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Section sizes Section size for Feminist views on transgender topics (45 sections) Section name Byte count Section total (Top) 4,527 4,527 History 12 26,133 1700s to early 1900s 5,699 5,699 Second wave (1970s–1980s) 13,018 13,018 Third wave (1990–2000s) 4,992 4,992 Fourth wave (2010–present) 2,412 2,412 General perspectives on transgender rights 9,617 9,617 Particular topics 23 36,190 Colonialism 2,690 2,690 Legal codification of gender 2,162 2,162 Gender-affirming surgery 6,134 6,134 Pronouns 1,607 1,607 Socialization and experience 9,306 9,306 Transgender women in women's spaces and organizations 7,808 7,808 Transfeminism 3,057 3,057 Cyberfeminism and xenofeminism 3,403 3,403 Gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism 30,077 40,063 Relations with conservatives 9,986 9,986 By country or region 28 83,633 International organisations 2,926 2,926 Africa 439 439 South America 22 5,860 Argentina 5,838 5,838 North America 23 18,673 Canada 7,936 7,936 United States 9,190 9,190 Mexico 1,524 1,524 Asia 13 3,644 South Korea 3,631 3,631 Europe 1,746 51,316 Denmark 799 799 France 3,313 3,313 Germany 1,066 1,066 Iceland 4,143 4,143 Ireland 4,404 4,404 Italy 995 995 Norway 2,170 2,170 Spain 7,358 7,358 United Kingdom 25,322 25,322 Oceania 747 747 See also 474 474 Notes 24 24 References 3,838 3,838 Further reading 824 824 External links 484 484 Total 205,807 205,807

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Citation overkill

This is citation overkill, especially in the lead. In general, one should pick which of the citations best act as references for the statement and keep those in the article body, omitting the rest. Another method of reducing the excess of little superscript numbers would be to bundle citations which are not used anywhere else in the article into one ref tag. -sche (talk) 20:55, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, editing improvement now. A145GI15I95 (talk) 21:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Rewrite and Template Removal

Article rewrite and revert

I recently rewrote the article to attempt to move it closer to NPOV. But I'm not comfortable removing the problem template by myself. Do other people agree the problem is fixed, or is more work still necessary? LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:46, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

The template was added by an editor whose reasoning was that it didn’t reflect what her friends thought. When sources were brought up she disappeared from the discussion. It probably could have been removed a while ago. The problem is that the radical feminist view gets more attention in the media and so what is the correct due weight is more complicated. AIRcorn (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I mean, as I found the article originally it was clearly correct, which is why I'm still not entirely comfortable removing it. For one, I don't think it's actually true that radical feminism (by which I'm assuming you mean the trans-exclusive position within radical feminism; as the article currently points out, many prominent radfems were trans-inclusive) gets more attention in the media. There's plenty of feminist media that talks about trans women in passively positive ways all the time. And then two, media is not the only reliable source and if you include pop feminist writing on the topic like Julia Serano's Whipping Girl, or academic feminist writing like any of what Judith Butler has written on the subject of trans people, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is a situation with a clear consensus of acceptance versus a small (I would even venture to call them fringe) opposition. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:11, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Where did you recently rewrite the article? All I see is that you removed unused references. As for the tag and your claims, I suggest you read Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Undue. Also read what I stated in the section #"Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints" section above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:44, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Loki says in this edit summary that they are the IP who recently revised the article.
@ Loki and indeed anyone editing this or any other article: I know sometimes 'diff-busting' relocations-plus-revisions are unavoidable, but if at all possible it's helpful to make big changes via a series of smaller changes (remove one thing, then remove another thing, then move what's left to another place, etc) so that it's easier to see what's changed when comparing revisions, and agree or disagree with individual changes. I will try to go over the recent changes anyway so I can offer my own feedback on them. -sche (talk) 08:27, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I missed that IP edit. And I reverted per what I argued above. I'm not going over all of that again. The IP should propose changes here on the talk page and explain why, according to our rules, they made those changes. I suppose, just like with this other article that recently took up too much of my time, and endures all types of POV-editing about the intelligence of the sexes, I will have to edit this entire article soon. That means appropriate references and making sure that the article continues to adhere to WP:Due weight, not what folks want WP:Due weight to be. I am beyond tired of this article being edited based on the personal opinions of editors. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:28, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I read the talk page before editing and so I am aware that neutrality on Misplaced Pages is defined based on reliable sources and not on what the majority of the general public believes. However, in this instance, this doesn't matter, because the majority of reliable sources do not support the TERF position.

It's not terribly hard for me to prove that the majority of feminist discourse, including especially the majority of academic feminist discourse, is trans-inclusive if not explicitly transfeminist. Just take a look at that Google Scholar link: on the first three pages, there are only two TERF sources versus over half which are explicitly trans-positive. It's also pretty clear if you look through the work of major feminist media outlets like Jezebel or Feministing that they are trans-positive as organizations.

And even your assertions in the talk archive are not correct, because (as you can see from the same search I linked) the majority of academic feminist discussion on trans issues isn't about the TERF position at all. The majority of it appears to be using transgender people as an example into a feminist examination of what gender is (such as in Judith Butler's work, or the multiple articles about incorporating insights from queer theory into feminist theory). And then even if it wasn't, if the majority position in reliable sources really was trans-positive feminists arguing against TERFs, then we ought to represent that as the majority in the article and not the TERF position itself.

In light of all this, and in light of the fact that WP:UNDUE explicitly says "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects", this article clearly needs to be rewritten very significantly, because it currently represents the TERF position as the majority position within feminism when it is in fact a fairly small minority. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:25, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

You sound like StardustCat and the way you are trying to apply WP:Due is wrong. You definitely are not new, and I am very tempted to contact a WP:CheckUser acquaintance on this matter and other clear WP:Sock issues going on at this article. What I stated in the linked archived discussion, pointing to reliable sources on the matter, are facts. It is a fact that most of the critical debate -- from a historical aspect to modern aspect (but especially years past) -- concerns radical feminists' views and views on trans women. You can call the radical feminists' TERFS all you want to, but the vast majority of the literature does not. I stated, "there simply is not as much feminist commentary on trans men. Furthermore, although the term transgender is broad, the literature on transgender issues is usually about trans women and trans men, not non-binary people (although some people identity as both transgender and non-binary). I stated, "When one looks at the academic literature on feminists views on transgender topics, they mostly cover what this article currently covers. So I can't call the article undue." And no one has been able to disprove me on any of this. And that Google Scholar link you pointed also does not. I also pointed to a 2014 The New Yorker source that, when quoting Robin Morgan's anti-trans woman view, states, "Such views are shared by few feminists now, but they still have a foothold among some self-described radical feminists, who have found themselves in an acrimonious battle with trans people and their allies." In that same discussion, I pointed to this 2018 The Economist source stating, "What is a woman? Who can be a feminist? These questions have been central to feminist theory and activism since the 1970s, proving to be particularly controversial in the relationship between feminist and transgender activism. In recent years, these questions have returned to haunt feminism. . By the 1990s multi-faceted gender identities and experiences were embraced by feminist scholars who wrote against a biologically-determined feminist theory that excluded trans women. Similarly, the development of several queer movements positively acknowledged difference and argued against the understanding of identity categories as fixed. I am deeply saddened that in recent years there has been renewed antagonism from a section of feminism towards trans people, and especially towards trans women." I noted that the source does state that there is a "small number of feminists loudly opposing changes to the Gender Recognition Act" and that "anti-trans viewpoints are a minority position within feminism," but the source doesn't state that these views are minority views within radical feminism. It also states that these views "are championed by several high-profile writers, many of whom reinforce the extremely offensive trope of the trans woman as a man in drag who is a danger to women" and "while anti-transgender feminists are a minority, they have a high level of social, cultural and economic capital." So despite all this talk about anti-trans views being a minority, it is clear that the literature is rife with the debate. In that archived discussion, even that "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" source that another editor pointed to in order to show diverse aspects of this topic states, "there has generally been an over-emphasis on MTFs in particular." The literature mostly focuses on trans women. That has been my main point. The literature mainly touches on the debate regarding trans women. That has been my main point. I have seen nothing in the literature, in my reading beyond the abstracts, that shows differently. Like I stated, I will be overhauling the article. I am working on a draft now, and I will present it on this talk page (via a link to my sandbox) when I am done...before implementing it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:32, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I was a little bit active over a decade ago under a different account, and have since occasionally edited as an IP. (User:Snake712 was my old handle, if you really need to know.) Because of this I picked up some understanding of how to argue for a position on Misplaced Pages, how to cite Misplaced Pages policies, etc. But I think the accusation that I'm a sockpuppet just because I agree with someone else is pretty ridiculous.

I'd like to point out that even your sources say that trans-exclusive feminists are a minority within feminism. This article as it currently is presents them as if their view was equivalent to the trans-inclusive view, when nobody thinks they are. I'm not against talking about the trans-exclusive viewpoint and the debate between trans-exclusive and trans-inclusive feminists; what I'm opposed to is representing the trans-exclusive view as more prominent within feminism than it actually is. This is pretty explicitly what WP:UNDUE is about: articles should not present a minority view as if it is the majority. To use a more neutral analogy, the article on protectionism shouldn't be just a list of economists that are against free trade, because most economists are pro-free trade even though the argument over protectionism vs. free trade is a huge historical debate within economics. Covering the argument itself is totally compatible with WP:UNDUE, but covering the argument in a way that makes it unclear that one side is the clear majority position would definitely be against WP:UNDUE. (And to bolster my point, the article on protectionism does in fact say in explicit terms that most economists think it's a bad idea.)

I'm also wondering why you're trying to argue so hard that the article should focus on trans women. I'm not disputing that this debate is mostly focusing on trans women (and, y'know, feminism is a movement for women's rights) so this page ought to mostly focus on trans women. I agree that trans-exclusive feminists overwhelmingly focus on trans women, to the point that this is actually a major counterargument used against them by their opponents. I frankly think you are projecting your past arguments onto me. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:59, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I indicated that you are very likely not new because it's obvious to any significantly experienced Misplaced Pages editor that you are not new. It is not about you disagreeing with someone. I did not call you a sock. For all I knew when making that comment, you could be a WP:Clean start account or other WP:LEGITSOCK account, but I knew you were not new.

You stated that you would "like to point out that even sources say that trans-exclusive feminists are a minority within feminism." How is there a need for that when I pointed it out? I also very clearly pointed to one source stating "but they still have a foothold among some self-described radical feminists, who have found themselves in an acrimonious battle with trans people and their allies," and another stating that the questions "What is a woman?" and "Who can be a feminist?" have been "central to feminist theory and activism since the 1970s, proving to be particularly controversial in the relationship between feminist and transgender activism." Do you not see the word "central"? Do you not see where a source states that these views "are championed by several high-profile writers, many of whom reinforce the extremely offensive trope of the trans woman as a man in drag who is a danger to women" and "while anti-transgender feminists are a minority, they have a high level of social, cultural and economic capital"? Notice "high level of social, cultural and economic capital"? Do you not understand that all of that is why the literature is mainly about this debate? That this is why the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" source states that "there has generally been an over-emphasis on MTFs in particular"? It is why I stated, "So despite all this talk about anti-trans views being a minority, it is clear that the literature is rife with the debate." Their views may be the minority, but the trans woman debate is what the literature on this topic is mainly about, which is why the article covering so much of it is WP:DUE. I'm not seeing sources on the topic covering much of anything else. You asked me "why trying to argue so hard that the article should focus on trans women," and stated that you are "not disputing that this debate is mostly focusing on trans women (and, y'know, feminism is a movement for women's rights) so this page ought to mostly focus on trans women." I argued that the topic mostly focuses on trans women just to be clear (in case you weren't) that this topic is not as broad some want it to be, and that it is WP:DUE in that regard. More below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Length of "TERF" section

A145GI15I95, you recently expanded the "TERF" section. How much of the "TERF" material do you think we should keep? I'm asking you because that is one section I will be looking to downsize. I will also be looking to remove some blow-by-blow material. The article shouldn't be so focused on incidents. I also will be looking to add academic sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Difficult to say. Re-summarizing from series of incidents to more academic prose is reasonable. Themes/points might be:

• Coinage;
• Evolution from all-caps acronym to lowercase word;
• Shift in application from persons of specific philosophy/politics to generally anyone of opposing views;
• Arguments regarding being a slur and/or hate speech, being used to shame and silence targets.
• Perceptions and actions in social media, conventional media, private companies/workplaces, educational institutions, and/or government.
• Opinions of philosophical and academic professionals.

Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:57, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

User:LokiTheLiar: In the interest of civility, may I ask you please to avoid characterizing writers and publishers et alii as "terfs"? Many persons (especially the subjects of this article and likely some editors here) believe the word to be a slur and/or hate speech, used to shame and smear dissenting individuals, and to silence and censor reasonable debate. Whether we each agree or disagree with that interpretation, it would better to avoid using or appearing to use the word in that regard. Thanks for considering, A145GI15I95 (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I could, and I will make an attempt from here on out, but please be aware that most feminists who are not trans-exclusive consider TERFs themselves to be a hate group, and this insistence that "TERF is a slur" to be basically gaslighting.

I can definitely call them "trans-exclusive" spelled out, following the article, and I will try to do so in the future, but the simple fact is that any terminology for this group is going to be taking some side or other, in a similar manner to "Holocaust denier" vs "revisionist", or "racist" vs "race realist". LokiTheLiar (talk) 18:59, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

That you compared using "TERF" to the Holocaust denial is asinine. Same goes for the race comparison. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:32, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Flyer, I don't think that is a WP:CIVIL response to that user and don't see a priori why the comparison is asinine. When people are seen as bigots, the issue of how to speak about them becomes contentious. Names that reference this perceived bigotry and ones that elide it often butt heads. Rab V (talk) 22:42, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

If you don't see the problem with that comparison then you should not be editing this article. AIRcorn (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL pretty clear speaks against acting superior and talking about editors instead of arguments...Rab V (talk) 23:36, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

We have the article speaking of how "TERF" is used very broadly and that this a problem. There are transgender people who have also spoken about overly broad use of that term and the term transphobia. Ask enough lesbian feminists about being called a TERF or a bigot simply because they are not sexually attracted to male-bodied people or people who have a penis, and it's clear just how the term has been used in an overly broad way. An IP linked to a published collection of tweets that highlight this topic. Of course, I will cover the topic with WP:Reliable sources. Like I stated at Talk:Transphobia, the "Is it transphobic if a cisgender person doesn't want to date a transgender person?" debate is part of the topic, and as some know, is very strong in the lesbian and bisexual communities because some trans women suggest being open with regard to genital preferences or that genital preferences shouldn't matter, while a number of cisgender lesbians argue that sexual orientation is not about sexual attraction to gender identity, their attraction is not really a preference, and that to insist that a cisgender lesbian should be sexually attracted to a person who has a penis is akin to conversion therapy and is homophobic. I have seen "TERF" and transphobic used in ways that even many transgender people do not agree with. So, yes, I find comparing "TERFs" to Holocaust deniers an asinine comparison. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your point of view, I think that is helpful in keeping a contentious topic more civil. WP:CIVIL also suggests using less intense language, trying not to come off as condescending and trying to remain calm in the talk page. It is hard to focus on bettering an article when comments get too heated. Rab V (talk) 23:53, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm trying to remain as neutral as possible here despite the fact that it's increasingly clear that the two sides of the dispute over the content of this article also have opposing biases on the underlying topic. However, again, any use of language around this topic is going to be contentious because the fundamental debate underlying the language regarding trans-exclusive feminism is whether it's acceptable at all (/counts as feminism at all) or not. This isn't a scientific debate, it's a moral and political debate, and any use of language around it implies a moral and political position. If you want a slightly more neutral example I could point to "the ACA" vs "Obamacare", or "pro-choice" vs "anti-life" and vice versa. Any language I use here is going to implicitly take a side, and given that I would prefer to use the language of the side I believe rather than the side I don't.

I also would really like to talk about the article, but it's sort of difficult in this case because based on what I've seen in this discussion so far, the dispute over whether trans-exclusive feminism is given undue weight in the current article boils down to the underlying dispute the article is supposed to describe. I suspect that the surface-level "legal" debate over WP:UNDUE is in fact a proxy for a debate which is part factual and part political over the issue of whether trans-exclusive feminism is in fact fringe or not, and that this is the reason why what ought to be a pretty dry argument over the exact meaning of WP:UNDUE has gotten so contentious so quickly.

In particular, I notice that the argument Flyer22 Reborn just made is a fairly common argument among trans-exclusive feminists, which makes me suspect that Flyer22 has trans-exclusive feminist sympathies. I don't say this to discredit them; it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to think that having an opinion on the topic of this article discredited them, since I haven't exactly made a secret of the fact I'm a trans-inclusive feminist myself. But I do want to suggest that I don't think that the content of the article should require us to resolve the debate described in the article, and that maybe involving some kind of neutral party here to settle the questions at issue (especially the one about what WP:UNDUE actually means in the context of this article) would be a good idea. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:59, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

There is no need to WP:Ping to this page since it's on my watchlist. Let's get your I "just made a fairly common argument among trans-exclusive feminists, which makes suspect that trans-exclusive feminist sympathies" out of the way right now. First, I do not identify as a feminist, although enough men's rights editors have called me one or implied that I'm one. Some feminists editors and those in between have also assumed that I identify as a feminist. This assumption has been due to me adhering to WP:Due weight at articles like Sexism and Domestic violence. Second, I am not trans-exclusive. I am also not one to go into my sexuality, or much of any other personal matter regarding me, on Misplaced Pages. Some editors have assumed that I'm heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, or asexual. And the assumptions have always been based on what I've edited and how I've followed Misplaced Pages's rules. Third, it is a fact that many or most cisgender lesbians are not sexually attracted to male-bodied people or to people with penises, just like it is a fact that many or most cisgender gay men are not sexually attracted to female-bodied people or people with vaginas. Lesbians being repulsed by penises is as real as gay men being repulsed by vaginas. See this section of the Trans man article? The sourced text that I included there clearly states, "Trans men have less success fitting in with and identifying with the gay male community because it tends to be more cisgender-focused and body-focused (especially in terms of being phallocentric); as a result, gay trans men are likelier to partner with each other than with a cisgender gay man." I also added the sourced paragraph beneath that, which means that, yes, I also added the "many non-trans gay men have welcomed trans men into gay communities and have increasingly recognized trans men as potential sexual and romantic partners" piece according to one source. I was not trying to falsely balance material. I was simply giving a counterargument because it exists and the source seems okay enough.

It is a fact that the aforementioned cisgender women have noted that they are not sexually attracted to people with penises and why, with some noting that they would be open to a romantic/sexual relationship with a trans woman who is post-op (having undergone sex reassignment therapy, including sex reassignment surgery). It is a fact that, as seen by the aforementioned "a published collection of tweets" link, some trans women have suggested or insisted that cisgender lesbians should be sexually attracted to trans women and that not being sexually attracted to trans women is bigoted or makes them TERFs. WP:Reliable sources cover this. It is a part of the debate, and should be mentioned on Misplaced Pages, which is why I mentioned it. Well, I also mentioned it because, yes, I find it illogical to compare cisgender lesbians not being sexually attracted to people with penises to Holocaust deniers. We know from research on biology and sexual orientation that not being sexually attracted to certain sexual characteristics is very likely partly rooted in biology. The reason that conversion therapy has been so unsuccessful is not due to gay men and lesbians not being sexually attracted to gender identities. It's because the researchers could not make gay men sexually attracted to female-bodied people and lesbian women sexually attracted to male-bodied people. There is nothing about Holocaust denial that is rooted in biology. I know that some trans women and trans men do not see their sexual organs or as male or female, or that a trans woman may think of her penis as female and a trans man may think of his clitoris as male (especially after undergoing metoidioplasty), but many other transgender people do see these sexual organs as belonging to the opposite sex and as things that should not be a part of their bodies; gender dysphoria is an aspect of that. Transgender people feeling like they are in the wrong bodies is why sex reassignment therapy exists. It's also why some cisgender lesbians question some trans women feeling that cisgender lesbians should be sexually attracted to bodies they themselves feel are wrong.

As for the rest, like I've noted before, I do my best stay as neutral on a topic as I can. The areas where it's hard for me to remain neutral are the pedophilia and child sexual abuse topics. Because, really, facing someone who is claiming that pedophilia is a normal aspect of sexuality or that child sexual abuse really isn't abuse is a trying thing (at least for those of us with common sense). What I don't like is advocacy on Misplaced Pages; it's why I commonly point to WP:Advocacy. I also don't like people structuring articles in a way that falsely balances a topic. I wouldn't state that this topic mainly concerns trans women and views on trans women if weren't true. I've already pointed to media sources being clear just how heavy that aspect is. I have looked at numerous reliable sources on feminist views on transgender issues, and I keep coming across the trans woman debate...more so than any other aspect of the topic. That is what I mean by WP:Due. I've already noted that I will be typing up a draft and will present it here on the talk page. I think you will appreciate the draft a lot more than the current state of the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Additional comment: And even if we drop the sexual attraction aspect, I disagree with comparing the view that trans women are not women to Holocaust denial. Like you stated, this (feminist views on transgender issues) is not a scientific topic. It's sociological/political topic. Science still is not definitive on the causes of transsexuality. So to state that a cisgender woman is in denial for not believing or accepting trans women as women is a sociological and political view rather than a "you don't believe in science" view. Holocaust denial is the denial of a horrific time in history that society has all the proof of having happened. I just can't see the comparison. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:56, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Flyer22 Reborn, I believe what User:LokiTheLiar intended by that comment was not to compare TERFs to Holocaust deniers in any way, but to point out a conflict in terminology using one of the more recognizable arguments, as in "Holocaust denier" vs "revisionist." I hope you don't feel that it is a personal attack. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 03:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Mooeena, no need to ping me since this page is on my watchlist. I don't agree with the comparison regardless of what was intended. The comparison is there regardless of whatever was intended. As for a personal attack, I do not consider it a personal attack on me. I've been clear that I'm not trans-exclusive. If one wants to think that I am, oh well. I've noted other assumptions about me above. On a side note: Were you alerted to this talk page somehow? I see no alert to this talk page at WP:LGBT. And I hadn't seen you or Fæ here before. Treker explained how Treker got here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:57, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

This page is also on my watchlist. I may enter the discussion in the future, but I stepped in to try to diffuse this sitution. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 04:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Back to the length topic: I think it got the way it is, because a now indef'd radfem editor kept expanding it by including every event that occurred anywhere regarding conflicts between radfems and trans women, so it got way out of proportion to the article topic in size. Since then, -sche and others have cut it back. I don't have a sense yet whether it's still out of proportion, or not. Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

See also, the new {{Section size}} bar in the Talk header at the top. Mathglot (talk) 08:40, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Article split

Hi, I'm jumping into this since I saw the DRN, I think personally that it might be a good idea to split the articles, the mainstream view of feminists seems to be to support all LGBT people, but there is a minority among radical feminists that do seem to oppose Trans people in their communities, those people have gotten a lot of coverage and I think the topic might be fir for it's own article at Trans-exclusionary radical feminism.★Trekker (talk) 09:35, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Treker, I know you like to split articles. But splitting in this case would be a clear WP:POV fork violation. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see how it is. It's not a fork when it's a very very well known subject that has had tons of coverage.★Trekker (talk) 11:50, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:POV fork state, "POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a 'POV fork' of the first, and is inconsistent with Misplaced Pages policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Misplaced Pages does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion." The split you are suggesting can be argued as POV fork. Contributors disagreeing about the content of the article is not a valid reason for a split. That stated, it seems you are suggesting that we keep this article as a general article, with a section on trans-exclusionary radical feminist views that points to the main article on the topic. But like I stated above, "I have looked at numerous reliable sources on feminist views on transgender issues, and I keep coming across the trans woman debate...more so than any other aspect of the topic." As seen at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Undue, I also noted that there are some transgender conservatives, such as Blaire White or this author from The Spectator, who have been critical of some transgender ideology. Like that transgender author from The Spectator, White has sided with the "you're not transphobic if you don't want to date a trans person" view. Dating-wise, she herself is only interested in dating cisgender men. There are trans women who are only interested in dating cisgender women; some of them are the same ones who talk about cisgender lesbians needing to be open to dating trans women. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who does not appear to be trans-exclusionary, stated that "trans women are trans women," which (as noted in the Feminist views on transgender topics article) was taken by critics to mean that she was stating that "trans women aren't women." Adichie has been categorized as a liberal and is considered by critics as having engaged in transphobia with that comment, but she doesn't view her "trans women are trans women" comment as anti-trans/transphobic. To repeat, there are different perspectives from feminists on whether or not their views are anti, transphobic, or hate speech. As is clear by the Adichie case, it's not just radical feminists who have been considered trans-exclusionary. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:19, 11 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

So, we're starting to get to a place in the argument where I would like to be able to use the term "TERF" again, not for pejorative reasons but because it names a very specific thing which I think you are conflating with other things. "TERFs"/"gender critical feminism" is a fairly narrow faction within feminism with a set of views which is shared widely among themselves and basically not at all among other feminists. This is not to say that no other feminist has ever said a transphobic or trans-exclusionary thing, but trans-exclusive radical feminists like Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffries are a very different thing from Adichie (who is not just a liberal feminist but also a LGBTQ activist), and both are very different from Blaire White (who is very sharply anti-feminist).

The thing I'm trying to argue regarding this page is that for one, the Raymond-Jeffries faction within feminism is quite small and most other feminists regard it as bigoted, and for two, this page portrays the trans-exclusive view as the majority even though it's certainly not, through both vastly overciting trans-exclusive radical feminist sources and failing to draw a clear distinction between organized opposition to trans women within feminism and any time any feminist has ever made an allegedly transphobic comment. LokiTheLiar (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW I think splitting the article could work. I at the very least think this article needs to be organized by overall ideological position rather than by topic, because the way it's currently organized makes conforming to WP:UNDUE quite awkward. The way it's currently formatted makes every debate look like a debate between equal sides, when in fact one side is quite a bit bigger and more influential than the other. In some cases, because the current page cites several trans-exclusive radical feminists but only one feminist who disagrees, it appears as though the trans-exclusive position is the majority, even though what's in fact going on is that the page is citing from a small faction within feminism multiple times, and from a larger faction fewer times. It's like if you cited every single anti-free-trade economist on an article about economics while both failing to mention they were a minority and failing to cite other more mainstream economists.

