Talk:Trans woman/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Is this the article where tucking/tabbing should be mentioned? This link [1] will be paywalled at the middle of July 2016, I expect. (This wikipedia article is closed to IP-edits.) 178.232.226.9 (talk) 06:57, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Now durably archived here: Tale of the tape at WebCite (archived 2016-05-29) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:32, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Given that Kate Bornstein does not identify as a woman but as genderqueer/nonbinary, should ze be listed here? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:31, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

@

re

}} 06:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The wikipedia article Woman has a 4x4 image grid at the top. I thought it would be good to have a 3x3 grid at the top of this wikipedia page? My thoughts were:

• Christine Jorgensen first woman to have gender confirmation surgery
• Lana Wachowski director of The Matrix and V for Vendetta
• Renée Richards tennis player who was banned for being trans
• Laverne Cox actress and advocate
• Anna Grodzka polish MP
• Laura Jane Grace punk rock musician
• Roberta Cowell British world war 2 fighter pilot
• Martine Rothblatt CEO of united therapeutics, highest paid female CEO

Wikiditm (talk) 12:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm all for this. Some other suggestions:

• Chevalier d'Eon
  - French diplomat and spy, historical trans woman
• Raewyn Connell - Australian sociologist, founding figure in masculinities studies
• Chelsea Manning - American soldier
• Janet Mock - trans activist
• Lynn Conway - American computer scientist

re

}} 03:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I support such an image as well. However, I support that if Chelsea Manning is included, a picture of her after her body is corrected with surgery must be used. Georgia guy (talk) 13:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Absolute agree with Georgia guy on that point.

re

}} 17:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. What if she doesn't even plan surgery? Not all trans people who medically transition undergo transition-related surgery of any kind at all, ever. Quite a lot, I believe, limit themselves to hormonal transition, which can provide sufficient relief from dysphoria and allow one to live in their chosen gender permanently. Usually, you can't see what's in their undies anyway, so it doesn't matter anyway, especially not for a portrait. So I'd think it should suffice for her at least until she's some time into HRT – or earlier, depending on how well she passes, possibly. On the other hand, scratch that, it's interesting either way; ultimately, what's important, IMHO, is that we have a picture where she earnestly presents en femme. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:46, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Fellow editors, this question may be moot. The galleries at

'c.s.n.s.'

15:10, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I may have spoken too soon. There is a current RfC here. Apologies. -

'c.s.n.s.'

17:32, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Just wondering if this is a known stat and one that would be relevant to include (I sort of feel it would be, for reasons of showing that it's not a wildly uncommon characteristic)... a somewhat vague one is given on the Trans man page after all, and that's rather harder to pin down as often ftM people can pass more easily and do so with enough stealth to not be picked up on surveys. Their highball estimate is 1:2000 and as far as I was aware mtF was a more common character. Could be good for education, attitude influence etc... 193.63.174.254 (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Roughly 0.3% according to this. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Newhalf redirects to here but the term is neither mentioned nor explained in the article at all. --RokerHRO (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

@RokerHRO: You're right, there should be a mention, or the redirect should not point here. If you look at the redirect article history, you'll see that it used to point to futanari, and that the wiktionary article was given as justification for the change of the redirect target to Trans woman.

Either there should be a new section, something like "Global terms for trans women", with mentions of things like

jump in and do it. Mathglot (talk

) 21:01, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, non-notable authors or not usually quoted by name in plain text in the article body, even when their paper is a reliable reference, so I have removed the names of these two undergraduates from the article. Mathglot (talk) 19:26, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Adding for the record: these edits appear to be related to classwork being performed in connection with a college class; see Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Loyola Marymount University/Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Contemporary Society Sections 4 and 5 (Spring 2017) for details. Mathglot (talk) 01:26, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

@

reliable sources. Cordially, Mathglot (talk

) 23:03, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

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Regarding this edit,

And given your arguments elsewhere, I think I know why you made the change.

I thought it was fairly obvious. Since "woman" can mean different things, "is a woman" is 1) unclear and 2) POV. Colonial Overlord (talk) 04:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

With regard to Wikipedia's terms, stating "is a

talk

) 05:01, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

How the hell is it not a POV issue? Do I really need to provide evidence that there are enormous numbers of people, organisations, politicians, ideologies etc that do not accept that transgender women are women? Do I need to point out that which of several possible definitions of "woman" is the one society should use, or the philosophical question of whether someone who is biologically male but identifies as female has the essential nature of a woman or not, are not questions wikipedia should be taking a side on? Also, please tell me what is in any way inaccurate about my edit. Colonial Overlord (talk) 06:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

talk

) 23:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, could you explain why you do not think it is a POV issue? Colonial Overlord (talk) 13:57, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Colonial Overlord, because this article is about the topic of trans women, and the literature on trans women generally supports describing them as women. This is why I noted WP:Due weight. As for what you stated about activism below, I dislike activism on Wikipedia; this is why I will cite the

talk

) 00:27, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, thank you for that clarification. I assure you I am not thinking from an activist point of view either, unless you count that I am most likely to edit wikipedia to remove what appears to be agenda-based wording (you could say I have an anti-activist agenda), no matter what the agenda. If you look through my editing history you'll see that I have tried to increase recognition of the importance and accomplishments of the

Australia Greens on wikipedia, a party that would totally support the agenda that I am trying to remove from this article. And I am entirely open to being persuaded by rational argument on issues being discussed here. As I've pointed out below, however, one of the main editors opposing me most definitely seems to be coming from an activist point of view. Colonial Overlord (talk

) 07:36, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I will go ahead and note that the

talk

) 05:13, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

As long as it's not saying "is a woman", I suppose that would be okay. But would you mind telling me what's wrong with my phrasing? Colonial Overlord (talk) 06:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Trans women are women. The original wording (before Colonial Overlord's edit) was fine. Funcrunch (talk) 05:53, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

And what argument or reason do you have for that claim being an indisputable fact? It seems to me that based on how most people on the street would define the word "woman", and based on how it's been defined by pretty much everyone throughout history until the last few years or so, it would be more defensible for the article to say they are not women. But note that I'm not saying the article should say that; I'm saying it shouldn't take sides either way. Colonial Overlord (talk) 06:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Trans women (and other trans people) are not a phenomenon of "the last few years or so"; see

WP:GENDERID. Funcrunch (talk

) 13:34, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

The replacement wording is a rampant breach of NPOV (and, insofar as it is linked on many people's articles, a serious violation of BLP too). We don't misgender subjects of BLP articles because of Colonial Overlord's personal opinions. The Drover's Wife (talk) 16:17, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I have alerted WikiProject Women in Red to this discussion. Funcrunch (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• As I see it, the problem with the new wording is that it removes an essential defining characteristic, womanhood, from the description of what a trans woman is. The lead sentence should define what the topic is about. In this article, it's about a subset of women. As it's written now, that's far from clear. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:46, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Totally agree with

Flyer22 Reborn's compromise verbiage, but I find Overlord's edit to be inaccurate and a breach of NPOV. SusunW (talk

) 18:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

My preference is for the original intro sentence. It is the most clear and succinct option. Beyond that, colonial overlord's edit is a clear fringe POV push. No major medical or psychiatric organization takes the view trans women aren't women and the consensus in gender theory is also against that position. Rab V (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm seeing lots of personal attacks and very little response to the arguments I've made. Rather than shouting "no, you have a POV agenda" can we please leave aside personal accusations and personal opinions and focus on what can be indisputably proven by logical argument and evidence?

There are two issues here. (1) Whether the article should say "woman" or "female" and (2) whether it should say "IS a woman/female" or "has the gender identity of woman/female".

On (1) my opinion is not so strong, but it seems that "female gender identity" flows a lot better than "gender identity of a woman" and also that if we're going to say that their sex assignment is male we should be consistent and say their gender identity is female. And what argument is there against my wording? The only one I can see above is that "female" doesn't just apply to humans, but given that it says "is a person with a female gender identity" I don't see how that's an issue.

On (2), are people seriously contending that "woman" always, indisputably refers to gender identity and never to genitals, chromosomes or anything biological? Because that seems absurd. My oxford dictionary defines "woman" as "an adult female person" and "female" as "of the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs". It was published in 2006 (hardly ancient) and makes no mention of gender identity whatsoever. On this dictionary's definition most "transgender women" are catergorically not women. Of course there will be other sources that give gender identity as a definition of woman, which is why WP should not take a side either way. The fact that my dictionary (and I suspect most sources from the same time) don't mention gender identity at all as part of the definition gives reason to think that the mainstream idea of defining "woman" by gender identity is extremely recent and not something WP should be adopting as undisputed fact.

Just to address the only two real arguments that seem to have been raised above: the manuel of style is irrelevant here because this isn't a matter of style but of asserting something as a fact, in the lede of an article no less. And the opinions of medical organisations are no more relevant than anyone else because, insofar as this is an issue of fact at all rather than just one's preference on how to use and define a particular word, it is a question in philosophy, not medicine, of what it essentially means to be a woman and whether transgender women qualify. Philosophical questions like that are not something wikipedia should be taking a side on. Colonial Overlord (talk) 07:25, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Without getting into the substance, I'd just like to point out that there have been no personal attacks against you. As a reminder,

[a]ccusing someone of making personal attacks without providing a justification for your accusation is also considered a form of personal attack." For the most part, you've been sticking to the content argument, and that's good. Keep doing that. I think you were just letting your passions run away with you, and didn't mean it. Cordially, Mathglot (talk

) 17:37, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to such statements as "colonial overlord's edit is a clear fringe POV push", "clearly this is a POV issue for Colonial Overlord" and "We don't misgender subjects of BLP articles because of Colonial Overlord's personal opinions" by at least three different editors. I think all of these are, to a reasonable person, implicit accusations that I am acting in bad faith and/or editing solely based on personal bias, which is particularly jarring when the people making these claims aren't responding at all to the substantive arguments I've made. Colonial Overlord (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Whatever phrasing is used, I think it would be appropriate for Trans man and Trans woman to use parallel phrasing (mutatis mutandis). -sche (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Your dictionary example wouldn't hold up for a wikipedia article as it violates WP:SYNTH. Merging entries to make them imply something they do not directly say is a form of original research. In general, wikipedia's content is based off the published reliable sources on a topic. In this case, the major organizations in medicine, like the AMA, psychiatry, APA, and gender theory all agree that gender is not contingent on assigned sex, a trans woman is a woman. A consensus like this is very sufficient for wikipedia and treating it as merely an opinion in the article's intros would be giving undue weight to fringe views. Rab V (talk) 06:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You'll have to elaborate. How does using a dictionary to determine the meaning of a word violate

