This page grew and grew to about 187,000 words, which is a big novel (e.g. The Fellowship of the Ring). An axe was taken to it at this version and only a stump remains here. -- Colin° Talk 14:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't want anyone to lose any wiki-friends over this. Some days are more stressful than others. Step away when you need to. Use Special:EmailUser/WhatamIdoing if you don't want to post in public. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:25, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
I've archived most of this (more than a million characters) at User talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 4/Archive. Please feel free to link to those discussions, but it would probably be best not to carry on a conversation over there. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:34, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
A worked example is like your math teacher saying "show your work". It gives a specific, concrete example. For example:
(Don't worry about the format. Worry more about sharing good examples with clear reasons.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
At talk:pregnancy, an editor asked for examples of where the discussion was "trans hostile". So I've been thinking and reading about editor interactions wrt trans issues on a few of our sex-related medical articles.
A newbie editor attempts to make an article more trans inclusive. Their edit or talk-page request will be labelled advocacy and they will be called an advocate or even an activist. Are they, at this point, an activist, or is it the person shouting WP:NOTADVOCACY at them? What do these labels mean and why use them. We have essays on both ( WP:ADVOCACY and WP:ACTIVIST) and editors have proposed merging them due to the similarity. Both refer to using Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas in a way that fouls our neutral point of view or verifiability policies. In other words, "advocacy" is WikiJargon, a word that means something specific to Wikipedians that means something different at other times. After all, we all engage in advocacy when we nominate or support an admin candidate or comment at AN/I about an editor's behaviour, to pick two examples. Advocacy is fine if our agenda aligns with our mission and values, and when our behaviour is acceptable. The newbie editor reads WP:NOTADVOCACY, which tells them "to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions". But hold on, the person who reverted you or who is filling the talk page with 101 reasons why your request was the worst thing ever, is also surely trying to convince people of the merits of their opinions. This seems unfair, but as a student, who has just been told by an experienced editor you have broken important policies, you back down, and you let your account lapse into disuse.
The problem here is that in fact both editors are engaging in advocacy on the talk page, to use the real-world definition but only one has been accused of it, and they have been accused of the WikiJargon form, which is not in fact the case. One editor has been advocating a progressive language approach and the other editor is advocating a conservative language approach. The student editor has not, at this point, broken any of our policies or asked anyone to. Their claim that trans men and non-binary people who were assigned female at birth can and do menstruate, become pregnant, breastfeed, etc, etc does not break our verifiability policy. It is trivially easy to find reliable sources that support that. Nor does it break our neutrality policy. This isn't a minority opinion or view, but an established medical fact. Their issue is the words we choose to present our information. The lead of our third core policy reminds us "rewriting source material in your own words while retaining the substance is not considered original research." So, this is in fact merely a dispute about how to write, which of our own words we should use when conveying our information. The means of resolving that dispute do not lie in the core content policies, which are concerned about information and misinformation. We resolve the dispute by seeking consensus. And specifically, we are asked to go about that especially carefully with newcomers. We are told please do not bite the newcomers. And we are told to assume good faith.
What about that other word, "activist". What makes someone an activist? I'm sure all of us would like a world free of nuclear weapons. But I suspect none of us are members of CND and marched outside a nuclear base, waving banners and getting arrested. The student edit or talk page request hardly falls into the category of a "protest" or "campaign", even if it is heartfelt and passionate. This is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. We are encouraged to be bold and edit it. The timid might ask first. Identifying a problem with an article and requesting that it be improved is entirely normal. That's not activism. The essay WP:ACTIVIST helps us identify activists. Essentially, this is someone no longer working in good faith to find some way to cooperate, collaborate and compromise with others, who is not seeking consensus, but seeks to impose and promote their own view alone. Here are some key signs:
Our newbie and student editors are not WP:ACTIVISTs then, though one or two of the editors they encounter may be. Perhaps they really are activists in the real world? Students often care about social and political issues with an intensity that fades with age. And students may be doing courses that cause them to over-focus on some issues. It is common for both sides in a culture war to label the other side "activists". We have "trans activists" and "gender critical activists". There's nobody, it seems, with moderate views, trying to find a common ground. And there is a bias where the people who write in our newspapers or online columns are often activists. But the word is polarising. That your views are so extreme, you must be one of those people going on marches, gluing themselves to things, being hateful on Twitter. I don't think it is fair to use that label until an editor has given us ample evidence. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Let's say you are in group X and I compare you to group Y as an analogy. If I am doing so in order to make a point that has negative consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to find any reason that group X is not like group Y. If you find one, you'll use it to attack my analogy. So, I'm likely to be only doing this because (or perceived to be because) I think group X and group Y are very similar indeed. On the other hand, if I compare you to make a point that has positive consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to be satisfied by any common ground between X and Y. If group Y has any kind of flaw or is stigmatised, then I'll likely perceive a negative analogy as hostile. For example, if someone were to repeatedly compare trans people to people born without arms and legs, in order to justify why they believe some articles should entirely ignore both groups. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
We saw above how our policies designed to keep Wikipedia free of misinformation pushed by advocates are being misused to eliminate an opponent in a dispute over word choices. This is not uncommon. WP:STICKTOSOURCES is commonly mis-cited to claim our word choices are compelled to come from our sources. It is nonsense but will likely require an essay to kill that trope off. WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is another, typically aimed at someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language. The problem is, if you read the gender critical or right-wing writers, they complain that the world has already accepted "trans ideology", they write books about "How Woke Won", and how you can no longer say some things in case you get cancelled. And the last refuge of the scoundrel, WP:NOTCENSORED, gets cited, as though trying to write with sensitivity towards all our readers is actually wrong. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Talk pages, user pages and essays are venues where you can advocate your opinions provided that they are directly related to the improvement of Wikipedia and are not disruptive.