I have a big problem with an article that cites Andrea Dworkin, Gloria Steinem, Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Germaine Greer, and Julie Bindel separately on a trans-related topic when the last four of those people are all trans-exclusive radical feminists. Trans-exclusive radical feminism is a unified ideology and there's simply no good reason to cite it four times on a single topic, particularly while prominent transfeminists like Julia Serano are barely mentioned in the entire article and when it's not hard at all to dive into any major feminist media source like Jezebel or Feministing or Autostraddle or Bitch Media and come up with boatloads of trans-positive takes. LokiTheLiar (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not conflating matters, LokiTheLiar. I'm aware of all sides of the issue. What I have stated to you is that the term "TERF" has been used broadly. So has "trans-exclusive." And our Misplaced Pages article currently states, "Feminists with exclusionary views have been referred to as "TERFs." So the two terms are considered synonyms. Often enough anyway. "TERF" has been used to describe anyone who is critical of transgender views or states something that doesn't fully align with transgender views. I've seen it. We have WP:Reliable sources in the article talking about the broad use. I know that "Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffr are a very different thing from Adichie." But just like Raymond and Jeffreys, Adichie has been considered transphobic and trans-exclusive for stating "trans women are trans women." My point is that it's not just radical feminists who have made comments that some consider trans-exclusive. So how are we to craft the article when there are views like Adichie's that are also criticized as trans-exclusive? It's not like we should put Adichie under a "Trans-exclusive" heading when she no doubt does not consider her views to be trans-exclusive. I know that Blaire White is anti-feminist. I have occasionally brought her up because she is a prime example of not all transgender people thinking the same. She shares some views that some people have deemed a TERF view or a trans-exclusive view, including the view that a cisgender lesbian not being sexually attracted to a trans woman or not wanting to date a trans woman is not transphobic. She's also made comments that many transgender people consider downright transphobic; she, for example, repeatedly misgendered Riley Dennis when Dennis hadn't yet gone under sex reassignment therapy. She probably still misgenders Dennis. Above, in the #Length of "TERF" section, you argued that I "just made a fairly common argument among trans-exclusive feminists, which makes suspect that trans-exclusive feminist sympathies." But transgender people like White have also made the argument. And either way, it wasn't really an argument from me; it was rather me addressing an aspect of this topic. There is certainly a rift between cisgender lesbian feminists and trans women who are feminists, and just lesbians and trans women in general. Like that Slate source states, "Even lesbians who aren't intentionally transphobic can still harbor fears and stereotypes based on their lack of familiarity with trans women (the same goes for trans women, who can be suspicious and fearful of cis lesbians). It also states, "While trans lesbians seeking romantic connections in the lesbian community are often frustrated by the knee-jerk resistance many cis lesbians have to dating trans women, hearing that one's individual reluctance to date someone may be based in transphobia can feel unfair and accusatory. Rumors of trans women who attempt to pressure lesbians to date them by insisting that it would be transphobic to do otherwise don't help matters—these stories may be apocryphal, but the fear of being pressured into a romantic relationship is hardly conducive to relaxed getting-to-know-yous."

As for "the trans-exclusive view as the majority"... Since I've been over that above and at the dispute page, I won't address that again. You have a point about "failing to draw a clear distinction between organized opposition to trans women within feminism and any time any feminist has ever made an allegedly transphobic comment." But the media has also failed to draw that distinction enough times.

I disagree with a split, per what I stated above in this section.

WP:Reliable sources-wise, I'm not sure about Feministing or Autostraddle. The community feels differently about certain blogs; see WP:BLOGS. But Bitch magazine (published by Bitch Media) is definitely a suitable source. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:56, 12 April 2019 (UTC) Edit: Looking at Autostraddle some more, it seems that it will be fine to use in some cases. I've been aware of the site for years, but I hadn't considered it a source to use on Misplaced Pages. In terms of what Misplaced Pages considers a reliable source, it has improved over the years in that regard. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

My choice of those particular sources was because they are all major feminist media organizations, in the sense that they are all both explicitly feminist and have a permanent paid staff that writes articles for them. Part of the problem here is that feminism is political advocacy, and political advocacy is usually published by the people who advocate it to one degree or another. But I don't really mind if we decide that, e.g., Bitch and Autostraddle count but Feministing doesn't. While we're here, although I couldn't find examples of them talking about trans-exclusive radical feminism/"gender critical" feminism at all, Ms Magazine also appears to be trans-friendly.

As for the rest of that, "trans-exclusive radical feminism" is a term which from the beginning was supposed to refer to the sort of feminism advocated by Janice Raymond, Shelia Jeffreys, etc. The reason the group is called "trans-exclusive" and not simply "transphobic" is that they specifically seek to exclude trans women as a whole from feminism. Or in other words, they are organized opposition to trans women within feminism, while Adichie or Steinem or Rose McGowan have only at worst said one transphobic thing. I think that if this article is going to reflect this topic accurately it's going to have to make it clear somehow that Raymond, Jeffreys, and company are all part of a unified ideology that Adichie, Steinem and McGowan are not a part of, and that the majority of feminists are not trans-exclusive and generally oppose trans-exclusive feminism even if they might have said something someone has characterized as transphobic once.

Now, it is sometimes the case that mainstream media is often a bit unclear on this topic, and will sometimes just talk about "feminist opposition" to trans issues without being aware of this distinction. However, for one, mainstream media only sometimes has such a muddled view and other times it is quite capable of figuring out what a TERF is, and for two mainstream feminist sources are quite clear on this distinction, and it seems to me we should trust what are effectively experts over otherwise-reliable sources with no particular expertise. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

While I appreciate the suggestion, I currently think it's better to try to cover all the views, inclusive and exclusive, "radical" and otherwise, (at appropriate weight, etc) in one place. And the article is not so long as to require a split on size grounds (it's about as long as Feminist views on pornography, for example). -sche (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

NPOV terminology

Please note that persons and groups whom some call "terfs" or "trans-exclusive/exclusionary" rebuke both terms, and instead call themselves "gender critical". Their focus isn't to exclude anyone who identifies as trans, rather to reject gender roles/stereotypes, and to reject the concept of social gender as being innate and essential. The usage of the first two terms within this article present an NPOV problem, and their usage on this talk page may be problematic. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:40, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

It's frankly a NPOV problem under WP:UNDUE to give the assertions of trans-exclusive radical feminists about the term "TERF" so much discussion. "Gender critical"/trans-exclusionary feminism is a fringe view within feminism. Major feminist media organizations all use the term TERF, and many explicitly argue against the term "gender critical" because they feel it gives cover to bigots. LokiTheLiar (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

A bigot is, by definition, a person who is intolerant of persons with differing perspectives. To characterize gender-critical persons as bigots is arguably straw man and ad hominem, lacking NPOV, and bigotry itself. If you're inferring gender-critical persons to be bigots, please reconsider. Their criticism is against a theory or perspective of gender, not against persons who subscribe to such theory or perspective. Thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

You are not going to convince me with dictionary definitions, because it's not me directly that is calling these people bigots. It's the consensus among feminists that 1) the proper term for what you are calling "gender critical" feminists is TERFs, and 2) "gender critical" feminists, or TERFs, are transphobic. If you want, I can link even more articles from even more writers for major feminist news and opinion sites.

Furthermore, although I don't think that this is directly relevant to the issue of the content of the article because WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE are based on reliable sources and not really on the underlying arguments made by those sources, I also think that claims from trans-exclusive radical feminists that they are not particularly focused on trans people are reasonably easy to disprove simply by going into their spaces. I am not the first person to notice that most "gender critical" spaces are overwhelmingly full of attacks on trans people and trans ideology. As an example, see the gendercritical subreddit on reddit, which has a comic mocking 'trans identity politics' in its sidebar right over a few paragraphs that explain why they don't believe trans women are women. It's pretty clear that "gender critical" feminism is in fact focused on trans women and the exclusion of them from feminist spaces, regardless of what they claim. LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Both of you are violating WP:RS and WP:OR to make arguments. I am not going to take a position here, but please remember what qualifies as WP:RS. ShimonChai (talk) 21:28, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Too hypothetical, convoluted, and not supported by the facts. TERF is not NPOV, it is descriptive. This sophistry over the meaning of words, is highly reminiscent of the arguments that people put forward to defend sales of gollywogs as they are harmless toys, nothing to do with black people and anyone that finds them racist is the extremist. With regard to OR etc., the burden of proof should be on demonstrating that "gender critical" is a real thing and the more encyclopaedic meaningful way of describing what is going on, compared to TERF which is massively represented in all basic searches for sources. --Fæ (talk) 21:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Another way "trans-exclusionary" doesn't fit GCs is their acceptance of FTMs/TIFs. Debate doesn't equate phobia. We've already covered how "terf" is directed at non-descriptive targets with intent to harm. However, I don't wish to convince anyone of these points here. My intention here is simply to request care for words when discussing these topics, to avoid name-calling. We're all human, with faults and strengths, myself included. Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

As proof that your rhetoric is too convoluted, please reconsider all those impressive abbreviations you are throwing in to the discussion, rather than using the full terms. If you want others to understand the views you are promoting here, try using more actual words and plain English, rather than rarely published abbreviations. As an example, I started to doubt myself not recognizing what "TIF" stood for, however as the term does not appear at TIF (disambiguation), and checking the internet background shows this was pretty much invented by TERF discussion forums to use language to push that hostile agenda, it's not surprising to discover you are being cryptic, or possibly deliberately pointy, rather than inclusive. A potential source is the Urban Dictionary which explains in its informal way "trans-identified male: A made up word that TERFs came up with in order to deny trans women their basic humanity and right to self determination. A direct attack on the humanity of trans feminine people for nothing more than being themselves." link

I am left with a nagging feeling that if you were to write out in plain English what you are trying to say, it would be instantly recognizable as offensive and discriminatory, rather than "logic". Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Speaking of the those referred to as trans-exclusionary, the leadoff comment of this subsection says that, Their focus isn't to exclude anyone who identifies as trans, that's right, not just anyone: they mostly exclude transwomen; a more accurate term would be transmisogynist-exclusionary, but most people understand trans-exclusionary as synonymous with that. One indication of that is the acceptance of transmen in spaces (like Michfest, and many others) that are in theory, womyn-born-womyn, only. You say this yourself in the comment immediately above: Another way "trans-exclusionary" doesn't fit GCs is their acceptance of FTMs/TIFs. Precisely. They are not trans*-exclusionary, they are specifically transwomen-exclusionary.

But we didn't create the terms, they are what they are: but let's understand them for what they mean. You might have a better case with terf, but in labeling the term "trans-exclusionary" as name-calling, I think you are going way out on a limb; this is a descriptive term. It may be uncomfortable for some, as nobody who considers themselves enlightened wants to think of themselves as "exclusionary", but nevertheless, as a purely descriptive term, it is accurate. And I know you're aware of the genesis of it, as a neutral descriptive term. I see very little likelihood that an appeal to label "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" as WP:NPOV would gain consensus. On the contrary, it is the neutral term. An alternative might be, "transphobic radical feminist", but that is far less common, and in any case, sounds harsher to me than the merely descriptive term. Mathglot (talk) 07:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

• Please again, "phobia" is an irrational aversion, not a logical concern. Hyperbole here isn't helpful.
• I abbreviate here to prevent this discussion of language and my own contributions from growing overly large. "TIF" means "trans-identifying female", and it's considered by GC RFs (gender-critical radical feminists) to be more accurate than "FTM" ("female-to-male"), as they argue sex is immutable. Note this "accuracy = neutrality" argument is the same put forward by proponents of the word "terf".
• I'm not promoting either view, I'm asking we attempt to respect both views. Is it not our policy to honor self-identity? GCRFs identify themselves "gender-critical rad fems", not "terfs". A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

This is a false equivalence. Denying the right of others to exist, is not a "self-identity", nor is it a point of view that you can expect others to "respect". What you are very clearly doing is disrupting discussion about improvement of this article by repeating nonsensical anti-trans rhetoric with no sources whatsoever.

Reliable sources and practical suggestions for improvement please, or go do something else rather than using this page to deride transgender people. This is not Twitter or Facebook where rambling on with your offensive views might be seen as amusing. Thanks. --Fæ (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

GCRFs don't deny anyone's right to exist (that's more hyperbole); their position is against theory, not persons. I'm deriding no one (that's a personal attack); my request has been for civility and mutual respect, not disruption. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

You said, "phobia" is an irrational aversion. Nobody used the word phobia above, so your comment is irrelevant. If you're going to reply to someone, reply to what they said, not to your inference about it. Mathglot (talk) 19:34, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

The word has been used twice above: (1) "gender critical" feminists, or TERFs, are transphobic, LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC). (2) An alternative might be, "transphobic radical feminist", Mathglot (talk) 07:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC). A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:46, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Lol, "'phobia' is an irrational aversion" waa an etymological fallacy even back when it was homophobes who were pushing it. -sche (talk) 20:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

It's not even an etymological fallacy, it's just being wrong. "Phobia" can mean fear or hatred. Here's a fun fact: the word "racism" was invented in the early 1900s. Do you know what people called 'hating black people' before that? "Negrophobia". LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:30, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Debate of issues isn't fear or hatred of any kind. Again, please honor the be polite call at the top of this page. Name-calling and mockery (lol, fun fact) get us nowhere. A145GI15I95 (talk) 21:48, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I am trying to be polite to you as a person, but the idea you are supporting is just bad. Both major feminist media organizations (like the several I linked before) and mainstream news organizations use the term "TERF". Even sensationalist anti-trans news organizations like the Daily Mail use the term "TERF". None of them uses the term "gender critical". By the rules of Misplaced Pages there is just no argument for the thing you are trying to argue. It'd be a clear NPOV violation to use a term that literally nobody but TERFs themselves use. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:23, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Note that although they object to the term "transphobic," A145GI15I95 has no issue with the usage of the term "detransphobic" as seen here, here, and here. I am sure that they would not claim that the terms "homophobia" or "Islamaphobia" refer to irrational fears and not forms of prejudice. The MOS very clearly states that referring to transgender men as females, "trans-identified" or otherwise, is bad practice. It seems that this user is operating under bad faith regarding this topic, especially regarding their close personal connection to both the gender-critical subreddit and "TIM" Urban Dictionary entry mentioned above. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 05:10, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Your linked diffs are of different context. I'm not against acknowledging phobic actions; we're talking here about labeling groups. The nature of this page is to cover two sides. I'd expect we'd not favor one side's language for the other here. I agree that some terms are offensive, which is why I advocate honoring each group's self-ID. Phobias exist, and they're irrational whether for homosexuality or Islam or anything. Prejudice is separate from and related to phobia. I didn't link Reddit or Urban Dictionary. A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:37, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@A145GI15I95: "GCRFs don't deny anyone's right to exist (that's more hyperbole)"

1. you just made up "GCRF", which makes me believe even more strongly that your purpose here is to troll and disrupt the discussion.
2. there are not "two sides", this is like expecting every article on politics to give any unsourced fringe conspiracy theory the same weight as all other views.
3. still no reliable sources. You may as well just be repeatedly shouting "Swans!" in the park, if you are never going to produce a single reliable source for anything you write here.
4. you are repeating a demand for respect, but show none for trans people by promoting offensive terms that deny their existence. Terms like "trans identified male" are simply a deliberate way of calling transwomen men.

If you are here to promote deliberately transphobic language, playing the broken record rather than doing any work to find or logically challenge the use of reliable sources, then you are misusing Misplaced Pages to target trans and genderqueer people. --Fæ (talk) 09:45, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• I didn't just make up anything. My purpose isn't to troll or disrupt. I've stated repeatedly and consistently my only purpose in this discussion is to ask we not refer to groups by terms they refuse, and rather to honor each group's self-ID.
• There are at least two sides to the content of this article: Those who support trans women as having a right to feminism, and those who don't.
• All content I've added to the article is reliably sourced.
• I've promoted no known slurs. I didn't say trans-identified male, that was Fæ above at 11:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC). I used "FTM/TIF" as an example of two terms for one group that each side finds offensive, in my plea to honor self-ID.
• Please, again: Assume good faith, be civil, be polite. You don't see me attacking or smearing any editor here. Please extend the same basic decency. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Immediately provide:

1. Reliable sources for the abbreviation "GCRF" used for TERFs that you claim you did not just make up.
2. Reliable sources for the offensive terminology that you claim is used by TERFs instead of transwoman or transmen.

If after you 13 major edits to this talk page, you are still ignoring multiple requests to provide reliable sources, then your purpose here is clearly to make stuff up and you have zero reliable sources to contribute. The false equivalence of repeating "there are two sides" when really this means that on one side we have reliable sources related to TERFs, and on the other 'sides' we have anti-trans stuff you are lobbying for. Insisting that Misplaced Pages accepts "GCRF" as a real word, is not to "honor each group's self-ID", that's just screwing around with making the term "transwoman" equivalent to whatever word you want to make up next.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:41, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• Is it common or even permitted to make such demands of other editors? Is it necessary to cite talk-page discussion?
• "Gender-critical radical feminism" is a widely used term (7,220,000 results on Google). "Rad fem", "RF", "GC", and "GCRF" are common abbreviations, though I spelled them in their full form above before abbreviating.
• A previous editor has already explained the offensive terms, and I got blamed for it. I'm not going to repeat their explanation and get blamed again.
• 13 major edits? Why are you counting? What makes them major? My first edit was an answer to a ping that requested an opinion. My second was a request for more civil language. Every subsequent reply has been to answer your questions. A call for polite language doesn't deserve such pushback.
• I'm sensing an inordinate degree of hostility from your previous two contributions on this talk page. I'm replying calmly and respectfully. I ask you do the same. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:20, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Zero reliable sources = Nothing to discuss. --Fæ (talk) 19:23, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

User:A145GI15I95 wrote,

I've stated repeatedly and consistently my only purpose in this discussion is to ask we not refer to groups by terms they refuse, and rather to honor each group's self-ID.

Yes, you've stated that repeatedly. No need to continue repeating it, as it carries no weight here, unless you can find a guideline or policy about it. If people don't agree with you, then they don't. Just to be clear, in social interaction, I aspire to your approach as a matter of politeness. But this is an encyclopedia, and here we refer to groups by terms that are found in reliable sources, irrespective of what the group may like or not like.

Secondly, if you want to influence others to follow your preference, then add a link to a policy or guideline that supports your thesis. Otherwise, it's just, plain, personal preference, and nobody needs to go along with that, just because you've requested it politely several times. For one thing, that you claim a term is polite (or impolite) doesn't mean people will agree with you, and absent a guideline, they don't have to, even in response to a polite request. This seems to be a corollary of Fæ's comment above: Zero policy/guideline links = Nothing to discuss. Mathglot (talk) 01:32, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I've repeated my request for considerate language because each reply seemed to miss it—and seemed strangely instead to accuse me of being inconsiderate in making this request.

There appear to be 12 reliable sources in this article stating that targets of the word "terf" object to its application. Four of them include the self-ID "gender critical". I think it's excessive to paste them here, yet I'll oblige.

So, again, I merely ask we each consider avoiding calling writers "terfs" when possible, please. It comes across as biased and dehumanizing. Ignore the request if you will, I don't intend to report or hound or whatever anyone regarding this plea. Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 01:59, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The thing in question here is not whether TERFs object to being called TERFs. They clearly do, and nobody here is claiming that they don't, but that's not how Misplaced Pages decides the proper term for a group of people. The issue at hand here is whether reliable sources call them "TERFs" or "gender critical feminists", and what reliable sources overwhelmingly do is either to call them TERFs or to spell out "trans-exclusionary radical feminists". So, this group of people is trans-exclusionary radical feminists on Misplaced Pages whether or not they object to being called that. If this wasn't the rule, Misplaced Pages would have to call neo-Nazis "identitarians" or whatever other euphemism they're using these days. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:35, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the connotations of the term "TERF" and the adjective "trans-exclusionary" can really be quite different. "TERF" has been deemed pejorative by many of those to whom it is applied. However, "trans-exclusionary" is objectively accurate for those who situate themselves within feminist movements and who attempt to construct a requirement for belonging based on some version of biology rather than gender. So not only is the term sourced, it is also accurate from a NPOV. As far as the self-designation "gender critical" is concerned, it strikes me as one of those transparently misleading terms like "white nationalist" that simply obfuscate the well-understood, conventional labels of the positions concerned, for transparent political reasons. In looking at "gender critical" literature I have never seen anything written that was critical about gender, but more a kind of defiant gender fundamentalism. It is certainly a FRINGE position, in any case. Newimpartial (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Feminist Current and counterpunch aren't WP:RS. ShimonChai (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, not reliable sources. Both removed from the article and should remain removed unless a case is presented for specific inclusion as is reasonable for any extremist publication or publication that promotes conspiracy theories. --Fæ (talk) 10:05, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

User:A145GI15I95 wrote,

I've repeated my request for considerate language because each reply seemed to miss it...

You seem to confuse other editors ignoring or disagreeing with you, with unaccountably "missing" your repeated requests, and now you've repeated yourself again. In the hope, I suppose, that if you repeat yourself politely enough times, other editors will finally see the light and will either agree, or feel obliged to go along with your request if only due to an abundance of politeness. In reading the responses here, however, have you considered the possibility that other editors do indeed understand your repeated requests and have understood you from the very beginning, they simply don't agree with you?

When challenged about your irrelevant comments about "phobia" since no one had mentioned the word (other than you) up to that point, you said,

the word has been used twice above...

and you cited two examples, but neither example uses the word phobia. Do you need an explanation why phobia and transphobia have different meanings, and why you cannot always define a compound word from its constituent parts? It's already been explained to you why various compound words like homophobia or xenophobia are not phobias but prejudices. Later, you said:

"Gender-critical radical feminism" is a widely used term (7,220,000 results on Google).

Contrary to your assertion, "Gender-critical radical feminism" is not a widely used term. I don't blame you for thinking that your search phrase has millions of results, because most people have no idea what the search results estimate value means, especially for multi-word searches, and would probably agree with you. Being somewhat of an expert on search, however, I can tell you that the actual number of de-duped results is closer to 55. I don't want to derail this discussion with a long explanation about this, but if you want to prove it to yourself, search again with your phrase inside double quotes, and "next" through the result pages to page 5 (and possibly 6) of the results. If that doesn't satisfy you, ask at my Talk page.

With respect to trans men, you said:

"TIF" means "trans-identifying female"

quoting a fringe group; and

I'm not promoting either view, I'm asking we attempt to respect both views. Is it not our policy to honor self-identity?

If you say you are respecting both views, where one view is a major (probably the major) view, and the other is a small minority ("trans men are 'TIFs' "), then that is WP:FALSEBALANCE, and it is the kind of thing that groups that hold extreme fringe views typically try to do in order to promote themselves as equals at the table.

As for the second part of your comment, and despite the sly, back-handed appeal to MOS:IDENTITY, the quick answer is "no": we do not allow groups to identify themselves if it goes against what reliable sources say. Fringe and extremist groups often try to do this; as one example, consider the American College of Pediatricians, which call themselves a professional association, but reliable sources call them an anti-LGBT advocacy group, and therefore, so do we. We do not honor their self-identity, because the sources do not. Mathglot (talk) 11:20, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

No need to ping me, Mathglot, please, as I'm obviously following this page.

You seem to confuse other editors ignoring or disagreeing with you, with unaccountably "missing" your repeated requests

No, I've been answering unfounded inferences of trolling, phobia, and bigotry.

In the hope, I suppose, that if you repeat yourself politely enough times, other editors will finally see the light and will either agree, or feel obliged to go along with your request if only due to an abundance of politeness.

No, I specifically said this is a request, not a demand. I've obliged, however, to respond to demands.

When challenged about your irrelevant comments about "phobia" since no one had mentioned the word (other than you) up to that point

No, the first person to use the word in this thread was LokiTheLiar, on 21:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC).

but neither example uses the word phobia

Yes, they did, and I already gave those timestamps when this was first contested.

phobia and transphobia have different meanings…homophobia or xenophobia are not phobias but prejudices

This isn't true. I've already stated that they are different, related terms. Phobia is an extreme or irrational fear or aversion, prejudice is a preconceived opinion.

"Gender-critical radical feminism" is not a widely used term

It is, relative to this context.

most people have no idea what the search results estimate value means

I cited initial Google results as a cursory indicator.

Being somewhat of an expert on search

I prefer humility.

the actual number of de-duped results is 55

And for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist", it is 119, not a huge number either.

I don't want to derail this discussion

Then why do you?

if you want to prove it to yourself

I seek not to prove myself. Again, I merely request consideration.

quoting a fringe group; … If you say you are respecting both views … typically try to do in order to promote

You misunderstand, and this is why I repeat myself. I presented the two terms ftm/tif not to promote the latter term, but to show an example of two words for one group that each side insists on using, yet each side insists the other is being rude.

sly, back-handed appeal

This is just plain impolite, uncivil, and not assuming good faith. Please re-read the top of this page.

