [6] Diamond began advocating for alternatives: “When discussing intersexual or transsexual persons I prefer to use the terms gynecophilic, ambiphilic and androphilic,” [7] [8] [9]
The terms currently used by mainstream academics are gynephilia and androphilia. As an example of the experts who have become more sophisticated and accurate in their terminology, here is noted sexologist Milton Diamond:
Other notable experts such as Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg have used these terms as well. [13]
Sexologist Jim Weinrich said in an interview:
Here's a few passages from a book by Ron Langevin [15] (who used to publish with Kurt Freund at the Clarke Institute and is at University of Toronto) using the term and mentioning the confusing terminology:
Langevin then summarizes the extensive uses of standardized testing around femininity and feminine gender identity with transsexual and nontranssexual people, which I mentioned to User:WhatamIdoing earlier. Psychologist Sandra L. Johnson writes about the relationship of "male transsexual" typology to psychosocial adjustment:
Psychologist Uwe Wolfradt of Martin-Luther-University [24] describes the typological variables of male-to-female transsexuals, including androphilia and gynephilia:
Wolfradt then summarizes Hartmann et al. (1997 [25]), describing their subjects as "persons with gender dysphoria disorders (androphilic and gynephilic males)". Dutch psychologist Ditte Slabbbekoorn uses "androphilic MFs" (for which the counterpart would be "gynephilic FMs"):
I have limited my references to behavioral scientists who use "androphilia" and "gynephilia," specifically as a better alternative to "homosexual transsexual." People who are biologists, linguists, anthropologists, etc. have also weighed in on this problematic and largely deprecated terminology. I'll end with a passage from the Archives of Sexual Behavior that includes a quotation from sexologist Aaron Devor:
The Harry Benjamin and Bruce Bagemihl citations should remain, though the removal of their wikilinks should be corrected. The effect has been to downplay the extensive criticism of this term, and the notability of its critics. That kind of bias is unacceptable in a good article. Jokestress ( talk) 16:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Since this is in imminent danger of being declared "stable" by a reviewer, here is a draft of the controversy section for discussion. Many more critical views to include, but this is a start for discussion. As I said here, it's important that this be framed not as a debate of science vs. activism, because it is really a clash of worldviews between essentialists and non-essentialists.
Use of the term “homosexual transsexual” is a decades-old controversy in the debate among sex researchers between essentialism and social constructionism. Proponents of the term are generally essentialists, while critics of the term are generally social constructionsists. [27]
Proponents of the term define transsexual people by their sexual behavior and consider transwomen attracted to men to be an extreme type of male homosexual. [28] Schrock and Reid wrote “working within an essentialist paradigm, Blanchard (1991, 1993a), Bailey (2003), and [Anne] Lawrence (1998) use clinical vignettes or narratives of intimate life to categorize male-to-female transsexuals.” [29]
Critics of the term point out the terminological confusion that can result. [15] Critics argue that the term "homosexual transsexual" is " heterosexist", [1] "archaic", [2] and demeaning because it labels people by sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. [3] Many critics prefer to define transsexual people by their gender identity. Critics include leaders in the field of sexology, such as Eli Coleman [30] and Milton Diamond. Beginning in 1997, [6] Diamond began advocating for alternatives: “When discussing intersexual or transsexual persons I prefer to use the terms gynecophilic, ambiphilic and androphilic,” [7] John Bancroft also recently expressed regret for having used this terminology, which was standard when he used it, to refer to transsexual women. [31] Other notable experts such as Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg have followed suit. [13]Anthropologist Joy Bilharz of SUNY Fredonia wrote that “it reinforces another binary system. The use of new terms to describe a person's sexual orientation seems long overdue.” [5] Transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the term, [4] calling it “inaccurate and offensive.” [32]
More soon. Jokestress ( talk) 08:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Although Jokestress attributes to DeLameter the view that this is about essentialism/constructionism, it is actually her own view. The article Jokestress cites as the source never mentions transsexuality at all, never mind its subtyping. I serve on the editorial board of that journal and am happy to supply anyone with a copy of the original article.
