Talk:Menstrual cycle/Archive 5

I know this is a sensitive topic, so I want to make it clear that while I personally believe using gender-neutral language about menstruation is right, I'm asking genuinely out of curiousity / still being new to wiki-editing: why don't we use it here? Fireant314 (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are far as I know we have no policy on this. I'm all for using gender-neutral language where appropriate, but in a human biology article, it causes problems. I would object to the use of "persons who have ovaries/uteruses/vaginas" instead of "women" and "girls". Wikipedia is not a trail-blazing or campaigning organisation: we just edit reliable sources and have to go by the nomenclature used therein. I am open to discussion of course and if other editors disagree with me. Graham Beards (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Graham, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There was a long discussion about this in 2019, see here ("Gender-neutral language in human sex-specific articles"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_161#Gender-neutral_language_in_human_sex-specific_articles - The conclusion was not to use gender-neutral language in human sex-specific articles. There were further discussions on the talk page of menstruation, see in the talk page archive here and here. Note the term "menstruator" redirects to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation#Terminology . I think overall it's OK like it is now (perhaps revisit again in a few years time). EMsmile (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I have to disagree a bit with my good friends Graham and Sandy. There's a myth going about that Wikipedia has to use the language of our sources. Whether by accident or choice, it gets repeated, despite being untrue. I got so fed up about it that I wrote

User talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 4

). That was actually a very short discussion involving a handful of editors and in response to a request that all our sex-related biomedical articles should be entirely gender neutral. It received a snowball response but didn't answer the question about whether editors can use gender neutral language if they wish, when writing their own material.

I'm sure you are abundantly aware that transgender issues are very much a political battle right now, especially in the UK and US. Today, the UK government blocked some transgender legislation that was agreed by the Scottish government, an action that some speculate will only hasten the day the Scotland splits from the UK. So if an issue like that can tear a nation apart, think what battles on the topic would do to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia actually legislates on very little when it comes to language choices. But it takes a dim view on editors who just go around changing text to suit their style preferences, particularly on contentious issues where it is very likely someone will go around the next day changing them back. So for existing text we have a bit of a stalemate, and I don't think Wikipedia is likely to find consensus on the matter any more than the UK or US populations have. And while it remains a political battleground topic, any discussion on the matter tends to become a proxy for editors own political views and prejudice.

What we did discover in that long discussion was that more and more public-facing health websites, and academics in journal articles, are choosing to write with trans people in mind. They don't always take the gender-neutral approach. Some incorporate trans people explicitly when they might otherwise feel excluded by a choice of words, and some articles are quite mixed, using "woman" sometimes and "people" other times. However, there is no easy solution and certainly no solution that is acceptable to those with conservative politics.

Right now, there are some articles on Wikipedia that are somewhat gender neutral. Especially ones created by students. But more often than not, those articles get spotted by conservative activist editors, who go around inserting "woman" wherever they can, and the students, being newbies wanting a grade for their work, don't resist. I think that some of the conservative activists have made their activism a little too obvious and are heading for the wrong end of a topic ban, so maybe in the coming year or so Wikipedia will be a little more accepting of editors contributing new material and updating material in this style. So, you could try a gender neutral or trans-inclusive approach if you write new content. You might get lucky and your style choices get respected. Or you might not. Whatever happens, don't fight about it.

You may find it interesting that the lead sentence of pregnancy refers to a "woman's uterus" but the lead sentence of circumcision refers to a "human penis". And nobody minds at all that "pregnant teenager" is gender-neutral. Language choices and our opinions on language choices are quite irrational. -- Colin°^Talk 22:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can see a few places where we can avoid the whole dilemma by varying the wording (similar to the she/it/vessel/liner/ship/destroyer/battleship issue that occurs with ship articles that could be written without the archaic she), but I'm not going to embark on that without agreement, nor am I interested in seeing a biology article being cleansed of mentions of gender when Wikipedia has no clear policy. But there are some examples where the word woman for example could be considered redundant, and the sentence does not lose meaning without it ... eg ...