It's amazingly bizarre the energy and space put into dogpiling, point-by-point, inferences, and lies against me, when I merely commented on another editor's repeated usage of a word that is known to be considered a slur by the targets of the word and by reliable sources, and I asked we each (myself included) take note to consider more courteous language where possible. I expected merely an acknowledgment of the request, not such resistance and personal attack. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

A145G, let's put this simply. "FTM" is a term used by a significant number of people to label their own gender identity. "TIF" is a label applied to those people by others specifically to deny the key aspect of that identity, i.e. as a form of erasure. TERF is a label used by a significant number of people as a label for others to characterize a political ideology. "Gender critical feminist" is a term developed by some of those committed to that ideology, to label their position in a more positive light. Your attempt to run these labelling issues in parallel, implying that the same norms of politeness should apply in each case, is an example of false parallelism that runs in interesting tandem with the FALSEBALANCE that characterizes some of our articles on these topics. Newimpartial (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Per this discussion, I am removing references to "gender critical" from the article. As very succinctly explained above, its inclusion gives undue weight to a fringe group and shouldn't be there. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 04:06, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Such a large deletion of reliably sourced content would warrant a new discussion thread. This thread is about a request to reconsider possibly cavalier usage of the word "terf" on this talk page. A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Such a deletion does not warrant a new discussion thread. Although this thread began with your asking people not to use the term "terf," it is very clearly consensus in this thread that "gender critical" is not an acceptable substitution. I will ask you to not revert this deletion again, as your reasoning for continued usage of the term is obviously WP:IJDLI. The prefernece for "gender critical"/"gender critical radical feminist"/GCRF/etc. is an opinion that you hold, not the most widely used terminology for that group, no matter how many citations you append to it. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 04:27, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Mooeena, I realize you like to follow me and delete what you perceive to be my content. What you're pushing now is a new topic. Our fellow editors who stopped following this thread deserve to weigh in on this sudden and broad change. Please honor bold (you deleted), revert (I restored), discuss (you're welcome to start a new discussion). A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:32, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Your opinion is in the minority. Every person in this thread but you (if I've counted correctly) disagrees with usage of "gender critical." Continuing to add the term back into the article against the advice of your fellow editors is edit warring. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 05:16, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)A145G, you don't get to police the scope of threads, and anyway, you opened with, 'Please note that persons and groups whom some call "terfs" or "trans-exclusive/exclusionary" rebuke both terms, and instead call themselves "gender critical".' That claim already raises the question whether the views of such people can be reliably sourced and whether they are FRINGE. Also, have you never read WP:BOOMERANG? Newimpartial (talk) 05:07, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Since I have been watching one thing that has become apparent in the talk page is the lack of sources being presented alongside arguments. All of our perspectives are shaped in some way by our environment, culture, upbringing and peer groups. No matter how sure we are that we are being neutral this will influence how we think the topic should be covered. The way around this is to look at mainstream, reliable secondary sources that cover the mainstream feminist view of transgender and use them to base the proportioning of these views within the article. We can expand out with other more primary sources, but the general balance of the article should reflect the secondary sources. This is the only way to determine due. So far only one or two editors are bringing these types of sources to the table. Statements using fringe, consensus, most, facts, undue etc don't really mean much without the secondary sources to back them up. AIRcorn (talk) 22:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Heartily agree. The only tiny quibble I have with your statement, is "...to look at mainstream, reliable secondary sources that cover the mainstream feminist view of transgender...". Yes to all of that, except mainstream. We don't need to stick with mainstream sources. If by "mainstream views" you meant non-fringe, then yes; if it means "majority views", then no. We should present the majority and minority views in proportion to their prevalence in reliable secondary sources irrespective whether they're mainstream or not, and we may ignore views of a tiny minority (or relegate them to a footnote). I think we probably agree on this, but didn't want anyone to misinterpret you, so this is probably merely a clarification. Mathglot (talk) 22:30, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Also agreed. I do have a clarification to ask for, though, which is that I'm a little unclear which sources exactly we are gathering. From a quick Googling, I can find only a few secondary sources which are not opinion pieces, such as this NBC News article, this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, and some position statements of feminist organizations like this one and this one.

However, other than those, the vast majority of the sources I can find are opinion pieces by trans-inclusive feminists. Many of them are from quite mainstream news organizations (such as the New York Times) or by prominent feminists (such as Julia Serano) or both, but they are all editorials. To what extent should we use these sources? I think that it would be somewhat of a waste not to use them at all, but I'm unsure of whether we should count a trans-inclusive feminist describing trans-exclusive feminism as fringe as evidence that it is fringe, or not. Similarly, I'm unsure of whether we should take a feminist theorist using the word "TERF" in the NYT opinion section as evidence that the term "TERF" is widely accepted or not. LokiTheLiar (talk) 00:10, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Loki, thanks for trying to keep us on the straight-and-narrow with respect to sources. But don't forget, that in an article specifically entitled "Feminist views on transgender topics", editorials, opinion pieces, and the like are perfectly valid as far as stating a view. Of course, if we want to include a statistic or an assertion about something factual, such as what proportion of feminists are trans-inclusive, say, then we would either need a reliable, peer-reviewed source and not an opinion piece if we want to state it in in Misplaced Pages's voice, or else, we could simply attribute it to the writer. Mathglot (talk) 07:39, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

A search on JSTOR shows few relevant matches. I do find "Constructive Feminism: Women's Spaces and Women's Rights in the American City" (Daphne Spain, 2016) defines and uses "TERF" in a section on the value of women-only spaces, p.169. --Fæ (talk) 11:05, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposals To Rework

On the DRN, sche suggested breaking out the discussion into concrete proposals about particular parts of the article. I think this is a very good idea, and so I'm making this section with several subsections to attempt to get discussion going on particular issues with the article: LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

General Structure

Currently, the article is organized very messily. It has a few sections on particular areas of dispute, a section on an overarching position (transfeminism) and a section on conflicts. All of these are somewhat repetitive, and inadvertantly make trans-exclusive feminism to appear more prominent than it is because it appears from multiple different people across the article, which obscures the fact that it is a single coherent ideology whose adherents all largely believe the same thing about trans people. In my proposed rewrite I re-organized the article into sections based on overarching position (trana-exclusive radical feminism, trans feminism, other), and I still think that something like this is the best way to do it. Failing that I would at least strongly suggest that the article should be reorganized so that each section is parallel to the others (they should be either all ideologies or all topics of debate). LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I do think the current structure is weird, a hybrid of sections on generic "feminist exclusion of trans women", "feminist support", and "trans feminism", and then also sections on specific issues cis feminists support / exclude trans people based on, like "differences in socialization and experience", or support or oppose trans people accessing, like "sex reassignment surgery". But the non-issue-specific sections are needed because so much opposition and support is generic (see how many people cited in the "feminist exclusion of trans women" section don't (in the quoted/reported/RS-covered portions) base their positions in anything in particular like "differences in socialization and experience"), and while e.g. Feminist views on pornography puts specific anti-porn arguments into (or as subsections of) a generic "anti-porn feminism" section, this article presents multiple points of view on some of the issues (e.g. that socialization differences are vs aren't distinguishing or meaningful), so it would be hard to apply a structure like that here and remove the issue-specific sections without introducing more repetition. (Although you made an admirable attempt, I don't think it succeeded: simply moving where the "Patricia Elliot argues that this perspective..." sentence was, for example, made it unintelligible, as if the "this perspective" referred to was transfeminism. While that could be fixed by rewriting, I'm not sure introducing a response to something in an entirely different section from the thing being responded to is the clearest approach.) Basically, I agree that the current structure is weird, but I'm not sure how to improve it. :/ (I will say that the "feminist and trans issues" section seems like a wastebasket section for a two-sentence quotation of Steinem that no-one managed to fit anywhere else, which we ought to be able to improve upon somehow...) -sche (talk) 01:25, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and there's also some consolidation that needs to be done, with Steinem in two places currently, one short section entitled Feminist and trans issues, and another called Sex reassignment surgery. Then again, discussion of Dworkin's support in the SRS section, as well as lower down in Feminist support.

The other thing I find odd, is that many articles which discuss evolving views on some topic, especially one where the views evolve as quickly as on trangender topics, often have an arc of history that is easiest to comprehend when it is presented chronologically. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, and the jumping back and forth among the decades from one section to another, makes it hard for me to have a global picture of the evolution, or even see whether there is a trend or not. There are other ways to present things than chronological; thematic, for example, but in that case, perhaps there should be a section "Evolution of views" or some such, specifically to provide that overarching view of chronological development over time. Mathglot (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of changing it to chronological order. Does anyone object to me rearranging the article that way? I want to do some rearranging because before we do it there's not a lot of point in editing the subsections. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:18, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Too many lists and too few summaries

As the article currently stands, most of the sections are lists of opinions of specific feminists, or incidents. I think it would be more informative to describe the trans-exclusive position as a whole, and the trans-inclusive position as a whole, rather than simply listing things individual feminists have said about some particular topic. E.g. instead of listing Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Germaine Greer, and Julie Bindel separately, I would say "Trans-exclusive radical feminists such as Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, believe . One influential work within trans-exclusive radical feminism is The Transsexual Empire by Janice Raymond, which " LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Citation issues

Over-citation of trans-exclusive radical feminists, and of radical feminists in general

In each of the lists in the current topics, there are disproportionately more trans-exclusive citations than there should be under WP:UNDUE. When the sex-reassignment section cites Andrea Dworkin, Gloria Steinem, Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Germaine Greer, and Julie Bindel, that immediately causes me to wonder why we are citing those last four people separately. They believe largely the same thing because they share largely the same ideology (trans-exclusive radical feminism) which has a single position on this issue, so it's my opinion that that overall ideology should only be referred to once. Furthermore, in this list five out of these six people are radical feminists when that itself is a matter of active debate within feminism. I wouldn't be opposed to a section on positions within radical feminism, but portraying positions within radical feminism as if they're the only positions in feminism is clearly not correct. LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general

That same list causes a few more questions in me which hopefully go some way towards fixing the citation problem.

1. Where is Julia Serano or other trans feminists? Why is the most trans inclusive voice in that list Andrea Dworkin writing in the 70s? This problem plagues the entire article: trans-positive views are shoved into a single small section when by their prevalence they ought to be the majority of the article.
2. Where are the modern feminists? The feminists on that list appear to have been chosen either because they're trans-exclusive (Raymond, Daly, Greer, Bindel) or because they were major figures in feminism at the height of the second wave (Dworkin, Steinem). But it's been a long time since second wave feminism, and there are now many modern feminist activists who ought to appear in a list of opinions of prominent feminists if we are going to be including that sort of list in the article. LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that may reflect the nature of feminist commentary on the subject, which had one peak in the 70s, and then went mostly dormant for a while, before popping back up a couple decades later as transgender awareness grew. I believe that Transcamp at Michfest had a lot to do with it, but it wasn't the only thing. But as far as views, clearly Serano needs to be there, as do many others. I think part of the problem is something Flyer alluded to earlier; most feminists are merely accepting, and it's just human nature that people who are against something, will be the most vocal; you don't have people marching in downtown in huge parades saying what a great job society is doing keeping the lights on, and having the snow removed promptly. Feminists who are happy with trans-inclusion, never thought it necessary to write about what a great thing it is to be trans-inclusive, until someone came along with the opposite attitude, and needed to be responded to. There is a vocal minority on this subject, and as Flyer already stated, per WP:DUEWEIGHT they are going to get an amount of coverage here proportionate to their writings, even if that's disproportionate to the views of a larger, feminist public that isn't writing. Mathglot (talk) 07:56, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

It's worth noting a lot of the people fighting against transphobia in 70s feminism were other feminists. They don't get as much modern coverage, but they are present in books that discuss histories of the movement the. Andrea Long Chu covers a bit about how this part of the history is often elided in modern retellings in this essay, particularly around the Beth Elliott incident. I've noticed also several big feminist figures like Angela Davis, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Roxane Gay etc have spoken against trans exclusion but they don't get as much press write up, likely since more controversial takes get more attention. Rab V (talk) 20:00, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

In addition to what Rab V said, it's not hard to find position statements from large feminist organizations. For example, NOW resolved in 2018 to explicitly support trans inclusivity and had previously supported pro-LGBT causes including pro-trans causes. I think that this is a reasonably good proxy for what the "average feminist" believes in the absence of actual polls of feminists (which unfortunately don't appear to exist, as far as I can tell). LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to Mathglot for understanding what I mean about WP:Due weight. That's it exactly. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

False balance in individual statements

This is related to the issues above. When the article says things like "Some feminists such as Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam believe that transgender and transsexual people challenge repressive gender norms and that transgender politics are fully compatible with feminism, while others such as Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys believe that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary." that makes it appear that Judith Butler and Janice Raymond are two equal sides in a debate. However, in fact Butler's position is much more widely held in academia than Raymond's, and outside of academia, positions such as that of Julia Serano, a well-known transfeminist activist, are more common than either.

Instead of the line above I would write something like: "Most feminists are inclusive of trans people, and believe that transgender politics are fully compatible with feminism. However, a minority position believes that transgender people uphold and reinforce ." LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

As above, it's not about what position is more widely held, but rather, which one is attested more in reliable sources. That may skew against public opinion, but that's the way WP:DUEWEIGHT works, for better or worse. Mathglot (talk) 08:10, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

That skips any potential for a 'walled garden' effect among notable academics and public facing academic pundits. There is scope in this article to discuss and distinguish between the balance of views in academic papers (i.e. verifiably peer reviewed) and the balance of most widely published op-ed views in, say, the EU or US largest newspapers and magazines. --Fæ (talk) 17:33, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Mathglot, I'm aware of that, which is why I said we should put a bunch of sources after that claim. We already have a few sources like this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article which fairly clearly backs up the point that trans-positive feminist views are common and have become increasingly more common over time. I'm reasonably sure that if we had someone who could get past the paywall on academic articles we could find more (so, for example, I'm reasonably sure this academic piece is trans-positive even though I can't access it).

There's also stuff like position statements from large feminist organizations: for example, NOW resolved explicitly to support trans inclusivity in 2018, and have said in a previous resolution that "the issues that are included in NOW’s multi-issue structure include ... women who identify as straight, lesbian, bi, or transgender" (my emphasis). This might not technically be a reliable source for what the majority of feminists believe, but we can certainly say "The largest feminist organization in the United States, NOW, has resolved explicitly to support trans inclusivity." LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Alright, based on some of the stuff we've discussed here I went ahead and rewrote the intro. Is the new intro acceptable to people? The next change I want to make is some sort of restructure, and we haven't really talked about that enough to make that kind of sweeping change, but supposing the intro is acceptable I would like to rewrite other sections on the page in a similar fashion. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Comments in the #Recent changes to the lead and drafting section below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes to the lead and drafting

Regarding this, "the largest feminist group in the United States" needs a WP:Secondary source. We are not supposed to just take their word for it that they are the largest feminist group in the United States. See WP:YESPOV and WP:REDFLAG. One might also argue that it is WP:Undue to prioritize a group from the United States or another country in the lead. But then again, the vast majority of the sourcing on this topic has a United States origin (second-wave feminism) or is centered on the United States. So maybe it's fitting, but, per WP:Lead, the lead is meant to summarize the article and should generally not include anything not covered lower. And that piece still needs a secondary source.

Feminists who have argued that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary are not all radical feminists or are all called TERFs. In other words, the "reinforcing gender roles" argument has been questioned or argued to some degree by feminists who are not radical and by some trans people as well. Some trans women and trans men have made it a point to challenge the gender binary because they are expected to behave in a manner, and wear clothing, that is stereotypically feminine or masculine. In other words, they are expected to "behave like a woman"/"behave like a man" and "dress like a woman"/"dress like a man." So I made this edit.

As for having included "Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam believe that transgender and transsexual people challenge repressive gender norms and that transgender politics are fully compatible with feminism" in the lead, it wasn't really a false balance matter to have that alongside the "uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary" piece. This is because these are central points of the debate (well, the "fully compatible with feminism" piece more than the "challenge repressive gender norms" piece), covered quite thoroughly in the literature. In the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section above, Mathglot understood what I was stating about WP:Due weight.

Lastly, as noted at the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard, I am still working on a draft for this article. I have access to sources that others do not. This means more academic-based sourcing, and not just relying on media sources, which are mainly opinion pieces. I'm not going to rush the draft. And since it appears that LokiTheLiar does not want to wait for the draft and is "a bit" skeptical of it, I will likely need to incorporate changes made to this article in the interim into the draft I'm working on. That's more work on my part, but I understand that editors shouldn't feel like they can't work on an article in the meantime. I can't promise that I'm going to keep everything that is seen in the current state of the article. But if something is removed from the current version, I might re-add it or retain it unless there is WP:Consensus to exclude it. For anyone wondering why I don't work on the draft out in the open, which also allows others to work on the draft with me, I typically work on drafts alone, and I don't like being on Misplaced Pages as much as I used to in years past. This is because of the number of contentious topics I work on or mainly just watch. So being on Misplaced Pages more often than I would like just to work on this draft means that I will be involved with other articles at the same time, consistently being pulled away from the draft. It will also mean WP:Notifications for whatever. So I prefer to work on the draft alone without distractions. But, like I noted, I will post it to my sandbox when I am done and then here on the talk page for review. So others can state what what they like or don't like about it, or what about it they feel can be improved. Before I post what I've done, it might also be best for some here to work on a public draft of the article, which will better help editors work out things before they are implemented. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Can we drop "transgender and transsexual" and consistently use "transgender"? I am aware that people writing in the late 20th century were using "transsexual", but I do not think there is any logical reason for the article itself to emphasize "transsexual" when transgender is the modern and most widely accepted term for all types of transgender people. Emphasising the two words comes over as if some slightly offensive point is being made about surgery, which is a distraction as the sources are not explicitly making the distinction (especially the pre-1990s sources). --Fæ (talk) 09:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

It looks glaringly poor practice to start the first section with "Some feminists argue", just because a journalist in the Washington Post used those exact words two years ago; we are not obliged to cut and paste from other publications. It would at least be more encyclopaedic to start with "Feminist authors such as X and Y have argued". --Fæ (talk) 09:25, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

One footnote that sources a long quote, just says "Hill et al. 2002". Without a link to the actual book (and preferably a page number), this is meaningless. Hill et al. is not explained in another section. --Fæ (talk) 09:27, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

There are a lot of highly selective quotes. This is worrying as it is a back door to including radical or offensive statements with hardly any context. I suggest the number of quotes is trimmed down to quotes that have been widely cited or at least requoted by journalists as part of the public discourse. We should be avoiding extremist bloggers or extremist pundits who are simply known for being controversialists on the topic of transgender rights, and preferably stick to notable people with Misplaced Pages articles to link to. For example although Germaine Greer had a lively career as a radical feminist pundit on TV shows ten years ago, this was mainly because she would be deliberately provocative in her language, such as her "d**k chopped off" comment, not because she moved discussion forward or wrote intelligently about the topic of transgender rights. So, let's be choosy rather than sensationalist about who is worth quoting and which quote illuminates the encyclopaedic article rather than taking it on tangents. --Fæ (talk) 10:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Fae, I would be fine with sticking with "transgender" consistently. That stated, as noted in both the Transgender and Transsexual articles, the latter term is more commonly associated with sex reassignment therapy, and some transgender people prefer to be called transsexual. Also, some of the older text on this topic emphasizes "transsexual." If we are going to mention The Transsexual Empire, like we currently do, mentioning and linking "transsexual" somewhere in the article (as early on as we mention The Transsexual Empire) is useful to readers.

Regarding "some," see Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Hidden text vs template. We've stuck with "some" for that piece in that section because the source specifically uses that wording. In this case, stating something like "feminist authors such as X and Y have argued" would be misleading WP:In-text attribution because it would make it seem like only that author -- Samantha Schmidt -- has stated this or as though it's just an argument from her. We shouldn't state "Samantha Schmidt has argued that some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." It's not just an argument. It's a fact that "some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." Notice that she doesn't even state "some radical feminists." We could change it to "Samantha Schmidt stated that some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." But that still makes it seem like something only Schmidt stated, when, in actuality, she's reporting on a fact. WP:In-text attribution advises not to use in-text attribution in a misleading way.

Regarding "extremist bloggers or extremist pundits who are simply known for being controversialists on the topic of transgender rights," if they are notable on the topic, they should be mentioned no matter how extremist they are. Germaine Greer should undoubtedly be mentioned on this topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:25, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, let's default to "transgender" as the general term. I am aware that "transsexual" is used in many biographies and articles, however even when used as a self descriptor, writers have gradually swapped over to 'transgender' in the last decade. Although we are personally aware of this shift in language both medically and socially, this is true for authors, for example Julia Serano wrote "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" in 2007 but in 2016 published "Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism". There is no special need for the Misplaced Pages article to repeat out of date terminology, when this was not the point being made by the original author. For example in the 1940s gay fiction authors were still writing about uranians, but by the 1980s all of those books and articles were classed as "gay" fiction rather than making an artificial distinction about a ideal of a 'third sex' when the reality was that this was code for 'homosexuals'.

I disagree with use of "some feminists", just because Schmidt wrote it. If it is really needed in the article then it does need to become a quote. Use of "some" is just a glaring hole in the logic, it's like saying "some" homosexuals object to same sex marriage, it may be true, it's just not an encyclopaedic way of sticking to facts and risks giving the appearance of false equivalency.

I get your point about notability, let's park this for the moment with the general agreement that quotes must be used selectively. I think the "d**ks" quote by Greer is a good counter-example, it is sensationalist, tangential, out of date, and would not help make the article more encyclopaedic. That same way of analysing relevance and notability needs to be applied throughout. If an 'extremist' writer has no Misplaced Pages article, then I see no special reason to start quoting them. If anyone thinks a writer is especially important in the topic of feminism or trans-exclusive radical feminism, then they should start by creating a Misplaced Pages biography for them, not start by inserting quotes in this article. --Fæ (talk) 10:42, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm just stating that it is useful for readers if we include "transsexual" somewhere in the article, not just when The Transsexual Empire is mentioned (as in only because we state "The Transsexual Empire"), and that "transsexual" has a specific meaning...which is why some transgender people and enough medical sources (which might alternatively state "transsexualism") still use it. Transgender can be a broad term, after all. Transvestite is also considered an outdated term, but some transgender people still use it. And tranny? Well, we see what the Tranny article currently states. The transgender community keeps trying to get transgender people (not just society as a whole) to stop using that term. But, yeah, feel free to do the consistency thing with "transgender" (except for maybe the cases where "transsexual" is emphasized; of course any quotes using "transsexual" shouldn't be changed).

In most cases, I avoid stuff like "some people." This is per WP:Weasel words. But WP:Weasel words is clear that it's okay to use the "some" wording in a case like this. And, again, the Schmidt piece is not simply an opinion. If it was a WP:YESPOV matter, I would agree with using in-text attribution in this case. That stated, until another reliable source is added to support it (which is something I will look to do in my draft), I guess it's not too bad to go with "Samantha Schmidt stated." Regarding the "some homosexuals object to same-sex marriage" aspect? I would state that in Misplaced Pages's voice (replacing "homosexuals" with "gay men and lesbians") because it's a fact. I would not attribute it via text to one writer or a few writers as though it's according to them; that is misleading in-text attribution. I always avoid misleading in-text attribution. WP:Weasel words and Template:Who are both clear that words like "some" and "most" are not automatically weasel words or unencylopedic. They are used all the time in perfectly fine text, including on Misplaced Pages.

As for trimming the quotes, it's not just a WP:Notable matter or a "widely cited or at least requoted by journalists as part of the public discourse" matter. Misplaced Pages quotes people who don't have Misplaced Pages articles all the time. Above, you are arguing to quote Schmidt. We should also stick to quotes by WP:Reliable sources (not what we personally consider reliable) that improve the text by relaying an important fact, point or countering another point. After all, we are dealing with people's opinions in additions to facts. If it's a fact, we should be cautious of countering that with an opinion. And, of course, we need to be mindful of WP:Due. We also can't go by our opinion on who is an "extremist" writer. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Glad to see that an Encyclopædia Britannica source was added to cover "the largest feminist group in the United States." As for preferring a secondary source, WP:PSTS states, "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." And WP:TERTIARY states, "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources."

Regarding this, although "gender critical feminists" doesn't need to be in the lead, the "although they object to that term" piece should be there since we have a "TERF" section in the article and the objection aspect is a significant aspect of the topic.

Regarding this, it's not needed, but it is a The Guardian piece and she's specically critcizing the incident. That she's a radical feminist blogger who likely agrees with Bellos's statement doesn't mean that her view should be excluded.

Regarding this, that Adichie received criticism for her comment and she responded to it should be mentioned. When it comes to the entire Adichie piece, it's not specifically about feminism. But she is a feminist, and this article is titled "Feminist views on transgender topics." So that is why her view on trans women was included by someone. She stated that the American Left was "creating its own decline" and was "very cannibalistic". Politics obviously partly concern feminism. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Julie Bindel, 2007

Trimmed the Julie Bindel interview. This was a one line mention of a complex case from 2007. If someone thinks this case is important, then it needs more references than a op-ed interview, preferably sources that more fully report on the censure of psychiatrist Russell Reid rather than a single non-neutral source making a case against the availability of gender corrective surgery, relying on reported events from over two decades ago.

Should anyone doubt that Julie Bindel is an anti-trans writer, they should read "Gender benders, beware". Including Bindel's quotes or references without context or balance with direct counter view points makes this article non-neutral. --Fæ (talk) 15:53, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of whatever anti-trans views she has, that piece was not needed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Retitle section? Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints & non-neutrality

The section is almost all commentary which criticizes the criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints, not as the title indicates the actual criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints. Consequently the section is more a defence of trans-exclusionary views, including the most notably offensive views, the example being the long defensive quotes from Linda Bellos with zero quotes from anyone being "critical". To be accurate, the title should change to "Defence of trans-exclusionary viewpoints".

To help indicate there is a problem with neutral presentation of facts, I have tagged the article with POV. I believe this should remain until the article is actually balanced in content, not just by giving an impression of balance through choice of subtitles. --Fæ (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

To my recollection, the original idea was that the section was about how people who hold trans-exclusive views have been responded to, criticized and e.g. disinvitend from events (as Bellos was). Other people added responses to those responses, leaving us with what's there now. It's clear the original idea behind the title is not clear anymore, since you're not the first person to bring this up. I'm not sure replacing "Criticism" with "Defence" would be better. Possibly something like "Responses to trans-exclusionary views"? But I think that, as another possibility besides retitling, we should also consider simply dispersing the section's contents into the article's other sections. And of course, we should consider how many responses-to-responses to include; the article is, as others have said, bogged down in quite a lot of in-the-weeds blow-by-blow recounting of minor incidents as opposed to . . . feminist views. -sche (talk) 02:28, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps move the "criticism of" subsection content up into the "general" subsection content, then edit length down, and/or re-organize by chrono or themes, and/or re-split "general" into new subsections? There's some overlap with this concern and above at General_Structure. A145GI15I95 (talk) 06:52, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

You mean stop trying to have a balanced article, and just present more views and quotes from TERF pundits, rather than from those that counter those hateful views?