— James Cantor (
talk)
13:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
DeLamater's article addressed the essentialism/constructionism debate with regard to sexual orientation and sexual attraction. Applying his comments to topics that he did not do himself is OR. I do not pretend to be able to convince Jokestress of this, but I am happy to supply the article to anyone who would like to decide for themselves.
— James Cantor (
talk)
14:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I said neither whether there is such a debate nor such a controversy. I pointed out only that the source you cited does not contain what you attributed to it, and my offer stands regarding supplying that article to anyone else who would like to decide for themselves. — James Cantor ( talk) 00:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Let's start with the transsexual community response to the term, since it will be the shortest part of the controversy description. We have a source that says "Transsexuals, as a group, vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage." [4] I would say that is accurate. In fact, I don't know any reliable source anywhere that includes a transsexual person endorsing or self-identifying with this term. If you have one, please provide it. The "inaccurate and offensive" comment has appeared in two separate reliable sources and is the only place in the article where transsexual people themselves are allowed to weigh in on this matter. It's not surprising that it's being challenged. I also recommend we add this comment from Aaron Devor, which summarizes a key objection: "If what we really mean to say is attracted to males, then say 'attracted to males' or androphilic... I see absolutely no reason to continue with language that people find offensive when there is perfectly serviceable, in fact better, language that is not offensive." [34] Jokestress ( talk) 14:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
So in conclusion, we have three reliable sources showing trans community opposition to the term and zero reliable sources showing trans community endorsement of the term. The section on trans community response should reflect the fact that transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the term. If you find a reliable source stating otherwise, we can discuss how we might incorporate that. Next, let's plan on discussing how we will cover the controversy within sexology, and then how we will cover the controversy within academia overall. Jokestress ( talk) 19:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
The article then goes on to express that NOT all transsexuals object to the term homosexual transsexual. Which should be enough evidence to make my demand for some kind of scientific random and anonymous poll conducted to find out just what a crosssection of the community thinks of this idea. Something like that would tell us precisely what percentage of the TG/TS community thinks of this. Any claim of Jokestress's opinion being universally held requiers that. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)What many transgender activists don't want you to know: and why you should know it anyway.
Currently the predominant cultural understanding of male-to-female transsexualism is that all male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals are, essentially, women trapped in men's bodies. This understanding has little scientific basis, however, and is inconsistent with clinical observations. Ray Blanchard has shown that there are two distinct subtypes of MtF transsexuals. Members of one subtype, homosexual transsexuals, are best understood as a type of homosexual male. The other subtype, autogynephilic transsexuals, are motivated by the erotic desire to become women. The persistence of the predominant cultural understanding, while explicable, is damaging to science and to many transsexuals.
Until Bailey or Denise Tree aka Kiira Triea come out as trans, they are not part of the community. They can be certainly listed as proponents of the term, and one of the citations I suggested above mentioned Bailey and his essentialism specifically. In fact, he'd be the first to admit to his essentialism. Do you have the passage where they claim "NOT all transsexuals object to the term homosexual transsexual"? Jokestress ( talk) 22:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Verifiability, not truth. Neither Bailey nor Triea need to be trans. A publication in a peer-reviewed RS says what it says, and it should be summarized (if relevant) here. The following is from page 529 of the aforementioned article (annotations appearing in square brackets are my own):
The transkids page itself makes obvious exactly what Hfarmer has said. The above quote also indicates
user:Jokestress' level of involvement in the issues being discussed here. (Jokestress openly acknowledges her real-world identity as Andrea James on her userpage.) I will leave to the rest of you to come to your own conclusions regarding whether
WP:COI is being properly applied here.
— James Cantor (
talk)
01:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Jokestress' claim that she does not edit the article is not what one would call the whole truth: Although she has not altered the text of the page, she nonetheless has tagged [2], re-tagged [3], and multi-tagged [4] (tag-bombed?) it.
The page would appear stable only to the extent that Jokestress is a person of her word: Either the page is stable, or Jokestress intends to edit/tag the page. The logic is simple; Jokestress has argued herself into a corner.