WP:SYNTH? And as I said above, "is a woman" is not a medical claim, but a linguistic or philosophical one. Yes, sure, gender identity is not dependent on sex, but the relevant question is whether "woman" refers to gender identity or to sex, for which consulting the dictionary is the obvious recourse. Colonial Overlord (talk

) 09:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You are combining two different entries from that dictionary to make them imply something neither entry is directly saying. Neither entry mentions trans women, hence WP:SYNTH applies. Beyond that, a dictionary entry is a lower quality source than one made by groups of experts on the topic. But that is besides here since the WP:SYNTH issue and neither dictionary entry directly mentioning trans women. Rab V (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

As I've seen no other editors agree with Colonial Overlord on this issue, I recommend this discussion be closed and the previous wording of the lead ("A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth.") restored. CO (or anyone else) can open a formal RfC if desired to further assess consensus. Funcrunch (talk) 15:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Concur. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 17:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Except that

"persuad[ing] others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense". I have provided several reasons and arguments in support of my position, which have mostly not been responded to. I should also note that, regardless of what some of you might think, I am definitely open to being persuaded. My annoyance at the original lede that led me to change it was not merely because of what it said, but because I couldn't see any rational or evidential justification for it. If you think there is such a justification and that my arguments are unsound, it would be helpful if you could explain why. Colonial Overlord (talk

) 13:53, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia works on consensus, which you have not established for your preferred wording. I and the other editors have provided explanations for our disagreement, which you have rejected. That doesn't simply make you right and all of us wrong. I have restored the previous wording; as I said here and in my edit summary, you may start an RfC if you disagree. Funcrunch (talk) 14:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"I and the other editors have provided explanations for our disagreement, which you have rejected."

I have not simply rejected them, I have provided reasons for rejecting them, which nobody has responded to. You, on the other hand, have not provided any reasons whatsoever for rejecting my dictionary-based arguments. It doesn't matter how many people are on each side of a dispute. All that matters is what reasons and arguments have been provided by each side.

As I see it:

(1)I have argued that many dictionaries do not mention gender identity in the definition of "woman" or "female" at all, and that therefore it is a breach of WP:NPOV to use a definition of the word that is provided as ONE of the possible definitions in SOME sources, as though it is the universallly accepted definition.

(2)The only response I recieved to this argument is that this constituted WP:SYNTH. I asked how using a dictionary to determine the meaning of a word constituted SYNTH and recieved no response.

(3)The only other arguments that have been offered for the original wording have been an appeal to the manual of style, and an appeal to the opinions of medical organisations. I questioned what relevance the manual of style has to a factual claim in the lede of an article and recieved no response. I questioned why medical organisations are particularly qualified to determine the correct meaning of an everyday word and recieved no response.

(4)Apart from that, all other response to my arguments have been such statements as "my preference is for the original wording" and "I think your edit is coming from a POV mindset" with no arguments provided at all. Such responses utterly fail to satisfy Wikipedia's policies on the purposes of discussion.

Do you disagree with this assessment? If so, please explain why.

Finally, what need is there for a request for comment? I am here, ready to defend my position. There are many of you here who disagree with me, which requires you to actually engage with the arguments I have made. There is no need for extra opinions, there is merely a need for those with opinions to provide reasons and arguments (and engage with the responses to the reasons and arguments they claim to have given) rather than simply declaring their opinion. Colonial Overlord (talk) 15:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@

(ping me!)

15:50, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

But I'm not arguing that the article should say they are not women. I'm saying it should stick to what is indisputable (their gender identity is female and their assigned sex is male) without making any potentially contentius claims about what they are. Colonial Overlord (talk) 02:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Colonial Overlord: You don't own this article. Other editors are not required to engage with you to your specific satisfaction. I have no more to say to you on this topic. Funcrunch (talk) 19:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

And you don't own this article either, not even if you have ten people backing you up. Again,

Wikipedia is not a democracy. For all I know, all of you could be LGBT movement activists. I'm saying that's the case at all, but it's one of the reasons merely declaring your opinion is insufficent to back up your preferred language. If you want the article to be a certain way then you need to provide reasons and engage with the reasons provided by others. I made a summary above of all the points I have made that have not been addressed at all, not just not to my "specific satisfaction". If you are unwilling to engage in reason-based discussion, then you have no right to insist that the article remain a certain way. Colonial Overlord (talk

) 02:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Colonial Overlord: You seem to be edging toward a battleground mentality in your comments here. You keep complaining that your arguments haven't been addressed, but that seems specious. Much of what you've said has been addressed, and you haven't liked the responses you received. If a particular argument you've made hasn't been addressed, well, there are several potential reasons for that; one obvious one is that those who've read what you're saying don't feel it's sufficiently logical or germane to warrant a response. Using phrases like "indisputably proven" and "objective reality" when referring to your own opinions isn't likely to help you achieve consensus, but it speaks volumes about your unwillingness to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

You implied that someone suggested "'woman' always...refers to gender identity and never to genitals, chromosomes or anything biological”, but no one said that. I'd say that "woman" sometimes refers primarily to gender identity, and that this is one of those times. I'd also say that your lumping together genitals and chromosomes with "anything biological" is a bit of a leap; there's far more to biology than anatomy and genetics. My main problem with your wording is one I've already addressed above, so I'll reiterate only briefly: it deliberately omits a basic attribute of trans women, namely womanhood.

Dictionaries are nice—I use them frequently and even cite them from time to time—but they're frequently unhelpful in deciding how to word a lead section, which is supposed to summarize the article that follows. The lead sentence itself should say what the article is about, and any definition given should reflect that. Since the article is about trans women, it seems distinctly odd to seek to omit the word "woman" from the lead sentence. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 21:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"Much of what you've said has been addressed, and you haven't liked the responses you received."

Addressing something does not just mean simply saying something to it. It means actually engaging with the argument logically, explaining why you think it fails, and engaging with responses to your response. Saying "well I disagree because x" without explaining how x is even relevant to the topic, let alone making a clear logical argument, is entirely insufficient.

"If a particular argument you've made hasn't been addressed, well, there are several potential reasons for that; one obvious one is that those who've read what you're saying don't feel it's sufficiently logical or germane to warrant a response"

Then they need to explain why they think that. Merely stating their opinion is not enough because, again,

Wikipedia is not a democracy

.

"Using phrases like "indisputably proven" and "objective reality" when referring to your own opinions isn't likely to help you achieve consensus, but it speaks volumes about your unwillingness to consider the possibility that you're wrong."

No, I was saying that the opinions of those of you opposing me are not indisputably proven, not that mine are.

As for your content argument: you seem to arguing about issue (1) that I described above, rather than issue (2). Namely, whether to say "woman" or "female". As I said above, my opinion is not very strong on this, so in light of your argument about the importance of using the word "woman", I'm prepared to accept the compromise wording mentioned above, which is the equivalent of what is used in the "trans man" article. Namely, "is a transgender person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity is that of a woman". This satisfies most of my arguments, and appears to satisfy yours as well. Can we agree on this? Colonial Overlord (talk) 03:52, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Noting for the record: a parallel change to Trans man was made by Colonial Overlord at 9:02, 29 June 2017, and now reads: A trans man (sometimes trans-man or transman) is a transgender person who was assigned female at birth but whose gender identity is that of a man. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 09:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I reverted and started a discussion on that talk page. I also reverted the "compromise wording" edit made today which has not gained consensus on this talk page. Funcrunch (talk) 14:22, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

This is getting very tedious. Multiple editors above expressed acceptance of the wording paralell to that used on the other article. I asked just above if that wording was fine and there were no objections. Looking through this discussion I can't see a single reason provided by anyone against using that wording. It also entirely satisfies the arguments made by Rivertorch and several others. These facts absolutely satisfy the requirements of

WP:CONSENSUS so your reversion, particularly as it was accompanied by no substantive objections to the wording, is unjustified. Colonial Overlord (talk

) 07:02, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I feel I should note, for the benefit of anyone observing this discussion, that Funcrunch's user page states "My current (2016-2017) focus on Wikipedia is improving representation of marginalized people. Transgender/nonbinary people and black people[1] are my priorities." This does not of course disqualify Funcrunch from participating in this discussion, but it does raise doubts as to whether he or she is the most impartial person on this issue. Particularly since that phrasing suggests that "representation" is a higher priority for Funcrunch than truth and verifiability. Colonial Overlord (talk) 07:18, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

(3) I have already agreed to that wording, which several editors already indicated was acceptable to them, and I asked if that wording was fine and there were no objections for many days. So what else is there to discuss? Colonial Overlord (talk) 08:29, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I've had enough of this. I've filed a report at ANI. Editor has been notified. Funcrunch (talk) 15:06, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

You're correct, there's nothing to discuss — your proposed change has been analyzed and rejected by a clear and convincing consensus of editors on this talk page. You don't get to push your preferred version against consensus merely because the consensus conflicts with your personal worldview. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Is anybody actually reading what I write? I've said, multiple times, that I've changed my position and am willing to accept the wording "is a transgender person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity is that of a woman" which multiple editors have stated is acceptable and NOBODY has yet made an objection to. If that isn't consensus then what is? Yet Funcrunch still reverted without giving any reasons why. Colonial Overlord (talk) 16:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

You must demonstrate a consensus for your proposed change. An easy way to do that would be to open an RFC. If the RFC does not go in your favor, you would need to step back from the issue,

drop the stick and move on to other issues. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk

) 17:03, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflicts) You do not have consensus to make the changes you favor. You may not like the rationales offered here by other users, and you may think their rationales are invalid or even non-existent. It doesn't matter. Questions of content hinge on consensus, and continuing to argue for weeks when consensus is against you is disruptive, as is suggesting you have consensus when multiple users say that you don't. Wikipedia has established processes for dispute resolution; they do not include seeking to prolong a discussion that has become unproductive, while casting aspersions on the impartiality of other users. Please consider disengaging at this point. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:18, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Again, you don't seem to be taking in what I am saying. I have CHANGED my position in response to the arguments you gave, Rivertorch, and am now proposing wording that satisfies everything you have said, and that multiple editors expressed approval of. I asked you if that wording was fine and you didn't object. So why are you still fighting me on this? Colonial Overlord (talk) 16:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I became aware of this dispute at the ANI thread, which I restored after it was removed. I have now been contacted at my talk page – user talk:EdChem#ANI – and have looked at this enough to feel able to offer some thoughts:

• While I don't support Colonial Overlord's change, I do think the lede sentence could be improved. As I understand it, one important change that has come with increased understanding of transgenderism is that gender identity and biological sex are aligned only for those who are cisgendered. The current lede sentence refers to this, but obliquely, IMO. I suggest something like:

A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a

primary sexual characteristics

that was made when she was born.