I have retitled the section to "Trans-exclusionary viewpoints", until the section is rewritten to quote or summarize actual criticism, rather than just more quotes from writers famous for anti-trans views, it needs to be made clear how this article remains non-neutral. --Fæ (talk) 07:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

You mean stop trying to have a balanced article—No, I meant what I said. Please stop assuming bad faith. Other editors have commented that the article and this section lack structure and appear to have outdated section titles. I was merely brainstorming and trying to support your position. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:32, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the edit to change "Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints" to "Trans-exclusionary viewpoints", the latter title makes it seem like that is the only section with trans-exclusionary viewpoints; the material above it is also about trans-exclusionary viewpoints. The material in the retitled section, however, is specifically about criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints. That it has rebuttals of feminists who heve been criticized does not make it any less about the criticism they have recieved. In my draft, the material will not be presented in either way, though. Also, I don't think that "Responses to trans-exclusionary views" works either since the non-exclusionary views in the article are partly responses to trans-exclusionary views.

I don't see that the article needed to be tagged with Template:POV when it's already tagged with Template:Undue stating "This article may lend undue weight to radical feminist views on transgender topics." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

The second POV tagged seemed excessive to me. My opinion has been that the article makes an effort at neutrality, but that it leans in favor of the opposite side named, not in favor of the side currently claimed by the two tags. I've attempted to expressly this gently, but it's not been received well. A145GI15I95 (talk) 21:38, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I feel like we should break this off into yet another section, but if we're gonna be talking about the templates I would like to register my opinion that both of them are in fact necessary. Given my past comments on this talk page, I don't think this should come as a surprise to anyone; I'm mostly saying it to make sure no future editor confuses a lack of comment on the topic for consensus to remove them. LokiTheLiar (talk) 22:44, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

(outdenting) While Flyer has a good point that just renaming the section "Trans-exclusionary viewpoints" is non-optimal because other sections of the article also contain content about that, I will point out that the former title of "Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints" also suffered that problem besides the other mentioned problems, since other sections (e.g. the "Feminist support" section) also include criticism of feminist opposition/exclusion! Maybe "Repercussions for trans-exclusionary views"? I don't know. -sche (talk) 19:31, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Reliability of TransAdvocate

Discussion moved. Please participate at the link above. Mathglot (talk) 09:28, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Cite checks

Hi, I'm just dropping in to say that the quote attributed to "Hill et al. (2002)" is one hundred percent phony; a Misplaced Pages editor wrote it in 2005 in Transfeminism, citing this paper by Hill, and an IP stuck quotation marks around it in 2009 and attributed it instead to this other work by Hill et al; I don't see the quote in either. Cheers, gnu57 22:42, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The paragraph about Bindel's "Gender Benders, Beware" piece really needs better sourcing: nothing there now supports the sentences "Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transgender people, doctors, therapists, academics and others." In the "Complaints focussed on..." sentence, the part about the cartoon is sourced to a (copyright violating?) link to a scan of the page itself and to a list-serv post by one particular advocate objecting; the part about the disparaging tone is sourced to the Bindel piece itself. Cheers, gnu57 23:56, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/aug/01/mytransmission (Bindel, 2007)

In 2004 I wrote a column in the Guardian Weekend magazine complaining about the fact that a male-to-female transsexual had sued a rape crisis centre in Canada for refusing to let her counsel rape victims, on the grounds that it was a "women only" service. I had, in my piece, referred to one transsexual as a "man in a dress".

The then readers' editor, having received 200 letters of complaint, wrote, " abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."

In hindsight, the sarcasm I used in my column was misplaced and insensitive ("Imagine a world inhabited just by transsexuals," I wrote, complaining about the way many transsexuals parody traditional masculine and feminine styles of dress. "It would look like the set of Grease."). However, the hundreds of angry emails I received, and the levels of vitriol contained within them, made me realise just how much of a sacred cow - at least among us liberals - the issue had become.

As a result of the article I was firmly branded "transphobic" by the community. No other topic I have addressed in this newspaper has attracted such fury, even though I regularly express controversial opinions.

--Fæ (talk) 07:23, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

May I ask please why we've a "better source needed" on her "vacuum hose / 501s" statement, when we've a link right there to her exact words? I've guessed this was a call for a second source, so I've added one and removed the tag. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hey A145GI15I95, the part of that I thought needed better sourcing was the "Complaints focused on". We know from Bindel's article that she wrote it, but not how people responded. The "My trans mission" piece that Fæ found is a good source for the fact that people found it offensive and wrote letters about it. I was still looking for other sources describing particular aspects of the Bindel article (like the vacuum hose remark) as objectionable—and I see that you've found one, so thanks for that. Cheers, gnu57 17:26, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the content also known as "tigtog" on the blog Hoyden About Town at Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#The_term_"TERF", I don't see this username or blog name in the source. Is it necessary information? Thanks, A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

She links to her blog post in the Guardian article: . Cheers, gnu57 23:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, gnu. Based on this — and the fact that her username Tig Tog is spelled out in another article we already cite, which I've added a <ref> to — I removed the "not in source"/"failed verification" tag. But, A145GI15I95, if you or anyone else wants to remove the blog's name "Hoyden About Town" (and just leave it at saying Viv Symthe aka Tig Tog coined it) I see no problem with that... I mean, we probably could find a source that spelled it out in-text in a Ctrl-F-able way, but as you say, it doesn't seem necessary to include. -sche (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, regarding the deletion of citations from CounterPunch (this this diff), I see a handful of discussions that all seem to approve it (the most recent appears to be here). Do we have more recent info? A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the unsourced lines Following the Stonewall protest Stephen Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, an American academic and transsexual activist, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on 12 December 2008. The debate was broadcast live on the internet.—they seem to give every possible detail about the debate except for the actual content and outcome. I looked for sources and found no substantial coverage beyond a few blogposts. Cheers, gnu57 00:30, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I'll remove the old username and blog name of the "terf" coiner, as this seems unnecessary detail for our article, and I've seen comments here in general about article length, and another editor voiced soft support above an in the edit log for its removal. Feel free to revert if this removal is wrong. A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Gnu, I see you added this , which I've now changed here . I don't see where the source mentions spelling/capitalization. I also say in my log "badly worded" (please take no offense) because NOAD defines "capitalize" only in reference to making letters capital, not making them lowercase. I also didn't see why we'd add this note on spell/cap here, since it's already noted two paragraphs later. Best regards, A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:38, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, looks good to me. gnu57 23:02, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

I added the discretionary sanctions talk page notice to this page yesterday. For those unaware of recent Arbcom rulings, the relevant recent motion is at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Interactions_at_GGTF#Motion:_Manning_naming_dispute_(February_2019). The most relevant part to this article is:

"For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea/Bradley Manning."

The article is a gender/transgender related article, and of interest for that reason. Clearly this article is controversial with respect to gender identity and is likely to continue to be a locus for disputes, as the discussion above demonstrates.

See the links in the notice, or refer to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Expectations. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Mention of "gender critical" in article

An editor seeks to scrub the article of the term "gender critical", claiming it to be fringe or undue.

"Gender critical" currently appears once in this article's content (…refer to themselves as "gender critical"…), the term "terf" currently appears thirteen times, for a ratio of 1:13.

The number of de-duped Google results for "gender critical" is 138, and the number of de-duped Google results for "terf" is 131, for a ratio of 1:1.

• https://www.google.com/search?q="gender+critical"&ei=kRy0XPj5Ms_Y-wSMt5bYCQ&start=130&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwi4hsHHtNHhAhVP7J4KHYybBZs4WhDy0wMIiQE&biw=1920&bih=982
• https://www.google.com/search?q="terf"&ei=gRy0XLKlLtDJ-gTHrojYCg&start=130&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwjy6eu_tNHhAhXQpJ4KHUcXAqs4WhDy0wMIgQE&biw=1920&bih=982

Wiki formatting stripped due to display error in URLS.

Googling more-specific wordings, such "gender-critical radical feminist" drops the hits to 68, and "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" drops to 117, which changes the ratio merely to 1:2.

• https://www.google.com/search?q="gender-critical+radical+feminist"&ei=Qh-0XOiEOsm5-wTMz5z4BA&start=60&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwjorY2Qt9HhAhXJ3J4KHcwnB084MhDw0wMIaQ&biw=1920&bih=982
• https://www.google.com/search?q="trans-exclusionary+radical+feminist"&ei=gR-0XO94ion6BL2smGg&start=110&sa=N&ved=0ahUKEwivvdmtt9HhAhWKhJ4KHT0WBg04ZBDw0wMIhwE&biw=1920&bih=982

Wiki formatting stripped due to display error in URLS.

The mention of "gender critical" is supported by at least three reliable sources: Slate, Inside Higher Ed, and Bitch.

Given the reliability of sources, this mention isn't fringe. Given the more-even ratio of Google results versus our less-even ratio of article mentions, it isn't undue weight. A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:05, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

What is the proposed context in which this concept should be included, in your view? --Equivamp - talk 19:36, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I accept the status quo; I'm merely asking here she stop scrubbing the term (she's attempted three times in the last fourteen hours). A145GI15I95 (talk) 19:40, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Can you provide diffs? There's been a lot of activity on this article and its talk page and I haven't yet caught up on all of them, especially because it seems that at some point threads were separated haphazardly after the fact. --Equivamp - talk 23:03, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

My opinion here is that there's no problem with mentioning the term (e.g. "Most trans-exclusionary radical feminists object to the term 'TERF' and prefer alternative terms such as 'gender critical'"), but that paragraph as it currently stands is definitely not NPOV. It cites a whole bunch of trans-exclusionary sources making persuasive arguments against the term "TERF", and is basically making a persuasive argument against the term "TERF" itself. Such a one-sided treatment of a facet of this argument is definitely not NPOV, especially when there's also an WP:UNDUE problem with giving so much credibility to what has been exhaustively established on this talk page is a minority POV regarding the term. Either we need to mention the dispute and move on, or else we at least need to cover the entire argument, including the transfeminist rebuttal to claims that TERF is a slur. (Along those lines, there's a segment of this video by the trans feminist YouTuber Contrapoints which deals with that claim more directly than I've seen in most other sources.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Google searches are not a reasonable test, and do not prove anything. As has been highlighted before, there are many TERF pundits that appear to revel in being as controversial as possible to increase their internet footprint. The fact that Google highlights those same controversial posts, reposts and objections all over the internet, is not "proof" that a balance or "sides" exist. This is all part of using false logic to fake-prove a false balance.

The cherry picked sources support the existence of TERF as a descriptive term, even while they explain that some trans-exclusionary radical feminists object to being called trans-exclusionary radical feminists, but probably no "inclusive feminists" have ever complained. By the way:

1. the insidehighered piece is little more than a blog post
2. the bitchmedia article uses TERF itself, while raising the objection to the word TERF with the example complaint of Cathy Brennon (who has their referenced blog suspended due to policy violations, believes that transwomen are men, and famously has lobbied the UN to remove human rights protections for transgender people)
3. the slate article is simply a long polemic attempting to argue that it is wrong for trans women to be called women, hardly a reasoned analysis

These sources do not prove much, apart from being examples to indicate that those that argue to replace TERF with confusing term "gender critical", probably are the same people that publish the most hateful and offensive opinions about trans people.

The evidence shows that A145GI15I95 does not "accept the status quo". Having an extended revert war and using the broken record technique to disrupt every other discussion thread on this page, is not "accepting" anything. --Fæ (talk) 22:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

If I were refusing the status quo, I'd be insisting on changing all instances of "terf" to "gender critical". How many times must I request good faith here, please? A145GI15I95 (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

There has been *plenty* of discussion. The only one still arguing that the article must use "gender critical" and presented like there are "two sides" is you, and everyone is being jolly nice to let you carry on disrupting discussion with the same argument and ICANTHEARYOU way of gaming the system to get what you want for several days. There are limits and the evidence shows you have gone well beyond them.

(ec) Your use earlier on this page of a "self ID" argument in a transgender discussion where trans people are likely to be taking part, to defend the term "gender critical" in a way that clearly hijacks the rationale that trans self ID has a protected status, was offensive and hard to presume was a good faith argument which was unintentionally offensive to trans people.

You need to drop the stick. --Fæ (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems strange to have multiple NPOV tags for one side and against another, if there isn't more than one side to this content. To fight a single mention seems to doth protest much. I can't game a system I barely know. And gender-critical/terf transgender persons exist, too. Please AGF. A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Asking for good faith while at the same time quoting "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is hard to write off as a mistake in judgement. Are you just trolling this discussion with jokes about gender now, or just being deliberately sarcastic by insisting on good faith while condemning others with bad faith with regard to who they are or what their motivation is? --Fæ (talk) 23:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

A145G - yes,"TERF"/"gender-critical" nb and trans persons ubdoubtedly exist. But it would be FALSEBALANCE to give their perspectives equal weight to gender-identity based trans perspectives, and it would be worse than that to treat the ideological identity "gender-critical" according to the same norms with which, per repeated RfCs, WP treats gender identities. Newimpartial (talk) 23:25, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm neither joking, trolling, attempting sarcasm, nor condemning. I'm attempt different phrasing to communicate, and I'm pleading that we get along better with each other. There are at least two sides to this content, as our article admits in its first line (Feminist views on transgender topics vary wildly), as its imperfect section headings show, as its sources shows, and as this talk page shows. I mention GC/TERF trans folk exist to show GC/TERF theory isn't necessarily transphobic. I really wish every thread I enter wouldn't sidetrack into an attack on my person, please. A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Lemme see if I can force this argument back on track: A145G, what is your goal for the page, and can you show that there is a consensus of reliable sources behind it? If you can, please do so. If you can't, please drop the issue. I realize this is a thing you believe strongly about, but there are many pages on Misplaced Pages that multiple opposing groups of people feel strongly about, which is why we have the rules about reliable sources, NPOV, and WP:UNDUE.

So far, it's seemed to me like your goal is, at a minimum, to consistently use the term "gender critical" to refer to trans-exclusionary radical feminists, and you have been able to provide only sources that show that TERFs prefer to be called that, but no neutral sources actually calling them that. A quick Googling found only one use of the term from a neutral source: this piece in Forbes (which even still is technically opinion, just a disinterested opinion). On the other hand, I've already provided several sources across this talk page from both large feminist organizations and news organizations that call them TERFs or "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" spelled out. Here's a google search if you don't believe me, and here are some sources that are both reliable and neutral that use the term "TERF".

Since reliable sources don't have to be neutral, there are a bunch of other reliable sources, but even most of those use the term "TERF" and not "gender critical". There are tons of opinion pieces in major newspapers that use the term "TERF", and relatively few that use the term "gender critical".LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

What are you talking about, A145G? Your comment appears as a reply to mine, and I have certainly done no such thing. I hope you are aware that accusing editors of personal attacks, where they have not done so, is a sanctionable form of UNCIVIL behaviour. Newimpartial (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Newimpartial, I don't feel you've been unfair with me. I was trying to reply to multiple comments at once. And I was trying to note how reactive recent replies to my entries have been (such as in this very thread, and such as the You mean stop…? comment on an earlier thread this morning here). I feel I'm walking on eggshells, but I keep trying to be courteous, respectful, and gentle. I apologize if I use incorrect terms occasionally, and I admit to my faults. A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

It is increasingly obvious that A145GI15I95 is going to play the victim, whilst at the same time promoting anti-trans rhetoric and repeatedly disrupt discussion, rather than, say, searching for better reliable sources rather than newpaper op-eds or vox pop online magazine articles.

This is not a question of "two sides". In the "sources" being used are noisy attention seeking trans-exclusive writers and lobbyists who have entirely deliberately promoted hate speech against trans people, who unfailingly claim that transwomen can never be allowed to be women, who lobby to remove basic human rights for trans people, who make up language like "gender critical" and "trans identified males" and bang on about "gender stereotypes" to confuse the fact that they want invalidate trans people and want them to stop existing. To be correctly encyclopaedic and avoid being hijacked by fringe politics, the Misplaced Pages article needs to make it clear from the outset that trans-exclusive rhetoric is anti-trans, not swallow the same old tired TERF arguments that somehow removing the dignity and rights of trans people is not to be anti-trans or not to be spreading hatred.

As a logic experiment for arguments that relate to gender stereotypes and being gender critical, one need only review the sources and ask why the vitriol and hate speech is never directed at openly cis people who are the vast majority of the population, and for which the same logic should apply, rather than the tiny, tiny percentage that are trans people. --Fæ (talk) 10:22, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Fæ, please stop focusing on my person on talk pages. If you've a personal concern for me, please open an appropriate issue in the appropriate place. No human can be reasonably expected to keep track of every thread you've now started against me on multiple pages. Your response on content above has already been stated multiple times; it appears to be hyperbolic; and it appears to ignore my previously, calmly, and logically stated responses. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems I jumped the gun a bit; I was under the impression that consensus was against the inclusion of "gender critical" *as a whole,* but some people might still make a case for its inclusion in specific sections. I'll wait and let others weigh in on this. LokiTheLiar's question still stands: A145G, what is your goal for the page, and can you show that there is a consensus of reliable sources behind it? If you can, please do so. If there are neutral third parties that refer to trans-exclusionary feminists as "gender critical" instead of "TERFs," then it should certainly be included. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 17:35, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

My own view is that mentioning that some "TERFs" prefer to be called "gender critical" would be appropriate if well-defined; using "gender-critical" in WP's voice, since it is widely recognized as a euphemism in the same genre as "white nationalism". Newimpartial (talk) 18:29, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

That supposed to be: My own view is that mentioning that some "TERFs" prefer to be called "gender critical" would be appropriate if well-referenced; using "gender-critical" in WP's voice would not, since it is widely recognized as a euphemism in the same genre as "white nationalism".

I don't know how I garbled that before; presumably, I was distracted by a squirrel. Newimpartial (talk) 02:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I've found a number of more mainstream sources, other than trans-exclusionary feminists themselves, which use "gender-critical" or "trans-critical" . I agree that "trans-exclusionary" is the common name, but I think we should retain a mention of the other names so the reader knows that the terms mean basically the same thing. (And possibly have them redirect here, like TERF does?) Cheers, gnu57 20:36, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

My goal for all articles is accuracy, fairness, and professionalism. If anyone has a personal concern, please address it in the proper place. The current sources for this topic are Slate, Inside Higher Ed, and Bitch, which are reliable. The writers include Michelle Goldberg, a senior writer, published in NYT, Daily Beast, The Nation, and The American Propsect, and a co-winner of the Pulitzer; Colleen Flaherty, a PhD and a writer on many topics mostly outside feminism; and Tina Vasquez, who usually promotes trans women's issues in her writing. More sources could be found (as Gnu demonstrated). A145GI15I95 (talk) 23:10, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Some of those are more controversial than you are claiming (Goldberg in particular has been repeatedly criticized for her consistent anti-trans bias), but that's honestly not relevant to my point here so I'm gonna leave it aside. My main point is that the main term used in the article ought to be "TERF", because "TERF" or "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" is used in the majority of reliable sources, including almost all neutral sources, and "gender-critical" isn't. GNU did find a few neutral sources that use the term "gender critical" (which I honestly wasn't expecting, good job gnu) but the vast majority of sources still favor "TERF", as even they admit. LokiTheLiar (talk) 00:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

The Inside Story source and the ISJ source are quite powerful arguments for including the term, IMO, since they are pretty close to neutral and yet use the term throughout. I still think that "TERF" should be used in the bulk of the article, however, since it's used in the balance of sources. (As an aside, some of those sources you (gnu) linked are both extremely good sources for this article and appear to be good places to mine for other sources. Particularly the ISJ source could be cited at basically any point in the article.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 00:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me, from my reading of the various sources, that "TERF" is like "yuppie" in that the acronym has taken on connotations beyond the original meaning of the full phrase. I'm inclined to suggest that we default to using the full form, "trans exclusionary radical feminists", while also mentioning that others call them TERFs and they call themselves gender-critical. Cheers, gnu57 02:52, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Actually, reading over the article again, I'm very happy with the way things are now, where we don't use Misplaced Pages's voice to call particular feminists any of these terms. Cheers, gnu57 03:09, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm totally fine with spelling out the full phrase. I would like to rewrite in an article in a way which does associate particular feminists with the term, because I feel like, like I've mentioned before on this talk page, any discussion of this topic that doesn't mention that Janice Raymond, Sheila Jefferys, and Germaine Greer are part of a single ideological tradition within feminism is missing some extremely important information. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh yes, good point. Alright, I'll support that. Cheers, gnu57 20:10, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Article full-protected

El C full-protected the article. It appears that El C did this due to the edit warring by A145GI15I95 and Mooeena (as seen here, here, here and here). It's best to go ahead and work this (and some other stuff) out now (either in the #Mention of "gender critical" in article section or this one). If the edit warring continues after expiration of the full-protection, El C or another admin will no doubt full-protect the article again or just block editors. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I recommend that further poor behaviour is reported at ANI rather than 3RR. Existing patterns of behaviour are well documented and discretionary sanctions apply, so there is a significantly lower bar for sanctions available rather than the very literal approach at 3RR of needing to see 4 reverts in 24 hours.

Related noticeboard discussions

1. 15 April 2019 3RR Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:A145GI15I95_reported_by_User:Mooeena_(Result:_Page_protected)
2. 11 April - 18 April 2019 DRN Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#Rewrite_and_Template_Removal
3. 16 March - 24 March 2019 ANI Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1006#Transgender-related_POV
4. 15 March 2019 NPOV Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard/Archive_75#User:Mooeena_&_Wiki:Detransition
5. 14 March 2019 COIN Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_141#User:Mooeena_&_Wiki:Detransition

The last example, where being "openly trans on their user page" is given as a rationale to take a contributor to COIN, is offensive, discriminatory and an extremely worrying misuse of Wikimedia policies. Even the second crack at NPOV (which the community entirely ignored) of "User is openly gender essentialist on their user page" appears based solely of LGBT+ related user boxes like preferring gender neutral language; have to say this, wow, that appears to be nothing but an inexcusable head on personal attack that was allowed to pass without any warnings.

The limitations of CLEANSTART are worth reminding people of, and appear to have been ignored, if they were ever relevant. --Fæ (talk) 13:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Fæ, as I wrote (moments ago) above and on another page, please stop focusing on my person on talk pages, and please stop using multiple threads on multiple pages for this same concern against my person (as you've done—on other days but this morning alone—in this very thread, on the two diffs I've just linked earlier in this sentence, and here). I've gotten the impression that you refuse any words that come from me. Such refusal, and this multitude of person-focused comments in disparate places, appears to be hounding. No human can be reasonably expected to keep track of all of your threads about the same concern on multiple pages. If you've a personal concern for me, please open an appropriate issue in one appropriate place. Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:39, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Fæ - as I understand it, blocked accounts are not eligible for FRESHSTART. Just sayin'...Newimpartial (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I do not believe there are any blocked accounts. The change of account name is unexplained, but the editing history makes it not an attempted cleanstart per policy as the same edits (and arguments) have persisted across accounts. There appears to be no valid reason to avoid showing the disruptive pattern of edits, including false transgender related claims generally, and against Misplaced Pages editors, goes back before 15 March 2019. Considering that DS applies, it would be astonishing if more evidence of disruption is required. --Fæ (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

 Administrator note I've unprotected the page early since Mooeena has not been around to participate in the discussion and the threat of further edit warring seems to have subsided. El_C 08:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Butler and Jeffreys consolidations?