![]() | From WP:Etiquette: "Avoid use of unexplained scare quotes and other means of implying criticism or making indirect criticism when you are writing in edit comments and talk pages." |
— James Cantor ( talk) 19:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
The pages contain multiple examples of my providing specific sources, providing extensive quotes from sources, and offers to provide copies of still other sources to anyone who wanted them.
Pointing out errors or the inappropriate conduct of other editors is not wikilawyering. Moreover, your use of that accusation is incivil. From WP:Wikilawyering:
Thus, your comment above is of the incivil type and continues your pattern of incivil comments. I ask you to correct your comment so as to abide by WP's expectations for appropriate user conduct.
— James Cantor (
talk)
20:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) I find one of the hardest things about discussing this controversy with those who have an either/or worldview is that they assume everything is an either/or. It's quite clear the latter is true in Hfarmer's convoluted equation. My concern is the term "contradict." The existence of outliers does not contradict Leavitt and Berger's comment. "As a group" is a qualifier that allows for fringe views to exist without contradicting their statement. It's similar to saying "generally" or some other term that suggests "almost all." That's why it is inaccurate to say the Bailey and Tree claim contradicts Leavitt and Berger. They claim they know people who represent the exception to the rule built into Leavitt and Berger. Once we remove "contradict," we can start looking at other issues (unless we are going to have a long discussion about excluding the responses of transsexuals as a group as proposed below). Jokestress ( talk) 15:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
According to Leavitt and Berger "transsexuals, as a group, vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage".[20] Bailey and Kira Triea wrote that the transsexuals at transkids.us endorse this concept, and criticize the feminine essence narrative.[21]
I have been thinking about all of this for a while. Here is a question for the room. Since it is clear that the way these terms are used is to apply to specific groups of transwomen and transmen should we not limit our "community response" section just to the effected group. In other words perhaps we should limit our community response information in the article only to those reports which give the response of people who would be labled by the term homosexual transsexual? Or would that be too restrictive?
A reason why it should be done this way is because transwomen attracted to men would be the particular group most directly effected by this. They would be the group which is least often heard from or about in all of this. Perhaps their voices should be the ones heard most loud and clear.
A reason why we should not do this sort of thing is that in a way we would be labeling someone as a homosexual transsexual who does not want to be so labeld. Or in the case of people reported on by Bailey and Triea we would have jokestress's constantly going on that those people (myself included I suppose) are not in fact real, or lying etc, ad nausem.
What do the rest of you think?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 01:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
This is a basic overview of what I believe should be covered, to which we can add sources as we come to agreement. Sexologists have slowly evolved in sophistication regarding their terminology since the 1960s. This has happened on two axes, both of which should be addressed here. To keep it simpler, I will use the group with whom researchers are most obsessed: transsexual women. The first axis is sex: what used to be called "transsexual males" are now generally referred to as transsexual women, transwomen, male-to-female transsexuals, MTFs, etc. The second axis is sexuality: what used to be called "homosexual transsexual males" are now called androphilic transwomen, transwomen attracted to men, etc. Researchers have variously been more sophisticated about one, both, or neither. As an example, Harry Benjamin had concerns about the use of "homosexual" in the 1960s, but he didn't seem to have any problems with using "transsexual males." Some researchers were well aware of the transsexual community response to their labels but used them anyway in clinical papers. Some essentialists would basically humor transgender people to their faces, but assert they were "really" this or that among their peers, to the press, etc. The general shift on the sex axis started in the 1980s, and toward the end of last century, the general shift on the sexuality axis started. There is a fringe element of holdouts in sexology who believe gender identity is a load of nonsense and resist the generally-held assertion that sexual orientation and gender identity are two separate issues. Gender identity is closely associated with John Money, an unethical sexologist who held a social constructionist point of view. The essentialists take the nature side of the nature/nurture debate and divide transwomen accordingly: one group is naturally feminine and is a kind of homosexual, because they wish to assert that homosexuality is a genetic/congenital trait. The other group of transwomen is not naturally feminine and is a kind of paraphilic, because they wish to assert that paraphilia is an acquired compulsion manifested under certain conditions (nurture) that can be treated with this or that. Complicating matters is that they believe reparative therapy can stop the homosexual type from becoming transsexual if it's caught in childhood. In other words, "homosexual transsexuals" are naturally homosexual but unnaturally transsexual. Early intervention can keep them on a path to being happy gay men instead of slipping so deep into pathological behaviors that the best option is to allow them to transition. To summarize, the term "homosexual transsexual" reflects the view that:
Critics within sexology have raised issues about these assumptions, which should be covered in the article. Comments welcome. Jokestress ( talk) 17:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Some investigators believe that the two conditions, TVism and TSism, should be sharply separated, principally on the basis of their "sex feel" and their chosen sex partners (object choices). The transvestite - they say - is a man, feels himself to be one, is heterosexual, and merely wants to dress as a woman. The transsexual feels himself to be a woman ("trapped in a man’s body") and is attracted to men. This makes him a homosexual provided his sex is diagnosed from the state of his body. But he, diagnosing himself in accordance with his female psychological sex, considers his sexual desire for a man to be heterosexual, that is, normal.