• For an individual woman, the follicular phase often varies in length from cycle to cycle; by contrast, the length of her the luteal phase will be fairly consistent from cycle to cycle at 10 to 16 days (average 14 days).
• In early pregnancy progesterone also increases blood flow and reduces the contractility of the smooth muscle in the uterus and raises the woman's basal body temperature.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:21, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the word "woman" can be inserted or removed from nearly any sentence and this may happen as a result of perfectly natural copyediting. I demonstrated this a while ago, showing that every single sentence of the lead paragraph of pregnancy could have "women" shoehorned into it, and it would be tiresomely repetitive but grammatically fine. So at the individual sentence level, changes are possible and unremarkable. Removing the human from the text (whether a woman or a man or a person, a he or a she) can be criticised for producing text that is over-medicalised or reduces people to just bodies and processes. That, sometimes, might be absolutely fine if you really are discussing bits of a body and bodily processes. Replacing "woman" with "person" is possible sometimes with care, but not always. It is weird that one can use gender neutral language like "an individual" or "teenager", or use singular "they", and nobody complains that this might refer to men or boys and be misleading, but if you use "person" or "people" then it upsets some. We didn't, in all that long discussion, find an easy solution. -- Colin°^Talk 23:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't seen this discussion before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox_4 (thanks for pointing it out, User:Colin). Indeed a long discussion. Wondering why it is in that particular location and named "Sandbox 4". It might warrant a more central spot somewhere? Maybe WikiProject Medicine talk page (it does go beyond "medicine issues" of course). Personally, I think the current menstrual cycle article is fine how it is. Sure, we could omit the term "woman" a few times, like User:SandyGeorgia suggested. This will probably not be "enough" in the eyes of those who are more keen to see the language changed. Anyway, I'll sit back and observe what those people who have done most of the editing on this article decide to do. After you have formed a consensus, you might like to apply the same at menstruation. EMsmile (talk) 10:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way last year I came across a new publication that was perhaps going "against the trend": It cautions against pushing for terms such as "menstruators", "people with a vagina" and alike in the context of menstrual hygiene management in the Global South. It is certainly thought provoking: "Effective Communication About Pregnancy, Birth, Lactation, Breastfeeding and Newborn Care: The Importance of Sexed Language" (link) It says: "Cultural Imperialism in Global Public Health - As previously explained, the impetus to desex language in relation to female reproduction flows from a philosophy developed in the USA and within which American understandings and priorities predominate. In the context of global public health, an increasing encouragement, or requirement, to desex language by international organizations or funders based in the USA/the West may be experienced not only as confusing but also as cultural and linguistic imperialism". Our Wikipedia articles are meant to be readable and understandable by everyone and not have a Global North bias in any way. EMsmile (talk) 10:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:EMsmile, the discussion on User:WhatamIdoing's sandbox page was advertised at WPMED at the start. There is a limit to how long a discussion can go on for when discussed centrally, where other matters need discussed too. Actually, I see now that WAID archived much of it. The page used to be this long! The full page is obviously now too long for anyone to read but the article you mention was discussed there at this section. I think the article was fairly thoroughly torn apart. You are welcome to post on WAID's page if you want to discuss further.

I think one of the problems with this topic is that people have strong opinions about it (or weak opinions but are willing to take on board and defend the strong opinions of someone they align with). Those opinions are ultimately based on your values as a person. But that's a really hard thing to argue about. So instead, excuse my language, people just make shit up. In the publications we examined, all sorts of ridiculous arguments were put forward, not just on the anti-trans side, but mostly on the anti-trans side, because that's what most media have given a publishing platform to. There were a few nuggets of wisdom, however. On Wikipedia, we see the same arguments but also see editors totally inventing policies and guidelines and consensus that simply doesn't exist. Like the idea we have to use the word choices of our sources. This is what makes me depressed that the community (or indeed our nations) will find agreement and consensus on this any time soon.