We mention Butler responding to Jeffreys in two separate places in the article, one of which also has more about Butler beyond that; we also mention Jeffreys in another place in the article body (and in the lead). Should the two bits about Butler be consolidated in one location? (At the first location i.e. in the "support" section?) -sche (talk) 21:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's a good idea. Should the multiple mentions of Raymond be consolidated as well? gnu57 14:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Raymond is more complicated, because some of her comments are about specific things (like SRS) and are mentioned in the subsections on those things, which may make more sense than having subsections on the things but having her comments on them somewhere else. Some (partial) redundancy is inherent in the current structure, in other words. (The idea of organizing the article so that each feminist has her own section has been discussed before, but rejected.) -sche (talk) 00:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Also the content about Gloria Steinem is basically repeated twice in the article. We should consolidate it to one section and also mention that Steinem is now trans-inclusionary despite her earlier statements (per WP:BLP). Kaldari (talk) 04:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Good point; given that her comments about Renée Richards were in the context of Richards having SRS, putting them in the same place as her other comments (in the SRS section) would work and would resolve (remove) the weird "Feminist and trans issues" section of which they are currently the only contents. Steinem's more recent comments appear to already receive some mention; is there anything you would add? -sche (talk) 23:41, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I basically agree with what's being said in this discussion but I would like Steinem's more recent comments to be more prominent. This is both to represent her more fairly (since she's a living person) and because Steinem is sort of reflective of the overall discourse on this issue, which is a lot more trans-positive now than it was in the 70s. (As a matter of fact, I would like to rearrange the article chronologically, which would separate Steinem's older comments from her more recent ones.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:48, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, I moved the Steinem bits to one place, and the Butler bits to one place. I did not move the Raymond bits (for the reasons I mention above). I have not at this time tried to add verbiage about Steinem's recent views, though if someone would like to propose or boldly add some, please feel free to have a go. -sche (talk) 19:18, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Parking some refs here

historical primary sources

• Kessler, Suzanne J.; McKenna, Wendy (1985). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226432069. OCLC 615720621.
• Stone, Sandy (1 May 1992). "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto". Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies. 10 (2): 150–176. doi:10.1215/02705346-10-2_29-150.—Essay by Sandy Stone
• Ruby, Jennie; Mantilla, Karla (2000). "Men in Ewes' Clothing: The Stealth Politics of the Transgender Movement". off our backs. 30 (4): 5–12. JSTOR 20836589.—widely-cited radfem article
• Stryker, Susan (2007). "Transgender Feminism: Queering the Woman Question" (PDF). In Gillis, Stacey; Howie, Gillian; Munford, Rebecca (eds.). Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration (Expanded second ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 59–70. doi:10.1057/9780230593664_5.

contemporary viewpoints

• Allen, Charlotte (March 4, 2019). "Trans Men Erase Women". First Things.—neocon who says "TERF" is used to stigmatize lesbians who don't want to date trans women.
• Chu, Andrea Long (Winter 2018). "On Liking Women". n+1. No. 30, Motherland. Retrieved April 25, 2019.—transgender feminist who says that transitioning from male to female can be a radical political act of rejecting/excluding men, like lesbian separatism: "It is a supreme irony of feminist history that there is no woman more woman-identified than a gay trans girl like me."
• Yardley, Miranda (December 5, 2018). "Girl Dick, the Cotton Ceiling and the Cultural War on Lesbians, Girls and Women". AfterEllen. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
• Williams, Cristian; Butler, Judith (1 May 2014). "Gender Performance: The TransAdvocate interviews Judith Butler". TransAdvocate (Interview).—says "Gender Trouble was written about 24 years ago, and at that time I did not think well enough about trans issues."
• Chappell, Sophie-Grace; Lawford-Smith, Holly (November 15, 2018). "Transgender identities: a conversation between two philosophers". Aeon. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
• Serano, Julia (2013). Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. ISBN 9781580055048.—looks like there's material on past issues as well in ch. 11: "The issue of transsexuality has come up time and time again in cissexual feminist theory...."

non-academic discussion of particular disputes from people who weren't directly involved

• Jacques, Juliet (August 16, 2014). "On the "dispute" between radical feminism and trans people". The New Statesman. Retrieved April 16, 2019.—A (very long) essay by a transfeminist author
• Morris, Bonnie J. (2016). The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture. SUNY Press. ISBN 9781438461786. OCLC 969377660.—Talks about MichFest and Camp Trans
• Hay, Carol (April 1, 2019). "Opinion | Who Counts as a Woman?". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2019.—NYT op-ed
• McCann, Hannah; Nichols, Lucy (February 18, 2019). "Gender troubles". Inside Story. Retrieved April 26, 2019.—Mainly about responses to Judith Butler

academic sources

• Hines, Sally (2015). "Feminist Theories". In Robinson, Victoria; Richardson, Diane (eds.). Introducing Gender and Women's Studies. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 9781137310699.—A basic academic overview of feminist theories, queer theory, transfeminism, and trans-exclusionary feminism.
• Caldwell, Sue (November 19, 2017). "Marxism, feminism and transgender politics". International Socialism Journal (157).—Marxist perspective
• Bettcher, Talia; Garry, Ann (2009). "Introduction to Hypatia Special Issue: Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities" (PDF). Hypatia. 24 (3): 1–10.
• Wallace, Adrienne; Hanlon, Stephanie (1 February 2019). "Socialism and the fight against Transphobia". Irish Marxist Review. 8 (23): 15–23.—Another socialist journal

gnu57 12:49, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for not formatting these; as stated below, I'm not necessarily advocating adding these to the page but merely using them to demonstrate the balance of feminist sources.

• https://theslot.jezebel.com/supreme-court-allows-trumps-ban-on-trans-people-serving-1831952191 -- Jezebel on Trump's trans military ban, calls it a "piece of shit ban"
• https://jezebel.com/tag/transgender -- Jezebel's trans tag; overwhelmingly Jezebel articles on trans issues are trans-positive
• https://bust.com/general/195868-trump-transgender-military-ban-republican.html -- Bust article on Trump's trans military ban, advocates donating to several trans rights groups at the end.
• https://bust.com/search/newest-first.html?searchphrase=all&searchword=transgender -- Search for "transgender" on Bust.com
• https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/the-fall-of-weimar-nazis-trump -- Bitch Media article on Trump's policies on trans people, calls them "horrifying" and compares Trump to the Nazis.
• https://www.bitchmedia.org/topic/trans-issues -- Bitch Media's tag about trans issues
• https://www.autostraddle.com/fcking-hell-trump-just-signed-a-memo-enacting-trans-military-ban-391772/ -- Autostraddle's article on Trump's trans military ban; title is "F*cking Hell, Trump Just Signed a Memo Enacting Trans Military Ban" and links to another piece about perspectives of trans soldiers.
• https://www.autostraddle.com/tag/trans/ -- Autostraddle's trans tag
• https://msmagazine.com/2017/11/01/judge-rules-trumps-transgender-ban-is-a-violation-of-5th-amendment-rights/ -- Ms Magazine's article on Trump's trans military ban. This one is more news-y and less clearly trans-positive, but it does go out of its way to refute some of the claims made by the Trump administration, and quotes opponents but not supporters.
• https://msmagazine.com/tag/trans-rights/ -- Ms Magazine's "trans rights" tag.
• https://now.org/media-center/press-release/trumps-policy-reversal-will-lead-to-more-violence-against-transgender-americans/ -- NOW press release on Trump's trans military ban. Quote: "NOW stands with trans people"
• https://now.org/?s=trans -- search of NOW archives for "trans"

Just to be perfectly fair, the only trans-exclusionary feminist source I'm aware of is Feminist Current, which doesn't appear to have an article on Trump's trans military ban but which typically writes about trans issues like this. But Feminist Current is the only such trans-exclusionary feminist source, and is significantly smaller than any of these other sources. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:54, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Not to accuse you of doing this, but it is something I have seen people do before so just to make sure, tags shouldn't be cited, an actual article from the site should be. ShimonChai (talk) 03:09, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, just to be abundantly clear, you should not cite the tags directly and I was not advocating that. The point was to cut off the potential argument that I had cherrypicked a single trans-positive article, and to point out that there exist at least five or six other trans-positive articles and no trans-exclusionary ones from each of these feminist sites without actually linking every single article directly. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:36, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that if you're trying to characterise the overall landscape of women's media, it's better to use meta sources like this one which outright says that popular lesbian women's sites are trans-supportive. It might be good to mention that alongside the "exclusion of trans women from LGBT spaces" material. But really we can't just heap up a number of sources articulating particular viewpoints—to determine due weight we need ones giving an academic overview of the different schools of thought, like "groups a and b think this, groups c and d think that (and no one cares what that fringy group e thinks, so we're barely mentioning them)". Cheers, gnu57 11:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Chronological Reorganization

Since nobody objected when I suggested it in Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#Proposals_To_Rework, I've gone ahead and reorganized the page more-or-less chronologically. I ended up going by whether the feminist in question was originally active in the second-wave, third-wave, or fourth-wave since that seemed to make the most sense for the sake of future sub-headers. On that note, while I still think this way of organizing the page makes more sense then the mish-mash of random headers we had before, it does emphasize the listy-ness of the page quite a bit. I think the next step is to put in some subheaders and some summaries of the views at issue, which I'll do assuming some people agree that this organization scheme in general is a good idea. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:49, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Reverted. In the #General Structure section, you made a suggestion to go with chronological order, yes, but it's not like you suggested this exact format, which divides the topics by periods of feminism instead of by specific issues (except for "TERF"). The reason that your setup is not a good setup is because it makes it seems like none of these groups' views intersect/overlap and it aids redundancy. It also deprives readers of learning about the topic by issues. "Differences in socialization and experience," for example, is not just something that radical feminists have weighed in on; we can clearly see that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has also weigh in on it as well. Socialization views should be in one section, and it's the same for other topics. Except for retaining the Adichie comment, I don't see where you put the socialization material in your version. You also cut a lot of other material. I'm not stating that you should not have cut any of it, but you should be clear about what you are cutting and why. Were you simply aiming to put in a version similar to the first version you put in and I reverted? No one stated that the current setup is great. That is why editors are trying to work together on the setup, rather than make unilateral changes. In the #Recent changes to the lead and drafting section above, yes, I reiterated that I am working on a draft. But I was clear that I would post it here for everyone to review first. I also suggested that others with draft ideas post their drafts. It's easy to make a draft in one's sandbox and to then link to it. Given the controversial nature of this topic and that the article has already been full-protected due to edit warring, it would have been best for you to go the "here is my draft" route. Dividing by "periods of feminism" works for a History section. And a History section is one aspect that is in my draft. But I'm careful to not have much of the specific issues in the History section since I feel that those should be their own sections. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I have a few major things to say here:

1. Bold-Revert-Discuss is an explicit policy of Misplaced Pages. We'd gone through the cycle once, and it seemed like we had consensus for some kind of major reorganization of the page, so it appeared it was time for another bold edit. This particular rewrite was specifically not the same as the one I'd done previously other than being a reorganization of the page, in order to keep with the consensus on this talk page about how to reorganize the article.

2. While I rearranged a lot, I deliberately cut as little as possible. In fact, I cut only pieces which did not fit anywhere on the page.

3. The specific objection to reorganization you have laid out has so far only been expressed by you. Multiple other editors (specifically, both sche and Mathglot) expressed support for reorganizing the page last time I asked about it, and nobody objected despite having several days to, during which conversation on this page was otherwise very active. Because of this, I suspect consensus is against you on this, but I'm gonna toss it to everyone else to make sure: do people support a major reorganization of this page, and if so how? LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:07, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Loki, it's hard to know how to respond to "a major reorg" without more details, or example sections. Trying it on the article page is one way to show what you mean, and you got a revert. Another way, is just copy the section you mean to change, here, and collapse it (with COLLAPSED by default), and ask for comments. Or, you can just describe your plans in more detail. Mathglot (talk) 02:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

That's fair. Gonna take a crack at a draft in a sandbox, then. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:BRD is a supplement page. It is not a policy or a guideline. In 2015, editors (including me) voted against making it a guideline. The reasons why are stated there in that linked discussion.

There was no consensus for the version -- either version -- you implemented.

You stated that "while rearranged a lot, deliberately cut as little as possible. In fact, cut only pieces which did not fit anywhere on the page." The edit history indicates that you cut 3,748 characters. And, as I noted, "Differences in socialization and experience" does fit on the page.

You stated that "the specific objection to reorganization have laid out has so far only been expressed by ." Eh? We only very recently got to see the layout you had in mind. I certainly did not picture that layout when you suggested chronological order. In the #General Structure section, where you suggested chronological order, there isn't even any agreement to go that route. Editors agreeing that the article needs a revamp obviously doesn't mean that they are going to agree to any version you suggest. I obviously agree that the article needs a revamp. That is, after all, why I am working on a draft. That, and because I'm tired of people editing the article based on their personal opinions and/or flawed interpretations of the rules. Like Mathglot stated, "it's hard to know how to respond to 'a major reorg' without more details, or example sections." That's pretty much what I stated to you. As for consensus, if I felt like rushing the draft I'm working on, I'm certain that a WP:RfC would see my draft chosen over yours. But, although I might need to go that RfC route in the future, this isn't a competition. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, as seen at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Undue (my "00:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)" post), I clearly stated that "I would consider having a section titled 'Radical feminism,' 'Contemporary feminism,' etc., but I feel that redundancy would result in that case because different types of feminists will be in agreement on some things or in disagreement on the same things. Titles such as 'Radical feminism' and 'Contemporary feminism' could cover a lot of material. So I think it's better to specifically address issues, such as 'Socialization differences,' like we currently do and include the views from different types of feminists in those sections." It seemed that Aircorn was partly in agreement with me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to choose to ignore the snippiness in that comment and instead just link everyone to my draft. It's deliberately more similar to my first attempt at rewriting the page since after trying both I feel that version was a lot clearer and less of a list of random feminists, and I still object to any version of the page that doesn't make it clear that Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, and Germaine Greer share an ideological position that Adichie and Steinem do not share. Feel free to edit it with suggested changes even though it's in my sandbox.

The problem with zooming into individual issues is, to quote sche from the previous discussion on reorganizing, "the non-issue-specific sections are needed because so much opposition and support is generic". I have no problem with a structure like the one in Feminist_views_on_pornography, but putting issue positions at the top level makes the most important piece of information in the article (namely, that these are largly two camps within feminism) extremely unclear. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:44, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

There isn't any more snippiness in that comment than you stating that "the specific objection to reorganization have laid out has so far only been expressed by " when we had only very recently got to see the layout you had in mind, and when there has been a discussion on such a setup before and an editor understood what I meant by not going with it (although, yes, you probably overlooked that). As seen in the #Retitle section? Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints & non-neutrality discussion, -sche has also understood what I mean regarding the division and section titling issues. There isn't any more snippiness in my above response to you than you stating "Because of this, suspect consensus is against on this." To me, it seems that you keep trying to turn this into a "Flyer vs. everyone else" thing, even though, just like at the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard, editors are generally interested to see what I have to state and/or present on matters and don't look at me with suspicion. And that is because my reputation speaks for itself. If people state differently about me off Misplaced Pages, which I'm sure some do, it still generally doesn't translate to feelings about me on Misplaced Pages.

Anyway, as for your version, it needs work partly for the reasons I stated above in this section. This is regardless of whether or not editors feel that it's better than the current version. Consolidating issues in one section is not about making it seem like "Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, and Germaine Greer share an ideological position that Adichie and Steinem do not share." For the socialization section currently in the article, for example, those women (including Adichie) were placed in that section because they all have views on socialization. It is easy enough to make it clear in that section what type of feminist Adichie is. But regardless of what type of feminist she is, she was very much criticized for the "trans women are trans women" statement, which is indeed a view that many radical feminists have. Why should socialization material be scattered about instead of covered in one section? The same goes for other specific issues. Why should we make it difficult for readers to locate these specific issues and have material presented without counterpoints in one section? Why should we employ such a setup when it lends to redundancy, addressing the same topic but in different sections? The only section in your draft that has a heading specifically addressing an issue is the "TERF" section, and you included it under the "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" section. But as we know, that section is not just about their views and many or most of them object to the term "TERF." One might argue that the "TERF" topic is more of a trans-inclusive view matter, given that it's that area of feminism that coined the term and sometimes uses it more broadly than it should be used. Deciding which section "TERF" best belongs to is one of the issues with dividing material as "Trans-exclusionary views" and "Trans-inclusive views". These two sides have different views on the same issues (and, at times, similar views on some issues, such as "some degree of male privilege"), and the article should be divided in a way that presents each of those issues with a section specifically devoted to whichever issue and while adhering to WP:Due weight. That these are largely two camps within feminism is something for the lead and a History section to cover. It is simple to make it clear what type of feminist each person being mentioned/quoted is.

One example of splitting material into "Trans-exclusionary views" and "Trans-inclusive views" not being ideal is the socialization material. You moved the following out of the socialization section (getting rid of a socialization section) and into a sectioned tilted "Trans-inclusive views": "Some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." But this is not just a trans-inclusive view argument. In fact, as should be clear from the source, enough people view it as a trans-exclusive argument. But either way, although the source states that "this particular debate began more than 40 years ago, at the height of the second-wave feminist movement," the source does not attribute the view to radical feminists or to trans-inclusive feminists. The sources states, " comments propelled her to the center of a nuanced, long-running gender identity debate between some feminists and transgender rights activists." It also states, "The dilemma is based on the belief that most trans women were born assigned to the male gender and were raised male until they decided to transition. As a result, some feminists argue, transgender women spent a fraction — or large part — of their early lives experiencing male privilege." Having this material in a socialization section is much better than having it split and making it out as belonging to just one side of feminism. Also, per WP:EDITORIAL, your "However, Adichie later clarified those comments" piece should probably simply be "Adichie later stated." I understand that she was clarifying due to criticism she received, but it's not like she went back on her comment; she, like the source states, stands by it. And there are trans women who disagree with her. The source clearly states, "Adichie's comments sparked outrage over the weekend among transgender people and transgender rights activists, who insisted that 'transgender women ARE women' and disputed the idea that transgender women in general experienced privilege before transitioning." Again, the socialization material belongs in its own section, as separate from being labeled a trans-exclusionary view or a trans-inclusive view. And the same can be stated for some other issues.

The Feminist views on pornography article is a poor article as well, but at least its current split of "Anti-pornography feminism" and "Sex-positive and anti-censorship feminist views" have headings for specific issues within the sections. Still, per my comments above, I don't like that setup for this article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:43, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that socialization material should be scattered about, but the problem with putting these issues in top-level sections is that these are not a bunch of unrelated debates. The primary argument here is between trans-exclusionary radical feminists and trans-inclusive feminists, and the issue positions largely only make sense within that framework. I wouldn't mind separate top-level sections on the difference between a Serano-esque classical transfeminist narrative and Butlerian deconstruction of gender, because those are legitimately different positions, but within them they have specific views on each section of the overall argument.

One thing in particular I want to make clear, since you put so much emphasis on Adichie in particular and on the socialization section in general: Most trans feminists, including Julia Serano, agree that trans women had male privilege at some point in their lives. The debate is not whether or not trans women had male privilege, it's about whether or not that means that they are men. That is why this, like all the other issues, is largely another extension of a greater overall debate about whether or not trans women are women.

Let me offer a compromise position, though: would you be okay with grouping together each overall ideological position as subheaders within the issue sections? I think this is still not the 'natural' way the debate is organized, but it would satisfy my primary concern that Raymond, Jefferys and Greer (who are all consistently hostile to trans people, whose hostility is based on a shared and detailed ideology, and who have all said several things that neutral observers have characterized as bigoted) are not clearly distinguished from Adichie (who, as the source also states, is an LGBTQ activist who said something that sounded transphobic and later clarified her comments) or Steinem (who did legitimately hold some trans-exclusionary views in the 70s but later changed them). LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:31, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I understand what you mean regarding "a bunch of unrelated debates." I've pointed to the need to better summarize views and not have so much blow-for-blow material. I still have an issue with the type of setups I've objected to above, though.

It's not that I'm putting "so much emphasis on Adichie in particular and on the socialization section in general." It's that, like that The Washington Post source states, "Adichie's comments sparked outrage among transgender people and transgender rights activists, who insisted that 'transgender women ARE women' and disputed the idea that transgender women in general experienced privilege before transitioning." Notice how both aspects are mentioned as being disputed by some. I've noted the importance of a socialization section because this next line by Adichie is shared by many feminists: "Gender matters because of socialization. And our socialization shapes how we occupy our space in the world." It's not so much about Adichie; she has one piece in the article thus far. It's about the views and some of those views being debated. You stated that "Most trans feminists agree that trans women had male privilege at some point in their lives." That needs a source...because The Washington Post source shows just the opposite. You stated, "The debate is not whether or not trans women had male privilege, it's about whether or not that means that they are men." But The Washington Post source shows that it's about both. For some, it's simply about debating that trans women had any male privilege at all. Part of the debate is about whether or not the experiences of cisgender women and trans women can really be considered the same or similar enough to not separate cisgender women and trans women into two different groups (regardless of them being two different groups by definition -- one group being cisgender and the other being transgender). Adichie clearly did not state that trans women are not women; she's arguing, like she stated, that she think it's a good thing to talk about women's issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women because think that's true." Of course, some have taken issue with her stating things like "women's issues" in a way that seems to exclude trans women, but, from what I see, it's likely that she simply isn't in the habit of using the term cisgender.

I'm not clear on your "would you be okay with grouping together each overall ideological position as subheaders within the issue sections?" question. Your "Conflict between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists" heading is fine for now. It might need subheadings at some point. Regarding this, someone added it because it's about a part of the socialization aspect. We should make clear how radical feminists view gender, often or usually not believing in the male or female brain, regardless of what neuroscience of sex differences show, which contributes to them feeling the way that they do about trans women.

As for "not clearly distinguished from Adichie (who, as the source also states, is an LGBTQ activist who said something that sounded transphobic and later clarified her comments) or Steinem (who did legitimately hold some trans-exclusionary views in the 70s but later changed them)".... Again, it's easy to distinguish them via text. It is easy to note in the socialization section what Adichie's political affiliation is, that Adichie is an LGBTQ activist, and that (as noted in your sandbox) she stated, " I see how my saying that we should not conflate the gender experiences of trans women with that of women born female could appear as if I was suggesting that one experience is more important than the other. Or that the experiences of trans women are less valid than those of women born female. I do not think so at all."

Regarding this, I restored it, because, like I stated, "It's obvious conflict since these people feel like their voices are being silenced." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:31, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

By subheaders, I mean having a "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" subheader and a "trans-inclusive feminism" subheader under each of the various issues. So, for example, "trans-exclusionary radical feminist views on socialization" and "trans-inclusive views on socialization".

About your restoration: yes, they feel like their voices are being silenced, but that by itself is not a conflict, it's a complaint. If there was some actual incident they could point to, then I would agree we should add it back in, but IMO a quote from one side or the other is never going to be a conflict by itself. Conflicts require action on both sides. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:31, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd rather we have one socialization section. Yes, that section might need subheadings at some point, but giving it the "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" and "trans-inclusive feminism" subheadings pose the same problems I addressed above about the overlap and redundancy. Plus, per MOS:Paragraphs, "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading." We typically shouldn't add subheadings unless needed. Considering what I noted about clarifying with text and considering that the current socialization material in the article is a little bit of material, subheadings are not needed in this case. Also, repeatedly dividing things in a "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" and "trans-inclusive feminism" way would lead to a lot of unnecessary subheadings. Just about every issue would be divided that way if there is enough material for it, leading to a crowded template of contents. Even if we use Template: TOC limit, it's unnecessary clutter.

Regarding conflict; I'm not grasping the way you are distinguishing "conflict." Those feminists feel that they are being silenced by trans feminists and people who agree with trans feminists (although, as we've discussed before, not all feminists, whether cisgender or transgender, think alike). It's a conflict. And regardless, it's an aspect that belongs in the article. As for "actual incident," one incident is mentioned. And going back to "conflict," it would help to include the other side's view, although Jeffreys mentions "transhate, transphobia, hate speech" and it's easy to deduce from that piece that the other side views comments by these feminists as transhate, transphobia, and hate speech. Either way, we should obviously try to avoid just documenting incidents. Occasionally documenting an incident is fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:08, 22 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the conflict section: I think I sort of see the distinction here. The placement of the Bellos incident in the paragraph makes it look like she's being used as an example to support Sheila Jeffrey's argument that trans women are being silenced. It's not clear that Bellos herself supports that idea. That seems non-neutral to me. More broadly: the last third or so of that section seems to rely heavily on (in essence) re-hashing editorials. It seems like recentism to dedicate 2 paragraphs to Bindel's opinion columns when we only dedicate one to the Michigan Womyn's Festival incident. Couldn't those be condensed? Nblund 15:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Would the conflict case be clearer if the title was instead "Conflicts between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists"? Every other case in the section is an instance of a conflict, concrete, count noun, between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. Particular incidents of conflict like the Sandy Stone conflict, the Michfest conflict, the Kimberly Nixon incident, the incident between Tara Wolf and Maria MacLachlan, and so on. On the other hand, the Jeffreys and Bellos quotes are not concrete incidents, they are about a general sense of conflict between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. Well, most of this page is about that vague sense of conflict between those two groups, but we obviously shouldn't shove it all in the same section. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind "conflict" being changed to "conflicts," but I don't see it as needed. Just going with "conflict" is similar to how we go with singular article titles per WP:SINGULAR.

I see that Nblund made this cut. I don't see that the article loses anything by removing that piece. Well, except for mention of the Iran issue...if other feminists also talk about it (since, as mentioned in the LGBT rights in Iran article, it's true that gay men have been pressured to undergo sex reassignment surgery in order to avoid legal and social persecution), and except for losing mention on the transgender protest at the Stonewall Awards. We can cover the Stonewall Awards material in some other way, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

On the nature of transwomen

There are sufficient number of people or organizations who have opined on the nature of transwomen, that I wonder if it might be useful (especially if we go with a thematic structure) to have a subsection about this. We already have a few opinions sprinkled around: Adichie: "trans women are trans women"; Greer: "trans women are not women" (in note 24, sort of, but betterattested in BBC interview, and reported by The Independent); Catharine Mackinnon: "anyone who identifies as a woman..."; Atwood (via double-negative): " not the kind that thinks that trans women are not women"; Raymond: "a transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist", LOOT: a "sex-change he-creature"; Nancy Burkholder: not "womyn-born-womyn". I'm sure there are more. Sandy Stone, Julia Serano, and Jennifer Finney Boylan are feminists, too, and their opinions, as well as other transfeminists', could go here as well. Mathglot (talk) 05:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

As the nature of this as a topic has as much potential to cause offence as listing historical views that dehumanize Jews, it is of debatable use unless other ways with a more holistic approach are thought ineffective. --Fæ (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Mostly agreed with Fae. I would like to get in some of the differences between the Butlerian perspective and the classical transfeminist perspective somewhere, though. I guess what I'm saying is, I wouldn't mind a section about feminist opinions on the nature of gender, but just a bunch of people saying that trans women are or are not women is not really useful information by itself. LokiTheLiar (talk) 15:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps, but much of the article causes offence to one group or the other; it's the nature of this article. It was an organizational question intended to be an improvement to the article. And I don't see why grouping this information together, would cause more offence than is already caused by having it spread all over the article; pretty much everything quoted above is already present in it. Or, do you think grouping it, somehow is not an improvement, or causes offence when consolidated, where it doesn't when separated? That would seem like a better argument against it, if you are going to argue against it. And it's not about "just a bunch of people saying that trans women are or are not women", as there are different opinions among radical feminists, not to mention transfeminists, about that question. Mathglot (talk) 09:59, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

So, I do think that grouping it is not an improvement. Just listing a bunch of people saying whether or not trans women are women without any additional analysis of that opinion isn't an encyclopedia article, it's a poll. The article already has a problem with being a series of disconnected quotes. To some extent this is unavoidable; it's like that because it's hard to find sources on this topic that are reliable enough to allow us to write in WP's voice. But I definitely don't want to make it even worse, by taking a bunch of quotes out of situations where they actually are in something resembling a proper context (like the LOOT quote, which is a part of the history of the dispute over Sandy Stone and would not otherwise be worth including) and lumping them together without that context.