A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a

primary sexual characteristics

.

• A three-sentence lede seems awfully short for an article of this length. The "umbrella term" aspect could use some examples of what is covered.
• Discrimination and legal protections are worth covering in greater detail, linked to a broader article like
  transgender rights
  .
• The overview also strikes me as missing any mention of cisgenderism. Assignments made are birth assume that the sex evident from anatomy accurately reflects the gender identity of the child. I would note this, then explain that the assumption is accurate in cisgendered cases but is inaccurate and harmful / problematic for transgendered individuals and those who are genderfluid, asexul, etc. This can be supported by literature and allows scope for the inclusion of critical views in line with requirements for
  reliable sources
  . There must also be material on how views / understanding have changed over time, possibly leading to position statements from medical and psychological organisations on what the consensus position in science and medicine actually is.
• Are there inclusion criteria for the list at the end? Cate McGregor is the highest ranking trans woman in the Australian military, was in the rnningfor Australian of the Year, and has become a notable advocate on trans issues in Australia.

Thoughts / comments / suggestions / criticisms, etc, welcome. EdChem (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, your suggestions for the lead sentence are unnecessarily wordy and don't flow well. We can briefly note in the lead what sex assignment entails without adding "primary sexual characteristics" to the lead sentence.

talk

) 08:22, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

EdChem there is no reason I can see to refer to "primary sexual characteristics" in the lede, and these are not referred to in the trans man article that was previously suggested as a model/parallel. The explanation implicit in both suggestions also immediately erases those cases in which assignment was made based on conflicting "primary" characteristics, which while rare is non-negligible in the context of an already small population. Newimpartial (talk) 14:20, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@EdChem: Thanks for your comments, both here and on your talk page. Just a couple of notes on terminology: The endings "-ed" and "-ism" are not currently favored for referring to trans folks. Simply use "transgender" and "cisgender" as adjectives (i.e. transgender person, cisgender person) rather than "transgendered". "Transgenderism" has been used negatively to cast being trans as an ideology rather than a state of being; that term is best avoided.

As far as your suggested changes to the lead, I agree with Flyer22 that it's unnecessarily wordy. I would prefer to keep the lead sentence as it is now, "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth," and add any needed clarification later in the lead or body of the article. I am hopeful based on their latest comments at ANI that Colonial Overlord will start an RfC soon so we can settle this issue and move forward. Funcrunch (talk) 16:14, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Funcrunch, thank you for advising me of the issues of terminology, and I offer a general apology to all transgender people and anyone else who may have been uncomfortable with my unintended faux pas. My understanding is that gender is not binary and some people have a mismatch between gender and sex, which is accepted as scientific and medical reality and is not a matter of ideology. My cisgender experience is equally valid as another's transgender experience and these states of being reflect each of our lived experiences. I very much welcome being informed if I say something that causes discomfort / distress / offence, and hope that others will recognise that it arises from ignorance rather than malice.

On my suggested change, I accept that three of you see it as overly wordy. My suggestion was motivated by my understanding that a disconnect between expressed gender identity and sex assignment is key to being transgender and that gender identity v. sex assignment disconnect is not really evident in the present definition. I also think that "assigned male at birth" reads as a strange expression in a lede sentence. I understand that there may be a lack of enthusiasm for change given the context above, but I do think it could be improved. Maybe along the lines of "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman whose gender identity is inconsistent with the assignment made when she was born."? Also, thoughts on Cate McGregor for the list at the end? She is a Group Captain in the Royal Australian Air Force, transitioned while serving in the Army (serving as an aide to the then Chief of the Army, and with his full support), and is highest ranking transgender office in the Australian Armed Forces. EdChem (talk) 06:22, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Edited to correct "is a matter of ideology" to "is not a matter of ideology." Ops, poor proof reading on my part! EdChem (talk) 14:58, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I'd be fine with your suggested change EdChem, but maybe it'd be clearer to keep the first sentence as is and have a separate sentence after the first discussing sex assignment and gender identity? It seems like the distinction between the two warrants a space in the opening paragraph but is maybe a big enough idea that it could use it's own sentence. I think your idea that there should be more info in the lede is very true. Also fine with me if you want to add Cate. Rab V (talk) 01:48, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to be written in Npov, but this article contains the following opening line: "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth."

This is not neutral pov. I propose it be re-written to say: "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a person who claims they are a woman who was assigned male at birth."

A better neutral wording would be: "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a person who identifies as a woman but who was assigned male at birth." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.113.110 (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

The way this article is written automatically assumes a political position as opposed to remaining neutral. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.62.21 (talk) 04:15, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you really think that a transgender person's identity is an arbitrary claim?? How?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:22, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

What editors think is often irrelevant to Wikipedia. Do you have sources for your proposed definition? Dimadick (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, what I can tell you is that it is not a scientific fact that trans women are women who were assigned male at birth. It's very possible. It might even be likely. But there's no scientific consensus regarding that. In fact, the WHO still considers it a mental illness, though that is likely to change sometime soon. All I'm saying is that the statement that a transwoman is a woman who was assigned male at birth is not actually a fact, but an unproven belief. Could it be true? Absolutely. I'll even go so far as to suggest that it's more likely true than not true. But because there is no hard evidence, this article is assuming it is true, thus taking a political position. I feel as though a little neutrality goes a long way towards fairness. The scientific community has not reached any consensus, and so neither should Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.62.21 (talk) 06:32, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

There is a neutrality problem. Look for example at Woman, which links to this article saying "There are also transgender and transsexual women, who were assigned as male at birth, but identify as women; there are varying social, legal, and individual definitions with regard to these issues (see trans woman)". Yet this article, the primary one on the topic, does not even remotely hint at the fact that there is controversy around trans-ness and some people don't regard trans women as women. Equinox ◑ 01:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

That's because those people don't understand transgenderism well; they simply accept without proof the idea that transgenderism is simply wanting to change your gender or lacking gender constancy. Georgia guy (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore, using the term 'assigned' is a spin word to imply that it was arbitrary for a doctor to associate a penis with the baby's sex. 'Gender assigned at birth' is persuasion speech. NPOV would be "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is person who self-identifies as a woman, who was observed and noted as being physically of the male sex at birth." 172.76.140.54 (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2017 (UTC) DD

I'm sure this a contentious topic but I don't see how the phrase "assigned male" can possibly be NPOV enough to make it into the first sentence of the article. Male is a sex. People are born male as a matter of (NPOV) fact. Trans women were born male. Assigned is clearly a loaded term and in any case only really works with masculinity/manhood, not male-ness. 79.79.252.177 (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

The article's wording is consistent with that of reliable sources. You offer no sources for any of the claims you make. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 19:55, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I am a transwoman who is currently going thru transition to female (full surgery). I would love to be able to add my knowledge and experience to this. I'm one of many who only identify as trans until I have SRS surgery then I will go as cis female. I am also pansexual and polysexual. I can speak to these as well as per my experience and I will also research grounded knowledge and sources so that any and all information I add to this or any other pages pertaining to this subject matter will be accurate and founded in true and accurate science and accountings. Please allow me this (I will also be make sure my grammar is proper) I am a math and science geek. Jessica Hart (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:RS. Regardless of what you may know from personal experience, every edit must be supported by a reliable and verifiable source. As for grammar, I think you'll find our editorial community forgiving and helpful. We all enjoy polishing each other's writing, with the goal to make Wikipedia both informative and readable. If you understand that this is a collective and collaborative project, you'll fit right in. KalHolmann (talk

) 16:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I totally agree and understand, I am currently looking through tutorials of how to edit. I wasn't trying to post my opinion I am strictly a factual and evidence based girl. I want to be on this topic because it is close to home and I have been recording the steps needed to go through transition. Due to the fact there isn't a reliable source on the matter to be honest. I want to help future trans ppl if I can. Everything I contribute will be backed by true and medical documentation when applicable, and with reputable sources when published works are not available. I won't be working on this until I have learned the way to edit and HTML code like everyone else. I'm very thorough and methodical when I attempt anything. Thank you so much for your kind words. Jessica Hart (talk) 18:20, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Welcome,

edit request, before adding them to the article directly. Hope this helps, and welcome! Mathglot (talk

) 02:32, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

No response, so I've changed the section title to "Notable trans women". Still wondering what people think about a merge to the List article. Mathglot (talk) 11:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

The section Milestones in transgender activism and visibility has some issues.

First, the relevance of the section to the article: there are other articles where this section as currently constituted might fit better, such as at the

With a section title change, some of this material could be kept Since this is the Trans woman article, if it were something like "Milestones in activism and visibility of trans women" would be relevant and on-topic for the article, although I find that wording rather awkward, and hopefully something better could be found. We could keep the stuff about Christine Jorgensen, mention the crucial role transwomen played at Stonewall. The sections on Pride, and Minnesota discrimination laws are not specifically about transwomen, and would fit better in a "Milestones" section in a Transgender article.

In addition, all of the five subsections are extensively covered in other articles, so all that would be needed here, is a brief summary section, with the use of Wikilinks or {{Main}} template links to the principal articles concerned. Mathglot (talk) 20:44, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Adding for the record: these edits appear to be related to classwork being performed in connection with a college class; see Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Loyola Marymount University/Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Contemporary Society Sections 4 and 5 (Spring 2017) for details. Mathglot (talk) 01:26, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I've recast the list as a

definition list for now, rather than keep a whole series of short subsections, which have main articles elsewhere. Let's see how this works. Also, the items in the list are kind of arbitrary. Mathglot (talk

) 23:23, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

No activity on this section in many months. I've removed the former Milestones section from the article and copied it here:

Copy of the "Milestones" section from version 824779914 of the article.