From all that has been said, it seems evident that the question "Is the transsexual homosexual?" must be answered "yes" and " no." "Yes," if his anatomy is considered; "no" if his psyche is given preference.
What would be the situation after corrective surgery has been performed and the sex anatomy now resembles that of a woman? Is the "new woman" still a homosexual man? "Yes," if pedantry and technicalities prevail. "No" if reason and common sense are applied and if the respective patient is treated as an individual and not as a rubber stamp.
(outendenting)Jokestress. TLDR However I did read enough to catch you trying to turn things around. I am not one here has claimed that there is a groundswell of support for the term homosexual transsexual. You have claimed that there is a groundswell of objection to that term by people to whom it would be applied. You have to prove that claim. All anyone else has said is that not all transsexuals object, which we provided one source which backs up that more modest claim. You on the other hand made and extraordinary claim, but have not presented any proof. You have cited works by correct me if I am wrong a transman (Aaron Devor), and yourself. You really can't point to one just one such work by a transwoman attracted to men? Someone who would concievably be a person this term was applied to? Your telling us...or trying to burry under a mountain of words that there are no such references?
As for calling Kirra Triea fake, calling me fake, demanding that an RS procalim me to be a homosexual transsexual (Which if one did I am sure you would find some reason to want to dismiss that.) Well we do have such RS's about someone don't we? I will not say who but why don't we talk about a person we both know who appeard in an article in the Daily Nortwestern in which she was ID'd as a homosexual transsexual and must have known that.... or how about the video she shot where she refers to herself as having been a shemale and how she prostituted herslef.... I don't want to be a bitch, but those are RS's. They could be used here and I have had the discretion to not go there. Do you want to make us go there?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 17:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Mr. Bailey, who bites his cuticles and shifts in his seat during a dinner one evening with his children and a reporter, seems more comfortable later on at the Circuit. He mixes easily among the transsexual women he knows, and buys a round of drinks. Most of the women are what Mr. Bailey would call "homosexual transsexuals," and unlike their academic counterparts, they count Mr. Bailey as their savior.
