No one's forcing you to read this or reply to it. Don't upvote it and don't comment if you don't like it. Commenting that you feel something is off-topic is against the guidelines, FYI.
Clearly other people than you are finding it of interest.
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If you don't know what pronoun they want to have used, just use the third person plural (they). This is true of all instances where gender identity is sensitive.
What do you mean by asexual? Do you mean transsexual? If so, the correct word is trans-male or trans-female (reflecting which gender they identify as).
"They" is supposedly not grammatically correct (IIRC), but to me it sounds a lot better than the alternatives, and... grammar can change to fit society better.
It's not prescriptively grammatically correct, but it's the same thing as split infinitives or prepositions at the end of sentences. Native English speakers use the third person plural all the time anyway, and when the reason for your language's antiquated grammatical rules is wanting to be more like Latin, I think it's time for the pedants to catch up with reality.
The word you're after is "agender". So, pretty close.
The answer is - whatever they tell you to. Some would prefer "they". Others wouldn't care if you use "him" or "her". Yet others prefer some invented pronoun (there's a long list).
The only one that's likely to be inappropriate is "it". Don't use that.
I would recommend reading this article, and in particular follow the links to wikipedia discussions.
While I have long believed Wikipedia is too cliquey, and been annoyed that things like C++ articles are wrong, this shows the problems run much deeper, and are much more serious than I realised. The rules lawyers now rule wikipedia, and their biggest concern is their own self-preservation.
So, I don't get it. Doesn't Wikipedia have a system of redirects? Just set it up that going to either the "Chelsea Manning" page or the "Bradley Manning" gets you to her page. There, is everybody is happy?
Can someone explain to me why this was not the solution chosen, or if it was, what the fuss is all about?
There's also disagreement about whether to use a male or female personal pronoun to refer to Manning. This touches on many significant cultural issues, and apparently is something Wikipedia will have to decide on as a matter of policy.
These Wikipedia 1984-style debates are what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if Kafka's dreams came true.
Which they are, slowly. Get used to it: this is the ugly face of herd politics, and it's only going to get more common with time, sadly. The only solution I know to this is to set up a strongly empowered group of stewards with their heart in the right place and the power and mandate to step in and fix things when they go awry - yet even that is fraught with issues, such as what happens when the stewards themselves are corrupted with idiots.
Until we have a foolproof system for weeding out well-meaning and well-sounding and hard-working idiots, this is what every organisation will naturally tend towards until a dictator takes over it and either destroys it or makes it wholesome again.
I have a hard time seeing how Wikipedia contributors/editors struggling over something quite a lot of people would also struggle with is so definitively an intentionally hurtful act as the author suggests.
There must some sort of legal procedure for things like these... You can't just snap your fingers and change your sex or you name and demand from everyone else to accept it right away. Why not also change titles? From now on, call me Padishah Emperor, please.
> You can't just snap your fingers and change your sex or you name and demand from everyone else to accept it right away.
Why not? If I claim that my name is John from now on then what right does anyone else have to claim otherwise?
As for legal procedures, it depends on the nation of residence mostly. For example, in Scotland you do not need to go through any legal process to change your name in a legal sense, you are identified by the name you use for yourself, rather than there being a 'state sanctioned' name which would need to be altered.
There is a legal procedure for things like these. Living under a name that reflects your gender identity is usually the first step and a requirement for things like hormone therapy, surgery, birth certificate change, not the other way around.
Bradley Manning changed his name to Chelsea Manning. The preceding sentence is "deeply hurtful" and Wikipedia exploded over such "misnamings".
Edit: I'm fine with calling a person how they want to be called, and showing respect where respect is due. But the retroactive-everywhere-always-and-forever corrections are silly.
It's "deeply hurtful" to refuse to accept someone's gender identity. Transgender people aren't some transformer robots that are one gender on day and another gender the next, so trying to pinpoint a date before which you use the wrong pronouns is really weird.