Milestones This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) The examples and perspective in this section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this section, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new section, as appropriate. (May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article may lack focus or may be about more than one topic. In particular, it's not clear what material belongs in this section, and what doesn't.. Please help improve this article, possibly by splitting the article and/or by introducing a disambiguation page, or discuss this issue on the talk page. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) 1930 – Lili Elbe In Germany in 1930, Elbe underwent the first known sexual reassignment surgery (SRS).[1] 1952 – Christine Jorgensen Jorgensen, a former G.I., was the first American to have SRS that was widely publicized. Her treatment and surgery took place in Denmark.[2] 1969 – Stonewall riots A series of riots following the police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay night club in New York City on the morning of June 28, 1969.[3] The riots lasted for three days. The Stonewall riots are widely considered to be the event that sparked the gay liberation movement.[4] 1970 – Pride Parade A major event in the LGBT movement, and was inspired by the Stonewall Riots. The first parade was organized by the Chicago Gay Liberation and took place on June 27, 1970 in Chicago. In the following few days, other cities including San Francisco, Boston, Hollywood and New York had marches of their own.[5] 1975 – first U.S. gender identity legislation Minneapolis became the first city in the United States to ban discrimination based on gender identity in 1975. In addition, Minnesota became first state to ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in 1993, based on the Human Rights Act.[6] 1977 – Renée Richards U.S. tennis player who played as a male in the 1970s, underwent SRS in 1975, and returned to the circuit playing as a woman after a landmark court case in 1977.[7] 1998 – Transgender Day of Remembrance A date memorializing individuals killed in transphobic acts of violence. Transgender Day of Remembrance was started by transgender activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith in 1999 after the murder of transgender woman Rita Hester on November 28, 1998. The day is celebrated annually on November 20, as part of Transgender Awareness Week. This was one of the first major social movements to promote transgender visibility.[8] References ^ "Lili Elbe (1886–1931)". LGBT History Month. Archived from the original on 2014-10-20. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) ^ Hadjimatheou, Chloe. "Christine Jorgensen: 60 years of Sex Change Ops." BBC News. N.p., 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. ^ "Milestones in the American Transgender Movement." The New York Times. N.p., 18 May 2015. Web. 7 Apr. 2017. ^ Nappo, Meaghan K. "NOT A QUIET RIOT: STONEWALL AND THE CREATION OF LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, GAY, AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY THROUGH PUBLIC HISTORY TECHNIQUES ." University of North Carolina Wilmington. Department of History, 2010. Web. 7 Apr. 2017. ^ "The First Gay Pride Parades." CNN. N.p., 16 June 2016. Web. 23 Apr. 2017. ^ Glidden, Reich, Gordon, Frey, B. Johnson, Yang, Warsame, Goodman, Cano, Bender, Quincy, A. Johnson, and Palmisano. "Resolution of the City of Minneapolis." Minneapolism. Minneapolism.gov, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. ^ "Renée Richards Documentary Debuts at Tribeca Film Festival" ^ Townsend, Megan. " Timeline: A Look Back at the History of Transgender Visibility." GLAAD. N.p., 19 Nov. 2012. Web. 7 Apr. 2017.

Please propose any changes here, but it looks to me that this might work better at Transgender history, if anywhere. Mathglot (talk) 11:16, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Can someone please fix this? 2001:569:7671:F100:1C5E:CEE0:2255:5A1E (talk) 14:24, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, I'd be happy to. What exactly would you like to see changed? Mathglot (talk) 06:06, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

In the sexual orientation section, I removed the unsourced NPOV paragraph, as well as the quote, the citation was based on Deirdre's memoir which is not NPOV, and of questionable value, or relevance, also whoever wrote it in didn't actually cite that it was Deirdre's memoir, I had to visit the archived citation, which seems like a sketchy way of getting around just putting in an opinion. Also, personally I think that the overview of trans terminology is irrelevant to trans women specifically, and probably should be removed, as it belongs in a page about trans terminology, or trans people in general, but I won't remove anything that is legitimately sourced, unless there is conscious. ShimonChai (talk) 08:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Edit: I removed a few other things that weren't related specifically to trans women, a sentence about trans men, and a few paragraphs that were unsourced in the terminology section, as they have nothing to do with trans women specifically. Finally, I removed a conclusion sentence in the "transwomen" definition under the terminology section. Furthermore, regarding future changes it would be nice to see this page actually go more in depth on MTF transitioning rather than just focusing on social issues relating to MTF women. ShimonChai (talk) 19:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

How about some discussion of the chromosome status of the overwhelming majority of trans women? Or is too offensive to point such things out! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.179.143 (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Does any peer-reviewed research exist on the chromosone status of Trans women? I am not aware of any. Newimpartial (talk) 19:35, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe it's fairly well known that transwomen are born

women, which would imply that they are female. The same problem exists in the trans man

page. Wikipedia is flatly contradicting itself.

How about: A trans woman is a person assigned male at birth, who professes a female gender identity. Taylan (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

How is that related to what OP asked and not just rehashing the same issue presented on DRN? EvergreenFir (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I seem to have missed Taylan's reply to my comment, which did not respond to my actual point. I was asking, for example, whether trans women were more likely to be xxy or xyy or intersex xx people rather than xy? Is there any actual data? To assume that Trans women represent the same range of chromosomes as cis men because they are born (or assigned) "male" seems to me to be begging the question. We are in a historical period where lay people assert chromosomes as a defining characteristic (and elevated substitute for anatomy) without looking at the evidence about actual chromosomes. Newimpartial (talk) 01:49, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

This talk page contains numerous former discussions about the wording stating trans women are women, but none of those discussions seem to have been fruitful. Ultimately the lead section remained in direct contradiction with the Wikipedia pages woman and female and supported a specific political position in a contemporary debate.

I've been a bit bolder this time and went forth to change its wording to be more neutral. If you see any problem with the wording I've switched to, please try to explain clearly and in detail so we can have a fruitful discussion about it and settle with a wording that's neutral, non-contradicting, and palatable to people on either side of the debate. Taylan (talk) 14:33, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

TaylanUB, do you really think that trans women are not women?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:57, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes. However, the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors are supposed to be irrelevant, no? Taylan (talk) 20:28, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, you are violating that principle, since your opinions are showing in your edits. Also, per BRD, please don't edit ear after your B and during the Day phase. To do so is both unbecoming and against policy. Newimpartial (talk) 23:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

No, but you're violating

WP:AGF by assuming that I want the article to represent my opinion rather than a neutral position. Taylan (talk

) 12:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I read your edits, thought they reflected a POV but didn't say anything about it, then commented when you disclosed your POV. That procedure is well within AGF, and might even be helpful since you seem blind to the ways your intended "neutral" language is not actually neutral (which has been a problem for other editors in previous rounds of this discussion). Newimpartial (talk) 13:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Please explain how "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" is not neutral. Taylan (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Typically other Wikipedia articles are not suitable sources for wikipedia, though I do see that the definition even on wikipedia the woman article does include trans women. Rab V (talk) 19:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to the last sentence of the lead of the woman article. It says that with regard to gender, woman may refer to a transwoman. I.e. it's provided as an alternative definition, which is fine. If the lead section of this article will be using that definition, it would correspondingly need to make that clear. For example: "a trans woman is a person who is a woman in terms of gender self-identification although they were assigned male at birth." (Not a sentence I would actually propose to use in the article, as it's awkward.) Taylan (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

To me "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth" is far more neutral than "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a person who was assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman". The latter comes across as 'they think they are women but aren't really", which could be viewed as discriminatory. --John B123 (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

TaylanUB, there is a whole discussion in Woman about how the term, as a gender, covers people who are assigned female gender but identify as male. I have no idea why editors arrive at "Trans woman" and "Trans man" - which are clearly articles about gender identities - and try to impose chromosomally- or anotomically-determined sex definitions on them. That represents literally the worst kind of POV OR. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

That is irrelevant to my point. The definition of "woman" that covers trans women is an alternative one belonging to an ideological position. Taylan (talk) 12:47, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

My suggestion, Taylan, would be that the reason that you are having so much difficulty discussing this topic is because you see the gender identity definition of "woman" as "alternative" to the one based on anatomy and/or chromosomes. This position of yours is not at all irrelevant, since it determines what you see as "neutral" and what you see as "ideological". I dare say that the perspective from which, in an article about a gender identity, the relevant definition of woman is as a gender identity is the mainstream position in this context, while the position that identity language should be dictated from anatomy and/or chromosomes is FRINGE in 2018, and if reflected in this article, should not be present in the Lede but in another section like "Exclusion of Trans women from acceptance as women" which could cover restroom laws, etc. Newimpartial (talk) 13:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

The definition of "woman" pro-transgender movement editors use is clearly an alternative one to the main one, as seen on the woman page and on most English dictionaries. The idea that transwomen are not literally women is far from fringe, as most socially conservative people and also many socially liberal people, especially feminists, see it as a rather ludicrous notion. Currently, dictionaries even include transwomen under their definition of "man" since "woman" and "man" are mainly defined in reference to biology. I think your deeply held ideological beliefs might be clouding your judgment here. But all of that aside, let me reiterate: none of the citations from what I can see support the current wording in the article. Taylan (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

First of all, the wording in the article lede is supported directly by the eighth source (last time I looked), and follows correctly the WP procedure of providing detail and evidence in the article and summarizing in the led (rather than edit warring in the Lede as you have repeatedly chosen to do).

Second, from an examination of your contribution to other topics it seems that you understand the distinction between gender and biological sex. Your repeated attempts to edit this article -which explicitly concerns a gender identity- so that it conforms your personal opinions about the relationship between gender and anatomy is inexplicable to me, but on any event falls within the realm of POV, whereas the article should be based on sources.

It is increasingly true that in Canada, the UK, the US and other countries a minority of Trans women are legally recognized as Women and a larger set of Trans women are socially recognized as Women. That closure of the RfC on MOS: GENDERID, no matter how "ludicrous" it seems to you, is binding and was intended to end misgendering and deadnaming in WP articles; your repeated edits do, in fact, communicate your conviction that Trans women are not women and therefore violate GENDERID in both spirit and letter. Newimpartial (talk) 22:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: You seem to be confused on several points. Firstly, the common definitions of "woman" and "man" are based on sex, not gender, as seen in most English dictionaries; they explicitly refer to the terms "female" and "male" which in turn tend to be defined in terms of reproductive function. As such, any ideas you have about my supposed belief in a relationship between gender and anatomy is gravely mistaken. If you are so interested in my personal opinions, allow me to give a short summary (I realize this is not a forum): women and men are female and male humans respectively (sex), who are oppressively forced into feminine and masculine social roles (gender). The idea that "woman" and "man" are social constructs is merely the post-modernist phrasing of this same idea, usually just making it more difficult to understand and leading people astray into philosophical masturbation. End of digression.

Secondly, your reference to Canada, UK, US etc. laws is highly centered on 21st century western(ized) countries; it is very far from being global. As for your reference to "social recognition," that is not only western-centric but also simply wrong. I was going to say "questionable" but then I googled it and found out that as of 2017, 54% of the US population is of the opinion that whether a person is a woman or a man is determined by their sex. (It is even 34% among Democrats and 49% among millennials, which is almost shocking to me to be honest.)