{{
cite journal}}
: Check date values in: |accessdate=
(
help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)
{{
cite journal}}
: Check |doi=
value (
help); Unknown parameter |coauthors=
ignored (|author=
suggested) (
help)
OK, possibly an archaic term, but it was used to conduct investigations. The new structure highligths how the term was introduced, what results investigations with this term achieved and what criticism there is. Wandalstouring ( talk) 17:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I thought the article was good before, now it is even better. The question I have is has enough been done that I can now work on the final lead? IMHO it has what say the rest of you?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 23:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I have a question. Is transcribing a date into the text next to each reference to research needed. I mean is it a wikipedia style guideline for an article like this one or isn't it? :-\ Do we really need to use both parenthetical referencing and footnotes? :-/ Most <ref> tagged references in this article have the dates within those references. The research dates are findable by scrolling down or clicking. (The dates of the research found and used range from 1923 to 2005.)All one needs to do to see this is scroll down or click. I mean do we think our readers are so lazy that they would never do that? I am going to do this just to get along, but I really think this needs to be justified. This needs more than the current reviewer likes it justification. :-| -- Hfarmer ( talk) 13:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
This article is still a mess. Magnus Hirschfeld did not coin this term. The whole description section makes a lot of factive assertions. It is also set up to make assertions about "homosexual transsexual" prostitution, because Hfarmer self-identifies as a "homosexual transsexual prostitute." The best way to think about this article is as a way for Hfarmer to assert an unsubstantiated self-identity. I believe a "good" label affixed to this will be used to keep further changes from being made, part of a long-running WP:OWN strategy by Hfarmer. The description section is best when it outlines how researchers who use this term do so because they think these people are "really" or a "type" of homosexual males. We are still getting a lot of conflation of the term and the phenomenon, as in the last sentence of the lede's first paragraph. I also think the use of names in the intro suggests lots of people use the term and only three people object to it, all of whom happen to be scientists. I know I owe a criticism section. This article remain unstable and non-neutral. I am on jury duty right now, but I'll have additional thoughts soon. Jokestress ( talk) 13:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Wandalstouring can we at least remove the cleanup tag at this point?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 21:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I outlined six key unresolved issues on the talk page today. Jokestress ( talk) 16:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
So far. I'll ask for a second opinion on the open issues. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The article has once again shifted to conflating the term (which is the subject of this article) and the concept/phenomenon (which is the subject of this, this, and this). Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Criticism is not limited to sexologists. It has been well-known for decades that transsexual people as a group vehemently oppose the label and its pejorative baggage. I am still working on gathering all the criticism, but this is a glaring omission that has been consistently removed from this article. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The recent changes that reorganized the critical commentary were done without discussion and has made the lede no longer reflect the structure and content of the article. The lede will remain unstable until the other controversies are resolved. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
There are two key reasons this term is a flashpoint for controversy:
The article needs to outline these issues for unfamiliar readers, and explain why this term is such a hot button for both of these controversies. Jokestress ( talk) 15:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
user:Jokestress has no authority to assert (quite repeatedly, without consensus, and arguably disruptively) that this article is about the term and not the construct.
The RS's that use the term quite clearly address the construct, and criticism appearing in RS's is quite clearly disputing only the term. To my eye, asserting that this page is only about the term is POV-pushing to restrict the page to contain ónly the comments that match Jokestress' long-standing off-wiki attacks against the idea, and nothing else.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that criticism about the term should not appear on the page; I am saying that sweeping under the rug all the other information is in Jokestress' interests, not WP's.
— James Cantor (
talk)
16:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I have removed that tag but not disregarded that tag. What I did is add a hat note, invisible to the reader, which gives the needed reference. The reference is to "Heterosexual and homosexual gender dysphoria " Blanchard, Clemmensen, Steiner, 1987. In the reference tags in the article it is named classicblanchard. In the abstract Blanchard writes...
This study investigated why more males than females complain of dissatisfaction with their anatomical sex (gender dysphoria). New referrals to a university gender identity clinic were dichotomously classified as heterosexual or homosexual. There were 73 heterosexual and 52 homosexual males; 1 heterosexual and 71 homosexual females. The average heterosexual male was 8 years older at inception than the homosexual groups. The heterosexual males reported that their first cross-gender wishes occurred around the time they first cross-dressed, whereas the homosexual groups reported that cross-gender wishes preceded cross-dressing by 3–4 years. Some history of fetishistic arousal was acknowledged by over 80% of the heterosexual males, compared to fewer than 10% of homosexual males and no homosexual females. The results suggest that males are not differentially susceptible to gender dysphoria per se, but rather that they are differentially susceptible to one of the predisposing conditions, namely, fetishistic transvestism.