But also, I'm sympathetic to Fae's concern. The article already has multiple NPOV templates for giving undue weight to TERF views. I don't think that most of those quotes really should be in the article, frankly, and they certainly shouldn't all be together. We wouldn't have a section titled 'slurs for trans women' in this article, but as you've described it that's basically what this section is going to be: by taking stuff like the LOOT quote out of the context of the dispute over Sandy Stone and putting it in its own section, you've turned what was originally a piece of trans and feminist history and turned it into a context-free slur against trans women. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The socialization aspect, which includes dicussion of gender, should definitely be covered in the aricle per WP:Due weight, and it's currently somewhat covered in the article.

As for consolidatation, I spoke of that in the #Chronological Reorganization section above. I wasn't speaking of doing it in a problematic way. I don't see a need for a title such as "On the nature of transwomen" (not that I'm stating that Mathglot was suggesting that). "The nature of transwomen" should be discussed in respective sections, such as the socialization section. Sex reassignment surgery is another topic, and currently has its own section. I don't think that Mathglot was suggesting anything like "slurs for trans women" or something that would essentially amount to that or similar. And, anyway, we already have a List of LGBT-related slurs article.

As for the tags, the POV and undue weight tags shouldn't be there...for reasons I've already explained and Mathglot echoed in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. And that is even more so the case now because of how the how article has changed since they were placed. The "relies too much on references to primary sources" tag is questionable because this article currently mainly relies on media sources instead of academic sources and so many or most of those sources are opinion pieces or similar. So, of course, the article is going to mainly consist of primary sources. A source being a media source obviously doesn't automatically make it a seconary source. For example, like WP:RSBREAKING states, "All breaking-news stories, without exception, are primary sources, and must be treated with caution." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm okay with removing the primary sources tag (because I agree that is sort of the nature of the article), but I still object to removing either of the NPOV tags. The reasoning is that the article still IMO gives undue weight to trans-exclusionary feminists. Currently, although trans-exclusionary views are no longer presented as the majority, they're still presented as, for one, speaking independently instead of as a cohesive unit, and two, their opinions take up a little under half the article when even a TERF-sympathetic source we already have in the article says "Such views are shared by few feminists now". (More completely, my personal intuition would say that trans-exclusionary radical feminists are basically WP:FRINGE in most English-speaking countries including the US, but a fairly influential minority in the UK. But I don't have a source ready for that other than simply comparing Guardian editorials to similar editorials in an American paper with a similar slight left lean.)

The state of the article as it is now is, IMO, a little like writing an article on the Democratic Party in America in such a way that it quotes three communists, scattered across the article, against three mainstream Democrats. It's certainly not like there are zero communists in the Democratic Party, but presenting them like that implies that communism and capitalism are equally prevalent within the party, and that's certainly not the case.

(Also: I anticipate the objection that it's prevalence within reliable sources and not true prevalence that matters. However, most reliable sources are, again, trans-inclusive. While I agree TERFs are more influential on the internet than they are in real life, it's still the case that the heavy majority of feminist sources are trans-inclusive.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't give undue weight to the trans-exclusionary feminist view. As seen in the #Rewrite and Template Removal section, I've been over this. So has Mathglot, in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. So, for now, I'm not repeating myself on that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I also disagree with the article's tags. I disagree that undue weight is given to the terf/gc viewpoint, and I disagree that the viewpoint is fringe. For clarity of all editors, should a new section on this talk page be created specifically to address the tags? A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes (and I'm going to create that section in this edit), but the fact that we appear to be at an impass (me and Fae vs. you, Flyer, and maybe Mathglot with nobody else having commented on this topic so far) means I really think we ought to get some kind of third opinion on this topic. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This makes sense. The whole debate revolves around this issue so it should probably be the first section. AIRcorn (talk) 07:26, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Rachel McKinnon YouTube

Is this notable?

Philosopher of language and trans activist Rachel McKinnon also argues that TERF is not a slur, nor even pejorative by itself, because TERF can be used in a purely descriptive way, while slurs and all derogatory terms are necessarily derogatory in all contexts.

Source is self-published (McKinnon's YouTube). A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, for several different reasons: first, "notability" doesn't apply within pages. Second, self-published sources can be used for the speaker's own views. If either of those things wasn't true, most of this article would have to go. Furthermore, in this particular case, McKinnon is a philosopher of language, and therefore a relevant expert on the subject matter according to WP:SPS. And finally, her video is quoted within another source that's also linked on this page, so I think it's self-evidently usable on this page even if all of those other things were not true. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:38, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Loki that ABOUTSELF applies here: we're using McKinnon's self-published video to explain McKinnon's own views. It wouldn't be worthwhile to include the views of every random person posting on YouTube, but McKinnon is well known as a feminist transgender advocate. Cheers, gnu57 17:52, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

This talk page is a mess to follow. I removed two sentences cited to youtube. We rarely cite youtube in articles on non-controversial topics. Why would we cite it here? FWIW I left other primary source in. Anyone can say anything they want on youtube so there is no weight to pulling someone from there, especially ones with no obvious notability. If it is worth saying here then their views will be presented on a more reliable platform. AIRcorn (talk) 18:10, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that we should swap out the McKinnon youtube ref for the Philosophy and Phenomenological Research paper that the other philosophers were objecting to:

• McKinnon, Rachel (March 2018). "The Epistemology of Propaganda". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 96 (2): 483–489. doi:10.1111/phpr.12429.

McKinnon asserts in the paper that TERF isn't a slur and other people who say so are pushing propaganda. I think it would be helpful to give this information immediately before the info about the seven other philosophers, to make it clear what they were responding to here. (They also published a longer and more formal response here.) Cheers, gnu57 18:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

That source is fine. You tube should not be used at all. AIRcorn (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I would be fine with adding that source, but my concern with replacing it entirely is that we'd be replacing a publicly accessible source for a source behind a paywall. (Though, I was able to find a PDF of it or what might be a draft of it on her site, so we might want to add a URL to that citation.) Even with that PDF, I don't want to remove the YouTube citation, because in the paper she says the idea that TERF is a slur is absurd but only cites a paper on the nature of slurs and does not walk the reader through her reasoning like she does in the YouTube video. (Also to Aircorn: McKinnon not having an article doesn't mean she's not notable. AFAICT McKinnon is actually notable for two entirely separate things. She's been covered for her work as a transgender activist, like in some of the sources of this very article, and she was also at the center of a trans women in sports controversy after she won a cycling tournament.)

Also to be clear: the reason we're using so many primary and self-published sources is that the article is largely about the opinions of political activists, and primary and self-published sources are often the only places such activists publish their opinions. All the trans activists currently cited have been recognized as experts on trans feminist topics by mainstream media organizations, so it's not exactly a huge leap to cite them using primary sources given that. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This is completely wrong. We should be using secondary sources as much as possible to determine which opinions are the notable ones. Otherwise we may as well be the secondary source, which we are not. AIRcorn (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Media 'terf' usage

Are all three of these new sentences notable and accurate?

Many feminist media organizations (such as Feministing, Jezebel, Bitch Media, and Autostraddle) use the term "TERF" in the organization's voice. Some mainstream media organizations (such as The New York Times and the Huffington Post) have used the term in editorials. The Telegraph and NBC News have used the term in news articles.

Their inclusion seem defensive. The last sentence seems especially unnecessary, since it's referring to quotation of the word in reporting, not usage in the publishers' voices. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:41, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I think it would be better to find sources which fall on the "mention" side of the use-mention distinction—ones which discuss TERF as a word, rather than just using it. I went looking for the term in news style guides but didn't turn up anything.I've been thinking—how about spinning off the bulk of the TERF section into a stand-alone article covering the origin, usage, and discussion/evaluation of the term itself? I mean something like the articles for feminazi, Bernie Bro, cracker (term), and RINO. I think there's enough coverage by reliable sources to do so. Cheers, gnu57 17:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

A145: Eh, I admit the NBC source is a bit marginal, since it only uses the acronym once, but the Telegraph source does use it in the publisher's voice several times. My response to the allegation of defensiveness is that the rest of the section is also quite defensive but in the opposite direction, so I was attempting to inject some balance.

gnu: I think it would be pretty reasonable to create a page for trans-exclusionary radical feminists and put a lot of the stuff in this article in there. I don't think the term itself is big enough for an article, though. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

It comes off as a bit weird just to list a ton of times media organizations used the term without context, or without quoting what they said about the term specifically. ShimonChai (talk) 22:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the addition, I tweaked and trimmed it. Like I stated when trimming it, "This is not how we do things. When discussing debate over a term, we don't then list organization after organization or news outlet after news outlet that may have used or refused to use the term." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

As for the term "TERF," I don't see that it yet needs its own Misplaced Pages article. It's best to follow WP:No page in this case. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

The main advantage I see to creating a standalone page, is that the bulk of the content could all be moved there, and following summary style recommendations, the Terf sections in all the other articles that talk about it, could be reduced to a few sentences, topped by a {{Main}} link pointing to the new article. Also, that would localize discussions about the term to the new talk page. The way it seems now, is that discussions about TERF suck up all the oxygen in several different articles' Talk pages, that are primarily about something else. I'd love to contain and localize that, and move most of that strife elsewhwere.

That said, Flyer's probably right that WP:NOPAGE applies, and probably trumps everything I've just said. But if people want to create a new article, I'm not going to argue very much against that; it might be that promoting civility and just generally getting these other articles moving forward without Terf wars as a stumbling block, balances out the contrary conclusion recommended at NOPAGE. Mathglot (talk) 08:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd support creation of an article for the word "terf" (and not its spelled version, which isn't as notable, common, and controversial, and which would more be about a perspective already covered by this existing page). The word has a history, it has differing interpretations, and it's entered the mainstream. We've many other slangs and slurs with their own articles that are mere stubs: En homme, Daddy (slang), Stone butch, Gabacho, Batty boy, Chicken (gay slang), Boi (slang)… A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:58, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Returning to the topic of this section (the media list), thanks for trimming the NBC and Telegraph mentions in reporting, which were misleading as if endorsements. I'm still concerned (but not outright opposing) the remaining list, for the reasons stated by two other editors above in this thread. If the publishers released statements in support or opposition of the word, that'd be notable. But a list of pubs that use the word in their own voice seems tedious to ascertain and maintain. It's unclear presently if they've done so consistently or just once. And this could similarly lead to a tedious list of pubs that object to the word in their own voice. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

• This needs secondary sources. Simply searching for the term TERF in newspapers and on organisations web pages is original research. We don't know what has been cherry picked or not. AIRcorn (talk) 18:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, upon thinking about it more, that line definitely is original research. (It's not cherry-picked, but the reader would have no way of knowing that.) I'm gonna comment that line out except for the USA Today article I just added for the sake of possibly using the citations later. The reason I'm excepting the USA Today article is that it's the only one where the news organization talks about the term directly instead of just using it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Its just part of a glossary of terms and doesn't really add anything. AIRcorn (talk) 23:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

The thing it adds is that it's one of the very few instances of a mainstream news source taking an explicit side on this controversy (not just by defining the word but also by calling TERFs "transphobic"). And not even in an opinion section either; that's a glossary in their news section written by a journalist. (I would like to integrate it more naturally into the page, though; currently it sticks out quite a bit.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

If anything it supports the TERF as a slur paragraph. But we really should be trimming this section not adding to it. AIRcorn (talk) 07:13, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I've now removed the commented content. It's just two sentences, but its six refs make it look like a large paragraph. The comment also has no date or note for future editors to explain its presence. The content can easily be found in the edit log (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics&diff=894103230&oldid=894102322) if needed later. And consensus here seems to be against its inclusion regardless of rewording or resourcing. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

TERF trim

I trimmed some of the quotes and consolidated the section somewhat. It was reverted half way through and other changes made, so I it was lost in a n edit conflict. Here is what I had. Don't really care if we start a new article or not, but it is no reason for this one to bloat out like it is at the moment. AIRcorn (talk) 18:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of trimming the section down, but the problem is that the trimmed section is further from NPOV. My biggest single concern is that it leaves in a self-published source arguing against the term "TERF" from Deborah Cameron, a sociolinguist, but removes a similarly self-published source arguing for it by Rachel McKinnon, a philosopher of language. IMO, McKinnon really ought to be cited an additional time for her article on the topic, not only because it's involved in a controversy mentioned on the page, but also because it's one of the few academic sources that deals with the controversy either way (though, I found and will add this mention of the controversy in an academic paper while searching). LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:47, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

How about we add McKinnon back in with her paper mentioned above as the source instead of You tube. AIRcorn (talk) 23:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm still reluctant to do only that if we're gonna let Cameron's blog stay in. Her video is even mentioned in another source on the page; by any measure it's a more notable source than a blog, even a blog by an expert. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing notable about hosting a video on you tube. I can find ones laying claim to flat earth, the evils of vaccines, chemtrails and god knows what other conspiracy theories. Why not just use this source?. As an aside it is a real nuisance to verify video sources. You are effectively forcing someone to watch 20 minutes to find verify a single sentence. AIRcorn (talk) 06:52, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Certainly it is true that any wingnut can make a Youtube video, but that's also true for blogs. The thing that makes this particular one reliable is the credentials of the author, and the fact that she's a well-known figure on one side of the political debate at issue here. Even WP:SPS goes into how it is sometimes appropriate to cite a self-published "when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". McKinnon is an established expert in philosophy of language (see here), and her work on the subject even defined very narrowly has not only been published, it is even separately mentioned in this article. Also, FWIW, while the flat earth page doesn't cite any Youtube videos, it lists several in its external links section, and the page on anti-vaxxers actually does cite a Youtube video.

The reason not to rely on the Inside Higher Ed source is that it contains no information about McKinnon's actual argument that TERF is not a slur, which is both relevant to the controversy and notable because she is an expert on the topic. It even says that she directed them to her YouTube video when asked to explain. I suspect there are very few self-published sources anywhere on Misplaced Pages that are as appropriate to cite as this one, since it is by a published expert and then separately mentioned in a reliable source.

As for the nuisance argument, it's also a nuisance to verify books or academic sources behind a paywall, which does not stop either of those from being used as citations when they're appropriate. Not that we shouldn't consider nuisance at all, but the ease of verifying a source is definitely secondary to the informativeness of the article. LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I would take a blog over youtube as long as we establish they are an expert on the matter. Youtube just sets a bad precedent. Ideally, we would have neither. There is a whole BLP issue to consider with regards to self published sources which should probably be applied here anyway. And yes a reliable source behind a paywall should always trump youtube. AIRcorn (talk) 17:37, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Following ongoing concerns for content length throughout this talk page, and the moderately supported suggestion earlier in this thread and in the Media 'terf' usage section above that the "terf"-word content would belong better in its own article, I've now perhaps boldly migrated the majority of this article's The term "TERF" section to the article TERF. Please feel free to re-add content if I cut too much. Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 00:44, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I know we've disagreed a lot in the past, but honestly good job. Somehow the new article you've split off is way better than this article is. It's honestly to the point where I'm wondering again if an article on "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" in general might be a good idea. The clear purpose of the article on "TERF" suggests a natural kind of organization and makes it much easier to balance properly than this article which has a much more nebulous purpose, and I suspect such an article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism in general would be similar.

I am going to move the line about being a minority within feminism back up to the intro, since it's not about the term TERF, it's about trans-exclusionary radical feminists as a movement. I would really like to have a section about the movement, because I do agree it should go in there and not really the intro, but we don't, so the intro is currently the best place for it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:07, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate your saying so, thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Per what I stated in the #Article split and in the #Media 'terf' usage sections above, I don't think it was a good idea to create a TERF article. In addition to my reasons given above, it's just another article for editors to fight over and worry about WP:NPOV issues. But I'm not going to go contest its creation. I have too many other articles to worry about. If an "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" article was created in addition to the existence of the TERF article, I would seek to have it deleted. It would truly be a WP:Content fork issue. Like WP:POV fork states, "In contrast, POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a 'POV fork' of the first, and is inconsistent with Misplaced Pages policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Misplaced Pages does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion." Having both a "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" article and a TERF article would be completely unnecessary content forking, especially since so many sources about trans-exclusionary radical feminism are specifically about that term (as a simple Google search shows). And then there is the redundancy issue, which would not be a simple redundancy issue that is expected. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism is mainly attributed to radical feminism. Common sense and WP:Content forking tells us that trans-exclusionary radical feminist content that is not redundant to radical feminism content should be covered in the Radical feminism article. It is the term "TERF" that is WP:Notable, not the concept. Again, a simple Google search shows this.

The "they are a minority" aspect is now both in the lead and lower. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Removal of page templates

Currently this page has several templates: a "too many quotations" template, a "too many primary sources" template, an NPOV template and an "undue weight" template. Flyer recently brought up the prospect of removing them. As said above, I have no problem with removing the primary sources template. The "too many quotations" template seems like it probably should stay but I could be convinced otherwise. However, it's still my strong contention that this article breaks NPOV and gives undue weight to trans-exclusionary radical feminist views, even when accounting for the fact that NPOV is based on prevalence in reliable sources.

Here is my reasoning:

1. The page is currently balanced about 50/50 between trans-exclusionary perspectives and trans-inclusive perspectives.
2. However, the trans-exclusionary perspective is represented in much less than 50% of reliable sources on this topic. If you look for stuff mainstream news organizations say in news voice, you get very little, but what you do get looks like this or this. There are also some articles like this or this which imply that mainstream feminism is overall trans-inclusive without actually mentioning trans-exclusionary radical feminists per se (in a similar way to how an article about climate scientists caring about climate change would be evidence that climate change denial is FRINGE even if it didn't actually mention denial). If you expand beyond just mainstream news organizations using news voice to reliable but biased sources, you do get significantly more trans-exclusionary sources in the form of trans-exclusionary pieces in mainstream news sources, true, but you also get even more trans-inclusive opinion pieces in mainstream news sources, as well as everything Jezebel, Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, and several other large feminist media organizations have ever published on trans issues, as well as basically everything written on this topic in left-leaning news sources like Vox, Slate, and Salon.
3. It's also very clear from reliable sources that even given that, trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources. Large feminist organizations like NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation are all officially trans-inclusive (sources for that are already in the article), and even TERF-sympathetic sources admit that "few feminists" are trans-exclusionary. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Your reasoning seems sound to me. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 01:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The Primary Sources tag needs to stay. That is the underlying issue with the article and fixing that will help solve some of the other tags. There is no magic point where something reaches NPOV. It is really somewhere within an acceptable spectrum. The best we can hope for is for it not to be obviously non-neutral. Trans-exclusionary views need to get aired here, and then responded to and so on. There is only so much that can be said on inclusionism, which may be why a lot of the focus in the media is on the conflict. Even the NBC source you cite mostly covers this conflict. AIRcorn (talk) 07:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

You wrote above we appear to be at an impass (me and Fae vs. you , Flyer, and maybe Mathglot with nobody else having commented on this topic so far) (Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#On_the_nature_of_transwomen); should we RfC? A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That's basically what I was suggesting, yes. LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Alright, RfC made. LokiTheLiar (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, I would think that an article on feminist views quoting feminists is probably to be expected, and to the extent that it might be better to cite summaries of feminists' views, that seems to be covered by the "primary sources" template whereas the "too many quotations" template could go... no? (We could still trim a few of the quotations, like those discussed in the section below, without needing the template as permission.) In turn, is the dispute over neutrality separate from the dispute over how much weight is being given to certain views (and if so, does it pertain to the whole article or only the "disputes"/"conflict" and/or "TERF" sections?), or could we at least halve the number of templates? -sche (talk) 21:53, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm tentatively okay with consolidating the first two and the last two templates into a primary sources template and an undue weight template. I think the NPOV issues, while real, are mostly a symptom of the undue weight given to trans-exclusionary radical feminists at this point, and I agree that the "primary sources" and "too many quotations" templates are the same issue (but I would prefer to consolidate under the quotation template, because I think that's a more solvable issue in this particular article.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 08:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

LokiTheLiar, you stated, "the trans-exclusionary perspective is represented in much less than 50% of reliable sources on this topic." Eh? I was clear to you in the #On the nature of transwomen section that "It doesn't give undue weight to the trans-exclusionary feminist view. As seen in the #Rewrite and Template Removal section, I've been over this. So has Mathglot, in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. So, for now, I'm not repeating myself on that." You started another discussion on this topic, but what we need on this matter is for you to understand WP:Due weight or for a WP:RfC to be started. And I see that you started an RfC below. The RfC might go your way or result in "no consensus" if editors who are not familiar with this topic are persuaded by your arguments, or if editors simply vote on a WP:DON'TLIKEIT basis. But I really can't see what it is that you do not understand about what Mathglot stated. WP:Due weight is about how much weight is given to a matter in the literature. As has been stated to you beore, the conflict (or dispute, or whatever you want to call it) between feminists and trans women (who may or may not be feminists) is what "feminist views on transgender topics" is primarily about. And this is clear from reliable media sources and academic sources. That the exclusionary view might be the minority view does not negate the weight that view has been given in reliable sources. You even stated that "trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources." Well, that reliable sources give so much weight to them is why Misplaced Pages is supposed to follow. I again refer you to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. For a comparison, the domestic violence literature gives the vast majority of its weight to feminists than to men's rights views. That is why we -- Misplaced Pages -- do not give nearly as much weight to men's rights views on that topic. The domestic violence literature is also primarily about women; that is why Misplaced Pages follows. Look at how I presented my case in that link -- that RfC -- and the sole opposing viewpoint (that is also currently being expressed on that article's talk page because the topic will always have such editors weighing in). It is draining when an editor, especially a newbie or one who is essentally a newbie, does not understand WP:Due weight and keeps insising that they are right. And, of course, I'm not stating that trans-inclusive feminists are like men's rights people or that their views are a minority or significant minority. It's just a comparison of the weight given to topics. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure why you keep repeating this as if the problem is that I do not understand the policy. I do understand the policy. The dispute is not over whether "due weight is about how much weight is given to a matter in the literature". We all, including me, agree that this is true, so please stop repeating it as if attempting to convince me of a thing that I already believe will help you.

The problem here is that you appear to be assuming a fact not in evidence: namely, that the reliable sources give both trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary positions equal weight. I assert that this is not only not true, it is incredibly easy to disprove. Yes, mainstream news sources do tend to cover conflicts, including this one, without explicitly picking a side, but they are not the only reliable sources. If they were, every article about every topic would be primarily about conflicts, and not about expert opinion on that topic. There are many explicitly feminist sources which are reliable as to the opinions of feminists on trans issues, and these sources are overwhelmingly trans-inclusive and rarely mention trans-exclusionary feminists at all. We currently are citing very few of these kinds of sources, and we should be citing more of them. (And not even just the media organizations I've been repeatedly mentioning; there's also NOW press releases and similar position statements of feminist organizations, plus countless books by feminists and about feminists and feminism.)

Do you disagree with any of this, and if so what? Hopefully if we identify our real point of disagreement we can get a more productive conversation going than just repeating the same things at each other over and over. LokiTheLiar (talk) 08:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I keep repeating it because you don't understand. Like I noted in the RfC below, you either don't understand it or you are willfully ignoring it. Debating this matter with you feels exactly how it feels when I'm debating the men's rights editors and simlar who complain about the Domestic violence article giving so much weight to women. Same goes for the Sexism article. I should not have to keep repeating to you what Mathglot and I have tried to explain to you. I'm assuming a fact not in evidence, you say? Um, no. Nowhere did I state or imply that "reliable sources give both trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary positions equal weight." What I have stated to you, and which is evident to anyone actually looking at the sources (including academic sources) specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, is that what is mostly discussed is trans women and the disputes regarding trans women. That there are a number of feminist-inclusive sources or a lot more feminist-inclusive views than feminist-exclusive views is not the same thing as "the feminist views on transgender topic is mainly about trans-inclusive views." To quote Mathglot in the #False balance in individual statements section, "it's not about what position is more widely held, but rather, which one is attested more in reliable sources." This is why, although WP:Due weight states "giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects," it also states "neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Our real point of disagreement? That is our real point of disagreement. I suppose that, given what I quoted from the WP:Due weight policy, one could state that it supports both giving more weight to the majority view and going by "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." But when one considers "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources," it's clear that the trans-exclusive aspect is not WP:Fringe. It may be a minority view, but it is not WP:Fringe with regard to the coverage in the published literature. And as I noted to you when speaking of the draft I am working on, I actually have access to academic sources. Rarely do I go looking to media sources for an academic topic. And this is indeed an academic topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

What I have stated to you, and which is evident to anyone actually looking at the sources (including academic sources) specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, is that what is mostly discussed is trans women and the disputes regarding trans women. I am actually looking at the sources and this is the opposite of evident to me. This is why I say this is our real dispute. If you look at all the sources on feminist views on transgender topics, they mention TERFs or dispute with TERFs very rarely. This actually includes feminist academic sources; most of them are also not about the dispute. You can only reach the conclusion you have reached, IMO, if you limit yourself to news sources and ignore basically everything feminists say directly, including the positions of every large feminist organization I'm aware of.

If you did the thing you are currently doing on an article about creationism, you would be forced to "cover the controversy", because that's what the news does. However, we are fortunately not limited to news sources and their biases towards incidents of conflict, and can instead sample from the vast majority of sources that are by experts about the expert consensus. When you do that, you find that NOW and the FMF and Emily's List and on and on explicitly support trans people, and the vast majority of their press releases about trans issues are about some specific issue (like the Trump military ban) and not about conflict with trans-exclusionary feminists. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I feel like I should give some more concrete evidence of my claim or else we're going to go back and forth about whether a fact is true. So, here is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on this same topic. This article cites loads of reliable academic sources, but only one section out of eleven is about trans-exclusionary radical feminism directly. Responses to Raymond are peppered throughout as well, but even those are mostly concentrated in the directly next section, and sections 5-11 are mostly about other topics with few mentions of Raymond or other trans-exclusionary radical feminists. If we were to cite this same list of academic sources, which covers most of the academic perspectives on the issue, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we would give each of these positions a similar amount of weight. Which is to say, the conflict over trans-exclusionary radical feminism would be more like a fifth of the page, rather than half. LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

You stated that you "are actually looking at the sources and this is the opposite of evident to ." As seen in the #Parking some refs here section above, you are looking at media sources, incuding a number of opinion pieces, and ones that are not specifically about the topic. As seen in the RfC below, another editor made the point I did about sticking to sources specifically about the topic. You are seeking sources that agree with your viewpoints. The sources you presented are mostly in stark contrast to the sources that Genericusername57 (gnu57), who actually appears to be trying to keep their personal opinions out of their editing, presented. Some of the academic sources that Genericusername57 listed (and I don't mean sources like the "Manifesto" source) show exactly what I've stated on this topic and what the coverage on it is mainly about. You keep using the word "TERF." Most of the sources on this topic don't call exclusionary feminists by the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERF." And I fail to see how you can state that "this actually includes feminist academic sources; most of them are also not about the dispute" when it's clear that you do not have access to academic sources, which is something you have indicated before and is clear anyway by your reliance on media sources. Your comment about how I have reached the conclusion I have reached is false, as (I've stated before) is clear to anyone looking at the literature specifically about this topic.

As for "If did the thing currently doing on an article about creationism, would be forced to 'cover the controversy', because that's what the news does"...don't patronize me. I'm not only looking to news articles; you are. Well, that and other media sources. I was very clear that "Rarely do I go looking to media sources for an academic topic. And this is indeed an academic topic." And many at this site know that to be true. Many at this site know that I always follow WP:Due weight appropriately. It's also interesting that you pretty much assert that the news mainly covers the controversy between feminists and trans women...and yet you focus on the news sources that align with your viewpoint and ones meant to challenge the weight the news gives to the controversy between feminists and trans women. It's not just news sources focusing on that aspect either. Other media sources clearly do as well. And yet we see the media sources you keep focusing on. You stated, "However, we are fortunately not limited to news sources and their biases towards incidents of conflict." That is exactly how I feel regarding you and your selection of news and other media sources. Once again, that there exists a lot of trans-positive sources or more trans-positive sources (feminist or otherwise) than sources (feminist or otherwise) that have negative or otherwise opposing views on trans people (trans women in particular) or their ideology does not equate to "the literature on feminist views on transgender topics mainly deals with positvity." It does not. And even pointing to a media source like The Economist, which I brought up before, although it states that "anti-trans viewpoints are a minority position within feminism," it also states, "What is a woman? Who can be a feminist? These questions have been central to feminist theory and activism since the 1970s, proving to be particularly controversial in the relationship between feminist and transgender activism.' In recent years, these questions have returned to haunt feminism. . Anti-transgender feminists have a high level of social, cultural and economic capital."

You pointing to the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" source that I pointed you to when making it clear to you that the source points out that there has generally been an over-emphasis on MTFs in particular proves nothing. That the source decided to present its content the way it did dosen't negate the fact that the literature, like it notes, generally has focused on trans women. And that literature is not mostly positive talk about trans women. It's mostly about disputes between trans women and non-trans women. And that source devotes a significant material to that aspect. Your argument about the sources in that article and how that article has decided to present the content is flawed. That is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It is not Misplaced Pages: The 💕. The latter has numerous rules, including WP:Due weight, which determine how we present material. That article presents content in ways that Misplaced Pages would not, such as its WP:Tone issues. For example, never would we state "while Serano may be right." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

This argument is spiraling in a lot of different directions, so lemme cover a few points:

1. I am trying to keep my personal opinion out of my editing. I've so far been on reasonably good terms with the only editor here (A145) who disagrees with me on the actual topic of the page. What I'm not trying to keep out of my editing is my awareness that there exists a huge variety of sources that you appear to be completely unwilling to consider. Like, before I got here, it appears that nobody even considered going to NOW's web page and seeing what they thought about the topic. I think this sort of blind spot is positively bizarre. I think that sort of thing is equivalent to editing an article about conservative opinions on free trade and never once thinking to look at the Republican Party platform.

2. What do you think the topic of the page is? You're talking about "sticking to sources specifically about the topic", but the topic is "feminist views on transgender topics". Trump's ban on trans people in the military (for instance) is a transgender topic, and feminists have opinions on it.

3. Most of the sources on this topic do call trans-exclusionary feminists either "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERFs", even by your conception of what counts as a source. Like, you literally can count. Even gnu's sources do. We already established this on this talk page a while ago; this is the issue that we have so far achieved the most consensus on out of everything.

4. The thing that unites all my sources is not that they have a certain bias; if that was the case I'd be looking in Thinkprogress. I've actually specifically avoided linking PinkNews even though it comes up in searches often, because it's primarily an LGBT site and doesn't appear to be explicitly feminist as an organization. The unifying factor between the sources I've brought up is they are all written by feminist organizations. It's of course true that all these organizations agree on certain things, because feminism is a political position with content. These organizations also all agree that women should have a right to an abortion, for instance, but I'm not linking sources because they are pro-choice just like I'm not linking sites because they're trans-positive. I'm linking sources that are feminist and pointing out that they are almost all trans-positive in order to support my point that the majority of feminist sources are trans-positive.

5. I don't know why you keep bringing up the trans women thing when I have consistently said I agree with you on that point. I really feel like you are trying to rehash some past argument that I was not involved in.

6. I disagree that the literature is mostly disputes between trans women and non-trans women. A lot of the academic feminist literature is disputes between Judith Butler (and allies) and her critics, most of which are cis, but a lot of it is just new analyses of the topic within some particular perspective, like the Stanford Encyclopedia article makes quite clear.

7. The Stanford Encyclopedia article is of course not a Misplaced Pages article and is not written in a Misplaced Pages style, but I challenge you to write an article with all the sources it used and not conclude that WP:DUE requires you to cover trans-exclusionary feminism about as much as the Stanford Encyclopedia article covered it. If it can fill 5/6ths of a long, detailed, and well-sourced article with academic feminist discussion about trans women that is not disputes with trans-exclusionary feminists over the basic validity of trans people, Misplaced Pages can too.

8. On the point that "trans-exclusionary radical feminists have a high amount of social, cultural, and economic capital": I agree that they have a disproportionate amount of social and cultural capital, which is what I believe the author meant. I don't think any reasonable person could conclude that their position is anything other than marginal within feminism. The reason they have a disproportionate amount of social and cultural capital is that even though by numbers they are a tiny fraction of feminists, that number includes some big names among second wave feminists like Mary Daly and Germaine Greer. I've compared them to a lot of things, but I think the most accurate analogy would be to advocates of a dying scientific theory, something like pro-protectionist views within economics. Very few third wave feminists and virtually no fourth wave feminists are trans-exclusionary, although some second wave feminists definitely are, and some of them are big names. But outside of a handful of big names and a few followers of those big names they don't have anyone, and generally the big names who hold this opinion are not seen positively within feminism outside their tiny circle of followers. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not debating you any further on this. You do not understand and apparently never will. I've made my points clear. Repeating ourselves does not help, and it is frustrating to keep debating someone who is essentially a newbie -- or at least someone who argues and edits like a newbie -- trying to teach me (a Misplaced Pages editor with many years under my belt) the rules. I follow the rules well, and I help craft the rules at a number of Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies. I know what I am talking about (both on the literature and the rules). And my draft will show exactly how a Misplaced Pages article should be written. I'm right about not following what Stanford Encyclopedia has done, just like many Misplaced Pages discussions have made it clear that Misplaced Pages is right to not follow whatever Encyclopædia Britannica has done or does. To repeat, Misplaced Pages has its own rules; WP:Due weight is one of them. We do not falsely balance. At least others understand what I mean about the literature, about not relying so heavily on primary sources, media sources (which are often primary sources), and so on. It is telling that NickCT stated, "There's an impressive list of references, but if you examine them critically, only a handful seem to grant the topic direct coverage." It echoes what I stated about the sources you are presenting. You stated that you are trying to keep your personal opinion out of your editing. We'll have to disagree on that. To me, you argue and edit exactly like a WP:Activist. I keep bringing up trans women to reiterate that not only is the literature mainly about them, it is mainly about disputes regarding them. You stated, "Most of the sources on this topic do call trans-exclusionary feminists either 'trans-exclusionary radical feminists' or 'TERFs'." Nope. Most of the sources use the words "radical feminists," "anti trans" or something else (like "trans-exclusive"). Most do not state the full wording of "trans-exclusionary radical feminists." The vast majority of sources that use that phrasing are about the term "TERF." After all, it's what the term "TERF," which was recently coined, means. And, yes, 2008 is relatively recent with regard to the feminist literature. Besides that, it is only very recently that "TERF" has gained the traction it now has. And, for the record, I never stated that Trump's ban on trans people in the military should not be mentioned in this article; in the RfC below, I clearly stated that "it should first be a topic in the article, not just included randomly." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:38, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

"Conflict between..."

The heading "Conflict between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists" is poor for several reasons. One was mentioned above: many of the things in the section are not "conflict" but just trans-exclusionary people attacking the presence of trans women. Another problem is the false binary: in most cases listed, "trans-exclusionary feminists" are one party but the other is not just "trans women" but (often more numerously) other inclusive people.
The students/faculty who supported Padman and the media figures who covered Greer, leading to her mentioned resignation, were mostly cis people; Camp Trans was held by trans women and allies; the Pride in London that was disrupted and the organizers who gave the mentioned apology included many cis people; etc.
Ultimately, some problems are caused by the section containing disparate things. For example, the Speaker's Corner and 2012 Jeffries bits might be regardable as some kind of back-and-forth "conflict", though perhaps better titled "Conflict between trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary feminists" or (taking "trans" to be implied by the article title) "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists". Meanwhile, Stone, Padman, and (if we're willing to treat volunteer/unpaid jobs as jobs) Nixon seem better suited to a section on "Feminist exclusion of trans women from employment", and MichFest (and maybe Nixon) are "Feminist exclusion of trans women from women's spaces". The London bit also seems like it might be a different kind of thing, "disruption of trans-inclusive events" or something, though maybe that could be a subsection of (or just, left without a header under) a "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section. -sche (talk) 08:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The prose of the section was also rather hard to follow. I've tried to make it less convoluted and redundant. -sche (talk) 09:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Of what's left, the Jeffries and Bellos bits have a theme of "No-platforming exclusionary feminists" or "Exclusion of trans-exclusive feminists from platforms" if we wanted to spin out a section on that, though I suppose they also share with the Bindel and Speaker's Corner bits a thread of push-and-pull between exclusive and inclusive people (in ways not more related to other sections), even if calling it "conflict" is overdramatic. Only the Speaker's Corner bit really fits the section's current title; I'm not sure the other paragraphs, e.g. pushback at Bindel, are much more "conflict"-y than other pushbacks which are in other sections. (As a separate matter, the Bindel bit amounts to a paragraph-long puff-up of "Bindel demeans trans people; other people complain": I wonder if it could be condensed; I doubt it's given as much weight by sources overall as e.g. the line by Dworkin that we cover in two sentences.) -sche (talk) 19:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I still feel like the Jeffreys and Bellos quotes shouldn't really be here? I don't think that, in an article about climate denial, we would have multiple quotes from climate deniers complaining that nobody lets them speak. The Bellos one is probably more justifiable, since she was actually disinvited, but IMO in her case it ought to focus on the actual disinvitation more, since that and not her quote is the notable bit of that story. The Jeffreys quote, IMO, really just doesn't belong here at all. It's not a conflict, it's a complaint. LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:23, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

(Interesting; if I were going to remove one of the three paragraphs, I'd remove or trim the Bindel one first. I agree the Jeffries bit also seems kinda peripheral/low-importance.) I gather all three paragraphs (Bindel, Jeffries, and Bellos) are intended to represent the argument that trans-exclusive feminists feel they are being "silenced" by not being given the use of other people's, papers', or schools' platforms. The thing that may distinguish this from climate change deniers' complaints of silencing and may make it more inclusible is that trans-exclusive feminists are given platforms in major media to make their complaint about how they're not given platforms. -sche (talk) 22:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I think everything you've said is fair and I don't have any further comment on it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Or that there are multiple scientific organisations from different backgrounds and fields that over a period of time and using a diverse range of experiments that cover a wide time period have come to the same conclusion to form a virtually unanimous consensus. I am not even sure how you apply the scientific method to this issue. The fact that we are arguing on the inclusion of youtube clips and the serious lack of academic papers presented here suggest that we have not reached that point yet. AIRcorn (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Having a "Feminist exclusion of trans women" section and then a "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section beneath that is a disjointed format that is not ideal. Feminist exclusion of trans women is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. That is why I placed the "feminist exclusion of trans women" material under the "conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section. If one wants to argue that the article now gives undue weight to feminist exclusion (which is not the case, and I remind you that the material existed in the article regardless of rearrangement), it's actually the case that the vast majority of the literature is indeed about the conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists with regard to trans women. It just is. There is no changing that fact. It's also why the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading is problematic -- because just about all of the topic is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. Almost all of the material in the article could be placed under that heading. It's best to just remove the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading and have the subsections be their own sections. Furthermore, views from inclusive feminists can obviously be added to these sections. As for this, I don't see any difference between "conflict" and "dispute." In fact, "dispute" is given as a synonym for "conflict". Conflict means "a serious disagreement or argument," or "to differ," or "to clash," or a "competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action (as of divergent ideas, interests, or persons)." So, again, I saw no issue with the word "conflict." But "disputes" work as well, obviously.

The view from radical feminists or similar that they are not allowed to speak due to being silenced by trans activists or those supporting trans activists should be there. The direct quotes may not be needed, but a summary of the matter should be there. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

And by "be their own sections," I mean something like having an "Exclusion of trans women" section and the subsections being "From women's spaces and organizations," and so on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

And I know that LokiTheLiar likes to demonize trans-exclusionary feminists (for example, comparing them to Holocaust deniers), but the "climate change deniers" comparison (like the Holocaust deniers comparison) is a bust. It's invalid partly because of what -sche stated, and because, although climate change (which often concerns the global warming aspect) has been used for political debates, climate change is mainly a scientific topic. Unless one wants to argue that it's a social science, feminist views on transgender topics is not a scientific topic (although it at times touches on biology, including the "male and female brains" discussion). I noted before that science still is not definitive on the causes of transsexuality. The literature on that matter favors biological research. But the biological research is limited and inconclusive. For example, some research has pointed to cisgender women and trans women having somewhat similar brains and cisgender men and trans men having somewhat similar brains. But that same brain research or other brain research has also pointed to cisgender lesbian women having brains more similar in shape to cisgender heterosexual men and cisgender gay men have brains more similar in shape to cisgender heterosexual women. But we obviously are not going to say that lesbian women are men and that gay men are women. That's not to state that there is no biological basis for some trans women identifying as women. There seems to be a biological basis -- as in their brains are more similar to women's brains than to men's brains -- for that in some cases. But scientists simply don't know (and enough of them have stated this) if this means that trans women, at least in general, are genetically female in the brain. Scientists debate this (causes of transsexuality) just like feminists do, and it's not inherently transphobic to debate it, especially since researching the matter from a scientific perspective relates to gender dysphoria and can help scientists and the general public better understand it. Of course, one doesn't need science to validate their gender identity. But a biological basis of gender identity is studied by scientists. When it comes to global warming, as the Global warming article makes clear, that it "is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century" is something that has been "recognized by the national science academies of the major industrialized nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing." It's not similar when it comes to the causes of transsexuality; again, scientists are still debating that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I support the breaking up of this category into top level headings, and am not sure why you put them back under a single heading rather than getting rid of the conflict section. As you point out, as it currently stands the majority of the article ought to be under that section, which is a bit absurd. Since we all appear to agree that the subsections should be their own sections on this talk page, I'm going to go do that.

As for the brain stuff: I have zero interest in debating that on this page. On a page where it was relevant I'd love to talk about it (and I should say, my personal positions on this are much different than you seem to assume they are), but the science of trans people is not a feminist view, so it's not relevant to the article. My point with that analogy was simply to make an analogy with other situations where one side is the heavy majority and the other is fringe or near-fringe. I think you made the perfect analogy elsewhere with MRA positions on domestic violence, though, so I think I'm going to be sticking to that one. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Now that that's done, I feel like it might actually be worthwhile to put a significant portion of this page under one section, in the hopes that we can add some content to this page which is not about conflict between trans people and trans-exclusionary feminists. The majority of reliable sources on feminist views on trans issues, which is to say feminists having those views in reliable feminist sources, aren't actually about TERFs. So I think it probably is a good idea to put the conflict between those two groups under a single giant section, absurd though it may be to have the majority of the article as it currently stands under it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I put them under one section per what I stated above. Regarding this, I'm not onboard with "complaints." Doesn't seem neutral. Surely, they don't view their opinions as complaints. And, really, something like "trans women shouldn't use women's bathrooms" can be considered a complaint as well. The content in that section (except for the Sheila Jeffreys material) concerns incidents. So "Incidents between trans activists and trans exclusionary feminists" makes more sense. But we really shouldn't be including incident material (unless very notable), and the mention can grow and grow since there are a number of incidents that received attention in the news. It's better to summarize. And note that I am not endorsing removing the Jeffreys piece.

As for brain stuff, it should be clear why I brought it up. You made a climate change denier comparison. That does not compute for me. Climate change deniers are denying science. To compare trans-exclusionary feminists to them because they don't consider trans women to be women is like stating that trans-exclusionary feminists are denying reality/science. Stating that trans women are women is an opinion, no matter how strongly people agree with that opinion. As for my "men's rights vs. feminists" comparison in the RfC, it is clearly about the literature, and not in the direction you want to go with it. You clearly want to liken trans-exclusionary feminist viewpoints to men's rights' viewpoints being a minority. Per reasons given by Mathglot and I, it's not the same thing. Like I told you in the RfC, "the conflict between feminists and trans women (who may or may not be feminists) is what 'feminist views on transgender topics' is primarily about. And this is clear from reliable media sources and academic sources. That the exclusionary view might be the minority view does not negate the weight that view has been given in reliable sources." I noted that "I'm not stating that trans-inclusive feminists are like men's rights people or that their views are a minority or significant minority. It's just a comparison of the weight given to topics." You and I are clearly using my comparison differently. And as for "science of trans people is not a feminist view"? It is when it comes to views on male and female brains and discussion of sex verification in sports and transgender people in sports. As I'm sure you know, these are other topics that feminists debate.

As for "might actually be worthwhile to put a significant portion of this page under one section," propose it in your sandbox. And I'm not going over your "the majority" view again. I'm clear on it in the RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:13, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Clarification: And regarding "trans women are women is an opinion," I meant the views on that topic (which extend beyond feminist views; it's a general public topic as well). And this topic is about views; not facts. It's usually not about facts anyway. I personally wouldn't approach the matter as "Well, that person's gender identity is an opinion." As seen in this and this discussion, I wouldn't support Misplaced Pages stating that "some people consider trans women to be women" or something similar in the lead of the Woman or Trans woman article. Well, "something similar" would need to be appropriately worded and summarizing content lower in the article for me to support it. After all, Misplaced Pages should be clear that transgender issues are highly debated and that some people (not just exclusionary feminists) don't consider trans women to be women or trans men to be men, but it's a matter of weight...and stating "some people consider trans women to be women" is different than stating "some people don't consider trans women to be women." The first line makes viewing trans women as women seem like a minority view, while the second line makes not viewing trans women as women seem like the minority view. Even if one were to state that going with the former line represents the majority viewpoint among the general public, we'd need to adhere to sources with due weight and figure out how we are going to present the matter. And like I noted in the latter discussion, "there is no getting around the fact that 'woman' is in the term 'trans woman.'" Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:31, 28 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:04, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Belated thanks to Gnu btw for figuring out some of the missing details of, and hence a relevant place for, the above-mentioned Bindel paragraph. -sche (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

RfC on Templates

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Politics, government, and law Society, sports, and culture When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

The article currently has four templates:

1. too many quotations
2. too many primary sources
3. lacks NPOV
4. undue weight to (trans-exclusionary) radical feminist views

There has been some controversy on this talk page about whether to remove these templates, especially the NPOV and due weight ones. Should we remove any of these templates, and if so, which?

Please comment with Remove and/or Keep , and explain your reasoning. LokiTheLiar (talk) 22:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Survey

• Remove the templates. Like I stated in #Removal of page templates section above, I was clear in the #On the nature of transwomen section that the article doesn't give undue weight to the trans-exclusionary feminist view. As seen in the #Rewrite and Template Removal section, I've been over this. So has Mathglot, in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. I really can't see what it is that is difficult to understand about WP:Due weight concerning how much weight is given to a matter in the literature. The conflict (or dispute, or whatever you want to call it) between feminists and trans women (who may or may not be feminists) is what "feminist views on transgender topics" is primarily about. And this is clear from reliable media sources and academic sources. That the exclusionary view might be the minority view does not negate the weight that view has been given in reliable sources. I again refer people to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. For a comparison, the domestic violence literature gives the vast majority of its weight to feminists than to men's rights views. That is why we -- Misplaced Pages -- do not give nearly as much weight to men's rights views on that topic. The domestic violence literature is also primarily about women; that is why Misplaced Pages follows. Look at how I presented my case in that link -- that RfC -- and the sole opposing viewpoint (that is also currently being expressed on that article's talk page because the topic will always have such editors weighing in). I'm not stating that trans-inclusive feminists are like men's rights people or that their views are a minority or significant minority. It's just a comparison of the weight given to topics.

As for primary sources, I noted in the "On the nature of transwomen" discussion that the "relies too much on references to primary sources" tag is questionable because this article currently mainly relies on media sources instead of academic sources and so many or most of those sources are opinion pieces or similar. So, of course, the article is going to mainly consist of primary sources. A source being a media source obviously doesn't automatically make it a seconary source. For example, like WP:RSBREAKING states, "All breaking-news stories, without exception, are primary sources, and must be treated with caution." But, anyway, despite what I stated about this article relying on primary sources, Aircorn is obviously right that Misplaced Pages articles should ideally not be mainly based on primary sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

• Keep 1, 3 and 4; I don't have a strong opinion on 2. My reasons for keeping 3 and 4 are stated above in the section Removal of page templates, so I'm not going to go too into detail about them here, but basically if you look at the entire universe of reliable sources, the vast majority of reliable feminist sources are trans-inclusive and do not mention this argument. Those feminist sources that do mention the conflict directly are also mostly trans-inclusive. More than a few sources do cover the conflict, so the conflict should be covered, but in order to support removal of the templates, it should be much clearer that the trans-inclusive view is the majority and the trans-exclusionary view is a heavy minority view if not a fringe one. (I actually think that feminist vs. men's rights views on domestic violence is a good analogy: it's not hard to find sources about the conflict if you're looking for them, but if you look for sources on the topic itself they overwhelmingly lean one way.) I care less about template 1 than 3 or 4, but I do still think the article quotes too many people directly and could still use some summarizing, although it's better than it was. LokiTheLiar (talk) 00:21, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

The "vast majority of reliable feminist sources are trans-inclusive and do not mention this argument" is inaccurate a misleading statement; this is for reasons I've gone over above. The only way that it's accurate is if one looks to the trans-inclusive media sources you've looked to that are not specifically about feminist views on transgender topics. When one looks at the sources that are specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, it is easy to see that the literature is overwhelmingly about the conflict/disputes between feminists and trans women. Fact. As noted in the "Removal of page templates" section, you even stated that "trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources." And I stated, "Well, that reliable sources give so much weight to them is why Misplaced Pages is supposed to follow." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:56, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, name me one feminist media organization (and by "organization" I mean "large enough to pay people to write for them") that is not Feminist Current. Because I can name you easily five large ones who are trans-inclusive as a matter of editorial policy, and every single thing those organizations have ever published on trans issues is a reliable source that goes to determining the proper weight in this article. For example: according to Alexa, Jezebel is the 3558th most viewed site in the world (838th most in the United States), they are explicitly feminist, and their output on trans issues is overwhelmingly trans-inclusive. And I can go through the same logic with other feminist organizations: although none of them are nearly as big as Jezebel they're still all quite influential, and almost all of them have an explicitly trans-inclusive editorial position.

Like, I'm aware that there exist trans-exclusionary feminist media organizations (or well, at least one), it's just that there are much fewer of them and they're significantly smaller to boot. Feminist Current is the largest and only trans-exclusionary feminist source I'm aware of, and it's rank about 275,000 globally, compared to 34,000 for Autostraddle and 97,000 for Bitch Media. (And I'm not joking or cherrypicking when I say there aren't any other trans-exclusionary feminist organizations: Alexa says the most similar sites to Feminist Current are four trans-positive sources, one of which is set up exclusively to rebut TERFs, and a suspended wordpress blog.)

(Also, please don't take me out of context. I clearly stated in that section that even though trans-exclusionary feminists are a minority in reliable sources they are still overrepresented in them because they are even more of a minority of real life feminists then they are online.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:19, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not going to keep trying to explain WP:Due weight to you. You either don't understand it or you are willfully ignoring it. That there are a number of feminist-inclusive sources or a lot more feminist-inclusive views than feminist-exclusive views is not the same thing as "the feminist views on transgender topic is mainly about trans-inclusive views." It's clear from the #Media 'terf' usage section that you also have a problem with WP:Original research or WP:Synthesis in particular. For example, we do not state "Many feminist media organizations" unless a reliable source states that. That's why I removed "many" when tweaking/trimming that content, although your list of media sources should not be there. As for taking you out of context, the point is that you stated "trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources." If we don't want to focus on what you stated there, you've stated similarly elswhere on the page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Remove 1, 3, and 4, keep 2—I agree very much with what Flyer22 Reborn has said about reflecting the weight given in reliable sources. I do have some remaining concerns, but I don't think they're serious enough to warrant templates. (See my comment below) gnu57 01:34, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a terrible article, it's not neutral and gives false weight and credibility to transphobic views expressed by highly transphobic controversialists and self promotional pundits who have gone out of their way to say and do damaging things against trans women in particular, despite those same pundits preceding every article with "I'm not transphobic, but". "Balance" does not mean that for every non-transphobic quote we can get away with publishing a transphobic quote and give readers links to the anti-trans sources because "neutrality". The article should remain heavily flagged as being crappy and unencyclopedic until a major rewrite puts a proper long term encyclopaedic perspective on actual "feminist views" per the title of the article. Putting four tags at the top is minimal in this context. By the way, I am aware that "oppose" does not fit the RfC, but an RfC proposition written this way is not of itself neutral, it's like asking people to vote on the right number of angels to fit on the head of a pin rather than giving an opportunity to decide if angels exist. --Fæ (talk) 16:40, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Fæ: In context, by "Oppose", I presume you mean "Keep all templates"? (E: Nevermind, reading more carefully I see you mentioned that already.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:24, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Keep templates, AfD this page - Couple reasons we should consider deleting 1) It's not clear to me that this topic is notable. There's an impressive list of references, but if you examine them critically, only a handful seem to grant the topic direct coverage. That handful are from sources like "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Do these seem like the kind of high-quality RS that we typically rely on to prove notability?, 2) This article seems like a long list of Op/Eds from little known feminists. Misplaced Pages is not opinion. NickCT (talk) 13:17, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

The "only a handful seem to grant the topic direct coverage" aspect is exactly what I mean by "when one looks at the sources that are specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, it is easy to see that the literature is overwhelmingly about the conflict/disputes between feminists and trans women" and "that there are a number of feminist-inclusive sources or a lot more feminist-inclusive views than feminist-exclusive views is not the same thing as 'the feminist views on transgender topic is mainly about trans-inclusive views.'" Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

NickCT, the topic is WP:Notable, though. Editors' poor choice of sources doesn't change that. Its title is descriptive. And some topics are mainly media topics. We have a lot of topics that pass WP:Notable even though they are mainly covered by media sources. This topic, however, can be supported by a number of academic sources as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Neutral on 1 & 2; Remove 3 & 4: I see many short quotations. Given the controversial social context, they may be helpful to mitigate NPOV concerns. / I see there are some primary sources. I've not read thoroughly enough to say if their number is too high or low enough. / The article's POV is mostly neutral. Where it leans too far is in the opposite direction claimed. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Blow the article up It is all over the place. It has been pushed in one direction and then another by SPAs and POV warriors. Let some editors who actually write encyclopaedic articles rewrite it if it needs to exist. It is really too unstable at the moment to make any real call on the tags. There is no exact point of weight of coverage that is going to be the exact balance point. What we have at the moment is probably close enough. The reliable secondary sources which are around the views of feminists on this issue tend to discuss the exclusionary ones as much, if not more than, the inclusive. Even opinions that paint it in a negative light. It could be them giving the undue weight because this is the more interesting aspect of the topic, but we are really bound by what they do. The single biggest issue with this article is the use of Primary Sources, so that tag should stay. I don't buy the arguement that we should use Primary Sources because the article is on opinons. The biggest advantage of using secondary ones is that it assigns the weight to each feminists view and the counterview, rather than us. This obviously solves the issue with weight. As for the quotes I really dislike the use of quotes on any article and would be happy having them reduced. This is more a stylistic thing though and this article is far from the worst I have encountered that overuses quotes. So in summing up destroy the article or Keep the Primary Sources one and delete the rest. AIRcorn (talk) 17:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

As you know, I'm working on blowing the article up via the draft I'll be presenting. Above, I didn't mention quotes, but I agree about reducing quotes. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Then I suggest this RfC is closed without changing anything. When the rewrite happens, so long as the issues are visibly resolved, there will be good reason to reduce or remove warning notices for readers. Leaving an RfC open when an article is undergoing major rewrite does not make sense, as the first votes will be against the old article, and new votes against a different one. --Fæ (talk) 09:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Editors are not waiting for my draft, though. And like I noted in the #Recent changes to the lead and drafting section above, I understand them not waiting. That stated, it appears that LokiTheLiar is more intent on not waiting for my draft and that the others would be fine waiting for it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Unless quite a few more editors come in and comment, the result of this RfC is clearly going to be "no consensus". So I'd support closing it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

These are my minor remaining concerns, which I don't think warrant templates:

• Quotations: The Dworkin, Daly, and Greer sections really need fleshing out. The pull-quotes can stay, but there should also be more general (primary- and secondary-sourced) information about their views.
• Primary sources: The article needs more academic information about feminist viewpoints and movements, and probably a bit less blow-by-blow of particular inflammatory things feminists have said in interviews. (I agree with -sche that the Bindel stuff could be trimmed down.) It's good that the TERF-as-a-word section has been heading in a more academic direction recently, but the rest of the article needs that expansion as well.
• Lacks NPOV: The only major issue I have with the article's presentation of viewpoints is that the focus on exclusionary vs. inclusive elides the differences among feminists who aren't part of the radical Raymond-Jeffrys intellectual tradition, yet still disagree with one another about things like socialisation, privilege, and (for lesbians) same-sex vs. same-gender attraction.
• Undue weight: Loki, why don't you start parking refs you'd like to include on the talk page? (Stick them here, perhaps?) It's hard to talk about the balance in reliable sources when we don't know which sources you have in mind. Cheers, gnu57 01:34, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you on primary sources, and about the Dworkin quotation. I can add sources to that section, but one caveat is that, just like (e.g.) the vast majority of discussion in reliable biology sources presumes evolution exists and not all of that deserves to go into an article on evolution, the vast majority of discussion in reliable feminist sources assumes a trans-inclusive position, while I don't think everything reliable feminist sources have ever written on trans issues deserves to be added to the page. Or in other words, I'm going to be listing some sources that are either the trans tag in some large feminist sources or else several clearly trans-inclusive articles in feminist sources, and I'm hoping to demonstrate the general trend by doing so while not necessarily endorsing adding them to the page. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

A discussion has gone on too long in the Survey section, so I'm moving my response to the discussion section:

I think now we are getting somewhere sort of productive instead of rehashing the same argument. In particular, I think you are partially misinterpreting the sort of thing I'm advocating, and partially interpreting WP:SYNTH too broadly. (I agree the thing I was doing in #Media 'terf' usage was original research, but that was largely due to the fact I was making inferences from these sources' use of a term, and if I had found more direct statements on the issue that sort of sentence would have been acceptable.) WP:SYNTH does not say you can never summarize multiple sources, nor that you can never make inferences from multiple sources if those inferences are sufficiently obvious. WP:SYNTHNOT says explicitly that you could cite the statement "The sun is bigger than the moon" with a source on the size of the sun and a source on the size of the moon without problems. Other articles on topics about controversies between a majority and a minority position cite like this: the article on the creation-evolution controversy cites "in the scientific community, evolution is accepted as fact" with a official statement from the IAP, but a pedant could point out that technically speaking, the IAP isn't the "scientific community", it just contains almost all scientists.

What I would like to do is, for example, to put sentences like "Most feminists are trans-inclusive" in the article, with citations from the NOW and Feminist Majority statements (I could also find equivalents for Emily's List, etc etc) plus the line "such views are shared by few feminists now" from this New Yorker article, Julia Serano's Medium piece calling TERFs "fringe", and this Vox article which says the third and fourth waves of feminism are trans-inclusive. Another thing I would like to be able to do is to say something like "Many feminist organizations opposed Trump's trans military ban", and cite many feminist organizations opposing the ban as I did in the #Parking some cites here section above. This sort of thing is not WP:SYNTH as long as any reader would conclude the inference being drawn is obvious from the sources. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:21, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Calling your "many feminist media organizations" sentence WP:Synthesis is not interpreting WP:SYNTH too broadly. And that is the only aspect of your editing I have called WP:Synthesis thus far. Summarizing is one thing. But it's still the case that you should not string together multiple sources the way you did and state "many feminist media organizations." This is why words like "many" often get tagged as a WP:Weasel word unless supported by a reliable source. Do read WP:Weasel word, which, for example, states, "views that are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions, if they accurately represent the opinions of the source. Reliable sources may analyze and interpret, but for editors to do so would violate the no original research or neutral point of view policies. Equally, editorial irony and damning with faint praise have no place in Misplaced Pages articles." I use "some" and "many" in different cases, but not in the way that you did, and I try to attribute them to a reliable source. Your sun and moon comparison is not close to the same thing. Neither is your creation-evolution controversy comparison. It's not like you stated "these feminists are a minority within feminism" like you did with this edit, and with a source. And when it comes to the creation-evolution controversy, those are two different topics. Feminism, by contrast, is one topic (with subtopics). Creationism is obviously the view among the vast majority of religious people since religion usually has a creationist view. Among scientists, evolution is the majority view. That is why that text states "in the scientific community." If that article has engaged in WP:Synthesis, it is not an excuse for this article to do the same. Anyway, to go along with the "a minority within feminism" piece, I noted the power that trans-exclusive feminists have....since noting that is just as important. No, we shouldn't be including Julia Serano's Medium piece calling trans-exclusive feminists fringe. Just like I noted at Talk:Male privilege, Medium is a poor source. In fact, it's not a WP:Reliabe source. That source is Serano's opinion. The poor source is fine for WP:About self stuff, but not for calling trans-exclusive feminists fringe. As for "many feminist organizations opposed Trump's trans military ban," it should first be a topic in the article, not just included randomly. You still should not state "many" in that case, and engaging in citation overkill is not a good thing. In addition to WP:Weasel words, see WP:SUBSTANTIATE.

And, like I noted above, NickCT's statment that "only a handful seem to grant the topic direct coverage" aspect is exactly what I mean by "when one looks at the sources that are specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, it is easy to see that the literature is overwhelmingly about the conflict/disputes between feminists and trans women" and "that there are a number of feminist-inclusive sources or a lot more feminist-inclusive views than feminist-exclusive views is not the same thing as "the feminist views on transgender topic is mainly about trans-inclusive views." You're just cobbling together any trans-positive source you can; that's not the way Misplaced Pages is supposed to work. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, I actually don't think that we disagree as much as we've thought we do so far. You're drawing a distinction between me adding that "minority within feminism" statement and what I'm proposing here, and while I do see it based on what I've said, I also feel like I may have been taking a more contentious line than I actually had to. The basic thing I'm arguing is that there are a lot of sources out there, many of which are already in the article, which bear out that this article currently gives undue amounts of weight to trans-exclusionary views. I'm not picky about those sources being from Jezebel or Autostraddle or wherever else; my point is simply that they do exist and we should include more of them and do more with the ones we already have.

I'm getting the impression that rather than argue on the talk page about whether these sources theoretically exist, it would be more productive to simply edit the article and prove that they do exist. So far every time I've actually added such a source to the article, they have mostly been pretty uncontroversial, while when I assert that they do exist on this talk page, people seem to think I'm making stuff up. And to be fair, this is at least partially my fault, because when I try to name examples of sources from everyday experience, the first sources that come to my mind are feminist media sources which are often not that reliable in a Misplaced Pages sense (like Jezebel), and not something like the NOW website which is much stronger evidence for claims about what the consensus among feminists is but which I don't personally visit very often.

I do want to defend including more of Julia Serano's Medium pieces though, since Serano is a relevant expert. I don't really think she could support an assertion that trans-exclusionary feminists are fringe by herself, but I do think that, since she's been treated as an expert on this topic by multiple mainstream news organizations, we also ought to treat her as an expert even when she self-publishes. I also think we should be citing her stuff much more for information on what trans-positive feminists believe, because in that capacity she's clearly a relevant expert and we frankly lack a lot of information on that topic as it stands.

I also want to repeat that, while I agree there is certainly no shortage of coverage about the conflict between trans-positive and trans-exclusive feminists, I don't think that that's even the majority of the coverage. This article isn't about that conflict exclusively, it's about all feminist views on trans issues, and most sources about feminist views on trans issues aren't about that particular conflict. The NOW website, for example, never once mentions trans-exclusionary feminism, but it mentions trans issues plenty. Same for Ms Magazine: it doesn't ever mention trans-exclusionary feminism but it does mention trans issues a bunch. I am, however, not inclined to argue too much about this particular point on this talk page, since it's frankly somewhat of a pointless argument to simply state different interpretations of the balance of the sources at each other. LokiTheLiar (talk) 00:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

You stated, "The basic thing arguing is that there are a lot of sources out there, many of which are already in the article, which bear out that this article currently gives undue amounts of weight to trans-exclusionary views." We clearly disagree on that, and have discussed that enough on this talk page.

You stated, " getting the impression that rather than argue on the talk page about whether these sources theoretically exist, it would be more productive to simply edit the article and prove that they do exist. So far every time actually added such a source to the article, they have mostly been pretty uncontroversial, while when assert that they do exist on this talk page, people seem to think making stuff up." Eh? As made clear by others, there is an issue with the type of sources you are focusing on. NickCT's statement is indicative of that. And, as seen in the #Media 'terf' usage discussion, the way you have added them in one case has also been a problem. When it comes to what you've added to the article, you have been reverted more than just once, including by me. My focus was on the content being added or changed, not so much on the sources. The sources -- used to support whatever you add -- are just another issue. Like Genericusername57 (gnu) stated, "really we can't just heap up a number of sources articulating particular viewpoints—to determine due weight we need ones giving an academic overview of the different schools of thought, like 'groups a and b think this, groups c and d think that (and no one cares what that fringy group e thinks, so we're barely mentioning them)'." That is pretty much what I have stated, what Aircorn has stated, and is what NickCT was stating.

As for Julia Serano's Medium pieces, they are only good for her personal opinions. Period. And they should not be used to classify anything as fringe. I was clear about why above.

Yes, this topic is about about all feminist views on trans issues. But the conflict between trans-positive and trans-exclusive feminists regarding trans women should still get a lot of weight. Most of the weight. There exists some commentary on trans men as well, for example. But that commentary shouldn't get nearly as much as weight as the conflict between trans-positive and trans-exclusive feminists regarding trans women. This is because it doesn't get nearly as much attention/weight in sources. We've already been over WP:Due. Like, I stated, we disagree on that. No need to rehash it yet again. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

My edits to this article have been reverted a total of three times, two of which were bold attempts to restructure the article, and one of which was by myself after rethinking the edit. Aside from those times, I've added quite a few sources to this article over the previous few weeks and none of those edits has been reverted. This is the experience on which I'm basing my assertion that what I'm actually doing in the article is not as controversial as I think both sides of this argument have assumed.

Also, I agree with gnu's assessment of how to resolve the weight issue, but I want to point out that we do have one source which gives such an academic overview, which is the Stanford Encyclopedia source, and it gives trans-exclusionary radical feminists a lot less weight than this page currently does. (Of course, it's also focused narrowly on academic feminism; I suspect that a source about feminism and trans people more broadly would probably give a little more weight to trans-exclusionary feminists than the Stanford Encyclopedia source does, but still not as much as this article does.)

One more aside: I don't think we disagree that the conflict between trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary feminists should get a lot of weight. I agree it should, because a lot of sources definitely do cover it. I just don't think the conflict should get the overwhelming amount of weight it currently gets within the article, and within the conflict I also think we are still underweighing the trans-inclusive position, both in individual issues and which issues we choose to have sections about. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The reverts are not what matters. You brought up reverts as trying to justify your choice of sources. Even if you hadn't been reverted, it doesn't mean that your choice of sources are ideal. They are not ideal, per what I and others stated above. And some of what you have done is not ideal. Your edits have been accepted, reverted (including partially reverted), or tweaked. And per WP:Discretionary sanctions and this article having recently been full-protected, there should be very little reverting at this article. Ideally, there should be very little reverting at Misplaced Pages articles anyway. Plus, some things you are proposing are clearly contentious.

I've gone over the Stanford Encyclopedia matter in the #Removal of page templates section with you above; I'm not going over all of that again. But I will repeat that we do not look at another encyclopedia and follow its format (not the entire format anyway). Misplaced Pages has its own rules, including WP:Due weight. That encyclopedia gives more weight to aspects that Misplaced Pages should not.

I know that we disagree on the weight aspect. That won't change. But, in the past, you seemed to think that trans-exclusionary feminists' views and their conflict with trans-inclusive feminists should get very little weight. It at least seems that your opinion on that has changed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, my position was never that that conflict should get "very little" weight, at least not assuming my intuition for what you mean by very little is accurate. Obviously the conflict is noteworthy and deserves significant coverage, but I object to the idea that it is the only time feminists ever talk about trans people, and I object to the idea that we should cover it as if trans-exclusionary feminist views have not more-or-less already lost it. My very rough intuition right now is that the conflict should amount to probably around a third of the article if it was balanced properly. LokiTheLiar (talk) 07:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

You were making comments that indicated "very little" to me. You have, for example, been calling the view fringe. We don't give fringe views much weight, except for in their own articles if they have an article dedicated to their views. But even in that article, we are supposed to be clear about what the majority view is. As fo the rest, I know what you object to. Again, no need to repeat ourselves. I never put foward or indicated an "it is the only time feminists ever talk about trans people" argument. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Restructuring the outline

I support views that this article is messy. I like the idea of seeing sandboxes of rewrites. I also appreciate that the content seems to change greatly each day, possibly making sandboxes quickly out of date. Perhaps we could suggest drafts of outlines, to see ideas on how to re-organize content? For example, I've just made this bold change (which I absolutely accept revert if desired), which resulted in this new outline:

1. On differences in socialization and experience
2. On sex reassignment surgery
3. Exclusion of trans women from women's spaces and organizations
4. Exclusion of trans women from LGBT spaces
5. The term "TERF"
6. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists
7. Feminist support of transgender topics
8. Transfeminism

Could this be taken further, to something such as:

1. Exclusion of trans women
   1. From the definition of "woman"
   2. From women's spaces and organizations
   3. From LGBT spaces
2. Inclusion of trans women
   1. Transfeminism
3. Disputes and altercations
   1. The term "TERF"
   2. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists

Or as:

1. Views on specific topics
   1. On differences in socialization and experience
   2. On sex reassignment surgery
   3. On access to women's spaces and organizations
   4. On access to LGBT spaces
2. Views in general
   1. The term "TERF"
   2. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists
   3. Transfeminism

A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The current outline I think is only marginally better than it was previously (but it is marginally better, so I don't support reverting). I think either of your two suggested outlines would be better than the current page, but I feel that either is currently awkward because as currently presented, every "issue" presented is actually better described as a "dispute", except for maybe one exception which makes shoving every issue under "disputes" seem awkward. I think the best solution is to structure the page in parallel to the pages Feminist views on prostitution and Feminist views on pornography, which both split themselves out into "pro", "anti", and some stuff to cover miscellaneous bits that don't fall into either major category. So, for example:

1. Trans-exclusionary views
   1. On sex reassignment surgery
   2. On access to women's spaces
   3. On differences in socialization and experience
   4. On the word "TERF"
2. Trans-inclusive and transfeminist views
   1. On trans rights
   2. On the nature of gender
   3. On the word "TERF"
3. Incidents of conflict

I also like the thing those articles do of naming a bunch of examples of the category and then summarizing their arguments instead of trying to quote them every time. LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:41, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Per what I argued in the #Chronological Reorganization section above, there are issues with your suggested outline. Now that we see your outline, it's just as problematic as I thought it would be. There is no good reason that we should have two sections or similar for the same topic. The material should be consolidated in one section per topic; that is the way Misplaced Pages's articles are designed. Usually. A145GI15I95's second suggestion in this section is better. As for A145GI15I95's first suggestion, as you know, I included something like that when I put the exclusion sections under the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading. In the #"Conflict between..." section, I stated, "Having a 'Feminist exclusion of trans women' section and then a 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' section beneath that is a disjointed format that is not ideal. Feminist exclusion of trans women is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. That is why I placed the 'feminist exclusion of trans women' material under the 'conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' section. The 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' heading is problematic because just about all of the topic is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. Almost all of the material in the article could be placed under that heading. It's best to just remove the 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' heading and have the subsections be their own sections. And by 'be their own sections,' I mean something like having an 'Exclusion of trans women' section and the subsections being 'From women's spaces and organizations,' and so on." You then made this edit. I think that A145GI15I95's first suggestion is okay, but that specific topics like "Differences in socialization and experience" should be their own sections, and we obviously shouldn't have two just to address both inclusive and exclusive views. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

(Missed this earlier.) I'm willing to compromise on A145's first suggestion, but only if the majority of the issues are under the broader topic headers. The biggest single problem with the page as it currently stands is that is incredibly disorganized and essentially every person who has commented on this talk page appears to agree that the article needs a restructure. Obviously there's me and A145, sche and Mathglot agreed in #General Structure above, and Fae and Aircorn appear to agree that the article is at least very bad in its current form.

Obviously that doesn't say a lot about how we should restructure it, and we've gotten unfortunately less consensus about the exact nature of the restructure, though. So far we have more opinions on what the structure of the page should be than editors who have offered an opinion. If this wasn't the case I'd support another RfC, but as is I think we need to hash out broadly which options people are okay with before doing anything. Maybe we should make a section asking for opinions on broad category of restructure (issue-based vs. ideology-based vs. chronological)? Don't think we need a real RfC necessarily but I wouldn't be opposed to that either. LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:53, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Essentially, I like the idea of tightening structure generally toward either "Group: Issue, issue, issue; Group: Issue, issue, issue" or "Issue: Group, group; Issue: Group, group" (with little opinion as to which, and with whatever section retitling and content shifting). A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:49, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The lede is large, it repeats content from the "terf" and "transfeminism" sections, and those section are small. Could we add an introduction/history/summary/context section before all issues, to remove repeat content from the lede, and to absorb the full content of those two tiny sections? A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

=Feminist views on transgender topics=

Feminist views on transgender topics vary wildly. Early feminist views on trans people were often hostile, but more modern feminists view the struggle for trans rights as an important part of feminism. The National Organization for Women (the largest feminist group in the United States) and the Feminist Majority Foundation both support trans rights.

==Background==

Some feminists, such as Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys, believe that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary. Feminists who exclude trans women from women's spaces or do not consider trans women to be women have been referred to as "TERFs" (short for "trans-exclusionary radical feminists"), though they generally reject the term. Feminist Viv Smythe, who is credited with coining the term, has stated its intention as a "technically neutral description ... to distinguish TERFs from other RadFems ... who were trans*-positive/neutral." Those who do not support trans inclusion refer to themselves as "gender critical", and they object to the word "TERF", calling it inaccurate and a slur. These feminists are a minority within feminism and are often considered transphobic. Sally Hines of The Economist stated that although these feminists are a minority within feminism, they have a "high level of social, cultural and economic capital."

Additionally, some transgender and transsexual people, such as Emi Koyama, Julia Serano, and Jacob Anderson-Minshall, have formed a movement within feminism called transfeminism, which views the rights of trans people and trans women in particular as an integral part of the feminist struggle for all women's rights. Transfeminism, also written trans feminism, is a category of feminism that synthesizes feminist and transgender discourse. Transfeminists argue that there are multiple forms of oppression and sexism, and that trans women and cisgender women have shared interests in combating sexism. Influential transfeminists include Julia Serano, Diana Courvant, and Emi Koyama.

==On differences in socialization and experience==…

A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:07, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

A145GI15I95, I'm not sure what you mean by "The lede is large." It's not big. And either way, per WP:Lead, it's supposed to summarize the article's most important points. The "TERF" aspect is an important point, which is why it has its own section. It's currently small because you broke out the material into its own article. But per WP:Summary style, there should be a little more in that section if we are retain a seprate section on it.

As for a History section, I suggested one and noted that I'm working on one. So I support that.

As for the rest of your latest suggested outline/format, it's a good direction for the article...except or that small lead that doesn't adequately summarize the topic...if that is your suggestion for the lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I also do not think the lede is that large. Compare it to the lead of Feminism, or the lead of Feminist views on prostitution.

I'm also for either Issue: group, group or Group: issue, issue, with a slight preference for the latter.

I agree that the article ought to have a History section, since the history of this dispute is pretty important. I also think it's likely to subsume some of the uglier sections right now (so, for example, the conflict over Sandy Stone and the Mitchfest conflict should probably go under a history section rather than lumped into a somewhat arbitrary section designed to contain them.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 07:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of "large", "overly detailed" would better describe my opinion of the lede. Perhaps also my quick draft above shifts too much out of the lede and into the proposed new "background" section. Thanks for your consideration. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't really think a "Background" section is significantly different from including this info in the lede. While I can sorta see your objection to the way some of the parts of the lede are written right now, I think this is by far the smallest present problem with the page and I don't really see a solution to it that is actually better without fixing several of the bigger problems. LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

'High level of capital'

Regarding this claim (which appears in both the lede and the "terf" section): …they have a "high level of social, cultural, and economic capital." Would it be fair to ask a second source for this conclusion? I've not seen this contended elsewhere myself, so it seems a bit bold to me, especially for the lede (though I admit we each live in culture bubbles). The source is Sally Hines writing for The Economist in 2018. It's behind a paywall, but I've access to its full text. Thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:36, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there are other sources noting the power that these feminist have. I thought about adding another source for it. But like I stated with this edit, "whatever wording I would use would be more subject to debate ." Instead of trying to put the matter in my own words and adding an additional source (an academic one) for it, I stuck with the quote...which can only be attributed to Hines.

Are you doubting the power that these feminist have? Why would Hines, who clearly is not trans-exclusive, note it if it weren't true? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I actually sort of agree with this criticism. Sally Hines and the Economist are both British, and it's not hard to find other sources that agree that trans-exclusionary radical feminists have a high amount of influence in Britain. But I think that combining American sources which say they are a minority with a British source that says they're powerful is an accidental case of WP:SYNTH in this particular case, because the actual truth is that they are a small minority in America (and most English speaking countries) but powerful in Britain. See here and here. LokiTheLiar (talk) 09:39, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

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