Thirdly, regarding

MOS:GENDERID

, this seems to be yet another misunderstanding of Wikipedia rules. (People are throwing these at me all the time.) MOS:GENDERID is concerned with how individual persons are referred to. It is not a statement about Wikipedia's position on the gender debate; Wikipedia would not take such a position, and thankfully indeed does not seem to. This article stating that transwomen are AMAB people who identify as women, rather than expressly stating that they are women, would not be a breach of MOS:GENDERID at all.

Finally, regarding the 8th citation, it's a work by a transgender philosopher. It is highly questionable how much its contents correlate with public understanding of gender, identity, and society. It's noteworthy that in the parts of the article using this citation, there is merely an explanation of the perspectives offered by the book. So the body of the Wikipedia article (correctly) does not take the contents of the book as fact, but rather position.

To summarize: whether transwomen are women is not settled in public opinion, science, or anywhere else. None of the citations justify the lead section taking a position on this question. No Wikipedia rules mandate the article taking a position on this question. A straightforward NPOV wording would be "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" and no proper reason was so far given as to why this wording should not be used; neither were alternatives offered. The current wording is POV and clearly unacceptable, as it contradicts English dictionaries and widespread public opinion, without having any justification to do so. Taylan (talk) 19:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

To be absolutely clear, on the first point you raise, this is (and presents itself as) an article about a gender identity. It stated that Trans women are women in the sense that applies in this context, which is not that of sex (anatomical or chromosomal) but of gender identity. There is simply no usage in English that identifies "woman" as a sex rather than a gender identity; as you point out there has been a traditional usage in English that distinguishes between female sex and feminine gender, but this usage is (1) in decline and (2) not used in the present article AFAIK, nor should it me IMO. Dictionaries, to which you appeal, recognize "woman" both as a sex and as a gender category, as does the WP article to which you have also appealed. Your claim that "woman" means sex rather than gender is OR, is not supported by literature, and frankly runs contrary to the use of the term in jurisprudence, media, and for example in MOS:GENDERID. Your claim that the use of "woman" for a gender is a postmodernist one is also OR and is factually incorrect.

If the point of your second paragraph is that the belief in anatomically-reductionist understandings of gender identity is widespread, and that this should be recognized and discussed in the article, I agree, just as I have pointed out that anatomically based or sex-assignment-based bathroom laws should be acknowledged and discussed. But public opinion simply does not take the place of what reliable sources have to say on the subject, in this case, the large body of law, policy and scholarship that establishes that Trans women are women.

Your dismissal of a reliable, published source as being the work of a "transgender philosopher" is bizarre and irrelevant. If you believe that there is scholarship of similar merit supporting the exclusion of Trans women from the category "women" you are invited to present it here, but so far you have not done so. SOURCESEXIST is not an argument.

Finally, "woman" as a designation of a gender is present in dictionaries and other authorities; your allegation that the current Lede "contradicts the dictionary" is unsupported by evidence and, frankly, bizarre. Newimpartial (talk) 21:23, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

You didn't need to detail how my personal views don't conform to Wikipedia rules, as I added them for your clarification and not as a suggestion for the article... You suggest that the point of my second paragraph is something about "the belief in anatomically-reductionist understandings of gender identity." No, we do not know what prompted the questioned population to say that a woman is defined by birth sex. It could have been a simple linguistic reason like mine (i.e. "woman" is simply *defined* as "adult female human") or it could have been a conservative/sexist belief (e.g. all female-born people have a feminine personal essence which defines them as women). We do not know that, as the poll didn't ask for such details. All we know is that "transwomen are women" goes against majority public view. As such, it cannot be claimed as a fact on Wikipedia unless there is e.g. a scientifically or otherwise objectively/authoritatively sourced justification. You say that dictionaries etc. include the gender identity-based definition of "woman", but such definitions are secondary or tertiary even when offered in certain dictionaries. Besides, given this is a very recent change to language which in part contradicts up-to-recent use, it would be better for Wikipedia to avoid relying on it in the first sentence of an article, even if most or all dictionaries were updated to include it. (They aren't.) My summary above stands. I see no justification being provided in this whole discussion as to why "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" should not be used, or as to how "trans women are women..." is an acceptable phrasing to start the article with. The former wording is impartial; the latter a POV or at best based on a neologism of sorts. (I.e. the word "woman" isn't new but the gender identity-based definition of it is.) Taylan (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I have responded to your personal views because the edits that you have been proposing appear "neutral" to you because of your personal views. Were it not for your personal convictions, it would not make sense to you to edit a WP article about a gender identity by appealing to definitions based in anatomical sex, just as it does not make sense to anyone that doesn't share your personal, FRINGE convictions. Something like one third of US citizens believe in "young earth" creationism, but WP's articles on evolution aren't written to be neutral between the two perspectives, nor should they be.

Anyway, the key point you haven't seemed to grasp is that WP processes are based on consensus, and you haven't come close to offering policy support or evidence for your proposals beyond poll results, dictionary entries, and other WP articles, none of which is more than tangentially relevant IMO. Shifting consensus so that your edits would be accepted would require a more serious effort. Newimpartial (talk) 18:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

That my personal views affect my perception of what is neutral wording is your personal opinion. :-) I rather see your and others' bias preventing you from realizing how strongly POV the current wording is: it doesn't even seem to bother you that it goes against the view of more than half the US population, and is not scientifically or otherwise authoritatively sourced either, which would have justified it like it does on topics such as evolution. As such, your comparison to creationism for instance is false.

I don't care if a group of biased WP editors come to a biased consensus among themselves; if they go against Wikipedia policy, which you people do, I will keep insisting on fixing the article to make it conformant; in this case to

WP:NPOV. The current wording 1) goes against public view, 2) has no justification through scientific or other authoritative RS citations. The fact that you still think it's acceptable wording only tells me how strongly biased you are. Taylan (talk

) 18:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Have fun with that. Just realize that you have to actually convince others of a different consensus: editing against consensus is not going to produce the desired result. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Well at least you admit that you're using consensus to insert POV-wording, I guess? Anyway, I've explained in detail how the current wording is POV; if explanations of why my reasoning is wrong aren't provided within a sensible time-frame, I'll take it as silent agreement. Taylan (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, such an action would likely result in an ANI or AE filing as disruptive, pov-pushing, IDHT, and tendentious. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to tell me what's the "correct" action to take when a group of biased editors exert mob-rule over an article to retain content that violates Wikipedia policy. I'd much rather avoid the annoying bureaucracy, but if you're so insistant on keeping POV wording, there might be no way around it I suppose. Taylan (talk) 19:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Taylan, I am certainly not "admitting" anything of the kind. Such a reading of my replies does not AGF, particularly as I have gone to some lengths to explain how the current language is neutral, sourced, and policy-based. Your position, if nothing else, is very ICANTHEARYOU and I suspect we are getting to SEALION territory. If in future you mistake the silence of exhausted interlocutors for consensus, you will simply be reverted. As I say, good luck. Newimpartial (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

You've used your subjective ideas to argue these things; I've refuted them with reference to facts, such as: 1) the citations don't support the wording (the only one you've explicitly claimed to support the wording is a book by a trans philosopher outlying their perspective), 2) the wording contradicts primary definitions of the words woman/female in most English dictionaries, and 3) the wording contradicts majority public view. I've looked around a little and it looks like the ANI/NPOV noticeboard might be the right place to bring administrator attention to this article... I will wait a little longer before trying to take such a pitiful route to dispute resolution. On the meanwhile, please feel free to try 1) offering authoritative reliable sources that support the wording, 2) explaining how it's justified to contradict the primary definition of "woman" at the absence of #1, 3) explaining how it's justified to contradict majority public opinion at the absence of #1, and 4) why you object so strongly to the impartial wording "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" (abbreviated). Taylan (talk) 21:05, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I have literally addressed all of those issues before; see ICANTHEARYOU. The one thing I will underline is my answer to 2., namely that since this is an article on a gender identity the relevant definition of woman is as a gender. If you don't understand or agree with this basic point, perhaps you should back off editing gender-related articles rather than foisting on them your unsourced/FRINGE POV. Newimpartial (talk) 21:24, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The current wording ("is a woman who was assigned male at birth") seems to be both in line with what reliable sources have to say about the topic, and a succinct introduction suitable to its location in the article — namely, we're talking about the lead here, which is just a short summary (in-depth explanation belongs in the article body). -sche (talk) 23:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

It would be better in line with the citations if it simply said they are AMAB people who identify as women, as that is pretty much exactly what the citations say. Taylan (talk) 12:49, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

As long as it's sourced I don't care, but make sure that it's sourced. Wikipedia is not a source for Wikipedia, and some articles can contradict due to lack of citations on both of the articles. If there is no reputable citation, than leave it alone. If you do find a citation put the same wording as in the lead in the Overview section with a citation, if it is properly cited no one can complain but arguing over semantics won't get us anywhere and will only lead to bias and original research. ShimonChai (talk) 02:33, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I've gone through the first few citations on the page --all freely accessible ones corresponding to the "Overview" and "Terminology" sections-- and couldn't find any citation that supports the statement "trans women are women" in the first place. Dictionaries tend to define it as "male-to-female transsexual." The current wording is clearly POV-pushing, consistent with the behavior editors have been showing on other articles ever since I started touching these articles on Wikipedia. A wording such as "a trans woman is a person who was assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman" is neutral and corresponds better with the citations. If there are any particular problems with that wording, I'd like to hear them. Taylan (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you listening to the actual discussion here? Posters have already suggested that this proposed "neutral" wording insinuates that Trans women are not women. That is a "particular problem". Newimpartial (talk) 12:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

How does it imply that? It's a very straightforward, factual, and neutral definition, which doesn't say that they are or aren't women. And by the way, your hostile tone is very unwelcome. Taylan (talk) 12:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@TaylanUB: The very fact you want to change "woman" to "person" suggests that a transwoman is not a woman. You said earlier you couldn't find a citation that supported "trans women are women". Here's one for you: Gender Recognition Act 2004. I'm sure there is equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions. --John B123 (talk) 14:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

You linked to a UK law, which applies only to a subset of transwoman UK citizens, and states that they are legally considered women. This is not global, not generalize-able to outside of law, and excludes all transwomen without a GRC. Taylan (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh and, "person" includes women, since women are people too. Taylan (talk) 20:13, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