The article seems concerned that it took so long to get there, and that the arbitration committee seems pretty biased against trans people, being more eager to lock trans people and people who know trans people out of transgender-related discussions on Wikipedia than taking action againt blatant transphobia/transphobic editors.
It seems like a lot of this comes down to simple confusion of how to identify individuals who have been broadly known more publicly under one self-identification which they no longer identify with. Most people came to know about Manning under the original name, just as I came to know about Prince as "Prince" and not [Unpronounceable Love Symbol]. Confusion, convenience and ignorance does not amount to "virulent hatred" in my book, and it is unfortunate that Manning is not consistently identified with her preferred self-identification, but Wikipedia is an empirical indication of how your average person would identify her, and isn't a claim to "correctness." In time it will reflect the changing awareness of Manning's identity as it is brought to the attention of the public more broadly.
"virulent hatred" is, imo, clearly visible in a lot of comments that argue against respecting Manning's gender identity. And beyond that it's concerning that the Wikipedia bureaucracy seems more interested in silencing people who know what they're talking about than in dealing with editors spouting hateful slurs and preaching nonsense that goes against accepted medical consensus on transgender issues.
Wikipedia's actions in this case are lamentable, but I do have some sympathy for both sides of the argument Sandifer describes. The language we use is highly confusing and basically invites these arguments - we're trying to use too few words to describe too many things.
I have no problem whatsoever with "trans" people but do not think it is optimal for, eg, Ms Manning to be simply labelled a woman. She is clearly not, at least not 100%, female, not in the same holistic psycho-physical way that other females are. For example, I'd like to see her try to use a female changeroom and see if the other females go along quietly with that.
Of course Manning should have the right to her name of choice and to be treated as the person she identifies as. But asserting that one can change gender just by announcing it - even when it is a completely sincere statement - seems far too simplistic to me. I of course understand the argument that inventing some new gender designator could further marginalise an already vulnerable demographic, but by simply avoiding the question I think we've dug ourselves into a bit of a hole.
As another commenter said, names are important. It is important for Chelsea to be addressed as she wishes. But it's also important for our language to have a reasonable set of tools to unambiguously describe things. Simply declaring "she's a girl now, and if you disagree with that in the slightest you're a transphobic cis majority oppressor patriarchal bigot", as I see far too much on Twitter, is not the solution.
It's a complex question and I'm not sure what we can do to solve it. I am glad, however, that the topic is on the agenda - the fact we're even talking about it is surely a step forward.
This is a weird way to put it. The topic has been on the agenda for a long time, gender identity disorder wasn't just discovered yesterday, and there's broad consensus and best practices in the relevant parts of the medical community.
Invoking some "holistic psycho-physical" intuition to dismiss years of research and experience with transgender issues is somewhat presuming.
I'm not trying to dismiss anything, or claiming to be anything other than a layperson. I'm trying to say that, as that layperson, I find the language we use to be very counter-intuitive, confusing, and fraught with obvious potential for conflict.
And yes, I am sure in certain circles this issue has been discussed for years, but I would say Manning's case is the first time a lot of people have thought about these issues.
I couldn't finish this article but I did look into the move discussions.
Chelsea Manning announced her new identity on August 22d. The original consensus on August 31st was to leave the article at Bradley Manning due to the wikipedia policy that subjects be known by their most common name. This was not final, and it was acknowledged that the common name was likely to change so it was decided that the topic could be revisited in 30 days. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bradley_Manning/August_2...
By the time the topic was revisited in early October, Manning was commonly known as Chelsea by the public and the article was moved.
I don't see any evidence of "transhate" in this, it's just policy. For another example, Snoop Lion's page is still called Snoop Dogg.
Edit: I'd only read the decision summaries; there is transphobia in the vote justifications.
I don't get it - I've read through the discussions regarding this whole move, and it was handled in what I would see as the most sensible manner:
1. Article renamed to "Chelsea Manning" within minutes of first announcement.
2. Article moved back and forth over a couple of hours as various contributors disagree.
3. Request for discussion submitted by a user to move back to initial title, on the basis that controversial or unexpected page moves should be discussed or consensus reached before happening.
4. A week or so of discussion results in the conclusion that the page should be left with the initial title for at least 30 days, when a new proposal should be submitted for discussion.
5. New proposal raised as suggested.
6. Subsequent discussion takes place and decision is made to rename article.
7. Article is renamed.
What I see in this blog post is a bunch of petty ad-hominem attacks by somebody who's pissed they didn't get their own way. I don't think that amounts to the obviously incorrect and purposefully misleading title "Wikipedia goes all-in on transphobia."
Wikipedia is a massive, sprawling bureaucracy - it's true. There are petty rivalries and fiefdoms, and this blog demonstrates that clearly (although perhaps not from the perspective the writer intended.) But I don't, on the whole, see a massive problem in evidence. It's pretty much just excessive melodrama of the sort which one sees whenever a large group of people try to govern themselves, and it'll either sort itself out or Wikipedia will fall and something else—probably something that makes a better attempt at solving the bureaucracy problem—will take its place.
Your recounting doesn't really do justice to the manner in which those discussions happened, or the apparent bias of the arbitration committee, which is much more the point of the article than those numbered bits you're summarizing.
I support the Wikipedia anti-battleground policy. It creates a better community and reduces flame wars. Think of an HN where every comment where written for a productive and positive discussion, and one would describe a welcoming and friendly community. This is the goal of the Wikipedia policy.
Philip Sandifer comments defined anyone who disagreed with him as being "virulent hatred of transgendered people" and writers of hate speech. Such broad statements, regardless of how much he believes in it, does not bring a positive discussion.
There were worse offenders on that discussion. People who made hate speech statements, people who were extremely offensive, people who have no business in a clam, polite, and friendly discussion. And, to be extremely clear, it is a pity that the banning of Philip got lumped together with those people. The two events has nothing to do with each other, other than maybe creating some mitigating circumstance for Philips defense. This defense was brought up in the arbcom case, but was not considered enough. Thats the story here.
49 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadI'm starting to think that forking wikipedia might be a worthwhile endeavor
The first is funding.
The second is to gather a base of reasonably committed people who can clear up graffiti without becoming deletionist.
I don't have any good ideas about solving either of them, but any reasonable proposal for forking WP and trying to replace it should address them.
Clearly other people than you are finding it of interest.
--http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
What do you mean by asexual? Do you mean transsexual? If so, the correct word is trans-male or trans-female (reflecting which gender they identify as).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
I agree that 'they' works well in English and I continue to use it.
The answer is - whatever they tell you to. Some would prefer "they". Others wouldn't care if you use "him" or "her". Yet others prefer some invented pronoun (there's a long list).
The only one that's likely to be inappropriate is "it". Don't use that.
While I have long believed Wikipedia is too cliquey, and been annoyed that things like C++ articles are wrong, this shows the problems run much deeper, and are much more serious than I realised. The rules lawyers now rule wikipedia, and their biggest concern is their own self-preservation.
Should an article on African-American civil rights get a redirect from "Niggers"? (NO.)
People deserve the basic respect of being called by the name that they want, and not by names that they don't want.
Which they are, slowly. Get used to it: this is the ugly face of herd politics, and it's only going to get more common with time, sadly. The only solution I know to this is to set up a strongly empowered group of stewards with their heart in the right place and the power and mandate to step in and fix things when they go awry - yet even that is fraught with issues, such as what happens when the stewards themselves are corrupted with idiots.
Until we have a foolproof system for weeding out well-meaning and well-sounding and hard-working idiots, this is what every organisation will naturally tend towards until a dictator takes over it and either destroys it or makes it wholesome again.
Why not? If I claim that my name is John from now on then what right does anyone else have to claim otherwise? As for legal procedures, it depends on the nation of residence mostly. For example, in Scotland you do not need to go through any legal process to change your name in a legal sense, you are identified by the name you use for yourself, rather than there being a 'state sanctioned' name which would need to be altered.
Edit: I'm fine with calling a person how they want to be called, and showing respect where respect is due. But the retroactive-everywhere-always-and-forever corrections are silly.
I have no problem whatsoever with "trans" people but do not think it is optimal for, eg, Ms Manning to be simply labelled a woman. She is clearly not, at least not 100%, female, not in the same holistic psycho-physical way that other females are. For example, I'd like to see her try to use a female changeroom and see if the other females go along quietly with that.
Of course Manning should have the right to her name of choice and to be treated as the person she identifies as. But asserting that one can change gender just by announcing it - even when it is a completely sincere statement - seems far too simplistic to me. I of course understand the argument that inventing some new gender designator could further marginalise an already vulnerable demographic, but by simply avoiding the question I think we've dug ourselves into a bit of a hole.
As another commenter said, names are important. It is important for Chelsea to be addressed as she wishes. But it's also important for our language to have a reasonable set of tools to unambiguously describe things. Simply declaring "she's a girl now, and if you disagree with that in the slightest you're a transphobic cis majority oppressor patriarchal bigot", as I see far too much on Twitter, is not the solution.
It's a complex question and I'm not sure what we can do to solve it. I am glad, however, that the topic is on the agenda - the fact we're even talking about it is surely a step forward.
If those two words did in fact have the distinct meanings you imply, that would solve some of the problem.
Invoking some "holistic psycho-physical" intuition to dismiss years of research and experience with transgender issues is somewhat presuming.
And yes, I am sure in certain circles this issue has been discussed for years, but I would say Manning's case is the first time a lot of people have thought about these issues.
Chelsea Manning announced her new identity on August 22d. The original consensus on August 31st was to leave the article at Bradley Manning due to the wikipedia policy that subjects be known by their most common name. This was not final, and it was acknowledged that the common name was likely to change so it was decided that the topic could be revisited in 30 days. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bradley_Manning/August_2...
By the time the topic was revisited in early October, Manning was commonly known as Chelsea by the public and the article was moved.
I don't see any evidence of "transhate" in this, it's just policy. For another example, Snoop Lion's page is still called Snoop Dogg.
Edit: I'd only read the decision summaries; there is transphobia in the vote justifications.
There was plenty of transphobia involved in the discussions, even if it's not plainly visible from the move history.
1. Article renamed to "Chelsea Manning" within minutes of first announcement.
2. Article moved back and forth over a couple of hours as various contributors disagree.
3. Request for discussion submitted by a user to move back to initial title, on the basis that controversial or unexpected page moves should be discussed or consensus reached before happening.
4. A week or so of discussion results in the conclusion that the page should be left with the initial title for at least 30 days, when a new proposal should be submitted for discussion.
5. New proposal raised as suggested.
6. Subsequent discussion takes place and decision is made to rename article.
7. Article is renamed.
What I see in this blog post is a bunch of petty ad-hominem attacks by somebody who's pissed they didn't get their own way. I don't think that amounts to the obviously incorrect and purposefully misleading title "Wikipedia goes all-in on transphobia."
Wikipedia is a massive, sprawling bureaucracy - it's true. There are petty rivalries and fiefdoms, and this blog demonstrates that clearly (although perhaps not from the perspective the writer intended.) But I don't, on the whole, see a massive problem in evidence. It's pretty much just excessive melodrama of the sort which one sees whenever a large group of people try to govern themselves, and it'll either sort itself out or Wikipedia will fall and something else—probably something that makes a better attempt at solving the bureaucracy problem—will take its place.
Philip Sandifer comments defined anyone who disagreed with him as being "virulent hatred of transgendered people" and writers of hate speech. Such broad statements, regardless of how much he believes in it, does not bring a positive discussion.
There were worse offenders on that discussion. People who made hate speech statements, people who were extremely offensive, people who have no business in a clam, polite, and friendly discussion. And, to be extremely clear, it is a pity that the banning of Philip got lumped together with those people. The two events has nothing to do with each other, other than maybe creating some mitigating circumstance for Philips defense. This defense was brought up in the arbcom case, but was not considered enough. Thats the story here.