Btw, I agree with you that "those people who have done most of the editing on this article" should have a louder voice in any argument about style choices here. And that applies to new material, here and elsewhere. -- Colin°^Talk 10:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, interesting, I missed all that discussion (even though I have WikiProject Medicine on my watchlist). How/where will this sandbox discussion be easily findable in the future? - it should be available from somewhere from the front of the WikiProject Medicine page, perhaps under resources (currently it's just somewhere linked from an archived talk page, right?). I am just saying because it would be a pity if the discussion got buried and lost and new people, like Fireant314, have no easy way of finding those earlier discussions, and start again from scratch! Perhaps even a tag at the top of the talk page (which doesn't get archived) and which says "discussions about gender neutral language for this and other articles are ongoing - please see here"). EMsmile (talk) 11:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way I can see that you ripped that article in Frontiers apart but not everyone agreed. I think it was providing an important balance/perspective/opinion: we don't often hear about voices from the Global South on this topic. From my own (limited) work with sanitation issues in the Global South I can tell you that many people from those parts of the world look at these whole transgender wording debates with some surprise/curiosity/disdain ("luxury problems?"). Anyway, this is not the right place to discuss this further; there should be a central place in Wikipedia somewhere, not on the talk page of menstrual cycle... EMsmile (talk) 11:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a matter for WAID. I really don't think it is reasonable to expect anyone to read that entire discussion, though it might have been better to archive it to another page than to delete the material. I think the hope was the discussion would produce some recommendations. It isn't continuing with the same vigour as it once did, mostly because we've all made the points we're going to make and are repeating ourselves without coming any closer. Perhaps we should try to summarise, but I don't think it would be a consensus summary, more of a "This is what Colin ended up thinking", and so on.

I think WAID was pretty damning about that Frontiers article too. I can think of a response to your Global South comment but it doesn't belong here. You can certainly join WAIDs page and your personal experience is valuable. -- Colin°^Talk 11:26, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but how about my suggestion to link to that discussion from the main page of WikiProject Medicine? I do think it's important that new users can actually find it on their own accord. One of the places they make look for guidance is at WikiProject Medicine. I am not saying we have a guidance document ready yet (or we ever will in the near future) but we can at least point people to the main page(s) where past discussions took place. E.g. before yesterday I wasn't even aware of that long discussion and used to point people to this discussion only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_161#Gender-neutral_language_in_human_sex-specific_articles (again a location where nobody can find it again unless they know it existed at Village pump proposals...) EMsmile (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

EMSmile, although I was aware of WAID's sandbox, I haven't joined because I find those discussions too polarizing for the reasons Colin mentions. So I could be completely wrong (take this with the grain of salt) but I believe that it is in Sandbox because of WAID's extensive experience with how to conduct an RFC. On more followed pages, it's near impossible to just have a discussion, as people start !voting (oppose or support), and discussions become polarized. It can be more effective to have a real discussion elsewhere before attempting an RFC. But you could join in there to inquire. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Village Pump discussion had a much wider set of people responding, was in a more centralized place, and had a proper closure. It's much more authoritative than a sandbox discussion, which despite its length was basically the same handful of people. So I would oppose anything that implied some sort of equal weight between the two. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you everyone for your replies & discussion!

I have learned a few things today. Fireant314 (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sandbox proposal

I'm glad Colin joined us in this discussion. I didn't invite him because I saw he was busy elsewhere - thanks for finding the time. In case I have given the impression that I am stuck in the Dark Ages, let me say from the outset that I fully support trans inclusivity and indeed, I have been an active supporter of LGBT rights since 1971! The issue I have, as an educator and Consultant Microbiologist, is maintaining accuracy while accommodating radical changes in how we view sex and gender, which are no longer the same. I have made changes to a copy of the article in my sandbox here User:Graham Beards/Sandbox. I would be very grateful for any comments, and edits. It would be good for the article, our readers and the whole project if we can get our act together on this. Graham Beards (talk) 13:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Graham, does this diff represent the suggested changes? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I see it doesn't and we have to read through all ? Would you mind popping in the original so that a diff of changes can be produced ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There you go Graham Beards (talk) 13:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. IPad editing ... temporary list below I will come back and fill in ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:35, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to revert these changes once and suggest that a request for comment be started. People actually do read Wikipedia for information even though it is unreliable. "Those who have..." Who are "those"? Can you get or lose menstrual cycles if you gender identity changes? Imagine if scientific research used this language to describe participants in a study: the participants consisted of equal numbers those who have menstrual cycles and those who do not? Those who do not could be male but they also could be female. I realize the everyone here has the best of intentions, but introducing ambiguity is going in the wrong direction. --I am One of Many (talk) 14:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have already reverted the changes. We needed a diff for discussion purposes. When I suggested Graham pop them in, I was referring to in his sandbox, but I wasn't clear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am One of Many. I want to be sure that everyone understands that we had a miscommunication here (likely because of my iPad-editing brevity). When I said "Would you mind popping in the original so that a diff of changes can be produced", I meant: copy the original article to sandbox, so that a diff of the changes could be produced because I didn't want to read the entire sandbox to see what changes were proposed. Instead, Graham put the sandbox into the original. Same effect: we just needed a diff for discussion, and the temporary change is reverted. I don't believe there was ever any intent to move forward on these changes without discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am One of Many as Sandy says, the changes were for demonstration purposes and reverted. Please can you not start an RFC. I don't know why everyone thinks an RFC is the first step in discussing any issue. Let's be clear, an RFC is often no better than a poll, and that should be the very last step when proposing any change, when you are pretty confident you have a solid proposal that you think will be carried. I think people below are examining the issues and seeing for themselves how well it works or otherwise. It is a wiki, so we are allowed to experiment. I think an RFC on this topic would be disruptive at the current time. -- Colin°^Talk 14:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with User:I am One of Many and think that a

WP:RfC would be good. I also think that something needs to be placed on the WikiProject Medicine main page to explain to people that discussions about this are ongoing and then point them to where the discussion location is. Let's bring this out into the open. EMsmile (talk) 14:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

(Edit conflict) I don't think an RFC is going to help at all. There are no changes to revert. [2]. This is a work in progress where we are trying to find solutions, in the spirit of collaborative writing, to issues that have been raised. I would be more than happy to consider any suggestions you have. I have no axe to grind: I was a happy with the article the way I wrote it. Others are not it seems and so we should find a work around. Graham Beards (talk) 14:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

EMSmile, an RFC could be effective if we actually had a proposal. At this point, we are still discussing a sandbox proposal. If we were to first develop some consensus amongst ourselves, and carefully craft an RFC, then we might get an outcome better than a bitter debate with no consensus. Meanwhile, no changes are in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, see also my post above at 13:13, 17 January 2023 ... An RFC launched too early can cause more problems than it solves. The diff was for discussion purposes, so let's discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There doesn't have to be an RFC, but I think that it would be helpful to have more perspectives and consider the downsides of such changes. I am One of Many (talk) 14:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly what we are doing. Graham Beards (talk) 14:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I misunderstood but from what I am seeing in the suggestions section below, you are trying to replace every time the word woman or girl appears in the menstrual cycle article with something like "some", "people", "those" etc. That is the proposal on the table, isn't it? I would be against replacing woman or girl every time in this type of medical/biological article. EMsmile (talk) 14:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion is that often re-casting the sentence will work better than simple substitution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:02, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed 100% EMsmile. While it is true that natural styles of writing vary as to exactly how many sentences use words like "woman", deliberately going through and removing all mentions is quite different and is not in accord with how the vast majority of sources write about this topic. And contrary to what has been claimed, how sources write is relevant to how we write, with

MOS:CAPS as just one example. We would never allow people to go through an article and replace "woman" with "womxn", even though a few people write that way. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Here's what would happen if you do an RFC or even advertise for "more perspectives", or may yet happen this afternoon. Every single conservative activist will descend on the article with some variant on the same well worn arguments about women being erased and "bodies with vaginas" and "menstruators" (despite nobody here using proposing such phrases). Someone will no doubt complain that it is a man who is erasing women from a women's article (ignoring the fact Graham wrote much of it). You'll be told in no uncertain terms that you must WP:STICKTOSOURCES for word choices, even though the existing article text didn't. Meanwhile most trans editors will ignore it, because there are more important battles and because they know already how it will end.

We debated this for over a year at WAID's sandbox and not a single person changed their mind. Experiment and explore for sure, but please I don't think Wikipedia is ready for this change just now, and an RFC would be horrible. -- Colin°^Talk 14:56, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit confict) Perhaps I should have left this in my sandbox. I was just exploring ideas and sharing them. Graham Beards (talk) 15:00, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My point is one of clarity. Suppose Female reproductive system was rewritten: "The reproductive system in some is made up of the internal and external sex organs that function in the reproduction of new offspring. In humans, the reproductive system of some is immature at birth and develops to maturity at puberty to be able to produce gametes, and to carry a fetus to full term. The internal sex organs are the vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. The reproductive tract of some includes the vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes and is prone to infections." Clarity would be lost.--I am One of Many (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's an issue we are well aware of. Graham Beards (talk) 15:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we can't just automatically replace "women" with "people" or "some" or "individuals". It does have to be considered whether meaning is still retained and sometimes reading and examining individual sentences is too "out of context" and it is better to look at a whole paragraph (for which a sandbox would be better). For example this paper says "Penile cancer is relatively rare globally with an annual incidence of less than 1 case per 100,000 person-years (pyr) in Western countries". I'm pretty sure that 100,000 is only counting the "person"s who have a penis. -- Colin°^Talk 15:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, User:Crossroads, I think you made some very good points with your three talk page interventions above (they are scattered in 3 different spots above, which I overlooked at first). Especially this statement of yours resonates with me Why are people proceeding as though expunging "women" from a women's health topic is acceptable? Or even desirable? It seems to be that one person invoked "gender neutral" and it's just being assumed that that would be an improvement.. EMsmile (talk) 12:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

From this diff, I am concerned that at times we may have compromised accuracy, or introduced weaker prose (for example, overuse of "those" or confusion about the subject) ... explanations follow ... I expect these can all be easily addressed ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

1. More severe symptoms that affect daily living are classed as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and are experienced by a few ( 3–8%).

   The "few" is left vague: this is a case where the word individuals might be used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   Yes.Graham Beards (talk) 14:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2. Cycles in which ovulation does not occur (anovulation) are common in girls who have just begun menstruating and in women around menopause. --> Cycles in which ovulation does not occur (anovulation) are common in those who have just begun menstruating and those around menopause.

   At this point, I feel like those is becoming overused, and I feel we've lost an important age-based distinction. I am pretty sure you or Colin can fix this one by completely re-casting the sentence along the lines of ... When menstruation begins, and again around the time of menopause, cycles in which ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

3. Chronic anovulation occurs in 6–15% of women during their reproductive years. --> Chronic anovulation occurs in 6–15% of individuals during their reproductive years.

   Not sure we should switch to individuals here ... have we lost accuracy ? A percentage of individuals would include all men wouldn't it ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   I thought "reproductive years" resolved this. Graham Beards (talk) 14:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

4. Anovulatory cycles or short luteal phases are normal when women are under stress or athletes increasing the intensity of training. --> Anovulatory cycles or short luteal phases are normal when under stress or athletes increasing the intensity of training.

   Grammatical ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   It should be "or in athletes" Graham Beards (talk) 14:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

5. Although a normal and natural process, some women experience premenstrual syndrome with symptoms that may include. --> Although a normal and natural process, some experience premenstrual syndrome with symptoms that may include

   Grammatical? Vague ? Again, this seems a case where a missing individual or person might be needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm not sure. "Some" is often used to mean "people" as in "Some might say... " Graham Beards (talk) 14:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

6. More severe symptoms that affect daily living are classed as premenstrual dysphoric disorder and are experienced by 3 to 8% of women. --> More severe symptoms that affect daily living are classed as premenstrual dysphoric disorder and are experienced by 3 to 8% of some.

   Same: of some is overly vague. I think this one can be fixed by re-casting the sentence, something like ... Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, experienced by 3 to 8% of those menstruating, causes more severe symptoms ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

7. These issues can significantly affect a woman's health and quality of life and timely interventions can improve the lives of these women. --> These issues can significantly affect health and quality of life and timely interventions can improve the lives.

   Left hanging ... and timely interventions can (be effective ??). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   Should be just "lives" without the article. Graham Beards (talk) 14:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

8. In some women, ovulation features a characteristic pain --> In some, ovulation features a characteristic pain

   This is a case where individuals might be used ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

9. Around 40% of women with epilepsy. --> Around 40% of those with epilepsy

   Compromised accuracy ? 40% of those includes all men ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   Yes but I think the meaning is clear. Graham Beards (talk) 14:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy, are working from the right version? I have already changed these, I think :-) Graham Beards (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm listing the changes that need discussion ... sorry, iPad editing ... I will come back and enter my concerns on these ... Give me 10 or 15 more minutes ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:49, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No rush Graham Beards (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, done now, the rest looks fine, sure you and Colin can easily address these, as both of you have better prose than I do. I reverted so that you can reinstate the whole thing once we are all agreed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree; read my comment above. I am One of Many (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same. I don't see why things were proceeding as though expunging "women" from a women's health topic is acceptable. Or even desirable. It seems to be that one person invoked "gender neutral" and it was simply assumed that that would therefore be an improvement. This is a sex-related topic, and writing without any reference to sex - even to the extent of removing "female" from "reproductive system" - is stilted and inaccurate.

The vast majority of sources do not write like this, and contrary to what some claim, that is relevant. I pointed to

WP:DUE

for sources to talk about a topic as relevant to women while Wikipedia goes off on its path away from the experts and desexes it.

If any editors want to introduce this writing style to Wikipedia - of e.g. deliberately avoiding words used freely in our sources, or to overturn the existing consensus that 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 - then the burden is on them to draft some new guidance for MOS towards an RFC for it. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:54, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Crossroads, nobody ever said our sources are irrelevant. It really doesn't help discussions when you say things about what other people have claimed that are very obviously false. Our sources can guide us, but the "STICKTOSOURCES" claim you keep making is also very obviously false (see

WP:OUROWNWORDS

) and you need to try harder than citing one very minor aspect of letter style (caps). There are in fact countless ways in which Wikipedia either has a house style (punctuation around quotes) or explicitly no style (English language variants, citation style). And so many ways our writing and choice of words are required by policy to deviate from our sources (neutrality, opinions, guidance, second or third person, etc).

Furthermore Crossroads, the so-called "existing consensus" you keep citing does not mandate what you keep claiming it does. It asked an extreme question and got a no. That's all you can say, and the tiny number of participants included only one health/medicine writer. The words you quote are the words of one person who happened to close it, not a consensus of Wikipedia. And they were wrong. I don't need an RFC to know they are wrong, because literally nobody on Wikipedia sticks to the words/terminology of our sources. It doesn't happen. If you ever suggested that such a statement was universally true, it would be snowball closed. Crossroads, some of the people on this page have actually written articles, rather than just argue about them, and we know it isn't true, because we carefully consider the words we write and they are not the words in our sources.

By all means argue that you think we need to keep mentioning the word "women" in sex related articles. That's an opinion. But your rationales for this, Crossroads, are not helpful. -- Colin°^Talk 15:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think an issue is whether or not we can just use "some" meaning "some women/individuals|people|persons". It sounds fine to my ear but I'm a

For me it's OK to remove some mentions of women/female/girls but is the plan now to remove it every single time? Is that really needed? I doubt it, based on the discussions that took place in the past. I would say at least there has not yet been a consensus reached that would stipulate this. Will the same happen at every single Wikipedia article that deals with female anatomy topics? EMsmile (talk) 14:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the suggested prose came across to me as artificial and stilted ... could be a AmEng v BrEng thing? Looking forward to hearing from Colin ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Close this discussion

There is no consensus to alter content in this article, and discussion is now veering into meta-issues that are better dealt with elsewhere. We came, we discussed, we did not change the article, let's move on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]