• Just dropping in to note, for the record, that yesterday saw some edit warring, accompanied by edit summaries indicative of a lack of knowledge of Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and community expectations. I'm sure that will settle down now. The current revision of the article contains the stable version of the lead paragraph, which should not be changed without clear consensus. (Strongly held opinions of what constitutes appropriate wording are not an acceptable substitute for consensus.) Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 14:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@TaylanUB: - I suggest you read, understand and digest Rivertorch's post above and desist from changing the content of the lead section again. --John B123 (talk) 20:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@John B123:, I refuse to accept such a blatantly POV wording being reinstated just because there are enough editors that hold the POV. It's not supported by any of the citations given on the page, and takes a very clear stance on a difficult political subject. Feel free to bring in moderators or something; I'm not very good with Wikipedia bureaucracy. The "hold" editors are keeping over this page is the exact same thing I've experienced in other Wikipedia articles, in which some amount of neutrality was ultimately reached. I'm intent on achieving the same on this article, because this is Wikipedia and not RationalWiki. Taylan (talk) 20:56, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@TaylanUB: Sorry, but one person's view, however passionate they may be, don't take precedence over everybody else's view. --John B123 (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@John B123: And I'm sorry but the POV of a group of editors does not take precedence over cited sources. :-) Various citations throughout pages such as woman and man are clear in that the primary definitions are "woman: adult female human" and "man: adult male human" (where female/male are defined biologically). The definitions based on the notion of gender identity are in conflict with those primary definitions, arise from an ideological position that has recently emerged in western society, and yet are being assumed as fact in the lead of this article. Given that "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" is a neutral definition, I think it's rather revealing how strongly some editors feel over the need to start the article with the statement "trans women are women..." Let me remind that this is quite literally a political slogan. What is so bad about saying "AMAB people who identify as women" anyway? Taylan (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

"I refuse to accept such a blatantly POV wording being reinstated just because there are enough editors that hold the POV"... post structural ontological and epistemological debates aside, this comment illustrates the problem well. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:48, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

• Stop the horse abuse. The tag team efforts here and on trans man are getting tiring. EvergreenFir (talk)
  18:49, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

What do you mean with "tag team efforts"? (Genuine question.) The discussion on the trans man page is a separate one as far as I'm concerned, especially since I dislike bureaucracy... I'm aiming for a speedier fix in this article by putting up facts in people's faces (no hostility meant) rather than endlessly argue with them. Sorry about the duplicity. Taylan (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Saying "no legitimate issues ... were raised" when many others have pointed out issues is straying into "I didn't hear that" territory, and while linking to acronyms is so overdone on this site,

that page does have some good advice: "Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted." (I want to be clear that although the title of that page is "disruptive editing", I'm not accusing you of editing in bad faith: I think the advice useful even for editors who sincerely believe their POV "is NPOV" to consider.
A comparison might be: does the first sentence of the article on [[Donald Trump]] say he "lost the popular vote but won the electoral college and identifies as the 45th President of the United States", or indeed that he "identifies as having won the popular vote"? Or does the article on [[Barack Obama]] say he "is a politician who identifies as an American"? No, and indeed there are guidelines against that kind of wording that casts doubt on the veracity of things reliable sources report: the lead sentences of those articles just say that Trump "is the 45th and current President" (and only several paragraphs later says, again without "identify"-y language, that "he became [...] the fifth to have won the election while losing the popular vote"), and that Obama "is an American politician". This article, too, should not try to cast doubt on what the most reliable sources say.
-sche (talk

) 23:30, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Yet it's true that no legitimate issues were raised. Someone claimed that "AMAB person who identifies as a woman" implies that they're not women. That's not true, as "person" may be a woman. Your analogies about presidency or citizenship make no sense in this context as they are related to legal recognition of a person as president or citizen under a specific state and its jurisdiction. There is no global official "womanhood" you can sign up to. A subset of transwomen living in certain countries are legally categorized as female under those jurisdictions. (And even if we were to focus on only those transwomen and only those jurisdictions, it still wouldn't justify a straightforward statement saying they "are" women, when there are other authoritative definitions of "woman" than the legal category, such as the common dictionary definition based on biology.) You say, at the end, that "the most reliable sources" consider transwomen to be women, but that is not the case. The only RS that was said to say this (I can't check as it isn't freely available) is a book by a transwoman philosopher outlining their philosophical position. Imagine if Janice Raymond's position in The Transsexual Empire was used to make factual statements on Wikipedia... Taylan (talk) 17:38, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable with using "AMAB" in the lead section. The lead is supposed to give an overview of the subject of the article. It needs to be in a language that the 'average person' understands. The use of acronyms such as AMAB in this section won't help someone with no pre-knowledge of the subject to easily understand what the article is about. --John B123 (talk) 18:26, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I was abbreviating out of laziness, my concrete proposal would be: "A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a person who was assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman." Taylan (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Note, since they do not seem to have provided a mention/link to this yet, that Taylan has opened Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Definition_of_"trans_woman" on this topic. -sche (talk) 04:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the statement in the first sentence of the article which says that transwomen are women:

• It's not supported by citations. The only citation which was said to support the statement (can't check as not freely available) is a book by a transgender academic who doesn't seem very notable; this seems fringe.
• It's contradicted by the common definition of "woman" that can be found in most English dictionaries. Alternative definitions that recently began appearing in some dictionaries would constitute a neologism, which should not be depended on.
• It contradicts public view, as for instance a 2017 Pew Research poll has shown that more than half of the US population thinks that whether a person is a woman is defined by their birth sex.

The sentence should be reworded to an impartial phrasing such as: "A trans woman (...) is a person who was assigned male at birth but identifies as a woman."

Is there any reasoned opposition to this proposal? Taylan (talk) 15:10, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

The third of your statements implies the importance of quantity over quality (specifically it implies that the quantity of people who recognize trans women as women is important.) Georgia guy (talk) 15:17, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Insofar there are no authoritative reliable sources that definitively prefer one view (point nr. 1 I made), the "quality" of both views is equal. As such, the quantity would be the determining factor. But see my question to ShimonChai below on this... Taylan (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

As "there are no authoritative reliable sources that definitively prefer one view", your original contention that the existing wording fails NPOV is therefore not verifiable. --John B123 (talk) 17:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not posting a statement in agreement or disagreement here, just linking to the study so people know what Taylan is talking about. This is the 2017 pew poll. (Though I don't know if a US survey poll counts as a citation in this context?) Also, on a side note the common definition won't have a bearing on the outcome of anything. There is a specific section of WP:NOTADICTIONARY which addresses that.ShimonChai (talk) 16:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Views have already been expressed on this, I don't see the point in starting the discussion again. Polls, surveys are notoriously unreliable and the methodology often biased. For every poll or survey that supports an idea there is another that opposes the same idea. Just look at the deviation in polls leading up to an election for example. As this discussion seems to be going around in circles, maybe it's time to take a consensus. --John B123 (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Help me understand this, ShimonChai: if the definition used contradicts common understanding, and the respective definitions are considered a politically contentious topic (which should be easy to demonstrate using RS, if desired...), doesn't that mean that wording preferring either side would violate NPOV? Taylan (talk) 16:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

"contradict common understanding" There is no problem with Wikipedia contradicting common understanding. Wikipedia even has an article about common misconceptions. "and the respective definitions are considered a politically contentious topic (which should be easy to demonstrate using RS, if desired...), doesn't that mean that wording preferring either side would violate NPOV?" Yes it would, that's why I have been looking through Wikipedias rules to see which side is technically right for the past 2 days. The real question here is does Wikipedia's rule about gender identity apply to a demographic of people with a shared gender identity. Woman is specifically used as an example for a gendered noun. So if the rule did, what is the plural of woman? (It's women) ShimonChai (talk) 22:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

• Keep wording as is --John B123 (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

• Keep current language and stop equine abuse. To address Taylan's points:

1. The place for citations is in the body of the article - where they are - not in the Lede.

2. The article is explicitly about a gender identity, and uses "woman" in its standard definition in the context of gender. This is not rocket (or bio) science.

3. Public opinion on gender and sex is relevant to the content to the article (as are anatomically-reductionist bathroom laws), but does not compete with reliable sources. All current reliable sources agree that Trans women have a female gender identity; as a gender, they are Women.

The editor proposing the change should produce at least one reliable source supporting their view, or drop the stick. Q.v.

Can you quote any reliable sources regarding where they state that transwomen are women? Regarding "[as] Trans women have a female gender identity; as a gender, they are Women", this is pretty much OR. Gender and gender identity are complicated topics on their own right.

Anyhow, forget about it, I'll hit the ANI as this doesn't seem to lead us anywhere. Taylan (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the onus here is that the proposer of changes needs to justify why the changes should be made, not everybody else justifying why it should stay as it is. Good luck with the ANI. --John B123 (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

"It contradicts public view, as for instance a 2017 Pew Research poll has shown that more than half of the US population"

And why would the opinion of a single country's population have any significance? They are neither representative of the world, not reliable sources. Academic works outweigh public opinion in reliability. Read again

Note, since they do not seem to have provided a mention/link to this yet, that Taylan has opened Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Definition_of_"trans_woman" on this topic. -sche (talk) 04:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Why have you started a second section for this? Like other editors, I've already given my perspective in the preceding section. Your first point is mistaken, your second point is spurious for reasons others have already explained, and your third point is irrelevant for reasons which I see have already been explained by another user in this section. -sche (talk) 04:22, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I've added a source to the trans man page that might be useful to add to the trans woman page. Can someone add this as I am not able to? Thank you, Userwoman (talk) 02:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Jordan Peterson, a renowned clinical psychologist, has said that trans women are not women. Reference: Peterson, Jordan. "Daily Politics". BBC. Retrieved 9 July 2018.