The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words, with each statement in the article being verifiable in a source that makes that statement explicitly.(emphasis mine) That makes sense, because if we repeat verbatim what our sources say, not only would our articles be a mess of different phraseology and writing styles, almost every article would be an instant WP:COPYVIO.
If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles.(emphasis from source) In many cases, sources have moved on to more progressive language than we currently use. For example, our articles and sub-articles on sex reassignment surgery (sub-articles: sex reassignment surgery (female-to-male), sex reassignment surgery (male-to-female)) are now at least five years out of date on both title and terminology. Our Autism series of articles are currently undergoing a substantial rewrite and restructuring, again because terminology has moved on from unhelpful terms like "low-functioning" and "high-functioning".
You're casting this as a "progressive" versus "conservative" language battleground- no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing so by stating things like
someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language(also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either side). It also follows from such a view that any use of any language-reform-advocates' preferred terms, no matter how rare in reliable sources, is acceptable because anyone against it is themselves an activist. So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic.
no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing soNo. Colin is describing actions by editors like yourself. Colin is not the problem here, he is describing the problem here. If you think that Colin is the problem, it is because Colin is describing actions that you do or support.
also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either sideThis isn't a both-sides issue. Many editors, particularly new ones, and in medical articles particularly those who are undergoing current relevant training, are suggesting that we use gender-neutral language. However editors like yourself insist that they cannot do this, preventing any form of compromise on language from forming.
So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic.please stop with this straw-woman. It was old the second time you did it, however this is now the 25th time you've used it on this page. (Note: womxn appears 33 times on this page, Crossroads uses it 25 times, Colin 7, WAID 4.
can be done with clarity and precision. While we have to accurately convey the concepts described by our sources, we cannot repeat what they say verbatim.
If sources in general have indeed moved to "progressive language", then, and only then, can we change.There you are, dictating terms again. Statements like that make it impossible to reach a compromise consensus, because when you think like that there is only the right way and the wrong way to phrase something. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 17:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
'anything goes'-type argumentsare you referring to? That looks like a straw goat to me.
"compromise consensus"proposals for other editors to factor in, but your own strongly-held opinions situate themselves in cades where the golden mean fallacy applies. Doesn't that seem awfully convenient? Newimpartial ( talk) 17:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
A current anti-trans slogan: "Woman: noun. Adult human female" You can go buy the t-shirt if you want to walk about informing everyone you are feeling hateful towards trans people. The Tertiary-source fallacy essay goes into some detail of why dictionaries cannot settle the argument about what words might or should mean to our readers. It is an offensive argument, because it suggests those with differing views haven't even checked the dictionary to see if they might be wrong. That any reader insulted by our choice of words is linguistically dim. Overly simplistic arguments like this, which superficially may seem attractive to those already persuaded, are the basis of slogans. They don't encourage progression towards agreement and consensus. It's the sort of thing that derails any hope of a thoughtful RFC on a topic: you just get oppose votes repeating the slogan without engaging. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
When I read the sentence "If rando newbies or
WP:Student editors make a fuss, we revert if necessary and inform them of how we do things around here."
I had deja vu that I'd seen that hostile language before. I found it at a discussion on breastfeeding: "As a
WP:Student editor, you may not be as familiar with how Wikipedia does things."
The writer of this then mansplains to the several women in the discussion what the term "breastfeeding" means. I don't know whether "how we do things around here" is meant to refer to policies and guidelines or a brutally honest assessment of the hostility to expect if you go around thinking our articles could be a little less cisnormative. --
Colin°
Talk
17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Recent WP:Student editing cleanup. Tweaks to match the previous wording in the rest of the article and our sources ( WP:STICKTOSOURCE). Also following community consensus.(source: [1]) Not only are you belittling student editors who have a different perspective than you by calling it a "cleanup", you are also misrepresenting both STICKTOSOURCE and the close of the RfC on gender-neutral language. I've already addressed the STICKTOSOURCE issue above so I won't repeat myself here. However for the close of the RfC, it quite clearly states that there was a lack of consensus
for implementing a bright-line rule, but it then goes on to state accurately that MOS:GNL encourages the use of gender-neutral terms in articles when it does not impact on the clarity and precision of those articles.
all pregnant peopleto
anyone who is pregnant. That change didn't need to be reverted, those sentences are broadly synonyms and clarity was not improved by restoring the old version. Next change is replacing
pregnant personwith
pregnant woman. That change also didn't need to be reverted. The close of the RfC you like to cite already tells us that we are encouraged to use gender-neutral terms when it does not impact on the clarity and precision. Not only does this not impact on the clarity, it actually improves the precision because people other than women can get pregnant. The next change you remove a source that was improperly added, with an inline link. That's fine. Then you do another
pregnant person->
pregnant womanswap, not fine. Next you add a citation needed tag, which is a mistake because the source you just removed actually supports that sentence.
patientand
theirfor
womanand
her. This has the same issues as with the
pregnant personswap. Then there's another two SECTIONCAPS fix, which is fine. This is followed up by swapping
gestational parentfor
mother, which again doesn't improve clarity and reduces precision as not all gestational parents are mothers. Then you remove
See section By pregnancy stage for more information, which might be OK, but possibly could have been addressed with a footnote directing to that section. Then you close up with another SECTIONCAPS fix and a generic MOS:CAPS fix. Those are fine.
but it is important to balance it with the need to maintain "clarity and precision". As outlined below, the terminology in articles, especially medical articles, is dependent upon the support of reliable sources and it is expected that editors would use the same terminology presented in said sources.The edits you are defending here, and which I rightly reverted to the status quo, negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sex, and are not representative of the sources as required by community consensus. The 'non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is better' argument was specifically criticized repeatedly in that discussion and led to that closure. The lack of consensus for a bright-line rule was regarding the proposed rule for such language, which you are nevertheless defending as better - as essentially required - now. The only way you could possibly defend such edits are by ignoring the clear full statement of the closure.
negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sexThe word "woman" is not a sex exclusive term. If you wanted to focus the articles entirely within the realms of sex, then you would use language like
pregnant females, even though that has some unfortunate connotations. Take the very first sentence of Pregnancy,
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's womb.If we were to write that article entirely in sex-specific terms, because it is a sex-specific matter, then we would not have the word "woman's" in there, because woman is not a sex-specific term. Woman is also a gendered term. I am not making a
non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is betterargument. I am addressing the editorial choice that you wish to enforce upon others to use gendered terms where they are not needed.
kindness and patiencewhy their addition may have been reverted or copy-edited. This is enshrined at WP:BITE.
Also, no student editors were driven away because their class already ended, and student editors never stick around afterward.Have you considered that there is very likely a reason why editor retention of student editors is a problem? Hint, it's the hostile environment created when student edits are seemingly reverted wholesale by the virtue of being student edits. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 17:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
"Woman" had both sex and gender meanings, based on context. You are wrong, however, to assume for example that in the context of Pregnancy, "woman" is always used in the sense of "sex" and is therefore equivalent in all instances to other terms used by various sources, so you can just ram "women" into the article wherever you like because the word (sometimes) means
adult humans of the female sex. You have literally revert-warred headings into articles insisting on "woman" where the source didn't use "woman" - in spite of the STICKTOSOURCES mantra you misinterpret so generously - and when challenged you have replaced sources using terms you do not prefer with terms you do prefer. The fact that you are unable to see that this is the editing pattern of a righteous POV-warrior, rather than a linguistically moderate defender of WP:NPOV - well, it makes me wish that published case studies from the analyst's couch were still in fashion. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
With all that negativity, I thought it would be good to show an example of "how we do things around here" that is a good 'un. Editors
User:Clayoquot and
User:Gandydancer (now editing as
User:Sectionworker) had been working with others on
breastfeeding for many years. In May 2021, an IP
added "or chestfeeding" to the lead sentence as an alternative term (to go along with "nursing"). It was
removed the following day by Clayoquot. It appears they went away and thought about it and did some research. A week later it was
restored by Clayoquot with the comment "Reverting my reversion - could maybe use discussion, but major sources seem to recommend using this term"
. Shortly afterwards, they
bold the term, adding another comment "I don't really have an opinion either way on including this, but another editor wanted to include it so let's see what others think"
. The term remains for a few weeks before being
removed on 5th June by an IP. This prompts Clayoquot to start a discussion, which you can read at
Talk:Breastfeeding/Archive 5#"Chestfeeding" in lead. In their opening post, they ask "What do people think of having this term in the first sentence"
. How excellent is this. We have a dispute. What do people think? It doesn't immediately get much debate. Neither Clayoquot or Gandydancer like the term but both very much accept that other people, including an important organisation, think differently. They are trying to accommodate opinions they don't themselves share.
All goes quiet till two female student editors (from different courses) show up in October. Both want trans people to be covered by the article and think "chestfeeding" is an important term to mention. In particular, kporter's argument is very article-based -- where could we put it and why it is better here rather than there. Of course, they've been thinking a lot about the article, since they have just posted a work plan. Sadly, they are confronted with some of the hostility detailed in sections above. But swiftly Clayoquot steers things back into positivity and welcomes the student editor-with-a-plan, who is clearly highly qualified to edit this article. This student works through November on the article, guided by Clayoquot, who rewards them with a barnstar. The new student editor, who was told they didn't know "how Wikipedia does things" has ended up writing 30% of the article. This new editor later helps out in March the following year, fixing up another student's weak edits. That student editor caused a lot of work, but you can tell how they were handled well from their responses:
"Ok, sorry, I will be more careful. Were any of my edits ok?"
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind!(about primary sources)
"I really appreciate your assistance during my learning process."
Now, I do have some views about teachers dumping students onto Wikipedia and expecting volunteers to do all the training and educating and dealing with the consequences of bad homework ending up in article space. Nevertheless, we will continue to see newbie and student editors come to our medical articles. These new young editors will have a different way of writing to the older generation. They will quite naturally want to be trans inclusive. Some of their classmates will be trans. They may be trans. It won't seem like advocacy to them. And some of them, who's very first article-space posts are advocating for specific progressive language changes, may turn out to be capable of contributing a third of the article material, and are expert enough to identify what misinformation needs to be removed. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
"Would you use these words in talking about pregnancy?"and offered the words
‘Pregnant women’,
‘Birthing parent’,
‘Breastfeeding’and
‘Chestfeeding’, with "yes/no" as your only options. So there's no range of response from always, often, sometimes, rarely, to never. Someone might well use the word "chestfeeding" when discussing the matter with a nonbinary person, but not with a cis woman. There's not a "I've never even heard that phrase" or "It wouldn't occur to me to use it" option, that are quite separate matters from whether one thinks they are "acceptable". I imagine most of the readers of the NYT may not have come across "chestfeeding" and those that have are most likely to have heard of it from those opinion writers who are arguing against it being used. Can you find any opinion columns in a major newspaper suggesting we should all use that term "when talking about pregnancy"? I bet you can find columns in nearly every newspaper suggesting we don't and complaining such language is being "forced on us". I don't think it is at all surprising that nearly everyone would say "pregnant women" or "breastfeeding" and I struggle to recall anyone advocating such words should never be used ever. Sorry, I think this is one for the "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" box. -- Colin° Talk 09:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
And I still think "pregnant teenagers" is a solid argument that this is more about making a fuss to score political points than it is about whether we need to use gendered language when describing those who are pregnant. I think that people assume pregnant teenagers refers to girls and young women while pregnant people is jarring to them because it is read as intentionally gender neutral. I don't know whether that challenges your point or not. Also, I haven't participated in this discussion in months so I don't know if females has been proposed as a substitute for women and girls. Kolya Butternut ( talk) 21:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I saw this in my paper today, and thought EMsmile and Graham Beards may be interested. The article interviews several women, who are referred to with their gendered pronoun. But when speaking generally, it uses
It mentions "woman" in a sentence that appears to paraphrase what professor Chris Bobel said to the writer. Chris Bobel, who is female, wrote Menstruators Need More Than Something to Bleed On, They Also Need Information and Support so clearly isn't afraid to use the word "menstruators". The writer of the article is also female and relatively young and American (writing for the US Guardian office). -- Colin° Talk 11:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
A Google News search turned up this. Wikipedia says this paper isn't reliable and has conservative politics (Murdoch owned).
No "women". I'm surprised then if this tabloid is conservative to see such a determinedly written article, unless they are making fun of woke consumers or does this echo the thinx company's own ethos? -- Colin° Talk 15:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
The UK Office of National Statistics have published their data Gender identity, England and Wales: Census 2021. We discussed the wording of that census a year ago (see archive and search for Census). The census asked:
For the first question, the guidance said "If you are considering how to answer, use the sex recorded on your birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate."
though it didn't say which to use if those disagree. This was a mandatory question. The next two were voluntary and only for those over 16. During the earlier discussion with
Sweet6970 and others, there was disagreement over "assigned" vs "registered" as the best wording. The former seems to be the preferred one for the trans community, the latter used by this census.
The Scottish census asked similar questions but there were some differences.
For the first question, the guidance said "If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your
birth certificate. You do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). If you are non-binary or you are not sure how to answer, you could use the sex registered on your official documents, such as your passport. A voluntary question about trans status or history will follow if you are aged 16 or over. You can respond as non-binary in that question."
. There was a lot of fuss about this including a legal challenge but it remained that those filling in the census could choose whichever sex they wanted to, that they could self-assign. Whereas the E&W census required an official document though with a GRC still meant that one's sex could be different to what was registered at birth.
The second question defines trans in a way that is similar to the E&W question (though just says "gender" rather than "gender identity"). It may be that by asking the question using a definition rather than the word "trans", the E&W question has screwed up. Why does the census say there are more trans people in Newham than Brighton? by Michael Biggs questions the results which appear to show a strong tendencey to identify as trans among those most likely to have problems reading English (for example, without English as a first language, or in areas with a strong immigrant community) rather than where we'd expect to find more trans people (e.g. Brighton). Readers might have been confused if they don't have a birth certificate or official registration documents, it is claimed. They may also be confused about what to put if they have never considered their "gender identity" or believe they don't have one or don't understand the quite modern idea there is a difference between gender and sex.
There is also data by age and sex Gender identity: age and sex, England and Wales: Census 2021. As might be expected, the youngest age group (16-24) has the highest proportion of trans people (1%) and a higher number registered as female at birth (whereas older groups, the male figure is higher).
The flaws with the E&W census stat has got the right-wing press excited with the Daily Mail headline: "Trans population may have been 'significantly overestimated' in 2021 census - raising fears focus on transgender issues is being 'exaggerated'"
with absolutely no self-awareness that they are the ones with an exaggerated focus on transgender issues. But it does show the problem with how to word questions and how to self-check statistics like this. Scotland, by asking up front if you are "trans" may well get a more accurate result for that question, but some may argue their sex question is inferior. @
Sideswipe9th: as well, who may be interested in thinking about the stats and wordings. --
Colin°
Talk
15:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I saw an ad recently that offered a product for "those with vaginal anatomy". I think that's a new one for the list of gender-neutral terms. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
This page grew and grew to about 187,000 words, which is a big novel (e.g. The Fellowship of the Ring). An axe was taken to it at this version and only a stump remains here. -- Colin° Talk 14:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't want anyone to lose any wiki-friends over this. Some days are more stressful than others. Step away when you need to. Use Special:EmailUser/WhatamIdoing if you don't want to post in public. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:25, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
I've archived most of this (more than a million characters) at User talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 4/Archive. Please feel free to link to those discussions, but it would probably be best not to carry on a conversation over there. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:34, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
A worked example is like your math teacher saying "show your work". It gives a specific, concrete example. For example:
(Don't worry about the format. Worry more about sharing good examples with clear reasons.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
At talk:pregnancy, an editor asked for examples of where the discussion was "trans hostile". So I've been thinking and reading about editor interactions wrt trans issues on a few of our sex-related medical articles.
A newbie editor attempts to make an article more trans inclusive. Their edit or talk-page request will be labelled advocacy and they will be called an advocate or even an activist. Are they, at this point, an activist, or is it the person shouting WP:NOTADVOCACY at them? What do these labels mean and why use them. We have essays on both ( WP:ADVOCACY and WP:ACTIVIST) and editors have proposed merging them due to the similarity. Both refer to using Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas in a way that fouls our neutral point of view or verifiability policies. In other words, "advocacy" is WikiJargon, a word that means something specific to Wikipedians that means something different at other times. After all, we all engage in advocacy when we nominate or support an admin candidate or comment at AN/I about an editor's behaviour, to pick two examples. Advocacy is fine if our agenda aligns with our mission and values, and when our behaviour is acceptable. The newbie editor reads WP:NOTADVOCACY, which tells them "to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions". But hold on, the person who reverted you or who is filling the talk page with 101 reasons why your request was the worst thing ever, is also surely trying to convince people of the merits of their opinions. This seems unfair, but as a student, who has just been told by an experienced editor you have broken important policies, you back down, and you let your account lapse into disuse.
The problem here is that in fact both editors are engaging in advocacy on the talk page, to use the real-world definition but only one has been accused of it, and they have been accused of the WikiJargon form, which is not in fact the case. One editor has been advocating a progressive language approach and the other editor is advocating a conservative language approach. The student editor has not, at this point, broken any of our policies or asked anyone to. Their claim that trans men and non-binary people who were assigned female at birth can and do menstruate, become pregnant, breastfeed, etc, etc does not break our verifiability policy. It is trivially easy to find reliable sources that support that. Nor does it break our neutrality policy. This isn't a minority opinion or view, but an established medical fact. Their issue is the words we choose to present our information. The lead of our third core policy reminds us "rewriting source material in your own words while retaining the substance is not considered original research." So, this is in fact merely a dispute about how to write, which of our own words we should use when conveying our information. The means of resolving that dispute do not lie in the core content policies, which are concerned about information and misinformation. We resolve the dispute by seeking consensus. And specifically, we are asked to go about that especially carefully with newcomers. We are told please do not bite the newcomers. And we are told to assume good faith.
What about that other word, "activist". What makes someone an activist? I'm sure all of us would like a world free of nuclear weapons. But I suspect none of us are members of CND and marched outside a nuclear base, waving banners and getting arrested. The student edit or talk page request hardly falls into the category of a "protest" or "campaign", even if it is heartfelt and passionate. This is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. We are encouraged to be bold and edit it. The timid might ask first. Identifying a problem with an article and requesting that it be improved is entirely normal. That's not activism. The essay WP:ACTIVIST helps us identify activists. Essentially, this is someone no longer working in good faith to find some way to cooperate, collaborate and compromise with others, who is not seeking consensus, but seeks to impose and promote their own view alone. Here are some key signs:
Our newbie and student editors are not WP:ACTIVISTs then, though one or two of the editors they encounter may be. Perhaps they really are activists in the real world? Students often care about social and political issues with an intensity that fades with age. And students may be doing courses that cause them to over-focus on some issues. It is common for both sides in a culture war to label the other side "activists". We have "trans activists" and "gender critical activists". There's nobody, it seems, with moderate views, trying to find a common ground. And there is a bias where the people who write in our newspapers or online columns are often activists. But the word is polarising. That your views are so extreme, you must be one of those people going on marches, gluing themselves to things, being hateful on Twitter. I don't think it is fair to use that label until an editor has given us ample evidence. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Let's say you are in group X and I compare you to group Y as an analogy. If I am doing so in order to make a point that has negative consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to find any reason that group X is not like group Y. If you find one, you'll use it to attack my analogy. So, I'm likely to be only doing this because (or perceived to be because) I think group X and group Y are very similar indeed. On the other hand, if I compare you to make a point that has positive consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to be satisfied by any common ground between X and Y. If group Y has any kind of flaw or is stigmatised, then I'll likely perceive a negative analogy as hostile. For example, if someone were to repeatedly compare trans people to people born without arms and legs, in order to justify why they believe some articles should entirely ignore both groups. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
We saw above how our policies designed to keep Wikipedia free of misinformation pushed by advocates are being misused to eliminate an opponent in a dispute over word choices. This is not uncommon. WP:STICKTOSOURCES is commonly mis-cited to claim our word choices are compelled to come from our sources. It is nonsense but will likely require an essay to kill that trope off. WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is another, typically aimed at someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language. The problem is, if you read the gender critical or right-wing writers, they complain that the world has already accepted "trans ideology", they write books about "How Woke Won", and how you can no longer say some things in case you get cancelled. And the last refuge of the scoundrel, WP:NOTCENSORED, gets cited, as though trying to write with sensitivity towards all our readers is actually wrong. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Talk pages, user pages and essays are venues where you can advocate your opinions provided that they are directly related to the improvement of Wikipedia and are not disruptive.
The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words, with each statement in the article being verifiable in a source that makes that statement explicitly.(emphasis mine) That makes sense, because if we repeat verbatim what our sources say, not only would our articles be a mess of different phraseology and writing styles, almost every article would be an instant WP:COPYVIO.
If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles.(emphasis from source) In many cases, sources have moved on to more progressive language than we currently use. For example, our articles and sub-articles on sex reassignment surgery (sub-articles: sex reassignment surgery (female-to-male), sex reassignment surgery (male-to-female)) are now at least five years out of date on both title and terminology. Our Autism series of articles are currently undergoing a substantial rewrite and restructuring, again because terminology has moved on from unhelpful terms like "low-functioning" and "high-functioning".
You're casting this as a "progressive" versus "conservative" language battleground- no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing so by stating things like
someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language(also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either side). It also follows from such a view that any use of any language-reform-advocates' preferred terms, no matter how rare in reliable sources, is acceptable because anyone against it is themselves an activist. So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic.
no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing soNo. Colin is describing actions by editors like yourself. Colin is not the problem here, he is describing the problem here. If you think that Colin is the problem, it is because Colin is describing actions that you do or support.
also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either sideThis isn't a both-sides issue. Many editors, particularly new ones, and in medical articles particularly those who are undergoing current relevant training, are suggesting that we use gender-neutral language. However editors like yourself insist that they cannot do this, preventing any form of compromise on language from forming.
So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic.please stop with this straw-woman. It was old the second time you did it, however this is now the 25th time you've used it on this page. (Note: womxn appears 33 times on this page, Crossroads uses it 25 times, Colin 7, WAID 4.
can be done with clarity and precision. While we have to accurately convey the concepts described by our sources, we cannot repeat what they say verbatim.
If sources in general have indeed moved to "progressive language", then, and only then, can we change.There you are, dictating terms again. Statements like that make it impossible to reach a compromise consensus, because when you think like that there is only the right way and the wrong way to phrase something. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 17:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
'anything goes'-type argumentsare you referring to? That looks like a straw goat to me.
"compromise consensus"proposals for other editors to factor in, but your own strongly-held opinions situate themselves in cades where the golden mean fallacy applies. Doesn't that seem awfully convenient? Newimpartial ( talk) 17:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
A current anti-trans slogan: "Woman: noun. Adult human female" You can go buy the t-shirt if you want to walk about informing everyone you are feeling hateful towards trans people. The Tertiary-source fallacy essay goes into some detail of why dictionaries cannot settle the argument about what words might or should mean to our readers. It is an offensive argument, because it suggests those with differing views haven't even checked the dictionary to see if they might be wrong. That any reader insulted by our choice of words is linguistically dim. Overly simplistic arguments like this, which superficially may seem attractive to those already persuaded, are the basis of slogans. They don't encourage progression towards agreement and consensus. It's the sort of thing that derails any hope of a thoughtful RFC on a topic: you just get oppose votes repeating the slogan without engaging. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
When I read the sentence "If rando newbies or
WP:Student editors make a fuss, we revert if necessary and inform them of how we do things around here."
I had deja vu that I'd seen that hostile language before. I found it at a discussion on breastfeeding: "As a
WP:Student editor, you may not be as familiar with how Wikipedia does things."
The writer of this then mansplains to the several women in the discussion what the term "breastfeeding" means. I don't know whether "how we do things around here" is meant to refer to policies and guidelines or a brutally honest assessment of the hostility to expect if you go around thinking our articles could be a little less cisnormative. --
Colin°
Talk
17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Recent WP:Student editing cleanup. Tweaks to match the previous wording in the rest of the article and our sources ( WP:STICKTOSOURCE). Also following community consensus.(source: [1]) Not only are you belittling student editors who have a different perspective than you by calling it a "cleanup", you are also misrepresenting both STICKTOSOURCE and the close of the RfC on gender-neutral language. I've already addressed the STICKTOSOURCE issue above so I won't repeat myself here. However for the close of the RfC, it quite clearly states that there was a lack of consensus
for implementing a bright-line rule, but it then goes on to state accurately that MOS:GNL encourages the use of gender-neutral terms in articles when it does not impact on the clarity and precision of those articles.
all pregnant peopleto
anyone who is pregnant. That change didn't need to be reverted, those sentences are broadly synonyms and clarity was not improved by restoring the old version. Next change is replacing
pregnant personwith
pregnant woman. That change also didn't need to be reverted. The close of the RfC you like to cite already tells us that we are encouraged to use gender-neutral terms when it does not impact on the clarity and precision. Not only does this not impact on the clarity, it actually improves the precision because people other than women can get pregnant. The next change you remove a source that was improperly added, with an inline link. That's fine. Then you do another
pregnant person->
pregnant womanswap, not fine. Next you add a citation needed tag, which is a mistake because the source you just removed actually supports that sentence.
patientand
theirfor
womanand
her. This has the same issues as with the
pregnant personswap. Then there's another two SECTIONCAPS fix, which is fine. This is followed up by swapping
gestational parentfor
mother, which again doesn't improve clarity and reduces precision as not all gestational parents are mothers. Then you remove
See section By pregnancy stage for more information, which might be OK, but possibly could have been addressed with a footnote directing to that section. Then you close up with another SECTIONCAPS fix and a generic MOS:CAPS fix. Those are fine.
but it is important to balance it with the need to maintain "clarity and precision". As outlined below, the terminology in articles, especially medical articles, is dependent upon the support of reliable sources and it is expected that editors would use the same terminology presented in said sources.The edits you are defending here, and which I rightly reverted to the status quo, negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sex, and are not representative of the sources as required by community consensus. The 'non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is better' argument was specifically criticized repeatedly in that discussion and led to that closure. The lack of consensus for a bright-line rule was regarding the proposed rule for such language, which you are nevertheless defending as better - as essentially required - now. The only way you could possibly defend such edits are by ignoring the clear full statement of the closure.
negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sexThe word "woman" is not a sex exclusive term. If you wanted to focus the articles entirely within the realms of sex, then you would use language like
pregnant females, even though that has some unfortunate connotations. Take the very first sentence of Pregnancy,
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's womb.If we were to write that article entirely in sex-specific terms, because it is a sex-specific matter, then we would not have the word "woman's" in there, because woman is not a sex-specific term. Woman is also a gendered term. I am not making a
non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is betterargument. I am addressing the editorial choice that you wish to enforce upon others to use gendered terms where they are not needed.
kindness and patiencewhy their addition may have been reverted or copy-edited. This is enshrined at WP:BITE.
Also, no student editors were driven away because their class already ended, and student editors never stick around afterward.Have you considered that there is very likely a reason why editor retention of student editors is a problem? Hint, it's the hostile environment created when student edits are seemingly reverted wholesale by the virtue of being student edits. Sideswipe9th ( talk) 17:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
"Woman" had both sex and gender meanings, based on context. You are wrong, however, to assume for example that in the context of Pregnancy, "woman" is always used in the sense of "sex" and is therefore equivalent in all instances to other terms used by various sources, so you can just ram "women" into the article wherever you like because the word (sometimes) means
adult humans of the female sex. You have literally revert-warred headings into articles insisting on "woman" where the source didn't use "woman" - in spite of the STICKTOSOURCES mantra you misinterpret so generously - and when challenged you have replaced sources using terms you do not prefer with terms you do prefer. The fact that you are unable to see that this is the editing pattern of a righteous POV-warrior, rather than a linguistically moderate defender of WP:NPOV - well, it makes me wish that published case studies from the analyst's couch were still in fashion. Newimpartial ( talk) 18:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
With all that negativity, I thought it would be good to show an example of "how we do things around here" that is a good 'un. Editors
User:Clayoquot and
User:Gandydancer (now editing as
User:Sectionworker) had been working with others on
breastfeeding for many years. In May 2021, an IP
added "or chestfeeding" to the lead sentence as an alternative term (to go along with "nursing"). It was
removed the following day by Clayoquot. It appears they went away and thought about it and did some research. A week later it was
restored by Clayoquot with the comment "Reverting my reversion - could maybe use discussion, but major sources seem to recommend using this term"
. Shortly afterwards, they
bold the term, adding another comment "I don't really have an opinion either way on including this, but another editor wanted to include it so let's see what others think"
. The term remains for a few weeks before being
removed on 5th June by an IP. This prompts Clayoquot to start a discussion, which you can read at
Talk:Breastfeeding/Archive 5#"Chestfeeding" in lead. In their opening post, they ask "What do people think of having this term in the first sentence"
. How excellent is this. We have a dispute. What do people think? It doesn't immediately get much debate. Neither Clayoquot or Gandydancer like the term but both very much accept that other people, including an important organisation, think differently. They are trying to accommodate opinions they don't themselves share.
All goes quiet till two female student editors (from different courses) show up in October. Both want trans people to be covered by the article and think "chestfeeding" is an important term to mention. In particular, kporter's argument is very article-based -- where could we put it and why it is better here rather than there. Of course, they've been thinking a lot about the article, since they have just posted a work plan. Sadly, they are confronted with some of the hostility detailed in sections above. But swiftly Clayoquot steers things back into positivity and welcomes the student editor-with-a-plan, who is clearly highly qualified to edit this article. This student works through November on the article, guided by Clayoquot, who rewards them with a barnstar. The new student editor, who was told they didn't know "how Wikipedia does things" has ended up writing 30% of the article. This new editor later helps out in March the following year, fixing up another student's weak edits. That student editor caused a lot of work, but you can tell how they were handled well from their responses:
"Ok, sorry, I will be more careful. Were any of my edits ok?"
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind!(about primary sources)
"I really appreciate your assistance during my learning process."
Now, I do have some views about teachers dumping students onto Wikipedia and expecting volunteers to do all the training and educating and dealing with the consequences of bad homework ending up in article space. Nevertheless, we will continue to see newbie and student editors come to our medical articles. These new young editors will have a different way of writing to the older generation. They will quite naturally want to be trans inclusive. Some of their classmates will be trans. They may be trans. It won't seem like advocacy to them. And some of them, who's very first article-space posts are advocating for specific progressive language changes, may turn out to be capable of contributing a third of the article material, and are expert enough to identify what misinformation needs to be removed. -- Colin° Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
"Would you use these words in talking about pregnancy?"and offered the words
‘Pregnant women’,
‘Birthing parent’,
‘Breastfeeding’and
‘Chestfeeding’, with "yes/no" as your only options. So there's no range of response from always, often, sometimes, rarely, to never. Someone might well use the word "chestfeeding" when discussing the matter with a nonbinary person, but not with a cis woman. There's not a "I've never even heard that phrase" or "It wouldn't occur to me to use it" option, that are quite separate matters from whether one thinks they are "acceptable". I imagine most of the readers of the NYT may not have come across "chestfeeding" and those that have are most likely to have heard of it from those opinion writers who are arguing against it being used. Can you find any opinion columns in a major newspaper suggesting we should all use that term "when talking about pregnancy"? I bet you can find columns in nearly every newspaper suggesting we don't and complaining such language is being "forced on us". I don't think it is at all surprising that nearly everyone would say "pregnant women" or "breastfeeding" and I struggle to recall anyone advocating such words should never be used ever. Sorry, I think this is one for the "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" box. -- Colin° Talk 09:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
And I still think "pregnant teenagers" is a solid argument that this is more about making a fuss to score political points than it is about whether we need to use gendered language when describing those who are pregnant. I think that people assume pregnant teenagers refers to girls and young women while pregnant people is jarring to them because it is read as intentionally gender neutral. I don't know whether that challenges your point or not. Also, I haven't participated in this discussion in months so I don't know if females has been proposed as a substitute for women and girls. Kolya Butternut ( talk) 21:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I saw this in my paper today, and thought EMsmile and Graham Beards may be interested. The article interviews several women, who are referred to with their gendered pronoun. But when speaking generally, it uses
It mentions "woman" in a sentence that appears to paraphrase what professor Chris Bobel said to the writer. Chris Bobel, who is female, wrote Menstruators Need More Than Something to Bleed On, They Also Need Information and Support so clearly isn't afraid to use the word "menstruators". The writer of the article is also female and relatively young and American (writing for the US Guardian office). -- Colin° Talk 11:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
A Google News search turned up this. Wikipedia says this paper isn't reliable and has conservative politics (Murdoch owned).
No "women". I'm surprised then if this tabloid is conservative to see such a determinedly written article, unless they are making fun of woke consumers or does this echo the thinx company's own ethos? -- Colin° Talk 15:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
The UK Office of National Statistics have published their data Gender identity, England and Wales: Census 2021. We discussed the wording of that census a year ago (see archive and search for Census). The census asked:
For the first question, the guidance said "If you are considering how to answer, use the sex recorded on your birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate."
though it didn't say which to use if those disagree. This was a mandatory question. The next two were voluntary and only for those over 16. During the earlier discussion with
Sweet6970 and others, there was disagreement over "assigned" vs "registered" as the best wording. The former seems to be the preferred one for the trans community, the latter used by this census.
The Scottish census asked similar questions but there were some differences.
For the first question, the guidance said "If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your
birth certificate. You do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). If you are non-binary or you are not sure how to answer, you could use the sex registered on your official documents, such as your passport. A voluntary question about trans status or history will follow if you are aged 16 or over. You can respond as non-binary in that question."
. There was a lot of fuss about this including a legal challenge but it remained that those filling in the census could choose whichever sex they wanted to, that they could self-assign. Whereas the E&W census required an official document though with a GRC still meant that one's sex could be different to what was registered at birth.
The second question defines trans in a way that is similar to the E&W question (though just says "gender" rather than "gender identity"). It may be that by asking the question using a definition rather than the word "trans", the E&W question has screwed up. Why does the census say there are more trans people in Newham than Brighton? by Michael Biggs questions the results which appear to show a strong tendencey to identify as trans among those most likely to have problems reading English (for example, without English as a first language, or in areas with a strong immigrant community) rather than where we'd expect to find more trans people (e.g. Brighton). Readers might have been confused if they don't have a birth certificate or official registration documents, it is claimed. They may also be confused about what to put if they have never considered their "gender identity" or believe they don't have one or don't understand the quite modern idea there is a difference between gender and sex.
There is also data by age and sex Gender identity: age and sex, England and Wales: Census 2021. As might be expected, the youngest age group (16-24) has the highest proportion of trans people (1%) and a higher number registered as female at birth (whereas older groups, the male figure is higher).
The flaws with the E&W census stat has got the right-wing press excited with the Daily Mail headline: "Trans population may have been 'significantly overestimated' in 2021 census - raising fears focus on transgender issues is being 'exaggerated'"
with absolutely no self-awareness that they are the ones with an exaggerated focus on transgender issues. But it does show the problem with how to word questions and how to self-check statistics like this. Scotland, by asking up front if you are "trans" may well get a more accurate result for that question, but some may argue their sex question is inferior. @
Sideswipe9th: as well, who may be interested in thinking about the stats and wordings. --
Colin°
Talk
15:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I saw an ad recently that offered a product for "those with vaginal anatomy". I think that's a new one for the list of gender-neutral terms. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)