Blanchard would a couple of years latter "lump" heterosexual, bissexual, and analloerotic transsexuals and give that group the name autogynephillic transsexuals. Calling their condition autogynephilia. I hope this is sufficient. As Wandalstouring pointed out in the good article review citations don't generally appear in the lead.-- Hfarmer ( talk) 11:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The full scholarly reference for this tidbit is in the article already, there are also three other references but they are not online and as accessible as that one. Is that clear enough?-- Hfarmer ( talk) 18:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Between 12 and 18 years(of age), the homosexual transsexuals had experienced sexual arousal while crossdressing significantly less often (Z =&3.4, P=0.0007) than the nonhomosexual transsexuals (Table 2). When comparisons were made within the sexes, the homosexual MFs were significantly less often sexually aroused while cross-dressing between 12 and 18 years than the nonhomosexual MFs (Z =&3.0, P=0.0026), whereas no such differences were found between homosexual and nonhomosexual FMs (Z =&0.04,P=0.69).
The article currently summarizes several of the characteristics that have been shown to differ between homosexual and non-homosexual transsexuals. There is a comparatively important such characteristic that is missing: age. Homosexual transsexuals come to clinics much earlier in their lives, by nearly 20 years on average, than do non-homosexual transsexuals.
— James Cantor ( talk) 12:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
You might want to consider whether the sentence about penis usage belongs in the lede. ("It has been suggest to subdivide them into three groups based on how they use their penis during sexual activity before sex reassignment surgery.") Although there was indeed a researcher who made such a proposal, the usefulness of such a criterion has not been replicated nor has the idea caught on among clinicians or other researchers. A one-off comment by a single paper, IMO, receives undue weight by being the lede.
— James Cantor (
talk)
14:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
On another note, I think it's inaccurate (as well as OR) to say "Far less research has been done on female-to-male homosexual transsexuals, partly because the existence of transmen attracted to men was historically denied by researchers." It is certainly true that less research has been done on that group, but I don't see how one can say that there is less research because researchers didn't think it existed. Little research was done and some researchers questioned whether such a phenomenon existed only simply because such folks are so rare; it took longer to document their existance.
— James Cantor (
talk)
15:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Sexual Orientation of Female-to-Male Transsexuals: A Comparison of Homosexual and Nonhomosexual Types. J.M. BaileyTranssexualism in genetic females has previously been thought to occur predominantly in homosexual women. Clinical presentation by nonhomosexual female transsexuals (i.e., gender dysphoric genetic females who are sexually attracted to males) is extremely rare. Blanchard et al. (1987) reported that only 1 of 72 transsexual women seen at a Canadian gender identity clinic was primarily attracted to males. Because these individuals have been so infrequently seen by gender clinics, some researchers have thought that this form of female transsexualism was nonexistent or was incorrectly diagnosed homosexual transsexualism (Blanchard et al., 1987).
Hirschfeld writes in "Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 23.", in 1923(page 1-27) in the introducing article "Die intersexuelle Konstitution. erweiterung eines am 16.März 1923 im hygienischen Institut der Universität Berlin gehaltenen Vortrags von Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld"(That can be translated as "The intersexual constitution. Epansion of a lecture from March 16, 1923 in the hygienic institute of the University of Berlin.", nothing about pathology, he presents things as facts of how mankind is and not about how they can be cured. He even goes so far to claim that all men or women have some part of the opposite sex.) about different forms of sexual orientation including hetreosexuality. He perceives the sexual orientation as part of each persons individuality and apart from fetishism he presents his subjects in a neutral or favourable light. For transvestites(p. 11-14) he takes as an example the famous and then adored German Richard Wagner(in contemporary American context this could be Elvis Presley). According to him transvestites exist with different sexual orientations, such as heterosexuality, bisexuality or homosexuality. Under this last category falls homosexual transsexual in his scheme. I have problems quoting directly from the source because it's on microfiche and the reader is in a different section of the library. However, if there are any open questions dare to ask. Wandalstouring ( talk) 14:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
(outendenting) Ahh so you see what I was driving at there. God knows what Hirschfeld was talking about unless we can find a dictionary from back then. I agree totally that we should not use the word coined. As for the transsexual community response that is still unsettled. I can stipulate to the following things,
Though this could look like I am laying out some WP OWN violating guidelines, think about them they are all to ensure a fair and balanced doccument. Number 1 is a great compromise from me because I would really like it if more of those community responses would come from transwomen attracted to men, but it seems that many of us either haven't tried, or haven't been able to find a publisher for such literature. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 11:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I wonder whether we should briefly mention that according to ICD-10, issue F64.0 transsexuality is considered an illness. Wandalstouring ( talk) 13:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Many readers coming into this controversy cold ask "What is the alternative term?" That's not the main issue, though. This controversy has two facets. Besides those who advocate for more precise and less confusing language, there are also people who argue that the entire concept of conflating gender identity and sexual orientation in this manner is scientifically problematic. Correlation does not imply causation. It's very similar to race and intelligence. Until there are agreed-upon precise scientific working definitions for the two factors being correlated, any "science" is going to be pretty soft and will easily succumb to confirmation bias, etc. Prefixes homo-, bi-, ambi- and terms like "the opposite" implicitly assume a binary of sex and sexuality. Trans- means across, and Hetero- means more than one, but both have come to be part of this assumed binary. "Most alternative models of sexuality... define sexual orientation in terms of dichotomous biological sex or gender.... Most theorists would not eliminate the reference to sex or gender, but instead advocate incorporating more complex nonbinary concepts of sex or gender, more complex relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality, and/or additional nongendered dimensions into models of sexuality." [3] Several editors here have expressed a strong belief in things like IQ and other problematic measurements or taxonomies of humanity that emerged from the eugenics movement, including homosexuality. These concepts are so pervasive as a social reality that many people assume they are "natural" or "real." Asking the question "what is the alternative term" operates under the assumption that these are "real" categories. "Homosexual transsexual" assumes two binaries, when the move among more progressive scientists is to incorporate more complex non-binary concepts. Jokestress ( talk) 14:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
The GA3 transclusion is causing some sort of problem with the collected references. We should either discuss content in the GA3 section or here, not both. Jokestress ( talk) 14:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
As this article is clearly still the subject of edit warring and dispute the current GAN should be failed. When the contributiong editors can agree on a stable article, it can be renominated. Jezhotwells ( talk) 17:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone else who thinks this article needs to be totally reorganized as User:Jokestress says?
As discussed here, I believe the best way to organize this article is an introduction that describes the term and controversy, a section on use by proponents of the term, and a section on criticism of the term. The lede should reflect this organization: description, proponents, critics. If we can get back to working on the article rather than all of these distractions, we can keep making progress.
Anyone at all.
Or does the article need at most minor tweaks. Which is all I could see being wrong with the article. i.e. if there is some bad syntax somewhere, fix it. If there is a word mispelled somewhere fix it. But not a total rewrite (more or less simply to make it reflect Jokestress's way of thinking of this topic.)-- Hfarmer ( talk) 12:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
I ask because Jokestress's personal idea that this article needs a total rewrite is her only justification for the cleanup tag, and hodling up the good article nomination. -- Hfarmer ( talk) 12:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The section heading "Introduction of the term" is kind of weird. For one thing, the section isn't primarily about the introduction of the term itself: it's about sexologists deciding that transwomen could usefully be classified according to their sexual orientation. About all we can say about the "introduction of the term" is that it was first mentioned in print in a given year, that the words chosen were socially acceptable back then, and they aren't any longer.
In the bigger picture, this seems to be symptomatic of an ongoing effort to make this be about "we hate the two words he chose" instead of the idea. This article really needs to be about more than just the name of this idea; it needs to be about the idea that there are two types of transwomen (which idea, in turn, is apparently just one small part of a much larger "unified field theory" of human sexuality). Even if the two types were labeled "Perfectly normal women" and "Amazing ideal women", we'd still need to have articles about the ideas instead of about the words.
Perhaps this section should be recast as "Concept in modern sexology". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
This strikes me as unnecessarily beating around the bush about Jokestress' POV on this article. If there existed much high quality research showing that Blanchard was wrong in his taxonometric ideas about transsexuality, then those findings would be the subject of this discussion. The reason folks are discussing opinions of the term is that there is no actual research showing that Blanchard was wrong about the idea, leaving the anti-science activists no strategy other than to distract editors (and readers) with the political correctness of the terminology and to declare the science as irrelevant or subservient to that.
Moreover, it is an error to say that "we hate the two words." There are transsexual folks who hate the term (as Jokestress details on her off-wiki sites), and there are groups of transsexuals who are perfectly fine with the term (e.g., www.transkids.us), making even these other transsexual folks the target of Jokestress' and Lynn Conway's off-wiki attacks. I believe discussion of the term is getting undue weight only because an off-wiki opponent of the term is pushing for it on this talk page to distract from the evidence for the actual idea. There is a reason that the better regarded the RS, the more frequent the acceptance of the term; it's the term's opponents who have to keep asking "Is this one good enough to be an RS?" The sources that use the term are rarely in question.
I think the whole page should be about the idea, and there need be only a section about language to indicate that some people have an issue with the political correctness of the term, whereas other transsexual folks do not.
— James Cantor ( talk) 00:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
About this statement:
This term and the concept of a taxonomy based on transsexual sexuality was first proposed by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1923,[4]
The ref is a 1923 paper in German. Did any editor here actually read the ref? Because you must WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, not read someone else's work and copy their footnotes.
Can we confirm that Hirschfeld actually proposed "a taxonomy based on transsexual sexuality" instead of a simple definition of transsexuality that demanded a specific sexual orientation? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Wow. I'm really not sure what to say at this point. I'm really opposed to adding voluminous fact tags but if I didn't know better I sure would. This is relatively uncharted territory and quite unique for the vast majority of our readers. Unfortunately it remains convoluted still. I've added a tag to the "Controversy and Criticism" section. These sections are inherently POV and generally a sign of bad writing. I'm pretty sure the article would do better if the content was integrated appropriately. -- Banjeboi 12:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
(Undent) Benjiboi: about your statement (As I understand it the term and concept themselves are controversial and being promoted to further a few scientist's agendas - whatever those might be - with many other scientists, activists and others finding the term misleading and offensive.)
I don't think that's a reasonable description of the actual state of opinion about the concept in academia. The concept has been (sometimes quietly) embraced by nearly all experts. It's clearly loathed by certain vocal TS activists, including our own Jokestress, but the idea that (for example) a transwoman who is attracted to men is less likely to 'de-transition' than other transwomen is pretty well established. The concept (but not the term) is also embraced by some TS people that fall into this category. (What TS person wouldn't appreciate being voted "most likely to have a successful transition"?)
I also don't think that it's appropriate to attribute the goal of "further[ing] a few scientist's agendas" to this idea. It really is widely accepted among sexologists. So unless "a few" means "nearly all" in your books, then this is incorrect.
That the term is offensive to clients is widely acknowledged, but (1) the term isn't the idea and (2) terms can change. You may recall that Down syndrome used to have an offensively racist name. In a few years, we'll probably be moving the page to androphilic transsexual or some such label, with a section describing the "historical" name. We shouldn't do that now, but this page is really about the idea, not about the two words chosen decades ago as a convenient handle for it. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Outdent. Perhaps I missed something but ... no. It's not my job to fix problems although I certainly do also often do that. Characterizing me, or anyone as a bellyacher seems completely unhelpful. As the editor who added the tag I immediately posted my concern here and was met by trenched opposition. This is not terribly surprising but perhaps a bit disappointing. I expanded my comments and the tag itself has handy links that explain the issues better than but I still offered constructive criticism. Not one iota of my concerns were about WP:I DON'T LIKE IT, they were, and continue to be, about making this subject clear to our readers. I think we are falling way short on this point but WP:TLDR is likely part of the problem. This thread is evidence of the voluminous ability to write yet the skill of communicating is still not translating effectively enough to the article content. To Hfarmer, I was pointing out - admittedly rather poorly - that this article doesn't cover a compare and contrast. It sounds like we really shouldn't have those articles but instead summarize relevant content in this and the transsexual sexuality article. I will note that less than 24 hours after tagging the section it has been completely migrated. I hope this helps the article improve but I may have to avoid this for another few months and return then to see the progress. -- Banjeboi 13:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)