Edit: A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth. However, some academics do not define trans women as

Reliable source on that statement?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:53, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Presumably a reference to this, which is not meaningfully by Peterson, it is just a panel show with him as one of several pundits discussing multiple issues. Calling him "

renowned" is laying it on pretty thick. Some academics (actually renowned ones) believe extraterrestrials have visited earth as glowing green raccoons. Does this belong in the very first paragraph of extraterrestrial life? Of course not, and this waffle is even less relevant. A passing comment in a pop-sci gabfest by a controversy-baiting pundit doesn't belong in this article at all, much less the lede. "Be precise in your speech" indeed. Grayfell (talk

) 23:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that the term renowned can be easily applied to anyone who writes a #1 best selling book. In the interview, he is asked point blank about his professional opinion and then he proceeds to give reasons for his answer. His statements aren't as off the cuff as you are trying to make them seem. Obviously Kary Mullis is speaking anecdotally and therefore cannot contribute anything meaningful. However, as a clinical psychologist who has worked with trans people and taught trans students, Jordan Peterson has the necessary professional expertise to weigh in on this subject, but more importantly he also has reasons for taking this position. You need to come up with something of substance in order to discount a tenured professor who has worked at McGill, Harvard and the University of Toronto. Substance, not style. "What could better confirm this than a long lament by a stuffy academic who dwells mostly on Peterson’s style without really engaging his substantive arguments?" Userwoman (talk) 23:07, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Renowned is a textbook

WP:PEACOCK

that doesn't belong at all. His popularity is not a reflection on his credibility here, as a self-help guru is not automatically an expert on every vaguely adjacent issue If he's made any substantive statements on this issue, you should be able to find a better source, specifically a third-party one. If that source justifies this being a defining trait, instead of one angry reactionary's opinion, we can go from there.

As far as Mullis, the existence of his opinions are as uncontroversial as Peterson's. Both are stating their professional opinions, neither belongs on Wikipedia without proper context and weight. Mullis's ideas were published in a book he wrote, which had an editor and publisher. This is far, far more substantial than Peterson's off-the-cuff comments.

I included the original link so anyone lucky enough not to know who Peterson is would know why he's controversial. As for the "substance" link, did you read that article? Do you agree with it? If we agree that Peterson's political ideas are "an ignorant mess", we can agree that his political ideas do not belong here without much, much better sources and context. If you claim this isn't a political idea, but a "psychological" one, yet again, find an academic psychological source with editorial oversight and fact-checking. Grayfell (talk) 01:29, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Writing a bestselling book has absolutely nothing to do with anyone's professional credentials, except as a writer. We don't cherry-pick quotes from people unless they're demonstrably representative of either the mainstream view within a given field or a notably significant minority view within that field. It may also be worth noting that clinical psychologists are generally not researchers but rather practitioners, so it is unlikely that such a person's writings would be in the vanguard of either majority or significant minority opinion unless the topic is a clinical one. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:55, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Does Germaine Greer or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie count? Also, I'm not supplying this as more evidence, but just as a good analysis of your tactics. "Extreme liberals (“woke” “progressives” as they like to call themselves), in the name of tolerance, take on a militant and authoritarian stance that rebuffs any deviation from their own group think and ignores all attempts at debate regarding transgenderism." And just in case you think that this is somehow a minority opinion here is another article by a feminist group and one by a woman who hosts the BBC's Woman's hour. Not that you'll believe it, but here is a random internet poll to say that people are divided on this issue. This issue is not as settled as you are trying to make it seem. Userwoman (talk) 20:57, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

First, make arguments about content instead of about editors, see

WP:PA. This space is for improving the article, not speculations about other users personal politics. Second, it is worth pointing out that Adichie clarified later "Perhaps I should have said trans women are trans women and cis women are cis women and all are women", and that she didn't because of not having the word cis in her vocabulary. Rab V (talk

) 22:31, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

But of course, none of the others changed their minds. Userwoman (talk) 02:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Did you make an effort to verify whether Germaine Greer's or Chimanda Ngozi Adichie's comments are reliable sources? Neither Greer nor Adichie has a degree in a relevant field. In an article that explicitly mentions Adichie's comments[2], Julia Serano, a biologist, has debunked the arguments made by people who claim that trans women who are not women and has said unequivocally, "Trans women are women." -- Marie Paradox (talk) 22:38, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

In the first source that I cited, Jordan Peterson makes an argument in the opposite direction. If you are going to make the suggestion that a biologist is best suited to weight in on this issue, then you must recognize that we are talking about a biological concept, instead of a socially constructed one (which I doubt that you will). Julia Serano has expertise in molecular biology and HOX genes, not in any psychological phenomenon. And to paraphrase from above, Writing a book has absolutely nothing to do with anyone's professional credentials, except as a writer. To say that she has "debunked" certain arguments is a bit of an overstatement. Were these opinions published in a peer reviewed journal or on a blog? Userwoman (talk) 02:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Would you benefit from taking a step back and looking at the forest instead of the trees? We're not here to argue with you about whether you are right; we're here to work together to make the article "Trans woman" better according to Wikipedia's guidelines. I brought up the article by Julia Serano (which was one of the top results when I google "are trans women women" (without the quotes)) to demonstrate how easy it was to find indications that Adichie's comments were not a reliable source.

You wrote this:

which I doubt that you will

One of the ways I respect you is that I do not tell you what you are or are not thinking or what you will or will not do. I would appreciate it if you showed me the same respect. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 04:27, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

None of those matter, do you have a citation that is from an actual organization with authority? Germaine Greer is a political figure, so is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So what they say has no authority on this topic. "debate.org" isn't a valid citation (If 51% of people said the world was flat, that doesn't somehow make the world flat, and debate.org isn't published or monitored by any experts, it is merely a site for opinions) and what feminist groups, or any other political group says doesn't actually matter at all when it comes to talking about authoritative facts. Regarding the Times of Israel source, that is a blog post from the site. Sources that would actually matter in this context, would be things like the World Health Organization. Or any psychiatric consensus. Wikipedia isn't supposed to portray opinions of political organizations, or individuals as fact. If you are saying that the issue isn't "settled" then why are you to push one side? That seems contradictory. ShimonChai (talk) 22:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

So I'm assuming that you would discount Julia Serano (an individual) as having any authority on this issue. But wait? Later in your response you say that what groups say doesn't matter. So tell me, do you care about what groups say or not? The issue is not settled because there is still an ongoing debate, even if one side fails to acknowledge it. If you need sources I can certainly provide ones that do not assert that trans women are women, CDC: People who were assigned the female sex at birth but identify as men, APA: People who were assigned female but identify and live as male, Cornell: Individuals assigned female at birth who identify as male Userwoman (talk) 02:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I am

assuming that you employ a self-screening process before suggesting sources here. After all, you should not put the burden of determining whether a source is reliable on other editors without checking sources yourself. So may I ask how the quote from the CDC passed through your filter? It is the CDC's definition of "transgender men" (emphasis mine).[3]

Anyway, assuming that a source does not say that trans women are women, it is not for us to infer that trans women are not women. That sort of analysis is

original research. -- Marie Paradox (talk

) 04:27, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I would discount what Julia Serano has to say, she is a political figure with no authority in the related scientific field. I said that feminist groups don't matter when it comes to objective and scientific parts of articles, since Feminism is a political ideology, it isn't a field within science. Groups that do matter, are ones that have established scientific authority, and are publishing in peer reviewed journals. (For example, the The International Consortium on EDS and Related Disorders, rewrote the diagnostic criteria for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in 2017, and it was widely accepted since it was peer reviewed, and done by experts in the field.) When you said "if you need sources I can certainly provide ones that do not assert that trans women are women" you went on to list very valid sources like the CDC, however, they don't inherently say if transwomen are or aren't women. They, and all of the experts, use terms such as "assigned male at birth", and "identify as", however, identify as doesn't really mean they are, or aren't anything. You can identify as a human being, and I could say "that person identifies as a human being", that doesn't make them not a human being, nor does it mean that I am saying they aren't a human being. ShimonChai (talk) 05:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

original research must have occurred in order for this article to state that trans women are women, as this is wording is not found in any source. If this wording is present can someone please let me know where? Otherwise, I think that the wording of the definition should be reconsidered. Userwoman (talk

) 12:35, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Please stop making arguments of the sort that people have already[4] shown you are not productive. According to the IOSF[5] "otters are members of the Mustelid family which includes badgers, polecats, martens, weasels, stoats and mink". The page does not say that otters are mammals. Does that mean Wikipedians are wrong to refer to otters as mammals? No, that would be

fallacious. Refraining from saying that something is so is not the same as saying that it is not so. And again, why would you use quotes about trans men as evidence for what you say about trans women? -- Marie Paradox (talk

) 14:14, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

If these sources do not comment on whether trans women are women, then how did this language end up in the lead? Again, do you have an authoritative source that explicitly states that trans women are women? Userwoman (talk) 16:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you have an authoritative source that explicitly states that cis women are women? I've found sources (e.g., [6], [7]) that say "people", so clearly they're not claiming them to be actual women. Even the APA says so ([8]). Hopefully my sarcasm is evident enough in my attempt to show the inconsistency with Userwoman's reasoning that the use of "people" in the definitions of transgender women indicates that they're not actually women or that there is no consensus that they are. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:24, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

EvergreenFir, unfortunately sarcasm does not productively contribute to the discussion, so I won't respond to it. It is becoming painfully obvious that you do not have any sources to back up the current phrasing of the lead. If you did, you would simply present them and I would have nothing else to say. I've already presented several sources that have an alternative definition, one that was actually used in the past and has more precedent than the current definition. Userwoman (talk) 22:29, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh, but it works to debunk the basis of your claims. But here you go: [9], p. 26 here too. EvergreenFir (talk) 03:16, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

There has been a debate going on about this for awhile, and my position has been, that it will be either "assigned male at birth but identify as women." or "is a women who was assigned male at birth." to my understanding this hinges on if

MOS:GENDERID applies to groups. As MOS:GENDERID states "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification." The reason that this would apply is that Transwomen identify as women inherently. MOS:GENDERID seems to be in favor of Wikipedia not saying that an individual identifies as, but rather saying that an individual is. Hopefully soon there will be some sort of clarification on if MOS:GENDERID applies to transpeople as a group. ShimonChai (talk

) 20:52, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID. Some things that apply to individuals should not be applied to groups. Citizens United_v._FEC comes to mind. Userwoman (talk

) 22:29, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

(←) Userwoman, you wrote this:

If these sources do not comment on whether trans women are women, then how did this language end up in the lead?

(The emphasis is mine.)
You seem to be suggesting that the decision to put "this language" into the lead is somehow akin to your fallacious arguments. How is that so? And how would you know if you do not know how "this language" ended up in the lead? More generally, could you answer the questions your fellow editors ask you? It would go a long way towards establishing common goals.
As for how we ended up with the current lead, elephino. But at the moment I can think of at least two ways the current lead is supported by the body of the article:

1. The article is replete with references that use the phrase "trans woman", and the section Terminology provides a source for the statement that "trans" is a modifier that explains the kind of woman.
2. The aforementioned section has a sourced quote from a philosopher saying, "Trans women are women." I ask non-rhetorically, Could it be any clearer than that? -- Marie Paradox (talk) 23:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Marie Paradox, you and ShimonChai do not seem to be on the same page. Both of you have said conflicting things and so I want to make sure that we can have a consensus here. I am fine with either, but then we must proceed with what follows from those rules. Marie Paradox, you seem to want to include the professional opinions of individuals and for this end, I have provided at least 4 professionals who do not define trans women as women. If this is the route that you want to take, then both opinions need to be included in the article. However, ShimonChai seems to only find professional/academic organizations to be credible, which is also fine. But in this case, because no professional/academic organizations state that trans women are women, it cannot be included in this Wikipedia article. Why can't it be included? Because if it is not a position held by any of professional/academic organizations, then it must have been the result of original research. Am I being clear? Userwoman (talk) 01:31, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

There shouldn't be any change until consensus on the open discussion is ended, and a conclusion has been reached over there, that discussion has been going on since 15 June 2018. ShimonChai (talk) 02:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I hope you will let me begin by conceding that there were a couple of things in this discussion that I could have done better. First, the otter analogy was not very good for the reason you have pointed out: "It logically follows that if otters are in the family mustelidae and all mustelidae are mammals, then otters are mammals."[10] And you are right in that "using logic does not count as original research"[11]. I am sorry if I gave the impression that I believed otherwise. I would appreciate it if you pointed out such errors to me sooner in the future so that we do not have to keep retreading the same ground.

One of the points I was trying to make (very poorly, unfortunately) still stands. Let me put it another way: The statement in the lead and the quote from WHO are mutually compatible. Thus there is no basis for editing the lead on the basis of what WHO says.

Regarding individuals, are you including Greer and Adichie? There is a lot I can say about each of them here, but for the sake of time I will just reiterate that my primary objection is that neither is an authority in a relevant field. There is no double standard here. Every time I contemplate adding sourced content to this article I do three things: I check to see if it comes from an authoritative source, I check the source at Google Scholar to determine whether anyone else cites it, and I check to see if at least one person who cites it contains no argument against the article I am relying upon. Generally if at any of these three stages I do not come away with the desired results, I not only avoid inserting my content into the article but also avoid proposing it here. After all, your time and the time of other editors is valuable. You should not have to do my homework for me. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 05:04, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I will be the first to say that I do not have access to the cited sources, but something seems not quite right here:

Trans woman is commonly interchanged with other words such as transgender and transsexual.[7] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, transgender is a term which refers to "a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these; transgendered."[5] This means someone who is transgender was born a certain sex but presents themselves as another. However, Heidi M Levitt describes transgender as "different ways in which people transgress the gender boundaries that are constituted within a society."

One cannot substitute the term "transgender" or "transsexual" for "trans woman" without creating a grammatically problematic sentence (e.g., "a transgender is a woman") or a sentence that confuses a part for the whole (e.g., "a transsexual is a woman"). (I will save my thoughts on whether it is wrong to use "transgender" as a noun for another day. For now I will just note that the wording is confusing when "transgender" is used as an adjective in the article and in most other instances.) And in its normal use "transgender" is an adjective and as such does not refer to anything.

Ordinarily I would change this myself, but because I cannot access the sources, for now I will only request that other editors change the sentences to the following:

"Trans woman" is commonly interchanged with other terms such as "transgender woman" and "transsexual woman". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a person is transgender if their "identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these" or if they are "transgendered". This means someone who is transgender was born a certain sex but presents themselves as another. However, Heidi M Levitt defines "transgender" as "different ways in which people transgress the gender boundaries that are constituted within a society."

This might require finding new sources.

-- Marie Paradox (talk) 01:16, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I suspect some of the confusion may have resulted from an early copy-paste/move of info from the general article [[Transgender]]. I've edited the first two referred-to sentences along the lines of your suggestions, in diff. (Another way of stating it would be "In trans woman, the term trans is commony interchanged with transgender...") -sche (talk) 00:17, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and checked the citation on the oxford dictionary part, and noticed that it was just a link to the site of oxford dictionary which is a very improper way to use citations. So I googled the oxford dictionary definition to try and fix the citation and noticed that it was something completely different, so it must have been changed at some point but this is the current oxford definition "Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex." so I changed that part to reflect what the citation actually says. ShimonChai (talk) 22:14, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Are there any objections to changing the article to conform to UK English, including UK spelling? Currently the article uses both UK spellings (e.g., "recognised") and US spellings (e.g., "summarized").
If anyone is curious as to why I am suggesting we use UK English, according to the manual of style we should

The article should be internally consistent in using whichever style it originally used, yes. It's not clear to me that that was a British style; the earliest diffs don't seem to use any distinctive spellings, and spot-checking diffs from subsequent years, I don't spot any until 2013, when I see "summarized" in the prose's discussion of people in the US and "recognised" in the 'List of notable trans women' blurb of a British woman. Randomly selecting a more recent revision, from 2015, I see the situation is almost unchanged, with "summarized" in discussing a US survey and "recognised" in blurbing that Brit, but with the addition of "color" (again in discussing American women); since then, another instance of "color" has entered the prose, while I don't spot any instances of "colour". This suggests that perhaps it is American style that should be retained. -sche (talk) 15:01, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this matter! I have replaced the word "recognised" with the US spelling. -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 15:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

This is just a convenience pointer to a discussion elsewhere. Please don't add anything else to this section.

Please see discussion at:

In addition, this topic has been previously discussed above, in the following sections:

• Contradicts the articles "woman" and "female"
• Opening sentence
• Not a neutral article
• Lead section, one more time
• Additional source on the subject
• POV Tag

Mathglot (talk) 18:58, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I am about to remove the POV tag for a variety of reasons. The first one I will mention is that it seems the POV lead tag would be more appropriate. As can be seen in many previous comments[12][13][14][15], the criticism has focused on the lead.

If anyone is going to reinsert a tag -- and I strongly recommend that if you do, you use the POV lead tag -- please keep in mind the following:

• The tag allows one to link to a specific section of the talk page, making it easier for all editors to see it is being used appropriately.
  • "The editor who adds this tag needs to discuss concerns on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies." Ideally the section to be linked to will be one in which it is clear to editors which steps can be taken so that the tag can be removed. (Note that "in the absence of such a discussion, or if it remains unclear what the NPOV violation is, the tag may be removed by any editor.")
  • "The neutral point of view is determined by the prevalence of a perspective in high-quality, independent, reliable secondary sources, not by its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the public." Ideally the section to be linked to will be one in which an editor does not rely solely on their views, the views of Wikipedia editors as reflected in a straw poll, or a public poll. (Note that I am using "or" in the inclusive sense here.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marie Paradox (talk • contribs) 14:31, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my main objections here are that the wrong tag was used, and there is no link to a thread with substantial discussion about the disagreement. If someone wants to add

reliable (as long as it does not fall into one of the categories I listed above), for now at least I will take that as prima facie evidence that there is a dispute over POV. I would have replaced the tag myself, but because I do not see a POV violation in the lead, I could not do so in good conscience. -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs

) 15:32, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Marie Paradox I realize that you wrote to address the talk page before undoing your removal of the POV tag, but unfortunately this is not how things work. We can certainly have the discussion here about whether or not to remove the tag. Please let me know if you have any questions. You should not make unilateral decisions like this without a proper discussion. Userwoman (talk) 16:06, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm assuming this was nothing more than a slip on your part, but so as to avoid confusion, you were the one who undid the removal of the tag.[16]

Anyway, if you want a tag at the top of the page, why not replace the current one with a POV lead tag and link to a section of this page that has relevant sources cited? I am handing you an easy compromise here; why not take it? -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 16:17, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup templates exist primarily to notify editors of the need for cleanup and participation in an ongoing discussion - they are not intended to act as permanent disclaimers. The hope is that editors will see the template, and then either fix the problem, or click over to the talk page to offer some constructive feedback. If any editor attempts to do that here, however, they will find that there is no consensus for a change and a discussion that is going nowhere. It's not constructive and should probably be scrapped until there is some indication that the problem can be solved through editing or discussion. Nblund ^talk

16:30, 29 July 2018 (UTC)\

Do you know of any reason to keep the current tag rather than one that specifies the problem with the lead (which is what all the discussion here and on NPOV/N has been about)? -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 16:35, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Nblund, I apologize. I think I may have misunderstood your comment. Are you saying that it currently is not constructive to have any POV tag at the top of the page? -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 16:39, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Correct. I don't think it's worth a major fight if there's a sensible compromise, but the cleanup tags should be reserved for cases where an editor has some hope of actually cleaning up. Nblund ^talk 19:44, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

• comment - The POV tag was added by Taylan because she though "a transwoman is a woman ..." in the lead was POV. The consensus on here and on
  WP:NPOVN does not support the view so I can see no objection to the tag being removed. --John B123 (talk
  ) 16:51, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The POV tag was added by Taylan because she he though[t]... Mathglot (talk) 18:04, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - there's currently ongoing (and rather lengthy) discussion at WP:NPOVN regarding this article where it appears numerous uninvolved editors have voiced neutrality and clarity concerns [17]. In light of this, I don't think it's appropriate to remove NPOV tag at this point. I notice the argument is being made that this should be POV lead tag instead of general POV tag, but the edit history shows repeated outright removal of tag, not replacement of general tag with POV lead tag instead, I'm not sure the concerns are limited to the lead, although that certainly is a focus. Seems at least some version of POV tag seems appropriate for article at this point. DynaGirl (talk) 17:23, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

What's more important -- being "right" or having an appropriate tag at the top of the page? The only reason -- a reason which has been there for you to read from the start -- that I did not replace the tag myself is that I cannot in good conscience put a POV tag at the top of the page when I do not feel there is a POV issue. And now that I think more about it, it makes sense for someone who does feel there is a POV issue to link the tag to the discussion they feel best expresses the nature of the dispute. If you want a tag there, why not just add it and link it to an appropriate discussion on this talk page? As I have said before, if someone -- anyone -- does that, I will not remove the tag anytime soon. -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 17:49, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

appropriate discussion at the NPOV noticeboard. Until that discussion plays out, the tag should remain, regardless of our personal views about it. (Note: because of technical limitations of the {{POV}} template itself, I had to add the rump pointer section you see below in order to link to it.) Mathglot (talk

) 18:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Mathglot, I still feel that a POV lead tag would be more appropriate than a generic POV tag. All the same, I appreciate your efforts to find a compromise in what has been a very polarized discussion. Thank you. -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 18:56, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Marie, yes, that would be a more targeted tag; feel free to make that change. Just please keep the 'talk' param or adjust as necessary, if that tag's talk param works differently. Mathglot (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Done! -- Marie Paradox (talk | contribs) 19:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC)