Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

MOS:IDENTITY RFC: Should the text "When there is no dispute..." be deleted, kept or changed?

This RFC concerns the following bold text from MOS:IDENTITY:

Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Article titles where the term appears in the title of an article. When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)

Should this text be

1. Deleted
2. Kept
3. Changed. And if so, how should it be changed?

Survey

• Delete GabrielF (talk) 02:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Change or delete – I'd like to see specific proposals for how to make it meaningful, or remove it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete - There's a reason the wording is so weak/vague and can only be weak/vague - per GabrielF below, MOS is not the place to address complex or controversial issues such as identity. MOS is about style, formatting, presentation, the superficial stuff. Not questions that get to the core of who a person is, what they are, what they stand for, how to respectfully refer to them, or what their "real" name is. Also, the statement is a tautology. "When there is no dispute," we've already settled on the name and don't need any further guidance. The only people who will care to read MOS are the people who are involved in disputes and seek clarity - which this guideline does not provide. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete I think it is confusing and serves no real purpose. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• change or delete The preponderance of the sources should determine which name to use (which should be in the guideline)Two kinds of pork (talk) 04:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete the last sentence, since the claim is false on at least two counts. (The term "Jewish person" does not even appear in the article Jew, nor is it possible for an encyclopedia article to "demonstrate" a claim; demonstrating an assertion in the social sciences is something that is done by primary sources, not by encyclopedias.) Then reword the rest: I suggest changing "when there is no dispute" (which makes it a tautology) to "In simple cases" or "Typically". In other words, the remaining text is an accurate description of how terms are usually chosen (e.g, why residents of the United States are called "Americans" on Wikipedia) in the absence of any challenge. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• delete it adds nothing, is confusing, and conflicts with commonname. We should point people to the numerous naming conventions besides wp:at as well.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or change. The wording may not be perfect, but it is very important that Wikipedia contains guidance about how to deal with people's identity, and there is in my mind no better place for guidance about how to style articles than the manual of style. Removing the highlighted text is not the way to improve Wikipedia's coverage of sensitive issues - rather it would make things worse as the recent Chelsea Manning RFC shows we need firmer guidance not weaker. Thryduulf (talk) 08:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete as conflicting with WP:COMMONNAME. GregJackP Boomer! 10:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete As being in obvious conflict with WP:COMMONNAME. We can't afford to have any ambiguity whatsoever in issues like these. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:56, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete I gave my detailed comments the last time this was proposed, but in short, the history of how this wording was created shows that it was designed to be informational, not instructive, and since it is unclear it is better to delete it. 99.192.87.226 (talk) 23:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)
• Delete Well-intentioned, but unclear, liable to be misinterpreted/misapplied, and encroaching on content issues that are best handled through our policies and guidelines rather than the style manual. Abecedare (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete as unclear and superseded by WP:COMMONNAME. Edge3 (talk) 01:43, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or change to "The term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to 'Jewish person.')" Removing "When there is no dispute" makes the statement true. The term most commonly used is what it is regardless of whether Wikipedians are fighting about it or not. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:39, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • What happens if "the term most commonly used for a person" by reliable sources is not the term that person prefers? In that case your text would appear to be stating that the less common term actually counts as being more common just because the article subject prefers it. That completely redefines the words "most common" to mean something that they do not mean. GabrielF (talk) 05:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete The language is too loose. Someone knows if they are or aren't male/female and their personal characteristics. The 'dispute' refers to disputes here, in editing, not with the person themselves. Make this as clear so we avoid as many future Chelsea/Bradley Manning problems as possible. KrakatoaKatie 03:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep and change Remove the "When there is no dispute" qualification. There is no conflict with WP:COMMONNAME as WP:COMMONNAME is only for article titles whilst MOS:IDENTITY is for style issues in the article body. There may be conflicts between the subject of the article and other reliable sources, but as a source about themselves, a person trumps other sources, in as much as other sources become either out-of-date or are less reliable. Once a reliable secondary or tertiary source says that the primary source (the subject which changed their name) says as much, that's it. No other primary source can even say otherwise: we should follow the Anglo-American common law (think California, home of the WMF, and your TOS choice of law provisions you agreed to) principles which has traditionally allowed name changes by a person "at will" (a common law right especially protected in California), and not follow European practice where one must beg their landlord (aka the King in Council, or in this case the US president) for permission to do so. IOW, that person is the only reliable primary source on the issue. The "him" versus "her" debate I think flows from the same logic, but is unfortunately unclear; this however is not relevant to the text under discussion. Int21h (talk) 10:16, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be looking at this through the prism of the Bradley Manning case. Does your analysis also apply to historical persons and to groups, as the current text does now? For instance, Christopher Columbus did not go by that name - it is a later anglicization. Many historical persons are known in English by anglicized names. Does this policy mean that we have to change them, even if the names are unfamiliar and confusing to readers? What about groups? How do we determine what an ethnic group, the majority of whose members do not speak English, prefer to be called in English? If there is a source that says "group X should be called Y" how do we know that that source represents the wishes of the group as a whole and not of a vocal minority that might have a particular political agenda? GabrielF (talk) 19:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I will ponder this more. I am concerned about conflicts between a majority of secondary sources and the subject as a primary source. This policy would give an enormous to a single primary source, and I'm wondering how the edge cases will work. I am not worried about historical issues or transliteration issues, though, or source reliability issues (which this does not effect.) Int21h (talk) 12:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. As has been pointed out, this doesn't contradict WP:COMMONNAME because that only applies to article titles. As for the rest, it may be that "if there is no dispute" is poor wording, but if that clause is changed, there still needs to be a limiting clause. We can't just pick the subject's preferred name all the time.

Even for Manning, there can be disputes about exactly the scope of the subject's self-identification. It's clear that Manning wishes to be called Chelsea now, but it's not so clear that Manning wishes to be called Chelsea in reference to events that happened before she announced a name change (and likewise for pronouns). But the biggest case I can think of is not Manning, but the case where group A claims to be part of group B, and identifies accordingly, but anyone else who identifies with group B thinks that A is a bunch of posers. Under these circumstances, A's self-identification impinges on someone else's self-identification and therefore should not be uncritically accepted. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. In looking for guidance on the Chelsea Manning dispute I looked through the edit history and talk history for Chaz Bono, which had a similar history of covering someone who was famous first, and came out as trans later. I saw this wording was very helpful there. Helpful enough that it's been adopted for Template:MOS-TM and Template:MOS-TW, used by 130 pages according to the transclusion counter. I'd hate for one heated case to scupper a proven-useful guideline. Metadox (talk) 04:57, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

You are mistaken. Template:MOS-TM does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. Template:MOS-TW does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. The talk history of Chaz Bono does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. They all talk about other parts of MOS:IDENTITY, just not this part of it. 99.192.50.55 (talk) 12:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

You're right, I misread/misremembered. I've retracted my entry until I can recruit more sleep or coffee. Thanks for the correction. Metadox (talk) 00:46, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep (but probably improve) per Thryduulf. -sche (talk) 05:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete bolded text and reword the remainder. Identity, like anything else on WP, should always be determined by WP:V, RS, NPOV etc. It shouldn't have to wait for a dispute, and it shouldn't be determined by non-policy-based criteria such as self-identification. Disputes should be resolved by consensus, and this should be stated in the guideline. Please see my detailed argument in the section below. Scolaire (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep except perhaps for minor changes to make clearer per Thryduulf. Neljack (talk) 00:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. For trans people, and others, use of self-identified names and pronouns is a matter of basic respect. --Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 00:39, 14 September 2013 (UTC) To expand on that comment, MOS:IDENTITY is one of the few protections that trans* people have against misgendering on Wikipedia. To remove it would preempt the current policy discussion at WP:AT, and would likely prompt a very negative reaction from the trans community at a point where Wikipedia is already under fire for the handling of biography articles of trans people (Chelsea Manning, Alexis Reich, and others). --Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 00:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete Delete "Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)" The article does not demonstrate that, as far as I can see, regarding "Jewish person," so that part is nonsensical. "Wikipedia should use them too." is unnecessarily redundant. I think the Christopher Columbus example demonstrates that the name for the subject is not always the one the subject uses. As such, the text under discussion here is clearly not correct. (Also per GabrielF) OSborn ^arf_contribs. 00:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Honor the subject's identity. See also Gypsy vs. Romani People. Startswithj (talk) 15:26, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. It's unclear, unhelpful ("When there is no dispute" there is by definition no need for guidance.) and I don't think that the Manual of Style is the right place to be guiding decisions on what names to use in individual cases. I certainly don't think that the term that a person or group prefers is universally going to be the best choice. --Jeude54cartes (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep in spirit and reword As others have noted, Christopher Columbus is a counter-example, and the current example is unclear. I suggest keeping the intent – putting significant but not exclusive weight on self-identity – and rewording the bold text as When these policies provide no clear guidance, considerable weight should be given to how the person or group self-identifies. Thus "Christopher Columbus" rather than "Cristoforo Colombo" or similar, due to the Anglicised name being far more common in modern usage and there being no clear indication of the name Columbus used himself, while "Jews" is used instead of "Jewish people" as there is verifiable evidence that this is the group's preferred term. —me_and 21:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep anbd improve where necessary. This proposal was worded very awkwardly so my true wishes can't be stated with such narrow options Pass a Method talk 07:50, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, per Startswithj and Thryduulf. theonesean 01:12, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep because although it may be confusing, I think that removing it would pre-emptively settle the "transgender name dispute" without any sort of broad consensus to do so. It seems like this discussion is really about whether or not, or to what extent, BLP concerns can trump COMMONNAME, but there are valid points on both sides of that dispute and the MOS isn't really the place to resolve it (WP:AT is, I think). So IMO we should leave it until the broader question is settled. Again, removing it would improperly suggest that the WP:AT question is already settled. AgnosticAphid talk 21:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or (Delete and modify bullet point #2). If we delete it we should modify bullet point #2 (concerning gender) to include the person's preferred name, rather than just preferred pronoun, as this should be an exception (per WP:BLP), IMO. Kaldari (talk) 20:52, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. When I read that part, the first thing that came to mind was Wikipedia's usage of Sioux to refer to an "ethnic group" of native Americans. This goes counter to the guideline in that it is not a word that the Lakota people nor others whom "the white eye" ;>) lumps under the misnomer "Sioux" (an Indian word used by other native Americans to refer to the Lakota, et al., as the "enemy") would use for themselves. Yet it is such an ingrained example of systemic bias that we will probably always refer to Chief Sitting Bull as a "Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux". That probably isn't the only example of bias; however, I do like the way many Wikipedians strive to reduce and eliminate bias on Wikipedia. This text is an example of something that is not yet entirely applied, and something about which Wikipedians must sometimes consider in their editorial judgements. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 13:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. The passage makes statements that may or may not be true ("the term most commonly used will be..."; well it might be and it might not be, in any given case, so the blanket declaration may well turn out to be a lie). But most pertinently, it states that these matters are dealt with in certain policies, which is exactly where they should be dealt with, i.e., not here. W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Self-determination is a fundamental human right. This, of course, is a moot issue if you're in the majority and can simply control the language and perceptions of a minority group. Sportfan5000 (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or clarify. As per Sportfan. Ananiujitha (talk) 00:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
• "'Keep
• Delete - Superseded, and a little in conflict, with WP:COMMONNAME. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

The current text is so poorly worded as to be meaningless. The trouble with this text comes when there is a conflict between how a person or group is most commonly addressed in reliable sources and how that person or group prefers to address itself. If you ignore the phrase "When there is no dispute...", the policy makes a very strong statement that we must use the term that the person or group prefers. However, the phrase "When there is no dispute" renders everything that follows meaningless. If there is no dispute, why consult the manual of style? The entire purpose of a manual of style is to provide some guidance when there are multiple plausible choices. The policy, as written, does not actually tell us what to do if there is a dispute. It is very easy for someone who (purposefully or not) ignores the phrase "When there is no dispute" to come away thinking that the policy is saying something that it is not actually saying.

This is not a hypothetical problem. The lack of clarity has led to different editors interpreting this policy in radically different ways. In the recent Manning dispute an editor said of MOS:IDENTITY: "Some people have argued that this doesn’t apply because there is a dispute over whether to use Chelsea or Bradley. But I think it is clear in context that the reference to a “dispute” does not mean a dispute on Wikipedia; rather it means a dispute regarding what is subsequently referred to in the sentence – “the term ... [a] person uses for himself or herself...”[1] If the wording of a policy is so unclear that editors can take radically different views on what the policy refers to, then the policy is not providing clear guidance and needs to be fixed. This is one example of the practical impact of the lack of clarity of this policy. Many other examples exist.

It is possible to modify this text so that it makes a strong statement that we should prefer the article subject's self-identification. However, I do not believe that the MOS is the place to do this. For one thing, this would put the policy at odds with WP:COMMONNAME. Additionally, the MOS is an inappropriate forum for this discussion. Traditionally, the MOS handles issues of style and presentation whereas other policies, such as those referenced in the first sentence, handle the deeper content issues. The MOS is weaker than those policies - it is considered a "guideline" while BLP is considered formal policy. GabrielF (talk) 02:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, no no no no. Yes, the phrase "When there is no dispute..." is confusing. It should be removed. What's left would possibly conflict with other sources that refer to him as Bradley Manning; these sources are trumped by a particularly reliable source: Manning. Once a secondary or tertiary source confirms what the primary source of note uses, all other sources should be deemed to be out-of-date. Deeming sources to be overridden by other sources is commonplace, particularly if one source is newer and reflects changed conditions. I actually don't think that poses much of a problem for current policy. WP:COMMONNAME is plain irrelevant; it only concerns article titles, whereas MOS:IDENTITY concerns content. (The Manning proposal even touched on this.) The MOS should reflect consensus, and I think consensus should reflect my opinion, which I think most editors also hold: it is up to Manning. This is reflected in Anglo-American cultural values which are themselves a reflection of long running legal practice in the common law that allows for people to "call themselves whatever they wish". The European practice is practically unknown to us, and it actually makes me quite angry when I hear a consular officer tell someone that they may not get a visa or whatever unless their driver's license says whats on their "life certificate" (yeah, Europe, what can I say. pfft.), which reflects how difficult and uncommon it is. Even the states where court decrees are required, they are to be granted by default. (European practice, on the hand, is to require a reason for doing so as I understand.) As such, Manning becomes the most reliable primary source on the matter. Int21h (talk) 10:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I have a question, before I comment, because I'm a little puzzled on something. What does this section, "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself." actually add to the policy?Cam94509 (talk) 02:34, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Before anyone corrects me, I know, I know, "guideline", not "policy". Cam94509 (talk) 02:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Some of us are finding that it adds precisely nothing; that it's a tautology. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

It makes sense in terms of, for example, Jews preferring that term to Jewish people or Israelites, as some people may refer to that group or individuals in that group. However, if there is no dispute then it's likely the case that the correct terminology is being used already... However, for cases where there is a dispute (in the sources, not between our editors), we need some guideline or policy to reflect the prevailing opinion of editors. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

• The sentence: "Wikipedia should use them too." should also be removed as it's redundant. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. That sentence got added after the rest of the text proposed for deletion was written. I believe it was added by someone who read the rest, saw that it was merely informational, not instructive, and so thought it would help to add the instruction. But it is redundant to say it and the rest, as others have noted, in confusing and not meant to instruct anyway. 99.192.87.226 (talk) 00:03, 7 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

• As currently written, does the MOS apply only to BLPs? How would it be applied to dead/historical figures (eg, Rajeesh/Osho, Byron/Noel,...)? In such cases would only the last self-chosen name count, or should we look at what reliable sources use? I agree that the current version is a hash and better off deleted, or recrafted more-narrowly. Abecedare (talk) 03:57, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The existing text clearly applies to more than just BLPs since it references groups. I see nothing in the text that suggests it would not apply to historical figures. GabrielF (talk) 04:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

As someone who has been involved with the Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles, I can tell you that self-identification as a principle does not work. It has proved unworkable to such an extent that it was taken out of IMOS altogether, having been there for years as a criterion for a person's Irish-language name, and having also been used informally as a criterion for a person's nationality. The simple reason is that it is extremely rare to find reliable sources that say unambiguously what a subject's personal preference is. There was a particularly lame dispute recently at Talk:Michael Gambon where one participant actually claimed that a 2010 interview where Gambon said he didn't "feel" Irish trumped a 2004 interview where he said "I am Irish"! The case of Chelsea Manning is relatively unique, in that the subject's personal preference made banner headlines. The only similar case I can think of off-hand is Muhammad Ali, and we call him Muhammad Ali because that is how he has been referred to by every sports writer for the past forty-odd years, not because he "self-identifies" as Ali. "Jew" is also a bad example, because even if that statement is correct, it is not a principle that is universally applied. Quakers are called Quakers, although they call themselves "Friends", and Hispanics are called Hispanics regardless of whether, as a group, they have ever expressed a preference. To say that "the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself", therefore, is simply untrue. This is not to rule self-identification out altogether, by the way. Where RS, NPOV and other policies do not point to a single answer, identity will be decided by discussion and consensus, and self-identification is a perfectly valid argument in a discussion. It just doesn't belong in a MOS. Scolaire (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

?OK, question: what do we do when there are multiple names for a subject, like with Octavian? Would that not be a similar situation? Int21h (talk) 01:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

My answer would be, discuss it on the article talk page. It's an article-specific question, not a question of style. This page is only for giving general guidelines. Scolaire (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

As an addendum to my !!vote, I would prefer that there be an accordance between the MOS and COMMONNAME/ARTICLETITLE. Situations like what's currently at Bradley Manning, where the article title and the name used for the subject in the article are not the same, seem very strange. I'm not aware of any reason (or argument for) the article body would differ from the article titling. We have separate policies for these, but internal procedural matters should not be overtly visible to users like this. A simple fix would be to adopt the article title as the name to be used for the subject. (Obviously, this will not be favored by those who are currently opposing the use of Bradley in the current scenario. However, I think a consensus could form around this at a later date.) OSborn ^arf_contribs. 01:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC on pronouns throughout life

It would appear that the jury is still out on the topic of pronouns from before a person's announcement (for example, referring to Private Manning as either "she" or "he" when Manning was young). Discussions on this topic have been mixed in with other discussions, so I propose a dedicated discussion. I propose a survey on the retention or removal of the sentence on this topic.

Regarding the following sentence from MOS:IDENTITY:

This applies in references to any phase of that person's life.

What do you think should happen to this sentence?

• Keep
• Delete
• Change (please specify how)

Proposed by CaseyPenk, who will not !vote on this matter but reserves the right to comment. CaseyPenk (talk) 18:47, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Survey on pronouns throughout life

• Keep. Trans women are women. Thinking of trans women whose bodies haven't yet been fixed with surgery as men uses the point of view that people whose anatomy and identity do not match are people with the right anatomy and the wrong identity, a point of view people who understand transgenderism don't use. How easy is it to understand this statement:

• • why is it not possible to understand transgenderism, and believe physical sex should govern pronoun use regardless?

Christine Jorgensen is a woman; this statement is true throughout her life; she merely had the wrong body before it got fixed with surgery. Georgia guy (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not easy to understand. For one thing when you say transwomen, it isn't immediately clear whether you mean men who became women or women who became men. Saying they are women all their life doesn't make sense, then they wouldn't be a trans-woman. Christine Jorgensen was born male. She was uncomfortable with that gender so she changed it with surgery.Walterego (talk) 08:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The terms "transman" and "transwoman" are standard and unambiguous, feel free to look them up in a popular online encyclopaedia. If you need further help to remember them then read the "trans" part as "transitioned to". Christine Jorgenson is a female who was born with a male body, her gender has not changed. Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• delete Is is arguably more neutral to portray events as others viewed them, and not solely through the lens of an individuals' lived experience. For example, if there was a soldier in an all-male unit, it wouldnt' make sense to portray this soldier as "female" even if he had gender identity disorder during his time in service, because everyone around them treated them as if they were male. Rather it would make more sense to being the use of the female pronoun at the point that person comes out as transgender and begins transitioning (Note: I'm not saying we should require surgery, etc, but rather just the public announcement or obvious actions taken (such as a name change) that suggest you are embracing a different gender). This is in line with NGLJA guidelines. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

  Comment. You appear to be thinking that transsexualism is a mental disorder per the word "disorder" in your post. Georgia guy (talk) 19:48, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure on OWK's reasoning, but we do have a page on gender identity disorder and we use the term "gender identity disorder" through the article on Manning. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If someone is so disturbed by their assigned gender that they end up transitioning, then they would qualify for a diagnosis of GID. I know some people find GID offensive but that's what it is called - gender dysphoria is another term but it's more broad, and there are people with gender dysphoria who never transition. I'm not passing any judgement on what "disorder" means, as I'm not a clinical psychologist, so take it up with those guys not me.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

No. It's not called GID. It's Gender Dysphoria, at least in the United states, as of DSM V. We only use the outdated GID because that's what everyone calls it... That said, referring to is as GID is reasonable, I suppose, given that's what everyone calls it. Cam94509 (talk) 19:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete for the reasons I stated in the discussion section below. I also concur with OWK's point four paragraphs above, that it is "more neutral to portray events as others viewed them, and not solely through the lens of an individuals' lived experience." - Gothicfilm (talk) 19:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. It is confusing and deceptive to describe someone who doesn't consider themselves female, and that no one considers female, as female, just because twenty later they will suddenly realize they should be such. Gender identity is more complex than something eternally unchanging - for some people it absolutely does change over time, and we shouldn't be pretending that it doesn't. --GRuban (talk) 20:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• User:Cam94509 made an insightful comment about this recently. Basically, the push to "use the pronouns a person's contemporaries used at each stage of their life" misunderstands not just what it means to be trans, but also what pronouns (and names) are for. As Cam put it, pronouns and names are "used to refer to a person or thing, not used to describe them. In so far as they do any describing, they are used to describe that person in their current state, even if you are discussing them in past. You would, for instance, say 'Mrs. Smith did X as a child', even if she was Miss Carpenter at that time in her life." Many editors find this intuitive about names, perhaps because they have experience with people changing names: they may have had the chance to see how confusing it is to say "Miss Carpenter got an award from the mayor for her work. A year later, Mrs. Smith got a letter of thanks from the prime minister." (Huh? Are you discussing two people, or one?) Some editors find it less intuitive about pronouns, perhaps because they have less experience with people 'changing' genders. They may not have had a chance to see how much it confuses people to tell a story about a woman and switch to "he" midway through: "Mrs. Smith has always been patriotic. Miss Carpenter wrote her thesis on Trafalgar. In primary school, he told his classmates that his favourite holiday was 5 November." (Huh? How many people are you talking about??) Complicating matters, many transgender people say (and medical science, looking at brain structures, etc, increasingly supports) that they have always been the gender they now identify with, and that rather than 'changing' gender, they have simply come to accept and reveal their gender. Keep the line, I think. -sche (talk) 20:59, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

This makes sense; and indeed, when speaking to a TG person directly, I would probably use the current pronouns the whole way back - and I don't doubt the science that says (in some cases) that they have not really changed genders, they are just revealing their "true" gender that has always been there (there are also edge cases, I note, like people who prefer the pronouns "they" or "hir" or even self-created ones, or who don't identity as either male or female)

However, when writing an encyclopedic, neutral article, we have to take other things into consideration. You can already see that the guideline exhorts us to rewrite things to handle oddities like "He gave birth to a child" - so it's already explicitly acknowledged that use of the current pronouns complicates description of the past - but here we have a case of a soldier who is about to be incarcerated in an all-male prison and who has always been treated like a man - and the retroactive changing of pronouns, while it may misrepresent Manning's internal state as of some moment in time X, is indisputably a more accurate and neutral representation of how that person was viewed by the world when the events being described were happening. To take an extreme example, a reader may come across something like "She walked naked into the boys shower room and was mercilessly teased by the others" where the use of the female pronoun completely screws up the story - and then we're exhorted to not "avoid" pronouns either.

I see your point, that lines like "David Bowie was born in X" when David Bowie didn't even exist at the time, but when talking of the past, if you say "Bowie was born in 1965" - you're not imagining rock-star David Bowie, but Bowie as-he-was-as-a-little-boy. In the same way, when you use a pronoun to describe something in the past, that also invokes the PAST personage, not the current one, at least in my head. The pronouns bring to mind instantly a gender (and the whole package of gender roles that that entails) in a way that Mrs. Smith vs. Miss Carpenter doesn't. I think the best way would be to carefully draft two articles - say of Manning - and then do a survey of readers (a/b test) and try to understand what users find confusing, and is a pronoun switch ultimately worse or better than a consistent use of a pronoun. Ultimately, our goal is to prevent readable, good articles for our readers, that follow sources in a neutral fashion.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

"insightful" perhaps, but incorrect. When we write about Muhammad Ali, when we talk about his bouts before he changed his name, we call him Clay. When we write about Hillary Clinton, when we talk about her early life, we call her Hillary Rodham. So "You would, for instance, say 'Mrs. Smith did X as a child'," is strictly incorrect. We would not and do not write that.--GRuban (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

This gets at an important distinction: retrospective vs. retroactive changes. Muhammad Ali was already both famous and notable under the name Cassius Clay, and we don't retroactively replace Clay with Ali for his earlier bouts. David Bowie was completely unknown and non-notable as a child, and when we talk about his early life we're looking retrospectively at the biography of the person who would become famous as David Bowie. In that case it is completely natural to use the name Bowie throughout. Similarly, I think the rule under discussion here is fairly uncontroversial for retrospective use, when we're writing about someone who became notable later under a different name and identity. The difficulty is when a change would apply retroactively, replacing an earlier identity that was already well-known. It's hard to justify a blanket rule in this case, and many of the counterexamples that keep coming up (Muhammad Ali and Cat Stevens) are exactly in this category. --Amble (talk) 00:32, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• delete/change It is a violation of WP:V and WP:BLP to make this a blanket policy/guideline. Just because SOME trans people feel that way their entire life, does not mean that ALL trans people feel that way their entire life, and we should not be making such statements on their behalf. In cases where people have made clear statements saying the have felt they have been gender X their entire life, then we should consider it. In cases where they have not made such statements, we should only switch genders for actions after their transition/announcement. Further, in historical actions that were clearly gender controlled (childbirth, membership in gender restricted groups, etc) we should use their original gender in order for things to make sense. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:20, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete without prejudice to developing better wording. There should be an assumption in favour of using the most recent pronoun, but the guidance is at present too rigid. It ought to allow for pronoun usage, for example, to reflect the preferences of the subject or to avoid confusing, tortured or deceptive text. I find the peripheral guidance on this wrong-headed. There is nothing wrong with saying that a transgender man once worked as a air-hostess and we should certainly not go by a rule of pretending that they never give birth. Wikipedia should reflect the world.

I think the guidance has been drawn up with two aims in mind. It should properly deal only with style related to gender-identity, but I think it is also trying to deal with the issue of privacy in low-profile BLPs. These are separate issues that should be dealt with separately.

@-sche. The argument that personal pronouns refer rather than describe may be tempting, but it is not correct. They do both. The fact that they do both may be more or less important depending on context, but consider: "When my son came to visit, I offered her a cup of tea". Formerip (talk) 21:31, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete per Gaijin42. The guideline pretends to follow the wishes of trans people, but there is no reason to suppose that all trans people feel this way - it's legislating how they are supposed to feel. Also, the guideline doesn't follow usage in the real world, either in reliable sources, or in manuals of style. StAnselm (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, whilst the NLGJA recommends using pronoun-at-the-time, the AP and GLAAD both recommend using current pronoun without qualification. So it is true that these manuals do not explicitly advocate current-pronoun-always, nor do they advocate pronoun-at-the-time. Chris Smowton (talk) 13:06, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep as better for article consistency and more respectful to transgender people (per sche). I don't buy the argument that we need to change the MOS in a way that could potentially damage dozens of articles because purely hypothetical individual subjects might feel differently; if we have a subject who does feel that they have changed gender rather than always having been the gender they have revealed themselves to be, WP:IAR and handle that article differently. Don't open the door to trolls. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If I read your comment correctly, your belief is that most transgender individuals prefer to be referred to using the current preferred pronouns throughout all phases of their life, and that only a few transgender individuals feel differently? CaseyPenk (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Which is not something that can be concluded from the evidence so far adduced. We have evidence that LGBT organisations advise that (linguistic) gender should match the identity of the person at the time and that transgender people talking about their childhood match their gender to their sex at birth. We don't seem to have anything, so far, pointing the other way. Formerip (talk) 22:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep It is my understanding that the majority of experts on the issue of gender identity take the position that the gender of a person is fixed before the age of three and remains unchanged over the course of a person's life. If that is correct, then it would be factually inaccurate to say that a transgender person "changed" gender. As an encyclopedia, factual accuracy is paramount, so the pronouns we use should reflect our current best information on a person's gender. If we find out that an article has inaccurately said that a person of one gender is actually the other gender, then we must change the article to remove the false information. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 22:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

I will quote from this article in Encyclopedia Britannica:

Basic gender identity—the concept “I am a boy” or “I am a girl”—is generally established by the time the child reaches the age of three and is extremely difficult to modify thereafter.

CaseyPenk (talk) 22:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's own Gender identity page cites two scholarly books in support of the same claim. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

It's a general statement which may generally be true, but is complicated by the existence of transgender people. I don't imagine that this leaflet, written by transgender people, is intended for three year-olds. Formerip (talk) 22:42, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If there is anything in that leaflet that contradicts the claim that gender is fixed in early childhood, point it out. I just briefly skimmed it and saw nothing that did that. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

The title. Not "I am transgender, what do I do?", but "I think I might be transgender, now what do I do?". Formerip (talk) 22:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That does not indicate anything about gender change. "I think I might be X" just means that I do not know for sure, but leaves open the possibility that I am and always have been X. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 23:27, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Perhaps, or perhaps not. But consider the statement cited above: "Basic gender identity—the concept “I am a boy” or “I am a girl”—is generally established by the time the child reaches the age of three and is extremely difficult to modify thereafter". Clearly, this is a general statement which does not take into account the experiences of transgender people. Formerip (talk) 23:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If you are saying you think the Britannica article has it wrong, I agree. They also talk about "the proper identity" for a person, which assumes that there is something wrong with being transgender. I think we would all say that it is unfortunate, since typically a transgender person prefers a different body, but to call it "improper" is to us a moralizing term. It also talks about "sex-appropriate behaviour" as if that were not morally loaded. So no, I don't have much faith in Britannica on this. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 23:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

My position is that this should be about human dignity before it is about scientific theory. A ten-year old biological girl who later identifies as a transgender man might be theorised as a boy. But that doesn't mean we have the right to insist she is one. Or, for that matter, deny she is one. Formerip (talk) 00:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Change to "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the person in question has expressed different desires in a WP:RS. If the person has expressed different desires, then follow those desires." There is absolutely nothing wrong with the sentence "He gave birth to his first child." Some men have uteruses. Some women have penises. This wording conforms to the AP Stylebook, the GLAAD guidelines, the NCTE's advice, the advice of UC Berkeley's Center for Gender Equity, and is common practice with people and in areas who are aware of trans issues. I'm significantly concerned that some commenters on this page don't appear to have looked at any material about this issue before they !voted, and I presume the closing admin will discount !votes based on uninformed personal opinion. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Most !votes have been thoughtful and grounded in reasonable rationales. I have yet to see any !votes that are hateful or propose ridiculous and untenable theories about transgender people. Most editors who support deletion of the sentence have put forward rationales based on reasonable pretenses, such as the desire to accurately described what reliable sources viewed the subject's gender to be at that phase in that person's life. Could you please identify which particular !votes you see as purely personal opinion? It may also help to respond to such comments so as to draw attention to what you view as faulty reasoning. Were I the closing admin I would not see the preceding comments as worthy of being discarded, sans an explanation of which ones should be discounted and why. CaseyPenk (talk) 22:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The comment of StAnselm is problematic because although StAnselm claims the guideline doesn't follow usage in the real world, reliable sources, or in manuals of style, StAnselm provides no examples demonstrating that, StAnselm just puts the claim out there. I quoted several guidelines from reliable sources and the only stylebook I have on hand, all of which disagree with StAnselm. Gaijin42's comment is problematic because it is based on his personal feelings and among other things completely disregards academic consensus that gender identity is almost always formed at a young age and that most trans people do experience gender dysphoria or identify as a gender other than the sex they were born as from a very very young age. GRuban's comment is similarly problematic in that it disregards academic consensus that gender identity is formed at a young age, and is also disrespectful to trans people. I'm placing these here rather than in-line comments because I don't really want to get in to an argument with someone who, say, believes that trans people "suddenly realize" they want to switch genders when they're in their twenties. As an aside: since the gendergap list has a high number of subscribers who are knowledgeable about gender issues, I've gone ahead and notified that list of this discussion with a neutrally worded message. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll ping them here in case they want to respond to your concern or edit their rationales: User:StAnselm, User:Gaijin42, User:GRuban. If you find !votes provided without rationales troublesome, I assume you have similar qualms about User:Pass a Method's !vote, which the user provided with no rationale other than deferring to another editor.

Also, Gaijin42 cited Wikipedia policies in the rationale. Policy-backed arguments are generally strong. CaseyPenk (talk) 22:47, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

!Votes that don't provide their own unique rationale can be useful in pointing out to the closing admin that they should probably pay extra attention to the person whose rationale is being differed to, but yeah, I wouldn't really expect "keep per soandso" to hold the same weight as a full vote. Policy backed arguments are generally strong, but policy backed arguments that fly in the face of academic consensus - not so much. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Since I've been mentioned here, I was particularly thinking of the NLGJA's suggestion on "using the name and gender the individual used publicly at that time". I also note the issue is not covered in the Chicago Manual of Style, so presumably it advocates historical pronoun use. Moreover, I would like some evidence that the AP Stylebook advocates the usage discussed here. It certainly advocates current pronoun usage based on the subject's preference, but does it advocate historical use of the same? I can't even find that in the GLAAD Media Reference Guide. StAnselm (talk) 01:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

You are making problematic claims about what the sources recommend. GLAAD explicitly advises "It is usually best to report on transgender people's stories from the present day instead of narrating them from some point or multiple points in the past, thus avoiding confusion and potentially disrespectful use of incorrect pronouns." in your own link. I also don't know how Chicago not covering your preferred usage is evidence of them advocating your preferred usage. __Elaqueate (talk) 09:32, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

"It is usually best to report on transgender people's stories from the present day instead"

• Unfortunately, that's not a luxury we have. As an encyclopedia we have a responsibility to report on all parts of her life and cannot focus exclusively on the present day; furthermore, since Wikipedia is explicitly not written in a news style, we cannot write in a reporting tone or use present tense, as if we were telling story. We simply cannot say "She leaks the documents, then she gets arrested," as if it were a play-by-play. We have to use the past tense, and say, "(s)he leaked the documents, then (s)he got arrested." What may work for journalists doesn't always work here. CaseyPenk (talk) 01:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

CaseyPenk, since writing an encyclopedia is different from writing a news story as you point out, then it would seem that we really should put little weight (if any) on the style guidance that NGLJA gave to a journalist about pronoun use, sine it was (at best) advice for a different style of writing. 99.192.81.252 (talk) 03:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Okay, well in that case we have no guidelines to follow so we should default to the encyclopedic norm - describing the subject at a given time as it was known at the time. What you're saying is really that we shouldn't have any special journalistic exception for transgender people, and it seems that most people support that. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

No, the encyclopedic norm is not to describe the subject "as it was known at the time", but to describe the subject as they were at the time. So 10 years ago Manning was not just "known as" "Bradley", that was actually her name then. But also 10 years ago she was "known as" male, but she actually was female. Think of a transgender person as like someone who is in disguise and pretending to be the gender they are not, because that is pretty close to the reality. I quickly must add the disclaimer that this is not to say that a transgender person can be blamed for lying about their gender, but they are typically lying about it and for many, many years. Lying about your gender can literally be a matter of life and death for transgender people. But it is still a lie, and so as an encyclopedia we should not perpetuate the lie when we discover it. We now know that Manning is female. To continue to use male pronouns for Manning is to perpetuate the lie. 99.192.81.252 (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

"as it was known at the time" <-- I believe very strongly in this definition. We are in the business of meta-reporting; reporting about reporting. Not reporting on our own, or spreading the truth, or even determining the truth. Just passing along what others have said. Rather mundane but that's our only goal and our only capability.

"as an encyclopedia we should not perpetuate the lie when we discover it" <-- Again, we are not in the business of "exposing" lies. That's the job of AdBusters, PETA, Heritage Foundation, GLAAD, and any number of other political or advocacy organizations. We are not in the business of "liberating" the public from "falsehoods" about gender; we simply report whatever accurate or not-so-accurate things the reliable sources say. It comes down to reliable sources. That's the only test we should use, and the results are unambiguous. They refer to Manning's younger years using "he." It's really that simple.

You seem still attached to the idea that Wikipedia should be exposing the truth, or even figuring the truth out. Well, think of it this way. Wikipedia is a robot. We can only do rote actions. Monkey see, monkey do. We parse a CBS News article, we copy the text, and then we paste it into a Wikipedia article (ignore copyvio concerns for the moment). The CBS News article describes "he" and then "she." All we have done is copied the text; we have not editorialized on it. We have simply quoted verbatim from a reliable source. Rather than invent our own arcane and elaborate solution, let's do as we have always done at the most fundamental level when writing Wikpedia articles: let's be robots. Let's do the only thing Wikipedia was ever designed to do: pass along what others have written. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You still don't get it. I am not arguing for some sort of crusading advocacy of political agendas. When I say "as an encyclopedia we should not perpetuate the lie when we discover it" what I mean is the obvious. Take the previously repeated Memphis/Nashville example. If all the reliable sources over a period of 10 years say X was born in Memphis, we put that on X's Wikipedia page. But if reliable sources subsequently report that this was an error or a lie and X was actually born in Nashville, we report that. We certainly don't continue to say that for those ten years it was the case that X was born in Memphis, but then after that it became the case that X was born in Nashville. That's crazy. So if for many years people thought that Manning was male, but now we have the reliable sources to verify that she is female, we should not perpetuate the lie.

Also, you cannot possibly believe strongly in continuing to report information "as it was known at the time" when we subsequently have reliable sources that this information was false. It wasn't until 1974 that Jack Nicholson learned the true identity of his parents. His mother is a person he believed to be his sister, and the person he thought was his mother is his grandmother. This all happened after he was a world-famous movie star and twice nominated for "Best Actor" Oscars. His Wikipedia page accurately reports this story. So if in 1971 he had taken his mother (who he thought at the time was his sister) as his date for the Oscars, the Wikipedia page should not say "his date for the Oscars was his sister" even if every reliable source of that time reported that as the case. When errors are discovered (as reported in more recent reliable sources) we correct past errors. We do this every day on Wikipedia pages. We do not preserve errors as if they were facts. 99.192.81.252 (talk) 05:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

I see your point quite clearly. We are rehashing the same debate and I've made myself clear so this is all I'll be saying: it would be an outrageous and unfortunate deception to pretend as if Chelsea did not live her life as a male up until her sentencing. We have a basic responsibility to tell history as it was, not as we interpret it now. I'll leave it at that. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:42, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"it would be an outrageous and unfortunate deception to pretend as if Chelsea did not live her life as a male up until her sentencing." I agree 100%. The page should not do that. So just as Nicholson's page tells how he believed that his actual birth mother was his sister for the first half of his life even though she was his birth mother the whole time, Manning's page should say that she lived as a male up to her sentencing, even though she was female the whole time (and we have her statement published in oodles of news reports as verification of this). "We have a basic responsibility to tell history as it was, not as we interpret it now." I agree 100%. History as it was is that she was a female person in a male body, believed by all to be male for most of her life, who claimed to be male for most of her life and lived as male for most of her life. But at the same time, she was female. That's what all the reliable sources tell us. 99.192.81.252 (talk) 05:55, 12 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

I agree with 99.192 here, but I think we're talking past each other to some extent. I think (or hope) the disagreement is not over whether or not to report information which reliable sources say is incorrect; I think the disagreement is over whether or not the information that "at age 10, Manning was male" (as opposed to "...was living as a male") is incorrect or not (a disagreement fuelled by some sources' use of "he" to refer to Manning when writing about events that occurred before the 22nd of August).

If this were actually a disagreement over whether or not to repeat old sources' incorrect information, I would ask if you could point to any article in Wikipedia which presented, as if it were accurate, a statement which reliable sources now agreed was inaccurate. (I would then mention the article on WP:RSN so it could be cleaned up.) -sche (talk) 06:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Casey. So if "academic consensus" should say that gender identity is fixed by age three, should we write "he" until age three and "she" afterwards, though the actual personal decision should have been made at age twelve, and the public announcement at age twenty? That's silly. "Academic consensus" has never controlled a specific person's decision about anything, much less something so personal. All "academic consensus" it can do is talk about a theoretical person, not a real one, or at best about the majority, or the group. But people are individuals, not a faceless mass. I reject utterly the claim that treating our subjects as individuals, and going by their statements, and the statements of reliable sources specifically about them, rather than some sort of "academic consensus" from experts who had never met them, is somehow disrespectful of them. It is a strange sort of respect to treat our subjects as an undifferentiated mass, rather than as people with complex thoughts and expressions. --GRuban (talk) 01:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

GRuban, I don't think you understand how gender works. The idea that a person's gender is not fixed until the person is around 3 does not mean that a person already has a gender before that. It means that a younger child actually does not have a gender at all. So the idea that "he" is the right pronoun for a pre-gender person misunderstands how it works. For most people their sex and their gender "match" (for lack of a better word), so you can make a good guess about gender by checking the "naughty bits" and thus make a pronoun choice for the pre-gender child. But sometimes we get it wrong and afterwards have to correct the error. Think of it like a pregnant woman who is told by her doctor that the child will be a girl, but then at birth it turns out that the child is a boy. Surprise! Mistakes happen. But the fact that the parents of this child might have said "she" and "her" frequently during the pregnancy does not mean that the chird really was female before being born. Same for the mistakenly identified transgender child. 99.192.81.252 (talk) 03:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Oh nuts - I guess this will teach me to make a minor point and a major point in the same post, or risk someone addressing the minor, and ignoring the major. Let me strike that to avoid confusion. The major point is that "academic consensus" about people in general is not applicable to a specific person. We are all very different from the crowd, and deserve to be treated as individuals. Some have gender fixed, and some have it mutable, and some decide early, and some decide late. And I still reject that saying that is offensive; in fact, I'd be offended if someone told me something important about me were determined by some kind of "academic consensus". --GRuban (talk) 21:54, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep per Roscelese. Pass a Method talk 22:20, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, many editors and especially vandals need a clear understanding of this because trans issues are just as of yet beyond their understanding. Or worse, they see trans people as morally inferior and wish to make this point through poor writing and editing. It seems this same argument needs to be asked and answered even with a good explanation. Imagine the disruption without a clear directive. Sportfan5000 (talk) 22:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

We can have guidance that achieves this aim without it being totally inflexible. Formerip (talk) 22:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That flexibleness unfortunately devolves into "wikilawyering" ad nauseum that generally disrespects non-gender binary people, and anyone different. It's systematic bias that this should be addressing, not an exceptional case that may need an exemption. Sportfan5000 (talk) 02:22, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep as a clarification of our WP:BLP policy. Not using a transperson's preferred pronoun is deeply disrespectful of that person and would violate the spirit (if not the letter) of WP:BLP. It is also more consistent if we use the same pronoun throughout. Kaldari (talk) 22:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep - Pretty horrifying that you've felt the need to ask this, as it appears you seem to be pushing for a mass violation of WP:BLP and unleashing the maximum amount of drama possible on any and all articles relating to transgender people. Artw (talk) 23:02, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

A number of editors have expressed concerns over the use of current pronouns in past phases of a person's life. You can find a number of discussions on that very topic on Talk:Bradley Manning. Please do not accuse other editors of POV-pushing or of "unleashing the maximum amount of drama possible," as that could be construed as a personal attack. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this conversation has been had many times, and you have been involved many times, and each time the importance of the correct pronoun has been stressed to you, and yet here we are again. You are right to note that a lot of these discussions get pretty heated, as they often seem to be driven by deliberate obtuseness, and accusations of bigotry often follow. The MOS is useful both as guidance and so that there are no excuses for going over old ground on multiple pages - removing the line would mean that argument dragged out repeatedly with all associated drama. Artw (talk) 23:27, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

"and each time the importance of the correct pronoun has been stressed to you" - I am not a school kid, so please do not treat me as such. I use the she pronoun consistently; please do not suggest otherwise. Many others disagree with you about this topic, as you can see from the delete !votes. A discussion is fully warranted. If the matter were settled it would be all keep !votes. CaseyPenk (talk) 00:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - this is not to say that the opposite should be our standard, but usage beyond Wikipedia does not seem to be standardized on this yet; we're in a period of linguistic flux. The argument that someone who changes public gender was always actually their newly identified gender runs into scrapes with the admittedly small portion who do transgender reversal (and sources that say that gender identity cannot be made to change are not the same as saying that gender identity cannot change; I cannot be made to change my age, but my age will change without my trying). The statement that we should stick with the pronoun that the subject prefers makes an assumption about what the subject would prefer for their past, which I doubt we have sourced for most subjects. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, perhaps adding the caveat that if a person is well documented as preferring pronouns that pertain to their public identity at the time then that choice is acceptable for that person. Without such a known preference, referring to a trans person as a child using their asserted gender is harmless, whilst referring to them using their birth sex may constitute an unwitting slur, so the existing language is most likely to keep Wiki properly respectful to its subjects. Chris Smowton (talk) 23:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• "referring to a trans person as a child using their asserted gender is harmless, whilst referring to them using their birth sex may constitute an unwitting slur"

Do you have any reliable sources to indicate this is true for all transgender people? CaseyPenk (talk) 01:19, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

No, because that's not what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that it's more likely to needlessly offend if you use their old pronoun than if you use their new one. Given the whole point of the MOS passage in question is to avoid being dickish without good reason we should take this more careful route. Are you honestly contending the opposite, that there are trans people in greater numbers that find it very offensive to use their new pronoun about their pre-transition life? Chris Smowton (talk) 12:32, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. Prefer the principle of being guided by reliable sources beig taken to the lowest levels, sentence by sentence. Use the pronouns that are used in the sources that support the material on a sentence by sentence basis. Do not impose artificial consistency as an editorial decision. Allow for people have separate phases of life. A biography may use different names and titles for the child, the unmarried woman, the younger married woman, etc. If the pronoun changes across phases, so be it.

I support the deletion of the entire second dot point of MOSIDENTITY ("Any person whose..."). It supports editorial revisionism and the writing of material not in keeping with the sources supporting the material. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete per Gaijin42 and SmokeyJoe. GregJackP Boomer! 01:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete since the current phrasing is too rigid. If the article subject expresses a desire to be identified by different pronouns for each stage of his or her life, then we should have the discretion to follow those wishes. Edge3 (talk) 02:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete Nobody can alter the way they were born, I would use the opposite sex pronouns up to the person's id. change. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, and I can't believe we're seriously having to discuss this. Sceptre ^(talk) 05:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of whether you think it should be discussed, it would be more helpful if you provided a rationale. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:20, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete There is no clear guidance in the wider media on applying new gender identifiers retrospectively. Indeed, neither the AP Stylebook or GLAAD explicitly address historical application. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association clarified their stance and recommends using the name and gender the individual used publicly at that time (see [2]). In short there is no universal outside authority, but one organization which has issued explicit guidelines that the The New York Times has agreed to abide by do not recommend retrospective application. The New York Times is unlikely to be on its own in adopting the NLGJA's recommendations, so you have to ask if it is wise for Wikipedia to adopt a contrary position? Wikipedia should be following trends, not establishing them. Betty Logan (talk) 07:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Change (or keep if there is no consensus for change). I can't really put the case for keeping better than -sche did, and there is a distinct difference between trans* people and people who convert from one religion to another. A religious conversion is a change from being a member of religion X to a member of religion Y, it is sometimes described as being a rebirth or a fresh start, or seeing the light - it is a change and not retroactive. A trans* person does not change from being male to female (or vice versa) they realise that their gender identity is not the gender they were assigned at birth, and at some point they choose to ask the world to refer to them as the gender they are and always have been rather than the incorrect gender they were assigned at birth. The transition isn't between being male and being female (or vice versa), it is a transition in the identity presented to the world. Kevin Gorman though makes the very good point that although most trans* people express the desire to be identified as their correct gender for their entire life, a minority do not and we have no reason to disregard those wishes. Kevin's wording of "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the person in question has expressed different desires in a WP:RS. If the person has expressed different desires, then follow those desires." I don't think is perfect but it would need minor wordsmithing only. Thryduulf (talk) 07:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete in favor of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association position. Chelsea Manning's lawyer even made a statement to a wikipedia user saying that the pronouns should reflect the gender society perceived her as at the time. The current guideline is far too strict. There should be consistency between articles, so if a user reads 3 transgendered pages, the same rules apply to every page. Users shouldn't need to visit talk/policy pages, or research the subject's preference to determine what is going on. The point of the MOS is consistency between pages. If I am reading this debate correctly this entire conversation comes down to one thing. Should we be writing articles from the perspective of the subject (personal gender identity) or the way society viewed them (perceived gender identity) at the time? Using one pronoun before transition and another after does NOT invalidate the fact they have been the same gender their entire life, it merely reflects how society at large documented the subject at different points in time. tldr: NLGJA policy should replace current wording. Xkcdreader (talk) 12:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep - If for nothing else than the sake of simplicity. It strikes me that it will be difficult for readers to track subjects throughout an article if the gender of the pronoun is switching. NickCT (talk) 13:09, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Change per Kevin Gorman and/or Keep per NickCT. I think it would be equally confusing if not more to use both pronouns, certainly it would be more difficult for the editors writing the article who would have to juggle both female and male pronouns in a way that is comprehensible and at the same way respectful. I don't think it is particularly confusing with examples such as "she went to an all boys school" as long as it has been previously made clear the person is a trans woman. Space simian (talk) 13:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete/Change. To the person who pointed out that we say "'Mrs. Smith did X as a child'", let me reply that that although you may think the "Mrs." part supports keeping the line, the other part--the "child" part--supports deleting it. After all, Mrs. Smith isn't a child now--we say "Mrs. Smith, as a child" because we recognize that she was a child at the time the event took place.

And about personal versus perceived identity: there's another way to think of it. The subject's personal identity has changed. At the time, the subject considered himself male. The subject can say "I now think I was female all along"--but cannot say "I thought I was female all along", because she didn't. If you could go back in time and ask for a self-identification, this person would have said "I'm male". Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Ken, see 99.192's comment beginning "The experts say that gender is fixed in early childhood..." -- the person's public persona has changed, but their internal identification, as far as we understand the matter, has not. She genuinely did think she was female all along. This is not to say that it's impossible to develop GID later in life, but I've never heard of such a thing. Chris Smowton (talk) 17:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - Reading through the Bradley Manning article for mere interest, I was constantly confused when reading "she" with reference to her childhood. Whatever she may identify as now, she was not a "she" when a child. If Wikipedia editors find this confusing, I can imagine the general public does even moreso. Icemuon (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep For the sake of consistency consistent pronoun use makes for good sense and easy readability. Likewise, it affords a small amount of respect to the subject which must be of at least some importance.Pez Dispens3r (talk) 17:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete - To summarize/quote good points above:

1. "Is is arguably more neutral to portray events as others viewed them, and not solely through the lens of an individuals' lived experience."
2. Confusing and even deceptive/manipulative (for example pushing different identities at different points to win political/personal points/achieve personal/political goals, perhaps only short term)
3. "It is a violation of WP:V and WP:BLP to make this a blanket policy/guideline. Just because SOME trans people feel that way their entire life, does not mean that ALL trans people feel that way their entire life, and we should not be making such statements on their behalf." (But also subject to # 2 above.) And "The guideline pretends to follow the wishes of trans people, but there is no reason to suppose that all trans people feel this way - it's legislating how they are supposed to feel." Excellent points emphasizing wikipedia rules and not political promotion via wikipedia. Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion (How hard to editor/advocates work to get this NewStatesman article published? [http://www.newstatesman.com/alex-hern/2013/09/chelsea-manning-gets-put-back-closet-wikipedia "Chelsea Manning gets put back in the closet by Wikipedia ")
4. "Prefer the principle of being guided by reliable sources being taken to the lowest levels, sentence by sentence. Use the pronouns that are used in the sources that support the material on a sentence by sentence basis. Do not impose artificial consistency as an editorial decision. Allow for people have separate phases of life." Excellent point.
5. "There is no clear guidance in the wider media on applying new gender identifiers retrospectively." User:Carolmooredc 18:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep, for a bunch of reasons that have been stated already, but I think it's better to be consistent, especially when some ambiguity/controversy over when the person transitioned crops up. Even in the case of Chelsea Manning, there's the thing over the name "Breanna" she used a few months ago before she came out, and there have been other things in the past, I think, so making the split between when we use "he" then "she" is just going to be a mess. Haipa Doragon (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:V. The verifiable status of a pronoun exists in reliable secondary sources which Wikipedia is based on. We do not rewrite secondary sources to our own whims, that is original research and synthesis. We report what is contained in secondary sources. We need to adhere to what the sources report in referring to the subjects of biographies or the whole premise of WP:V is in question. Elizium23 (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

  @Elizium23: You might like to read (and join; it hasn't been archived yet) the dedicated discussion about WP:V and pronouns here. In short, changing "John made his discovery of foobarium in 1923" to "Jane made her discovery of foobarium in 1923" based on a reliable source saying "John = Jane" seems no more like OR / SYNTHESIS than saying "foobarium is water-soluble" based on reliable sources saying "foobarium is soluble in H2O" and "water = H2O". Do you object to the latter?

  A bigger question: if books published after a trans woman comes out do use "she" even when writing about her childhood (when she was living as a male), would you have a problem with WP citing those books and using "she" when discussing her childhood? If those books contain information about her childhood that no other books contain, would you change the "she" to "he" when adding the info to WP, or would you mix pronouns (saying "he" when citing a book that said "as a child, he..." and saying "she" when citing a book that said "as a child, she..."), or would it not be possible to include the information at all? I'm curious, because I expect it's a common occurrence when people become famous only after transitioning. -sche (talk) 21:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that if reliable secondary sources present a contradiction or a variety of terms then editorial discretion and WP:CONSENSUS need to be used to establish consistency and clarity of usage. Elizium23 (talk) 21:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• If and when reliable sources refer to Chelsea's childhood, adolescence, and military service using feminine pronouns, I am more than supportive of using feminine pronouns throughout her life. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:27, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. 1. We're making a political statement no matter what we do. a: Using the original pronoun throughout life implies that the trans person is making it up. b: Switching back and forth implies that the trans person actually changed gender. c: Using the recent pronoun implies that the trans person always was that gender. Option c is the most polite of these routes. Ordinarily, that wouldn't factor in here much, but since these options are so similar in most other respects, courtesy should be enough to tip the scale. 2. The closest we have to a scientific evidence on trans individuals seems to say that they do not decide to become female or male but rather discover that they always were, probably because their brain anatomy or body chemistry is closer to that of their gender identity than that of their genitalia. Some juries are still out and there is a lot that we don't yet know about what creates gender in humans, but at the moment, using the most recent preferred pronoun throughout the subject's life looks like the most accurate way to go. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:23, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Change to accommodate personal preference or else Keep — I've gone back and forth about this over the last week or so. There's no great answer to this question. On the one hand, science seems to say that gender identity is generally fixed at a very young age. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to be unequivocally settled (I think? Not sure if there's much other than the report mentioned above saying "fixed by age 3"). Plus people's personal preferences are all over the map, at least judging from Ms Manning's choice, and arguably if they were notable for something they did as a man maybe it's confusing to use "she" throughout the article, like for instance with the Wachowski Brothers (were they never really brothers even though that's what they called themselves?). But really, I don't think it's actually confusing, it's just unxpected and unfamiliar. Who is going to be confused – if the article reminds us that "Chelsea was Bradley" – if the article says, "she was the star of the boys' choir"? Nobody, I don't think; assuming otherwise is an insult to our readers. In the end, I'm most convinced by the discussion I had with a friend, which is essentially the same as the other editor above, who said that if I was talking about some transgender friend of mine I totally would say that she went to a boys' school as a kid, especially if I were talking in a group with her, because to do otherwise would be totally insulting. I don't think this is different even if it is an encyclopedia and not a social conversation. That said, if people express a personal preference I can't see why we shouldn't respect it one way or the other. AgnosticAphid talk 01:13, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
  • In the interest of WP:BLP, I should note that the above poster seems to be confusing The Weinstein Brothers, who are, to the best of my knowledge (and by the status of our articles), still brothers, with The Wachowskis, for whom the term is trickier to apply. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Oh dear, you're quite right about that. It's just something I am not familiar with but casually read last week and should have checked before bringing up. I've fixed my comment. Thanks. AgnosticAphid talk 01:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per my comments in the first section of this page and per my rationales here. The article on Dee Palmer is a great example of where such rigid wording goes off the rails, it's something that should be done case-by-case. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:46, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete or (as a second choice) change to reflect current personal preference as to past identification. As two LGBT organizations have contradictory standards, this version also disrespects the subject's self-identity. I would prefer to be able to use the pronoun that current reliable sources use to refer to the subject, but that may also be confusing, as, apparently different major newspapers' style guides take different positions. (As I've noted before, the two female-to-male trans people use the female pronoun in referring to their own past life, sometimes referring to the female state as another person.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

  Comment. That is nonsense. We refer to ourselves with I/me, which have no gender. (Arthur Rubin, please alter your statement so it is less confusing.) Georgia guy (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Georgia guy, please do not reject the good-faith responses of others as "nonsense." CaseyPenk (talk) 17:14, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

He's saying that he knows some trans men who refer to themselves as she/her when they're talking about themselves; and I'm revealing that that clearly makes no sense. Georgia guy (talk) 17:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like Arthur's friends refer to previous parts of their lives using third person ("sometimes referring to the female state as another person"). So they would use "she played in the sandbox" rather than "I played in the sandbox," presumably to demarcate their current selves from their past selves. CaseyPenk (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - Our general policy is to go where the sources lead us. Before the ID change we certainly use the birth pronoun. Afterwords we would use the new pronoun. I do agree with a previous editor though, in that this would be a general guideline and we would need to take it case-by-case. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:05, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, per my comments in the previous thread. Cam94509 (talk) 19:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete If I call myself a cat, I am wrong. If I call myself a table, I am wrong. I have all the biological parts of a man, so if I call myself a woman before I've had the surgery to change that (which, for clarification, I have no intention of doing) why am I not equally wrong? The "feelings" of the people involved should have no bearing at all in what is supposed to be a repository of fact without bias. Sonar1313 (talk) 19:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Sonar1313, I advise against comparing people to inanimate objects such as cats or tables. Some editors may find such comparisons highly offensive. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

In that case, say this: I am not the President of the United States, and if I call myself that, I'm wrong. If I call myself a resident of Bangladesh, I am wrong. These are facts as well, and they don't cease to be facts just because I think they're true in my head. Even so, I'm not budging from the position that feelings and being offended shouldn't come into play here. The moment someone holds back on publishing a true and verifiable fact on Wikipedia (or worse, changes one) because it might offend someone is the moment Wikipedia ceases to be a reliable, credible source of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonar1313 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Riddle me this, captain. As you can see from our article on gender, gender contains both a biological and a self-identification component. Why is self-identification an unacceptable basis for determining someone's gender? If someone says they're a man, are they not a man? If you think self-identification is not an acceptable basis for determining facts about people, how would you determine whether someone was gay, straight, or bisexual? Ask their sex partners how into it they seemed? Try to calculate it based upon what proportion of seemingly romantic public sightings were with men versus women? What about for religion? Should we say that if someone says, "I'm Jewish," we need to independently verify they've met some litmus test of how frequently they've been seen at temple? No, of course not, we take people at their word when it comes to this sort of self-identification question. AgnosticAphid talk 23:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Except that doesn't address the question, which is, if someone says, for example, "I'm Jewish", do we need to call them Rabbi when talking about their earlier life when they prayed at a mosque? --GRuban (talk) 01:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

An excellent point; as well, "gender" and "sex" are distinct concepts (which, by the way, is an entirely modern construct, according to the cited article) and the English language - nor any language, for that matter - has no separate set of he/she pronouns for gender and for sex. Biologically speaking, one is either a man or a woman. (Or, I suppose, in the middle of a change, which is its own pronoun trouble and not being covered here.) Therefore it is entirely appropriate to match the pronoun to biological sex. Also, here is a further point in support of deleting the sentence. Cat Stevens was mentioned earlier. His birth name is Steven Georgiou, and he is referred to as such in his Wikipedia article during the period of his life prior to when he was known as Cat Stevens or Yusuf Islam. Consistency demands the same treatment for these pronouns. Sonar1313 (talk) 01:33, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. The gender language should map the gender change. We should use the former gender language for the former phase of life, then change this language along with the gender change. Binksternet (talk) 21:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete/Change per others, identity can change throughout a persons life. That one transwoman wants to be called female throughout her life doesn't mean that another transwoman won't want it to be a distinct step that signifies an important event in her life. If that person indicated "from this day forward," gender should reflect the pronoun in the distinct phases of their life. It is insulting to presume we know more about their feelings than they do. It would be just as insulting to declare someone transgender before they have made that declaration (i.e. "outing"). This discussion happened more than a year ago when people wanted to start calling Pvt. Manning "Breanna" and "she" before the press release that declared his transwoman identity. It may equally be insulting to people they may have been in relationships with and that must also be taken into account. (i.e. a transwoman that was married to a hetero, cis-female prior to identifying as transwoman - that former spouse may have BLP concerns if we are forced to say the former spouse married a woman - Manning identified and lived as a gay man and the former boyfriend might have an issue if we claim he was involved in a relationship with a woman). Considering that mislabeling/misidentifting gender has led to violence against transgender individuals, we shouldn't remove previous identities and rewrite gender without consideration of the effect/harm/wishes of the subject and those who might feel harmed or slighted by the change. --DHeyward (talk) 22:36, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep but allow for exceptions for people who have specifically requested not to have their current pronouns applied to historical discussion. MaxHarmony (talk) 01:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• MaxHarmony, why do you suggest this instead of the inverse (strike the word "not" from your suggestion, and assume that we will use at-the-time pronouns unless told otherwise)? CaseyPenk (talk) 01:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• I would assume because, for most transgender people, the current preferred pronoun is also the preferred retrospective pronoun. Cam94509 (talk) 03:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete or Change I don't think that the wording should be so inflexible, as it can force articles into using unnecessarily clunky and confusing sentences to shoehorn past events into this style either by replacing the pronouns or studiously avoiding them. I think that in many cases using the same pronouns throughout all life stages is reasonable and will have little impact on clarity or readability, but there are also many scenarios where the gender that they were interacting with the world in is pertinent to the facts being presented or makes them more easily understandable. Whilst I think that articles should be internally consistent with the style they use (throughout life or pronouns used in sources at the time), I think they should be able to use either if it is sensible to do so. --Jeude54cartes (talk) 10:13, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment – I will post my own opinion later. But I note that most people voting "Delete" are actually proposing a change. We can't just delete the sentence and leave nothing in its place. At the very least, if there is no consensus on how to refer to earlier phases in a person's life, the guideline should explicitly say so. This would prevent it from being misinterpreted as mandating something it doesn't. – Smyth\^talk 11:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

No, I actually think just deleting it is the best option. I can think of ways that it could be better worded, but I think we will wait an eternity for a consensus about that. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I think the current wording is inappropriate, so the holding position should be nothing. Formerip (talk) 13:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete As it forces revisionist histories.CombatWombat42 (talk) 13:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

This is 50.201.255.38 from below. I'm only picking this vote for this response because it is the most recent one stating this. I feel these votes have things entirely backwards. This is not about any sort of "revisionist history", this is about making sure information inside of articles is not false. In almost any other case where it becomes known through reliable sources that something previously thought true was, in fact, not, any and all articles would be corrected to reflect the new information with little to no opposition. Yes, it would be noted that said fact was once thought to be otherwise, but that is an entirely different thing from repeating the incorrect information in articles as fact.

The whole point of this guideline is to make it clear that trans people are not some exception to this general rule, not that they should be handled differently. For basically no other case of reliable sources correcting a historical error can I see Wikipedia editors sitting around saying that they cannot/should not correct the error (or cannot correct it until some reliable source explicitly tells them to do so). Setting the bar differently for trans people is implicitly (if not explicitly) just as much a political and non-neutral editorial stance as changing pronouns to reflect the reliably reported reality. Simple Sarah (talk) 14:55, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Change - Suppose that a person was being described as a man since birth, and at some point the person decided to be called a woman. I think that it would be incorrect to call that person a man throughout the biography article, same with describing the person as a woman throughout the article. I think that we should call the person a man in the earlier part and a woman in the latter. It will get confusing, I know, but the opposite would be incorrect. --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete or Change. While we should rely on the sources for pronoun usage in general, much has been made about preferences of the class of person in question. No where do any of the "keep" votes provide evidence that all transgendered people prefer a unified pronoun. In fact, the current style intentionaly ignores those that have specifically stated they prefer a mixed usage depending upon the phase of their life under discussion. How anyone can support a unified approach that a one size fits all scheme protects transgendered persons yet ignores a stated preference on an individual is baffling. Two kinds of pork (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. Either choice will put us at odds with the wishes of certain individuals, but changing whole-life pronouns also puts us at odds with verifiability. --erachima talk 20:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Please explain why retroactive pronouns are at odds with verifiability. People keep stating this and I have yet to see anything that explains why this is true in an satisfactory manner. Verifiability is intended to prevent things such as original research or non-neutral points of view. All the existing guideline in question here is saying is that a person is a reliable source for verifying their own gender and that, therefore, Wikipedia should follow suit. If people are intending to challenge that people are the best sources for their own gender, they should clearly state that along with some very good evidence for why that's the case. Simple Sarah (talk) 21:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

All trans people have made verifiable statements that contrary to their biological sex of X, they are actually of gender Y, and have always considered themselves to be gender Y, even when they used and presented themselves repeatedly as gender X? While that is a common assertion by LGBT groups, it is not a verifiable fact. For those individuals who have said such statements, we can take that into account per WP:V, but for those that have not, we are making something up using WP:SYNTH of what LGBT groups say, SOME scientists say, etc. We have documented cases to the contrary (Notice that CaseyPink is now saying we should ignore Manning's statement in this regard, because when it doesn't fit the agenda, apparently the wishes of the individual are irrelevant. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The "naive" interpretation of gender is that biological sex = gender, and it is unchangable. The LGBT line is that they are unrelated, but still unchangable. This is at odds of the very concept of TRANSITION, which explicitly indicates change. If there is a transition, there is by definition a BEFORE. Maybe the internal transition happened prior to the public transition. Maybe it happened at the moment of birth. BUT WE DO NOT KNOW. We should not be making these statements on the behalf of anyone. We cannot assume ANY aspect of the persons identity on their behalf. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Except that is exactly what you're proposing. When a trans person comes out and says "I'm a (wo)man" (I'll keep it to binary identities for now), you're essentially saying that the position Wikipedia should take is "No, you're not." or, at best, "I'm going assume that right up until you said that, you were the other." This is not even remotely viewpoint neutral, no matter how much you might want to present it as such. And remember, the status quo does not make something neutral, it just makes something the status quo. And if you are going to assert that clearly what trans people say should be ignored because it's not reliable, please present evidence to indicate why your stance is somehow more neutral or accurate. Simple Sarah (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

They made one statement that they are gender X. They made MANY statements and actions previously indicating they were gender Y, in some cases specifically stating that they were gender Y. We have specific statements from Manning and others saying somethign to the contrary. We have incidents such as [3] where trans people specifically say that the change in genders (and back again in this case) was sudden and not a life long bit of knowledge. In the case of notable people, we have hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of references using the opposite gender. It is 100% the opposite of verifiability to assume anything other that what we can reliably source. We have many sources refering to prior gender in some cases. If there is no source saying "Nope, all of that is wrong, I was lying before" then all we know is that they NOW say they are the other gender. We knownothing about their prior gender except what THEY THEMSELVES presented themselves as, and how it was reported. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Ignore new sources, because old sources? That won't end up well. In 99% of reliable sources about people's birth sex, we are relying on some measure of self-reporting. Most of the time it matches up with expectation, but that's not because it was verified by an outside authority. No one is putting reference notes to third-party reported pictures of genitals to back up article statements. In the case of your outlier "person who switches back" example, you are still relying on a reputable source that reports what a subject says their gender identity is. And the news articles about this subject consistently use his most current preferred pronoun throughout, even for historical events where he reports strongly, convincingly feeling that he was a woman and presented to the world as a woman, as well as being reported in reliable sources as a person using feminine pronouns. __Elaqueate (talk) 11:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Old sources that ARE NOT CONTRADICTED by new sources. Unless the new sources says "I have always been a(n) X", we have no knowledge of what they previously considered themselves to be, except for the actions and presentation that they took at that time. So, old sources beat NO sources. There is a huge ASSUMPTION that they always felt that way, but we should not be making that decision on their behalf. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:44, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Gender identity is like sexual orientation in a lot of ways. Most people identify as heterosexual, so most notable people identify as heterosexual as well. But most of them never publicly comment on their sexual orientation and, if they do, they don't do it very often, leaving very large gaps of time where we don't know how they identify. But Wikipedia pages need not comment on the sexual orientation, so it's not a problem.

With gender identity, we are at least as much at a loss for information other than assumptions. Does any of us know what the true gender identity is for Tom Hanks or Angela Merkel or J. K. Rowling? Nope. So far as I know none of them has ever said what it is because people who are not transgender never think it is something worth mentioning and people who are, but have decided to keep it private, won't usually comment either. But Wikipedia pages DO need to choose pronouns to use, so we DO need to make some assumption (and that is all we can do) about gender. There is no assumption-free position.

So the issue is not WHETHER we make assumptions about gender, but which ones we should make. It is uncontroversial that when a person has made no public statement about their gender and their sex is not controversial to assume that their sex and gender "match". So we assume that Hanks is male and that Merkel and Rowling are female and use the pronouns that correspond. That is what the sources we use do, too. They do not "fact check" the gender of these people before deciding on a pronoun. With transgender people, the best expert opinions we have are that gender is fixed and does not change. The typical story transgender people tell is that they have always felt that they were the gender they identify with and did not "change" gender at some point. That makes it the most reasonable thing to do to assume that all people, transgender or otherwise, have always been the gender they are now.

Assumptions are unavoidable unless we ban all pronouns and gendered words. The question is merely WHICH assumption makes the most sense. 99.192.51.41 (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Survey on pronouns throughout life: arbitrary break

Delete It is not 1984 and we should not engage wp in Doublethink. Arzel (talk) 17:11, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Strong Keep: Those arguing that it is some kind of revisionism to use a person's current preferred pronouns for earlier periods of their life, misunderstand the issue, and in particular misunderstand the perspective of trans people. Even in the case of trans people who recognize their need to transition quite late in life, typically that isn't because they have ever identified with their assigned gender. That gender has been imposed on them, nonconsensually. It is disrespectful not to recognize that. --Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 19:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a place to respect, but not bow to, "the perspective of trans people". We can't just use the perspective of any limited group of people to make policy. We must recognise the realities of the world as it is.CombatWombat42 (talk) 21:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep: I am a trans woman, and honestly it just seems bizzare to talk about my past using masculine pronouns. Using a phrase like "when he was 10" to talk about someone who is a woman simply doesn't make sense, even if that person or the people they knew didn't realize they were female yet. I am active in the trans community, and I don't know of anyone who would prefer to be referred to that way. People above have already linked to all sorts of resources and style guides explaining why it is the only respectful way to talk about a trans person. Seeing people insist on misgendering someone before their public transition just makes it seem like they're saying that trans people aren't really their transitioned gender until they've made some arbitrary step that is decided by the one writing the article. Instead of choosing to delete that line based on your own personal feelings and assumptions about a situation you can't possibly understand, try talking to trans people or looking into resources written by organizations familiar with trans issues - show that you actually care enough about the situation to consider the opinions of those it affects and who understand it the most. Katie R (talk) 19:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I would like to add that I am in favor of changing it so that if a trans person specifically states that they prefer to be called by the other set of pronouns pre-transistion, that we should respect their wishes. Katie R (talk) 19:59, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I understand your POV, and if we were having a discussion at a coffee shop I would probably follow your choice of pronouns. However, this is an encyclopedia, so we have to think about ALL of our readers, and we may have to do things that may go against the subject's wishes in order to better represent reliable sources and tell an accurate story - indeed, we do that a lot. The reason a lot of us are arguing for the "previous" pronouns is because gender has multiple components - one of them is your internal identity, but the other is your social identity, and you aren't necessarily always in control of your social/public identity - and it is your social identity that determines which soccer team you play on or which locker room you use etc - and I think recognizing that social identity and not confusing it through the use of retroactive pronouns is a more accurate portrayal of how the world saw person X at a given point in time Y. You said: "Seeing people insist on misgendering someone before their public transition just makes it seem like they're saying that trans people aren't really their transitioned gender until they've made some arbitrary step" - No! It is not making any claim about their own personal gender identity - it is rather making a claim of how the world saw them at that time. The problem with he/she is a) we don't have a viable and widely used 3rd option b) it stands in for both sex and gender and c) it conflates personal identity with social identity. I don't think we are saying that editors can decide arbitrarily at what point to stop using "he" and to start using "she"; instead we are stating that one a trans person publicly comes out and says "I am a woman", we are assuming going forward that society will begin to treat this person as a woman, and so use the "she" pronouns.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"... a more accurate portrayal of how the world saw person X ..." This is silly. There is an entire category called Category:Impostors that is full of people who were "seen by the world" in a certain way that was later found out to be false. When that happens, it is acceptable (and sometimes essential) to report the false impression, but we report it as false, not as true. Wikipedia is not in the business of preserving false impressions the public had of people just because that is how they were seen at the time. When reliable sources tell us that a previous belief, no matter how widely it was believed, is not actually true, we correct the error on our pages. To suggest we should do otherwise is to suggest we should write fiction.

Grey Owl was not the man he claimed to be, even though his claims were widely believed at the time. The word "claimed" is is used a lot on his Wikipedia page to make it clear that these widespread beliefs were false. Arnaud du Tilh was not Martin Guerre, even though it was widely believed that he was. The word "claimed" is used a lot on that page, too. And Lennay Kekua never existed, no matter how many people thought she did.

Transgender people typically will claim to be the gender they are not and are typically widely believed to be the gender they are not before they make the truth known. If you want to say "Smith claimed to be a woman in 1986" or "in 1986 everyone thought Smith was a woman" that's fine. But to say "in 1986 she..." is to perpetuate the error as much as it would be to say that in 1556 Martin Guerre returned home. He didn't. And Lennay Kekua didn't die in 2012, no matter how many people believed she did at the time. 99.192.76.246 (talk) 23:51, 13 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Keep. I believe this is in keeping with the latest opinions of the AMA and the DSM. Also, picture yourself face-to-face with a transgender person; to refer to that person knowingly with a wrong pronoun would be rude (and confusing), no matter whether you're referring to the past or the present. Furthermore, a person is transgender before coming out and transitioning. Startswithj (talk) 03:30, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that wikipeia is not "face-to-face" with a transgendered person, it is reporting events. CombatWombat42 (talk) 21:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I meant to illustrate that in a real-world example it would be rude, awkward, and confusing. Perhaps it would be more clear to specify that whether we are writing/reading (speaking/hearing) of the past, we still do so in the present—and in the present, we know the subject's gender identity. Pronouns refer to gender identity, which does not change (as opposed to gender expression, which does). Startswithj (talk) 15:28, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that saying that "pronouns refer to gender identity" begs a "sez who" response. Certainly, we feel free to refer to a baby as he or she without asking then about their gender identity. Through most of the use of the English language, he or she were seen as referring to "sex", and gender was an attribute of words, not of people. There is a good case to be made that pronouns should refer to gender identity (as well as a good case that the world should default to gender-neutral pronouns), and we may well be trending toward that, but that is not uniformly how the English language is used today. The question then is: should Wikipedia prescribe a more narrow set of acceptable uses than is currently generally exercised in English? --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Sez who? Sez everyone. Take science fiction. If a Star Trek episode featured a transporter malfunction and so Kirk was now in Uhura's body and Uhura in Kirk's body what would the characters and the audience say? They would say what I just said, that he is now in her body and vice versa. People would address the female body as "Kirk" and refer to that body as "he". That's because when we do separate sex from gender, which almost never happens in the real world, our instinct is to link pronouns to gender, not sex.

Sez who? Sez transgender people. If pronouns naturally fit a person's body and not their gender identity, then transgender people would insist on being called "he" if their body is male but their identity is female. But they don't do this. Transgender people identify with the pronouns that fit their gender, not ones that fit their sex. Why? Because just as in the Star Trek case we all think of pronouns as fitting gender rather than sex. The only people who ever resist this are people who have some problems or hang-ups that cause them to want to deny the reality that transgender people exist. People who are sympathetic to transgender people find it very odd that anyone would think to use anything but the pronoun appropriate for gender.

Wikipedia is not being asked to "prescribe" anything. It is just following well established and nearly universal usage of pronouns. 99.192.89.57 (talk) 16:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Not, not "sez everyone". It doesn't take much looking through news reports after Manning announced a desire to be referred to by the female pronoun to see that many news outlets were still using the male pronouns. I understand that transgender people want to be seen fully and completely as being what they identify with, and I do wish them the best for being accepted for who they are inside. That does not mean that "man" and "woman" have no meaning besides internal identity, nor that pronouns automatically go with that identification. How people identify is not the sole source of information; it is not inappropriate to suggest that Emperor Norton was not an emperor, no matter how much he identified as such. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:05, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

This is exactly my point. When sex and gender are separated in contexts that have nothing to do with people being transgender (the Star Trek example) people universally recognize that the correct pronoun is fixed by gender, not sex. People who are transgender instinctively know that the correct pronoun for them is the one that fits their gender, not the one that fits their sex. Non-transgender people who accept the reality of transgender people also instinctively know what pronoun fits. So who does that leave? Well, it leaves people who are not transgender and not sympathetic to trangender people, but only when they are speaking in the context of transgender people (if you "trick" a transphobe into discussing the Star Trek case without them knowing that you are really asking about pronouns for transgender people you will get them to agree without hesitation that the pronouns go with gender, not the sex of the body the person is in). If they insist on using the wrong pronouns and try to claim that they are the "right" ones, that should be no surprise. Right wing media that have traditionally been hostile to all things LGBT insist on the male pronoun in the specific context of a transgender person? No surprise there.

As for the Emperor example, you are mixing apples and oranges. Whether or not a person is an "emperor" is an external or a relational fact about them. What their gender identity is is an internal fact about them. The very idea that we should, without very good reason, doubt a person's claim about their own gender identity is absurd. But it is also the go-to move of the transphobe. 99.192.89.57 (talk) 17:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Thank you for pedaling away from the "sez everyone" claim, for admitting that there are those who do not embrace that pronoun terminology. Your Star Trek argument is unconvincing, both because it is fictional (both a non-existent episode unless my memory is failing, and results from a study that doesn't seem to exist), and that it may just indicate that people adhere to the pronoun which had regularly been used until then, which would not favor using a person's preferred pronoun once they make a public transition. (After Kirk's been living in Uhura's body for a thirty years, would people still be saying "him"?) (And oh goodness, now I'm finding myself trying to remember how they handled Dax on Deep Space Nine, and I do not want to have to remember Deep Space Nine) I'm not even sure what "Non-transgender people who accept the reality of transgender people" means - does it mean that they believe a trans woman to be actually simply a woman (which is a POV on what "woman" means - a legitimate one, but not the only one), or does it mean simply that they accept that the person's psychology is in conflict with the outward items of biology, and that it is best that they identify as and live life in the role of a woman? --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

"Thank you for pedaling away from the "sez everyone" claim". Well, if you think it is important that bigots reject the terminology, sure. But I would not call that "pedaling away".

"Your Star Trek argument is unconvincing". No, it is not an actual episode, but it is exactly the kind of case that philosophers have talked about for centuries when discussing the question of personal identity. In short, there is nearly universal agreement that identity is fixed by a person's psychological identity, not by their body. So if Kirk and Uhura switch bodies, we describe it that way (rather than saying "Kirk and Uhura switched minds") because we take the "real" Kirk to be the one with Kirk's thoughts and memories, not the one with his (now former) body. Changing bodies does not change your identity.

"I'm not even sure what 'Non-transgender people who accept the reality of transgender people' means" It means people who do not deny that being transgender is possible. Just as some homophobes deny that people can really be gay, some transphobes deny that people can really be transgender. They will insist that it must be mere mental illness or something else, but they deny that it is real. — Preceding unsigned comment added by (=99.192....)

UPDATE: It turns out I was wrong! There is an actual Star Trek episode with Kirk and a woman doing a body switch. In "Turnabout Intruder" Captain Kirk becomes trapped in the body of a woman named Janice Lester. I have not seen the episode, but I have $100 that says that in it Kirk is always "he" and Lester is always "she" regardless of their bodies. any takers? I'll track down the episode and report back later. 99.192.84.150 (talk) 12:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

I just checked the episode. As I thought, the characters who know about the body switch use pronouns based on gender, not sex. Looks like my bet was a pretty safe one, as I expected. 99.192.84.150 (talk) 13:58, 21 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Says the American Psychological Association, says probably every professional psychological and medical health practitioner, and says even the Associated Press. Startswithj (talk) 05:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Keep. As I argued at length on this page nearly a year ago[4], (1) it is common, if not usual, to refer to a person at any point in the past using the referential words that currently refer to them; (2) referring to someone using the words that currently refer never suggests anything about what terms were appropriate in the past (and thus the position to keep is more neutral than the alternative); and (3) writing as though a person has changed gender identity is often done for dramatic or sensationalistic reasons and thus does not fit an encyclopedic tone. Also, as 99.192.71.2 has observed above, gender identity is established at an early age; most of what is characterized as gender identity changes is really just a change in who recognizes the true gender identity.

If there is a decision to change despite the reasons not to do so, then I hope we go with Kevin Gorman's suggestion: "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the person in question has expressed different desires in a WP:RS. If the person has expressed different desires, then follow those desires."

-- Marie Paradox (talk) 04:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Do not delete There are two major convenitions, and different people prefer different ones. But I think we should change, not delete - explain both conventions, and give advice on when each are preferred, for instance, if someone's autobiography uses one, we should likely follow that. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 08:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep per -sche, although I would also be happy with wording such as Kevin Gorman's suggestion of following a subject's explicit, clear and unambiguous request that people referring to them do something else. —me_and 21:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep I am a trans woman. I have always been female. Calling Chelsea Manning "he", when referring to any time of her life is equivalent to calling me "he". It denies the reality that I am female, not mentally ill. As an editor with several hundred edits over a wide range of subjects, I don't want to find Wikipedia a hostile environment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abigailgem (talk • contribs)

• Delete (or Change if there is no consensus for Delete) per Xkcdreaderand and these things: retroactively applying this change in all places confuses the sexual identity of persons the subject had relationships with before the gender announcement, and also reader's context w.r.t. how the subject was perceived by the public, estimations of how the subject likely was treated in public, the kinds of things the subject likely did in public, who the subject likely associated with and in what manner, and how laws treated the subject. From the perspective of the transgender person, they were treated as an incorrect gender up until a certain point in their lives when they made their true gender known; this is how they experienced reality, while simultaneously having in their heads that that it was wrong (at least past a certain point). The current policy seems to reverse this for the reader; instead we are asked to read the opposite of what the transgender person, and everyone else, experienced. We have to work out / rewrite in our heads that "she had a relationship with him" was actually a gay relationship as perceived by everyone but her, and likely placed her in a gay cultural milieu. Or why exactly a law that applied to gay people would effect a person who is seemingly in a heterosexual relationship. And a lot of people don't even read the whole article, so wouldn't even be likely to do those mental gymnastics. In general, this seems like a weird way to learn about anything; through how someone wished they were perceived, rather than what actually happened. Is someone being transgender the totally most important fact in their lives, more so than people correctly understanding the context of their lives / how they were perceived and acted at a given point in time? Many of the transgender people I know really hate being defined as that being the most important thing in their lives; not everyone who is transgender is an activist, or an activist with this particular opinion; plenty of people want their identity to just be a non-issue, as being an oblivious cisgender heterosexual male is for that class of individual. This retroactive editing is like replacing "he" etc. with "he (a gay man)" everywhere in an article about a gay person who lived as a heterosexual for some period of life; e.g. "She married him (a gay man)" - which doesn't seem to happen anywhere. But would actually be less confusing, since at least the awkwardness would at least cause the reader to think about what was happening from all points of view at that point in time. — Djbclark (talk) 12:53, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I generally understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, but I disagree with you on how these concerns should be addressed. If it is important that the reader be made aware that the perceived gender of a subject was different from the actual gender identity of the subject, then I generally agree that it is necessary to state that in the text in some manner. However, there is no reason for that to tie the hands of editors in respect to pronouns. As has been brought up several times already in this discussion, there are notable non-trans cases where the public (And sometimes even the subject themselves) have believed that something about the subject was true when it was, in fact, not (Jack Nicholson and the identity of his actual mother was one example given). In these cases, the text certainly makes note of this fact, but also does not treat the incorrect information as true even if, at the time, everyone involved did.

Additionally, trying to use how the subject was perceived at the time to determine pronouns could become very confusing and subjective. It would mean trying to evaluate how the individuals at any particular time and place perceived the subject, as it is not uncommon for a trans person to have a period of ambiguity and/or where only certain people know about their true gender identity. Yes, it is possible to write around these situations to a degree, but it still tends to result in more awkward and confusing writing. And, as I've said before, if Wikipedia is going to start to impose this kind of guideline on trans people, it really needs to apply to cis/non-trans people as well: If there are not reliable sources that can be cited to indicate the perceived gender of a subject at the time then no gendered language should be used.

As such, using pronouns which match with the stated gender identity for a subject makes the most sense and is the most consistent with how similar situations are handled on non-trans articles. It reflects the reality of the situation and should not cause confusion if the text otherwise indicates that the subject was not perceived that way by most people. Granted, I also feel that if someone identifies as genderqueer in some sense then that should be followed as well, even if it does mean flipping around pronouns to match their identity at specific points in time.

Finally, on the subject of trans people not wanting to be defined primarily as being trans. I agree. I'd say it is likely that most trans people that aren't activists, and even most that are, do not want the fact that they are trans to be the focal point of how people think of them. Likewise for most people and their sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. That being said, I'm not sure that this supports your position. I would argue that flipping between pronouns (and potentially back and forth) actually focuses even more attention and meaning on the subject being transgender compared to just going with the pronouns reflecting their identity. It specifically calls attention to the fact that other people used to see their gender differently (and maybe still do). It's handling trans people differently and therefore making the fact that they are trans more of a focus. Simple Sarah (talk) 16:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't want to be harsh, but we do not generally give the preferences of article subjects much weight at all. If other editors believe that we are compelled to do so by the BLP policy, they haven't read it carefully enough, or at all.

  Liberace's consistent public denials of his homosexuality are contradicted by most reliable sources. And so, in accordance with the verifiability policy, we must follow those sources and call him gay, despite his clearly-expressed preference to the contrary. If he were still alive now, we would rightly be more careful about the topic, but given the available sources, his article could hardly have ended up any different.

  It has been suggested that a person might announce a new gender identity for reasons of insanity, hoaxing, or legal maneouvering. The current guideline would give us no leeway in such cases, rare as they may be. It takes the subject's word as gospel, and does not admit any contradictory concerns from reliable sources.

  Do you object that this puts us at the mercy of the attitudes and viewpoints of those who write reliable sources? But that is the inescapable result of the verifiability policy. Wikipedia follows the sources, and a follower cannot be a leader. You may support a social change, but Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to be fighting for it.

  We should therefore delete this sentence along with the rest of the guideline. If and when reliable sources consistently refer to a person with their "new" pronouns, retroactively or otherwise, then we should do the same, but not before. – Smyth\^talk 01:09, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment – I'd also like to request the closing admin(s) to consider the following question: If an existing guideline does not have consensus either to be kept or deleted, what should happen to it? For the sake of stability, the default no-consensus state in an article is to keep the existing version. But since guidelines have wider-ranging effects, I would argue that they should only exist for as long as consensus for them continues to exist. If that ceases to be the case, the guideline should be removed, and editors will just have to decide matters on the basis of more general guidelines or policies which apply in each article. – Smyth\^talk 01:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to this suggestion. This is a guideline that has existed for years with basically the current wording and what you seem to be saying is that anything other than consensus to keep the current wording is effectively a consensus to delete it. Deleting it is not a neutral position, no matter how much some of the editors in this discussion seem to feel it would be. Such a change, just as much as keeping the current wording, would be an active statement on the editorial position of Wikipedia as a whole (Yes, I know only a small fraction of editors are participating here) in regards to how trans people should be treated in respect to pronouns. Now, each person is free to have and state (with something to support it) an opinion on what the proper position Wikipedia should be taking is, but there should be no illusions that any such position is truly neutral.

Additionally, this is not like the Manning RM, where the page had been moved immediately prior to the RM which contested it. Simple Sarah (talk) 15:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Deleting the guideline would not be a statement of anything, except that consensus no longer exists for any one particular approach, which is clearly true. Consensus did exist more than five years ago when the guideline was created, but that was the result of a MUCH smaller discussion than the one we are having now. Because guidelines have an ongoing effect on many articles, they should not be "sticky". – Smyth\^talk 11:08, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete — The sentence is too restrictive and can result in awkward, unclear, inappropriate, misleading, or confusing wording. For this situation, I think it is better to allow editors to use their best judgement for a particular article. It may be that there is better guidance possible for this situation, but this sentence is not acceptable in my opinion. --Bob K31416 (talk) 10:42, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I mentioned this RfC in a suggestion at Talk:Bradley_Manning#Organization_of_article_regarding_gender. Because of the considerable opposition here to the sentence, I felt this was an additional justification for using WP:IAR in this case. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:31, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - not only does it make sense, but it's perfectly respectful. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) recommends not using one name to the exclusion of the other in an article, but rather to use the old name when writing about events prior to when the person began living publicly as the opposite gender.[5]Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per Anythingyouwant's reference above. It's also much less confusing, and tracks the sources better, to use the names/pronouns of the person's public persona at the time of the described events. Kelly ^hi! 06:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Since gender doesn't appear to change, it makes sense to use the same pronoun for all the life. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:41, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
• Change The Transgender issues needs to have more leeway when it regards to pronouns. In essence, the pronoun should be change he-to-she or she-to-he retroactively. However, if a person did something historically notable, under their old gender, it should be pronouned to that gender to be more historically accurate. Bradley Manning should be referred to as a he or him in regards to the events that led to his arrest and her incarceration. Yes it is confusing, however Manning did not reject a male gender identity during the majority of the events that led to his arrest. Regardless of how long she felt female, she continued to assume a male gender identity during the entire time. Putting on Makeup and women's clothes inconsistently makes her a cross dresser. Assuming a gender identity would require a person to not only accept that role contiguously, but to reject the old gender entireley and not dress as a male. However, there is no right or wrong answers to this, as it is mostly perspective. If, for example, a secret diary of Trayvon Martin was found that expressed his desire to be a woman and he always felt that way, it would still be more correct to refer to him with masculine pronouns. You can drive holes in this argument when it comes to people like Chaz Bono. Was Chaz Bono notable only because she was the child of Sony & Cher?...or.....Is Chaz Bono notable only because he was the transgender child of Sony & Cher? This is a very difficult situation a place like Wikipedia when context needs to be kept neutral POV however the need to have consistent rules for editors is as important. In closing, there will never be a strict right or wrong, but the NLGJA recommendation is the best practice we can use at this time to maintain the neutrality of Wikipedia and have a consistent guide for editors. Lennny (talk) 23:27, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep Changing this doesn't make any sense at all. MaxHarmony (talk) 19:59, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete, along with as much as the rest of the section as possible. Well-meaning and politically correct, but can lead to confusing and inaccurate writing if applied in practice. There are ways of handling these things so as to combine sensitivity for the subject with (more importantly) clarity for the reader, but these ways involve making discerning judgments as to style and wording, not application of over-simplistic, "politically" motivated rules. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • How would it lead to inaccurate writing? Kaldari (talk) 21:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
    • By giving a reader the strong impression that the person was (living as, perceived as) a female (say) at a time in their life when they were actually (...) a male. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:07, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. If an individual begins to identify as a different gender, the person should be referred to as the other gender from the point onwards that they began to identify as a different gender. Earlier times in the person's life should use pronouns that the person previously used to identify themself. For some individuals, this may be from a very early age; for others, it may be much more recently. ('Identifying as a different gender' is not synonymous with undergoing surgical reassignment, but changes in self-identification by the subject of an article should be credibly sourced; dressing in 'drag' (transvestitism) or portraying a fictional person of a different gender do not constitute 'identifying as a different gender'.) Where wording would not otherwise be awkward, sentences can also be reworded to avoid gender-based pronouns. The opinion of other transgendered persons does not define how the subject of an article has previously self-identified, and the issue should not be used as a soapbox for transgendered issues in general.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:04, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • When a transperson began to self-identify as a particular gender is often not documented (vs. when they began to publicly identify which typically is). Kaldari (talk) 21:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
    • So? Wikipedia has standards about reliable sources. They apply to this subject just as much as any other. It may be just as offensive to an individual transgendered person to say they always identified as their new gender. (Notice that I've used the word "new" in reference to a hypothetical individual who did not always identify as a different gender; anyone leaping on the choice of the word 'new' is soapboxing about broader issues.) Defer to reliable sources and don't make individual's self-identification a soapbox for broader transgendered issues. Additionally, when a person chooses to "publicly identify", at that time they may indicate that they always personally identified as another gender, or alternatively that they started to at some stage (possibly with earlier feelings that something 'wasn't quite right', which is not a 'gender self-identification'.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:38, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete per Carolmooredc. -- Ypnypn (talk) 22:46, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Don't Delete (Change or Keep): I'm sure, an unaccompanied delete would result in a thrash-fest' of revert wars. Also, the couching phrase "... might be questioned ..." (vis some of the prevalent attitudes discussed here), suggests the problem runs deeper (unless there's definition of unquestionable gender is present, elsewhere). –DjScrawl (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I notice a few contributors are attempting to 'argue' a negative precept using proof by cases (and including esoteric examples). [a] Such an approach is never any more conclusive that thinking-out-loud (unless one's filibustering). [b] It smacks of perfectionism, whilst I think the objective's more like 'significant improvement'. –DjScrawl (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if there's such up-thread or if, the like of, a 3-by-n truth table/matrix solution/expression would be useful, with:

• A gender axis: born / questionable (to be defined) / transitioned
• A context axis: 1st person / 3rd person / etc. –DjScrawl (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

• Keep and change to add an exception for when the subject has expressed desires to be referred to differently. Agree with Kaldari that ignoring preferred pronouns is disrespectful and violates the spirit of WP:BLP. Gobōnobō ^{+ c} 21:23, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The spirit of BLP, it seems to me, is that we don't overdose on negative information, we don't include negative information that isn't well sourced, etc. Not that we pander to the subject's every whim. It isn't defamatory to convey the information, correctly, that at a particular time in someone's life, some aspect of their identity was different than it is now. For me this applies to (outward) gender as much as it applies to names, titles, nationalities, etc. We shouldn't refer to someone as (e.g.) Muhammad Ali when describing a period in their life before they adopted that name. Even if they tell us they really really want their old name airbrushed. And if you read the sentence in question, you'll see it refers not only to pronouns, but to gendered nouns as well. So someone whom everyone saw as a boy would have to be retrospectively turned into a girl. This is just going to confuse the hell out of readers. As I say, there are ways of doing it so as to minimize discomfort to the subject - basically by trying to avoid pronouns and other gender-specific terms as much as possible when there would be ambiguity (this approach will probably reduce overall confusion to readers as well) - but if there really is no reasonable way out, then I think the principle must be that we use references that would have been appropriate at the time in question. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:07, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Delete and possibly replace per reasons given by Formerip, Nat Gertler, SmokeyJoe, and several others, because (a) there is not a clear consensus within the Wikipedia community or elsewhere, and (b) the possible usage situations are too many and complex to encapsulate in a simple rule. The MOS could advise and remind that the way people were actually referred to in the real world at a given time; consistency within an article (in relation to any particular time period); and reader comprehension are all important considerations, and that where it is impossible to find a satisfactory wording using pronouns, it is often possible to avoid them. Barnabypage (talk) 08:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete Applying new pronouns retroactively would be confusing and may frequently compromise the factual accuracy and related verifiability policy. Brandmeister^talk 12:03, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete We shouldn't try to revise the past. I would be willing to consider something like this in the context of a biography about the subject, but for other articles, the article should use a pronoun consistent with the person's public identity at the time an event occurred. To do otherwise would lead to unnecessary confusion. We already accept that name changes are not retroactive, and so we would end up with a situation where the pronoun and name would conflict. Not to mention creating situations that would be misleading. She attended an all boys school... etc. Monty₈₄₅ 18:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I broadly agree, but it is worth noting that mixing the two pronouns can also lead to strange and confusing phrases. In later life she recalled that as a child he had hated baseball. That's why I think the MOS should actively stress the importance of considering comprehensibility when editing articles where this issue arises. There are always ways round the problem of confusing pronoun-mixtures, but some editors may need reminding that it is a potential problem. Barnabypage (talk) 19:06, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - I'm too late to this discussion to make any kind of impact. But I think The New Yorker's profile on The Wachowskis treats gender transition well, and that Wikipedians working on trans issues could learn from it. It uses masculine names/pronouns before transition, and feminine names/pronouns after. - hahnchen 18:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

That was a respectful piece, hahnch. I enjoyed it. If Wikipedia could maintain that level of grace, I wouldn't worry about the chance of blanket degendering over three quarters of an article. But it would be fairer to say they use masculine and feminine names for before transition and only feminine after. Even when they're talking about "Larry" they include equal and enough mentions of Lana (for instance they describe the first time Lana saw "2001", when it was an event that happened before transitioning) that the reader never forgets that Lana exists now, and is the subject of the piece. I'm afraid most suggestions here have been more unilateral changes that miss that nuance. But here's an example of a more recent New Yorker piece where they don't confuse the reader, while still informing them. __Elaqueate (talk) 19:04, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Delete - Pronouns gender is conventionally referred to biological sex. I think few Wikipedia users can't change radically consolidated grammatical conventions. The reason is quite simple: biological sex is a strong, almost-immutable quality of a person, while gender identity can change at every moment and we can't have the certainty that such assertions are genunine. It's a highly subjective connotation that shouldn't have the priority on objective connotations; the same applies to professions, judicial sentences (murderer, fraudster etc.) and so on. Destroying informative structure only because it's "politically correct" is absurd and illogical. The vast majority of readers will feel confused; in the Manning case, for example, he's worldwide known as Bradley, 99% of people will search Bradley and not "Chelsea" only because in gossip-like news he stated he would prefer be addressed "Chelsea". Lenore (talk) 11:21, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. First, it is usually more respectful, and a disrespectful standard which only applies to a few minorities would be problematic. Second, it avoids the question of when to switch pronouns. Ananiujitha (talk) 15:42, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that it is disrespectful when giving a narrative of a transgender person's past to refer to that person as they were referred to back then. Perhaps you could give more info on that, possibly a ref that discusses it being disrespectful? --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:59, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - Here's a recent profile from The New Republic[6] on Michelle Kosilek, a murderer who's fighting for SRS in prison. It covers her life now, and before transition. It uses mixed pronouns. As I mentioned above while pointing out a New Yorker profile, I do not think the manual of style should have a statement mandating the use of only one set of pronouns. - hahnchen 22:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
  • The Independent's obituary of Roberta Cowell, another thoughtful profile of a transwoman.[7] - hahnchen 00:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Survey on pronouns throughout life: counting

• Keep: 46 votes
• Delete: 52 votes

get your conclusions. --Lenore (talk) 14:34, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment. Do you really think quantity is more important than quality?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Who can decide that a thing has a better quality than another approved by majority? Only a dictator could do it. --Lenore (talk) 15:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

There are other options besides democracy and dictatorship. Powers ^T 18:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. -sche (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

No consensus it is, then? Cam94509 (talk) 18:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it. :/ -sche (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that nothing changes on a no consensus decision, correct? Cam94509 (talk) 19:26, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

That's been the case in the previous RFCs and RMs I've seen. For example, in this RM, the lack of consensus to change the article to "C" meant that it reverted to being at "B". Someone did suggest, in one of the RFCs that came up on this page in the past few months (I don't recall which one, there've been so many), that that practice should be changed, and that no consensus should instead result in the proposed change to the MOS being made (there being no consensus against it)... but there was, ironically, no consensus about that suggestion. -sche (talk) 03:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion on pronouns throughout life

Pronouns throughout life: NLGJA guidelines

• My problem is with the re-writing of past events before the name change. Why isn't there more acknowledgment of the NLGJA policy? A spokesperson for the group said it would recommend “he” for historical reference: “When writing about events prior to when the person began living publicly as the opposite gender, NLGJA recommends using the name and gender the individual used publicly at that time. For example: Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley, came out as transgender last week. In a statement, Manning said she had felt this way since childhood. Manning grew up in Oklahoma. In middle school, he was very outspoken in class about government issues and religious beliefs, friends said.”

The full article is here. It was Betty Logan who drew my attention to that article, and I fully agree with her points near the top of an earlier discussion on this page, particularly:

The use of the female pronoun in such instances removes clarity from expressing a factual claim. It undermines WP:V, not least because you are not representing the claim as clearly as possible. You are effectively introducing wordplay to alter the context and expression of a fact that is not present in the source. MOS:IDENTITY is a nice guiding principle to have, but not if it compromises the documenting of fact, which is the over-riding goal of Wikipedia. In cases where the events of a person's life or facts about them are clearly contingent on them being biologically male/female then they shouldn't be compromised by revisionist gender pronouns. Betty Logan (talk) 20:01, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

When building an encyclopedia we should respect history before anything else. The "she" pronoun should not be applied retrospectively when the subject was male. The "inconsistency of pronouns will confuse our readers" argument doesn't hold up. The reader is much more likely to be confused as to how the person was perceived by misidentifying the contemporaneous gender. When Manning was in the military everyone saw the person as male. Sources reporting on the trial wrote about Manning as male. WP should reflect that because it's not an account from the subject's POV, it's an encyclopedia. - Gothicfilm (talk) 19:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• I won't address your entire post, but I would note that the NLGJA is focused on gay and lesbian - not transgender - issues. There has been historical animosity between gay/lesbian people and transgender people. That animosity still exists to some degree, although I think it is getting better. I think there are two main reasons for that animosity:

1. In some senses, gays/lesbians have different goals for the LGBT movement than transgender people do. Transgender people might value hormone replacement therapy more than same-sex marriage rights, and vice versa for gays/lesbians.
2. Gays and lesbians may not fully understand the experiences of transgender people, just as I do not fully understand the experiences of some groups to which I do not belong. Whether a lack of understanding of transgender issues factors into the NLGJA guidelines, I am not sure, but you may wish to consider that possibility. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

From their website: "Founded in 1990, NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. NLGJA opposes all forms of workplace bias and provides professional development to its members." so I'm not sure if your statement is true Casey.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:29, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Name-dropping the term "LGBT" is common; many organizations do that. Actually following through on issues of interest to the "T" part is much more difficult. For example, many transgender people criticize the Human Rights Campaign for neglecting transgender issues despite the HRC claiming to speak for all LGBT people. While the NLGJA might not be actively hostile to transgender causes, it might not be the most supportive. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:32, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

You should write an email to NGLJA and GLAAD and ask them why they have disparate guidelines then.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:33, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that was serious or rhetorical. I don't claim to definitively understand why different organizations issue different guidelines; but the tensions between L/G and T is one possible reason. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we should assume any tension as a reason to diminish the NLGJA policy. The principle of writing accurately for an encyclopedia holds. The article is about events that occurred and how RS reported those events. - Gothicfilm (talk) 19:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, I am not necessarily assuming tension - but I am suggesting that tension may be there. CaseyPenk (talk) 19:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

A lot of weight seems to be being put on a the second had report of a comment one spokesperson made in an email. This was not an officially published statement of policy nor was it a public announcement of any kind marking an "official" position on pronouns. Furthermore, that email refers to the "gender the individual used publicly at that time." Note it does not say the "gender the individual was at that time." So even the NLGJA seems to be saying that Manning was female at the time. If their advice to journalists is based on worrying about confusion rather than accuracy, then we really should NOT take this advice. But I would like to hear more from NLGJA or some other similar organization before concluding that it is accurate to use "he". 99.192.71.2 (talk) 22:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (-99.192....)

"If their advice to journalists is based on worrying about confusion rather than accuracy, then we really should NOT take this advice." Where in the WP:RS policy are we instructed to not take such advice? CaseyPenk (talk) 15:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

This question misses the point entirely. The question is not whether or not NLGJA is a reliable source. Whether or not something is a reliable source is a question we ask about matters of fact. That is, when source X says Y is true, we want to know if source X is reliable with regards to fact Y. But when some organization says "it's a good idea to do A because it's less confusing than doing B" we are not talking about facts, but advice. We might agree that it is less confusing to do A and we might take them as being a reliable source that doing A is less confusing than doing B, but if it is the case that doing A is to say things that are less confusing wile false and doing B is to say things that are more confusing while true, then Wikipedia clearly needs to do B. Do I really have to cite a policy that says Wikipedia should report things that are true rather than things that are false even when the lie is less confusing?

The NLGJA seems to be saying that it is false that Manning was male as a child, but less confusing to the reader to use male pronouns for the period of her life when she was "Bradley". I agree, which is why Wikipedia should use female pronouns for her childhood. We can do things to help mitigate the confusion, but we should not compromise on the truth. 99.192.66.121 (talk) 15:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

How do you know what the truth of Manning's childhood gender identity is? Have they explicitly said it? Oh, you don't have a source? Thats not much truth then is it...Gaijin42 (talk) 15:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The experts say that gender is fixed in early childhood and does not change over the course of a life. Manning says she is a woman and has felt this way since early childhood. QED. 99.192.66.121 (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Experts don't make blanket assertions about gender especially since everyone's experience can be different. Besides, this MOS is based mostly on those that have dysphoria and go through a change in gender identity at some point in their adult lives. In Manning's case the letter specifically said "from this point forward" and it was also confirmed from the attorney that "she" should be used in the future. In a September 3, 2013 letter, however, Manning's attorney used "he" in reference "Bradley Manning." I'd also note that if we went by "experts" and not by the person's preference, Manning would have been called "Breanna" and we would have switched to "she" more than a year ago. We did not, because Manning did not. Manning was living as a gay man for his adult life. It would not be unheard of for the male gay partner of a heretofore unknown transwoman to commit violence against that woman when she comes out as transwoman and starts living as a woman while the partner believes he is in a relationship with a man. There are many reasons why someone may make a distinction in the different portions of their lives and it's really not up to us to force a concept on them. Certainly no "expert" would agree that every transgender person should a) start living their life in that gender role, b) start hormone therapy and c) have surgery. It's not cookie cutter and any "expert" would know that. None of the DSM criteria for GID/GD require childhood identification of gender for diagnosis, BTW. --DHeyward (talk) 00:03, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The lawyer has explicitly said that the use of masculine pronouns in legal requests was a specific and and expected exception to preferred usage. There is no "fuzziness" about this. The lawyer has used feminine pronouns consistently and repeatedly on national television, on every post-announcement press release, he's changed the twitter account and explained that "Chelsea" and feminine pronouns are what Chelsea prefers. The exceptions are caused by working within an unsympathetic environment for legal and military paperwork. You are trying to take a stated and explained exception as proof that there is no clear and overwhelming preference. And I am finding your reasoning specious that it is "forcing a concept" on someone if you were to use the pronouns they stated a preference for. We are also not talking about publishing unsourced material on any "unknown" trans woman. You are twisting the concept of outing a person who has not stated something into the idea that a trans person should be ignored and misgendered for their own good. __Elaqueate (talk) 00:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"And I am finding your reasoning specious that it is "forcing a concept" on someone if you were to use the pronouns they stated a preference for."

• It's one thing to use their preferred pronouns to describe their life from this day forward; it's another to foist such pronouns upon their entire life if they have not expressed such a desire. What we're saying is that stating a pronoun preference does not necessarily mean that person prefers those pronouns to be used throughout their entire life. Even Chelsea said, from this day forward. CaseyPenk (talk) 01:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I think people should have stories using their preferred pronouns. It's better to accidentally use the current stated (or as presented) pronoun when narrating the past from our position here in the present than to use the former pronoun. The sources are clear that there is harm to some from misgendering using the past one. I don't see any source anywhere suggesting harm has come from accidentally using a stated and preferred one too much. It's best to find out preferences, of course. __Elaqueate (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

CaseyPenk, please notice where her lawyer says {http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/ "Yesterday was my first opportunity to speak with Chelsea since her sentencing."] Notice that it says "her" sentencing, an event that happened pre-announcement. Also please, watch the Today show segment on Youtube you'll see her lawyer talking about the reasons "She" leaked documents, about the chat sessions "she" took part in. All past events, and they use "she" almost invisibly because we know we're talking about a person we call "she" now. It's not a matter of re-writing the past, as it is referencing that we're talking about the person/subject we know now. __Elaqueate (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Elaqueate, please point me to the source where the lawyer said gender pronouns would be an exception. Obviously, "Bradley" is the name the army uses and future court filings will match that. But using "he" instead of "she" in a letter of pardon to President Obama? Too rigid a system? Too difficult for the President to grasp?? Seriously?? Are you proposing that we should write the article so that even the President can't understand it? I find the masculine gender pronoun legal argument as specious. As for "forcing a concept", I don't think I used that term so I am not sure why you quoted it. I said a transgender persons wishes should be respected whether they wish to be known going forward or whether they wish their entire biography to use a particular pronoun is up to them. Manning was diagnosed over a year ago and there were people that changed to name in the article to "Breanna" and the pronouns to "she" more than a year before she came out as Chelsea. It should not be MOS style to adopt a transgender identity before the person themselves have requested it which is the same as ignoring their preference for past tense reference using their gender assigned at birth. If Manning wishes to be called "Bradley" and "he" for every event up to the press release, and "Chelsea" and "she" after, that's their choice, not an agenda. The specious argument is the one that acknowledges that gender identity can be forced on someone before they have accepted it themselves as happened in May 2012 to "Breanna Manning" or that each and every transgender person's experience is the same and uniform. Respecting their wishes may or may not be a complete rewrite of an article. What's even more appalling is guessing their wishes based on a manual. --DHeyward (talk) 01:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing that Chelsea Manning and her lawyer don't know what pronouns they prefer, because of the pardon letter. When someone actively asserts that they prefer feminine pronouns it is certainly more of a stretch to assume they want masculine pronouns anywhere. "Prefer" is the word she used. And that she would "expect" that masculine pronouns would be used for legal paperwork and things having to do at the trial. So it shouldn't be some weird "gotcha" moment when it turns up on a plea for pardon. We also have her chatlog where she said didn't want the public to see her as a "boy". I don't know why people are mystifying this. If you look at the lawyer's statements here and here, you'll see pretty bald statements of preference. I haven't seen any usage on their part that doesn't match what they explained ahead of time. As for your argument against people who wanted to do something about "Breanna", well, it seems like you're not very happy with them. It would be bad to make choices without any declaration of any preference. I don't know what that has to do after Chelsea has made a direct announcement of her preference. The statement "I prefer feminine pronouns" does not imply "Only on tuesdays". She listed the exceptions that did apply (legal work and communications to government). __Elaqueate (talk) 02:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'm only arguing what I argued but you seem like you'd rather create a strawman to argue with. There simply is no reason to use feminine pronouns with correspondence to the President. It's not like it will come down to "You used the wrong pronouns, pardon denied." How do you feel about the editors that jumped on "Breanna" and rewrote the article with "Breanna" and feminine pronouns more than a year before Manning announced "I am Chelsea?" That's the heart of the policy: Do we consider the subject when we make gender identification claims? The rush to make her a woman prior to her own conclusions in August, 2013 is just as bad and harmful as ignoring her desire after she has accepted it. I submit that we do consider the subject yet you seem to steadfastly cling to the belief that we know better than the subjects and persons unrelated to the case at hand can and should direct how a person is referenced. Are you going to be just as unwilling to accept her desire for hormone therapy but not surgery or are you going to insist that she wants surgery, too, when she has clearly said she doesn't? --DHeyward (talk) 04:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why you are so concerned about how they talk to the President. They have said that she prefers feminine pronouns and they made a clear indication that they would make an exception for communications with the government. Are you saying people should take this admitted exception as evidence that she changed her mind about being a woman and wanting feminine pronouns? __Elaqueate (talk) 08:57, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Where have they made a "clear indication that they would make an exception for communications with the government?" I am only aware of official court filings for the case and that only excepted the name, not gender pronouns. Certainly if they petition the government for hormone therapy, it will use the gender that she identifies with as it would be odd to petition for female hormone therapies for a man, correct? The physician and psychiatric reports will use feminine pronouns, I presume, to justify treatment as they are treating a woman with female hormones. I hope you don't believe that she is "officially" a man until medical intervention takes place to transform physical appearance. I find it troublesome that the correspondence for a pardon didn't mention transgender issues as a mitigating factor for commutation or pardon. It was certainly used in trial and it was certainly used to garner support in the LGBT community yet the complete absence of it in the form of a public petition, post her transgender identity announcement, strikes me as odd. There are people arguing that using the wrong gender pronoun or birth name are the most damaging things that a transgender person can undergo and is akin to physical violence, yet a petition to the President fails to use the correct name, gender pronouns or even mention gender dysphoria when her advocates claim this is her highest concern. Why is that not considered transphobic? It's not necessary to cause her this stress in that type of correspondence. Turning on the analytical hat tells me that this is not "accidental" or "necessary." Rather it's a form of pandering to the various support groups that have different agendas that may not overlap. LGBT supporters claim it's the establishment that forces her to use her birth name and gender when addressing the President which is absolutely false. Transgender people write the President all the time for transgender issues and they use their experience and their self-declared identity and the President isn't going to just toss them over pronouns. Chelsea may wish to live her life as female and be referred to using female gender terms but it is obviously secondary to securing her release from custody. To that end, it is not unreasonable to use the name she is corresponding with or use pronouns that she herself uses when not discussing gender dysphoria or identity. In this particular case, using the notable name, and using masculine pronouns for accounts that she herself uses masculine pronouns for, is not unreasonable. In the personal section of her bio, it is certainly appropriate and preferred to note and use feminine pronouns if that is how she prefers it. The edict that all transgender people be referred to as the gender they have identified with is not appropriate for every single person. Gender and name preference is appropriate in context and history using editorial discretion. In this case, notable events in the past, present and future have and will continue to have a "Bradley Manning" component and apparently, the subject uses masculine pronouns when she is referring to herself as "Bradley Manning." Directly quoting her in contemporary correspondence should not create an MOS conflict.--DHeyward (talk) 16:34, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You: "Where have they made a "clear indication that they would make an exception for communications with the government?"

The source I gave you when you asked this before: "While PVT Manning wants supporters to acknowledge and respect her gender identity as she proceeds into the post-trial state of her life, she also expects that the name Bradley Manning and the male pronoun will continue to be used in certain instances. These instances include any reference to the trial, in legal documents, in communication with the government, in the current petition to the White House calling for clemency, and on the envelope of letters written to her by supporters." Statement by lawyer.

You spend a lot of time explaining that we should do what she wants, as justification that we should do the opposite of what she says she prefers. You even question if she is guilty of transphobia against herself! Wonderment! __Elaqueate (talk) 19:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You realize that the "petition to the White House calling for clemency" is not the Sept. 3 2013 letter to President Obama, correct? She did not need to use male gender pronouns and certainly the President is not going to reject it based on the "wrong" (i.e. "correct") pronoun. I did not question that she is transphobic, rather that the idea of using her previous name and male gender pronouns is *gasp* NOT transphobic (it's a rhetorical question, designed to make people understand that their position is flawed). The wholesale replacement of name and pronouns in historical records when she herself recognizes that it's not appropriate or desired is what I question. She doesn't seem to fit in the box you want to put her in by having exemptions and exclusions so you simply deny they exist. "Any reference to the trial" for instance seems to indicate a desire to use male pronouns and the name she was charged and convicted under. She separated out official court correspondence and petitions as being different than just the routine reference we might find in, say, a newspaper or encyclopedia. This is quite a natural reaction for people that want to put a painful period of their past behind them and often a reason for name changes. Why would you deny that request or even deny that the request exists? Private correspondence by an editor with her lawyer expressed pride in her male attired Army photograph and presumably that is the photo she would like identified with her Army service and trial. When more female attired photographs emerge, will there be a zealous attempt to replace every photograph to comport your view of how she should behave and look as well as what photos she should be proud of (this is a rhetorical question, see above)? It would not be unreasonable to think that she wants "Bradley" to be the convicted and conflicted person and "Chelsea" to be free from that burden. I suspect that's also the reason why "Breanna" as her alternate identity was jettisoned as it's inexorably wrapped up with Bradley as an alt and not a new, separate, all-female idenity. That's pure speculation but it makes sense considering what people expect when they transition from a dysphoric state to contentment. She, herself, has used male pronouns and "Bradley" when it is not required. We should take her word, then, that it is a preference when referring to her trial and that period of her life to use "Bradley" and male pronouns as she has done. I am not sure how you have divined preference when she voluntarily uses the opposite of what you have divined for her. Incredulous. --DHeyward (talk) 23:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"You realize that the "petition to the White House calling for clemency" is not the Sept. 3 2013 letter..." Yes I realize this. The petition was started on August 20, two days before the announcement. That could be why it was started in the name of Bradley Manning. It is currently housed under a link urging people to sign the petition to ask that "Chelsea Manning" gets a pardon. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to force the public to use masculine pronouns because Chelsea Manning must want them used a lot. You spend a lot of time speculating how I would argue in future scenarios (why?) and are heavily relying on the idea that Chelsea obviously and strongly desires masculine pronouns. "...it is a preference when referring to her trial..." This is your interpretation. As the main source for this section states "Expects,” of course, is not “prefers." She didn't say she preferred masculine pronouns. She said the opposite. In the same sentence. Specific to the MOS, I repeat that it would be bad to make choices without any declaration of any preference. I don't find your argument compelling that Chelsea wants people to call her "he" when she's said the opposite. I don't think the MOS should be changed to deny people's preferences when those preferences are truthful, stated, and reported. __Elaqueate (talk) 08:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

And that "Expects,” of course, is not “prefers." article makes my point exactly. Read the paragraph after that quote and you will see.

"And when I asked the NLGJA by e-mail to clarify its policy on reporting about Manning’s past, a spokesperson for the group said it would recommend “he” for historical reference too: “When writing about events prior to when the person began living publicly as the opposite gender, NLGJA recommends using the name and gender the individual used publicly at that time. For example: Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley, came out as transgender last week. In a statement, Manning said she had felt this way since childhood. Manning grew up in Oklahoma. In middle school, he was very outspoken in class about government issues and religious beliefs, friends said.”"

It's not a conspiracy theory, either. Rather it's a marketing strategy. If you think Obama's feelings about DADT "evolved" after he was elected and really had a conversion, I have bridge to sell you in Manhattan. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that he would have liked to have taken that position on the campaign trail in 2008 except it doesn't sell well in flyover country. Likewise, I think contemporary references and correspondence by Manning that use "he" and "Bradley" when they are not required is to appeal to a broader audience that generally support whistleblowers but may not be particularly concerned with transgender issues and politics. Manning will use "Bradley" and "he" when referring to the trial. That's already established. If you want to parse "expects" vs "preferred", I think she "prefers" to be free but "expects" she will not be. I am sure she would have preferred to have been born with biological parts that matched her identity. She would have preferred to grow up as a child and young adult as female. However, she did not and it was overwhelmingly anxiety ridden to live as male and as "Bradley." She changed and announced it. But that doesn't change the record of how she lived prior to that point or about what made her notable. When we write about her, present tense and personal life pronouns in her bio should be "she". References to her notability (i.e. main article title), her history prior to coming out as Chelsea and especially her time gathering, disseminating and releasing classified information, as well as the arrest, trial and conviction, should use male gender pronouns and "Bradley" as she has stated and demonstrated. She has done this in correspondence. It's stated as policy for NLGJA in your above quote. It makes sense. And from a humaneness standpoint, it allows Chelsea to separate a part of her life where she considers herself ill with gender dysphoria to being well. An MOS requirement that we ignore all that and exclusively and without discretion use the post-announcement gender and name goes against what Chelsea herself is doing, it goes against the historical style reference you used to distinguish "expects" vs. "prefers" above, and it leaves no discretion for editors. --DHeyward (talk) 16:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"References to her notability (i.e. main article title), her history prior to coming out as Chelsea and especially her time gathering, disseminating and releasing classified information". It's great that you use feminine pronouns to describe her past actions. See how easy and natural it is? __Elaqueate (talk) 16:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

That's present tense discussion, not a characterization of past actions. If I were interviewing her, the dialog would use feminine gender terms but the written interview as a characterization would match the above guidelines. My guess is she would use the same terms (i.e. "as a little boy, I was interested in...." or "living as a gay man ...." ) and it would be odd not to acknowledge that's how she lived and use the gender and name appropriate for it. There's a difference between discussing the subject in the now and writing about historical segments of her life. An encyclopedia by its nature has to do that. "Bradley Manning was arrested and convicted in the case 'United States v. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning.' He was sentenced to 35 years of detention. He was transferred to the Leavenworth detention barracks shortly after conviction. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) is currently detained at Leavenworth and she is seeking treatment for gender dysphoria." See how easy that was? Present ne Past. --DHeyward (talk) 19:49, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, except that you're using the pronoun "he" for events that happened on 23 August 2013. Which, when corrected makes that passage more distracting than the alternate. It's just better to use the preferred pronoun throughout. It's also more respectful. I think there is a reason the policies were clear before people fueled this drama and attempted to make it about Obama and other unrelated things. __Elaqueate (talk) 09:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Which part? Manning's lawyer mentioned Leavenworth on the same show where Chelsea announced her new identity. The sentence had already occurred. Did you wish to change "was transferred" to "was to be transferred"? It had already been determined. --DHeyward (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Pronouns throughout life: Preferences and assumptions

• It is a violation of WP:BLP and WP:V to assume that ALL trans people have the same experience, eg that they have been the "other" gender their entire lives. We should not be making any such blanket statements for all trans people, without a specific statement as to that situation for themselves (Similar to how BLPCAT means we have to have an explicit statement about orientation at all). To make this policy violates the rights of trans people just as much as not respecting their gender preference at all, regardless of what the LGBT PC lobby would say. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:20, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I have seen people argue that we should respect the "preference" of a subject by using the pronouns they want as an argument for using female pronouns for the entire life of a transgender woman. Now, it seems, you think that a person's "preference" can be an argument for using different pronouns at different times. My response to you is the same as my response to the others who talk about "preference". The pronouns that a person "prefers" we use has no weight at all. Wikipedia is not in the business of writing articles to match the subjects' "preferences". We report the facts as accurately as they can be supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources tell us that gender is fixed in infancy and remains the same throughout a person's life. So an individual person might "prefer" we switch pronouns, but it does not make it accurate. But in general, the idea that we should be deciding policy based on what a subject "prefers" is a very weak argument. 99.192.71.2 (talk) 22:28, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Perceived gender identity and personal gender identity are not the same thing. Why is more weight given to how the person felt privately on the inside, rather than how they were seen and documented by society as a whole? Just because a person was a woman inside from birth, doesn't mean they went through life viewed that way by the rest of the world. Also, when people change their names we use their old name until the transition. See: Margaret_Thatcher#Early_life_and_education. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

"Why is more weight given to how the person felt privately on the inside, rather than how they were seen and documented by society as a whole?" Because we're human beings and have respect for other humans? Powers ^T 14:13, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

She lived in society as a man. She was registered in the military as a man. When she filled out gender on forums she checked male. The fact that she has always been a woman does not change the fact she was living as a man. Past tense sentences such as "She/he attended Elementary School at" should reflect her state at the time. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:20, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, she was "living as a man", but she was a woman. You say that the text should "reflect her state at the time", and I agree. She, at the time, was a woman who was living as a man, thus her "state" was that she was a woman, but no one knew it. But now that we do know it, we should correct our previous error. 99.192.66.121 (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Xkcdreader, what you are saying is nonsense on its face. You are arguing that Wikipedia should care more about what people believe is true than what really is true. You are saying that if enough people for a long enough period of time falsely believe that a person is a man, then Wikipedia should count that person as a man even after we learn that this is false. How people are "viewed that way by the rest of the world" might be a good excuse for getting it wrong for all the years we might have gotten it wrong, but it is absurd as a justification for continuing to get it wrong. As for the name change, the situations are not comparable at all. Names change, but gender does not. Making a retroactive name change in articles is to introduce an error. Making a retroactive pronoun change in an article is to correct an error. 99.192.66.121 (talk) 14:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

She was living as a man. It's not some factual error people had wrong, she lived her life as a man. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

It is correct to say that she was living as a man. It is not correct to say that she was a man. A woman living as a man is a woman and entitled to female pronouns. Thryduulf (talk) 15:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

(ec) "Living as a man" and being a man are two very different things. It is a factual error to say that a person is a man when she is a woman who is living as a man. 99.192.66.121 (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

How come no one has commented that in order to make the argument that masculine pronouns must be used for past activities to make sense, Xkcdreader uses feminine pronouns throughout? "She was living as a man." and "She was registered in the military as a man." This proves that it can be used in a way that is invisibly natural. __Elaqueate (talk) 02:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Darkfrog24 has made an analogy several times (including once further up on this page) which I'd like to repeat and expand upon: if a country music singer always thought she was born in Memphis, and wrote songs praising Memphis and was given an award by Memphis' mayor and in general lived and was identified by others as a Memphis native — but then researchers find her birth certificate and birth announcements in the papers, and it's learned that she was actually born in Nashville — then we should absolutely note (when relevant) that several of the actions she took, or that others (like Memphis' mayor) took, were based on her being treated as a Memphis native, but we should not say "Memphis native Jane Doe then received an award...". We should say (on the basis of more recent information) that she was born in Nashville. Likewise, if it's relevant, we should note that e.g. Ryan Sallans was living as a woman at the time he did something, but that's different from saying "[since she was a woman,] she ...". -sche (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

What we do at Wikipedia is meta-reporting. We summarize reporting and report what reliable sources say, not what the truth is, per se. Traditional reporting is concerned with where the subject was actually born; meta-reporting is concerned with where reliable sources report the subject was born. We would say "NBC News reported in 1946 that X was born in Memphis," and later in the article say "CBS News reported in 2013 that X was born in Nashville." Neither is necessarily "true," but we can talk about both as we do in Metta World Peace (e.g. ESPN called him Ron Artest when he played in 2010, ESPN called him Metta World Peace when he played in 2013). Going back to the birthplace analogy, it is not our place (since we are a secondary source) to assume what NBC News would have said was X's birthplace had they known such information in 1946. That would be original research, synthesis, and a reverse form of crystal balling. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Wait, so you would say "in 1993, Jane Doe released a song about her birthplace, Memphis" even though reliable sources showed that Memphis was not her birthplace? Or are we talking past each other about somewhat different things? I haven't seen an article in which every sentence begins with "NBC News reported that...". I've seen and am talking about articles that summarize reliable sources and have footnotes citing them. I'm talking about articles that say either "in 1993, Jane Doe released a song about her birthplace, Memphis^[1]" or "in 1993, Jane Doe released a song about the city she believed to be her birthplace, Memphis^[1]"—and I'm suggesting that if reliable sources confirm that she wasn't born in Memphis (even though older reliable sources assumed she was), we should say the second thing and not the first thing. -sche (talk) 21:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Jane Doe here sounds like someone who has already peaked in her fame; the same is probably true for Chelsea. As such, the number of media reports about both is likely only to decline as time passes (with an occasional spike upon big news). Given the dwindling numbers of new sources that are likely to be produced, I would imagine there are a greater quantity of sources written about their childhoods from before their 2013 announcements, than will be written after their 2013 announcements. Yes, we do give greater weight to more recent sources, but explaining what reliable sources talked about in the past adds to our encyclopedic coverage. Sometimes mis-reporting can be a topic in and of itself, as when CNN got the Obamacare Supreme Court ruling so very wrong. My point is that we have a responsibility to relay what reliable sources have said, without editorializing. If Chelsea becomes a superstar (more so than she is now), and remains a superstar for 20 years, there's almost no question we'll talk about her childhood using feminine pronouns, because the sources will use feminine pronouns to refer to all phases of her life (especially with media becoming more aware of transgender issues, and once she undergoes hormone replacement therapy concerns about her biology will be less persuasive). But until that happens, the pre-2013 status quo (male pronouns for the periods of her life leading up to 2013) seem warranted. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

"Eventualism can be used to justify almost any policy on the grounds that any harms it might cause will eventually not matter." __Elaqueate (talk) 23:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not we use the correct pronouns for Manning should not depend on what she does in the future. Powers ^T 22:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, so we can't guess if or when Chelsea's childhood will be referred to using feminine pronouns. CaseyPenk (talk) 22:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Um, luckily we can look at reputable sources now? __Elaqueate (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

We already have the most reputable source possible. Chelsea herself. She has made it quite clear what she prefers and why. She has made it clear what she wishes and absent proof otherwise it's pretty insulting to assume she is not an expert on herself. Sportfan5000 (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Where in Wikipedia policy do we consider the subject the most important / most reliable source? CaseyPenk (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Where in Wikipedia policy do we not consider someone to be an expert on themselves? Sportfan5000 (talk) 23:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought this was one of the places where they were considered the most reliable source?__Elaqueate (talk) 23:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, she hasn't made it perfectly clear. She's given us limited guidance is all. Formerip (talk) 23:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

She has made it abundantly clear she identifies as a woman and wants to be addressed accordingly, the rest is nitpicking nuances that are entwined in her legal situation (apparently won't get mail delivered in prison under her new name). Sportfan5000 (talk) 23:23, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

User:SlimVirgin reported receiving an email from David Coombs (Manning's lawyer), and stated that,

"Regarding the pronoun, he [David Coombs] wrote that the female pronoun should be used only for post-announcement material. I also asked about the current main photograph, and he said that Chelsea is proud of the photograph and would want it to be used until a better one becomes available." [Emphasis added.]

It is not clear how much weight should be given to her request (if that is indeed Manning's own request, and not just the lawyer's assumption), but that request does run contrary to the current wording in MOS:IDENTITY which suggests that the current pronoun should "[apply] to any phase of that person's life." -- ToE 04:03, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

How do you figure. The lawyers statement says to only use the female pronoun post announcement, where as IDENTITY says i should apply to their entire life. The two statements are in direct conflict. I can't read, my mistake. Xkcdreader (talk) 04:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It AMAZES me the "we should respect Chelsea's wishes" crowd is in fact going against her wishes by promoting revising historical pronoun use to match her current state. This statement alone should be enough to remove the guideline, it's far too strict. Xkcdreader (talk) 04:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the survey above you'll see there are many people happy to use that style when a preference is known. Question is, what to do when no preference has been expressed? Chris Smowton (talk) 09:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

(1) I have consistently maintained that Wikipedia should not care what a subject wants us to say about them. Wikipedia should be committed to reporting what is true about them, whether that is what they prefer or not. So if it is true that Manning's gender has always been female, then the female pronoun is the correct one to use, no matter what she wants us to use. (2) I put no weight on what one Wikipeidia editor says Manning's lawyer said in an email. We don't know if the editor really ever received any email. Assuming the lawyer did sent an email, the editor did not publish in full the correspondence, so we are relying on that editor's interpretation of the lawyer's comments. And even if the email was sent and it really was from the lawyer and the editor has accurately reported the contents of the discussion, we don't know if the lawyer is representing what Manning has said she wants. So even if you care about Manning's wishes regarding pronouns (and I don't) there is no reliable source to say she wants male pronouns used.

Xkcdreader is AMAZED that people who argued that Manning's wishes should be honoured seem to be arguing against her wishes. I might say I am AMAZED that people who have been arguing "use reliable sources!" are so quick to grant this unverifiable third-hand report status as "reliable", but it actually does not surprise me. I give no weight to this alleged email not because I have no reason to believe that it reflects what Manning wants (even though none we have no reason to think that), but because what Manning wants is not relevant. Doing our best to get the facts right is the only thing that is relevant. 99.192.50.20 (talk) 13:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

"Wikipedia should be committed to reporting what is true about them, whether that is what they prefer or not."

• Verifiability, not truth. CaseyPenk (talk) 14:59, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

As I wrote my comment I thought someone might make the pedantic reply about verifiability vs truth, but it is no more than a pedantic one. The reason that Wikipedia goes with what is verifiable is because that is the best objective approximation of the truth we can get. If Wikipedia did not care at all about the truth, then it would be a pointless project. So when I say that Wikipedia should be committed to reporting the truth I don't say anything radical or false. But no matter how you put it, what a subject wants us to report or the way they prefer that we report it is not and should not be a factor in how we edit pages. This is especially the case when subjects prefer that we report things that we have facts that can be verified to the contrary. The best experts we have tell us that gender is fixed in early childhood and then after does not change. This is verifiable. Manning tells us that she has identified as female since early childhood. This is verifiable. If Manning wants us to use "he" for when she was a child, that's just too bad for her. If she wants us to report a lie, we should not do it when we have verifiable information that the contrary is true. Finally, we actually have no verifiable evidence that Manning wants us to use male pronouns anyway. So even if Wikipedia did care (which it doesn't and shouldn't), we have no verifiable reason to use male pronouns. 99.192.65.23 (talk) 16:13, 11 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Please do not suggest that my reasoning is pedantic. There is no "objective" or "true" way to report on Manning's gender. Gender as an inherently complex topic that cannot be easily summarized in a single word, like "he" or "she." Gender experts would agree. CaseyPenk (talk) 16:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

While I know that I'm only an IP without an editing history (Or, rather, a shared IP with an edit history from other people), I feel I need to respond to this and some similar comments I've seen from you and others, both here and on other talk pages. First off, WP:TRUTH is an essay, not a policy or a guideline. Second, I believe you are somewhat mistaken on what that essay and WP:V and WP:RS mean. As 99.192 states, they only say that Wikipedia should only include truths that can verified by reliable sources. If reliable sources clearly indicate that someone is a man or woman (Be they transgender or cisgender), then, if WP:V is what you want to point to, that is what Wikipedia should be going by, period. Under the current understanding of gender by people that actually study it, currently the most reliable source for that information is that person themselves. This information, verifiably reported by a reliable source such as major media organizations or (in the case of gender) in a press release or blog post that can clearly be traced back to the person, is all that should be used to determine gender and, in most cases, pronouns.

Now, I have some disagreement with 99.192 over whether or not gender can change or if preferences on pronouns matter (Especially for people that identify as genderqueer or otherwise non-binary). I do think that, absent an explicit statement otherwise by the subject, it should be assumed that the gender of the subject has been fixed and, therefore, pronouns should reflect that reality for their entire lives. In such a case it shouldn't matter that there might be sources that used or continue to use the other set of pronouns, as older sources are clearly no longer reliable on that fact in light of new information and new sources are taking an editorial stance contrary to the current mainstream scientific, psychological, and sociological views (Which, again, makes them unreliable). Put simply, Wikipedia should not be treating outdated or editorial information as verifiable truth when they are verifiably false. Saying "he" for a woman or "she" for man just because at one point those pronouns where once used to refer to the person is simply perpetuating a historical error that has been corrected.

To summarize, WP:TRUTH and WP:V mean that Wikipedia should state the verified truth on a subject, not treat prior factual errors as anything other than just that: Errors. In cases where it is discovered that incorrect pronouns were being used for a subject based on what were previously thought to be reliable sources, those sources should be ignored in so far as they refer to gender and pronouns. Correct and current pronouns should be used. but for the present and historically, since, absent anything indicating otherwise, that is the best assumption to make. 50.201.255.38 (talk) 17:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

"new sources are taking an editorial stance contrary to the current mainstream scientific, psychological, and sociological views (Which, again, makes them unreliable)"

• Do you have reliable sourcing for that statement, or is it your opinion? Is the NLGJA therefore unreliable? CaseyPenk (talk) 17:56, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Considering that the supposed position of NLGJA is being assumed based off of a quote from a spokesperson as presented by a TV critic for Time writing an entertainment blog piece, rather than from from a news story or a NLGJA press release or posting on their website, I question how much weight can be given to it. Regardless, when other groups, such as GLAAD say otherwise on their actual websites I find it strange that people insist we defer to what they interpret the NLGJA to be. GLAAD states, among other things, that "It is usually best to report on transgender people's stories from the present day instead of narrating them from some point or multiple points in the past, thus avoiding confusion and potentially disrespectful use of incorrect pronouns."

As for sources to my above comment, the American Psychological Association says "Use names and pronouns that are appropriate to the person’s gender presentation and identity; if in doubt, ask." This linked from this page for the American Medical Association instructs physicians to use preferred pronouns and names.

What the issue seems to be is that people are pointing out how, strangely enough, very few places have pronoun guidelines to apply to encyclopedias or Wikipedia. I've noticed that some people think that guidelines for pronoun use in the press shouldn't apply to a historical encyclopedia like Wikipedia, but instead that Wikipedia should base things of off, uh, the pronouns used by the press in the past.

And all this aside, this whole idea of changing pronouns is utterly unworkable. At which time should you switch? How would that work with people that transitioned before becoming notable? Would they have consistent pronouns from early parts of their life, whereas someone that became notable before being known to be trans would have the wrong pronouns used for early, non-notable parts of their lives? It seems like people want to toss away a simple, consistent method of writing in favour of one that will be extremely subjective and inconsistent. To reference an example mentioned before, this would mean that for some trans men Wikipedia would say "she gave birth", but for otherwise, like Thomas Beatie, it would have to say "he gave birth." 50.201.255.38 (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

"It is usually best to report on transgender people's stories from the present day" - I talked about this above, but we simply don't have the luxury of writing in the present tense. We write in past tense because we're an encyclopedia.

You can write in the past tense from the present day. Tense is grammar, but you are always writing at the time you are writing. A quote from Chelsea's lawyer, "Yesterday was my first opportunity to speak with Chelsea since her sentencing." Notice that it says "her" sentencing. If you watch the Today show segment you'll see her lawyer talks about the reasons "She" leaked documents. __Elaqueate (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• The APA guidelines do not seem to discuss descriptions of people prior to their transition.
• "some people think that guidelines for pronoun use in the press shouldn't apply to a historical encyclopedia like Wikipedia" - we need to be careful with applying press guidelines, because we have different priorities and we are explicitly not a news site. We are not journalists, and we are not here to break ground, or to "expose" anything but what others have reported.
• "simple, consistent method of writing" - yes, but too strict, some say. CaseyPenk (talk) 01:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

With regards to the original post, while some trans people are indifferent to how they are referred pre-coming out, I would still, for the avoidance of harm, make an assumption to retroactively apply the pronoun. In good article writing, we should be writing in the historical present. If we make it clear that a person is transgender pretty early on — and, for many notable trans people, coming out is important and should be mentioned in the lede! — I don't think people would be confused (and really, it's offensive making assumptions that our readers are stupid). It's a non-issue based in pedanticism that could be solved with better writing. Sceptre ^(talk) 03:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Pronouns throughout life: Notifications

• Comment: I have notified WikiProject LGBT studies. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:37, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I have notified WikiProject gender studies. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I have notified the talk page of the Private Manning article. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• I have notified the gendergap mailing list since many subscribers are knowledgeable about gender issues. I'm too lazy to dig up a url to an archived copy of my message, but it was written in a neutral manner. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:36, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Pronouns throughout life: Usage in actual sources

• Question: We've talked extensively about what reliable sources do, but I haven't read many, if any, post-announcement sources that discuss the childhoods of the subjects (for example, articles about the childhood of Chelsea, written after her announcement). Does anyone have examples of such articles, so we can see what reliable sources use for pronouns when referring to people in their pre-announcement selves (e.g. Chelsea when she was actively serving in the military and in childhood, adolescence, etc.)? That would help bring some more factual clarity to this situation, and allow for more meaningful comparisons, so we need not speculate on what reliable sources say. Thank you. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• I think it could also be informative to find reference materials about the lives of people who became famous only after transitioning. I expect that such materials might use one pronoun throughout, which would mean that people who think that changing a book's pronouns violates WP:V or WP:OR (which I don't) would be in the position of supporting retroactive pronouns. -sche (talk) 21:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• That might be an important distinction to make during this discussion - the distinction between people famous before transition and people famous after, or because of, it. For people most/first famous during or after transition, it makes a whole lot of sense to use current pronouns throughout. Most editors have expressed concern with the alternate case - where the person became famous prior to transition. So I think the most revealing sources would be ones on people who transitioned after becoming famous. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• • Kristin Beck knew she was a woman since childhood, but the book she co-wrote uses the old name and male pronouns in the pre-announcement phase. http://books.google.com/books/about/Warrior_Princess_A_U_S_Navy_SEAL_s_Journ.html?id=N0k5nQEACAAJ in Kristin beck's case, it was the act of coming out publicly that made her famous, but the authors chose to use male pronouns for the earlier parts of her life.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:47, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Chelsea Manning’s Prison I think this may have gotten lost when I commented on it earlier, but this shows how pronoun use can flow when it's not done in a checkerboard ad hoc way, and instead done as per GLAAD style recommendation. __Elaqueate (talk) 23:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Pronouns throughout life: Writing about long-term activities

Question for those who favour using the pronouns a person's contemporaries used: which pronouns should Wikipedia use when writing about something (such as an occupation or membership in a group) that a person started before they came out and continued after they came out? For example, say "John Doe" was considered a male until 1995, when she came out as "Jane Doe": how would you rewrite the following sentences? "Although she began performing in 1995 1990, it was not until the release of her fourth album The Foobarians in 2005 that she found widespread acclaim." - "In 2001, her membership in the Singers' Guild, which she had joined in 1990, lapsed." (The sentences themselves, pronouns aside, were copied with only minimal changes from two Wikipedia articles which were not about transgender people but which demonstrate that WP regularly discusses "lifelong" activities.) -sche (talk) 03:34, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"Although she began performing in 1995, it was not until the release of her fourth album The Foobarians in 2005 that she found widespread acclaim."

That is fine. She regendered in 1995. Even if the precise months could be an issue, it is close enough. Elsewhere, not far away, there is surely mention of regendering in 1995. The paragraph is written from a 2005 perspective.

"In 2001, her membership in the Singers' Guild, which she had joined in 1990, lapsed."

First impression: fine. Past perfect is very different to simple past in terms of implying 1st hand accuracy of the fine details. She (as she is now) had joined (this is a current description of her past) in 1990.

“She joined in 1990”?

this doesn’t work, unless it is already in the context of gender ambiguity in 1990. “He/She joined in 1990” conveys a first hand, co-temporary observation, following a timecourse. We are yet to come to the regendering. Unupdated observers will remember/record a male gender. Simple past tense use demands explicit updating for (the imaginary) contemporary observer. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:07, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Alright, I've changed the year to make the first example "harder".

Looking at it myself, even if I were writing about and trying to respect the wishes of someone who wanted their pre-transition life to be described using different pronouns, it would seem appropriate to me to say "she began performing...", for much the same reason it seems appropriate to you to say "she had joined": because the pronoun's purpose is to tell the reader that the author is referring to "her, that is, the subject (who is, in the present tense, a woman)".

...and that's why I think the push to use "he" misunderstands what pronouns are for. -sche (talk) 05:21, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I find myself recalling [8] that such a subjective thing depends on persective.

One circle is orange, the other light brown. But they are the same. Does this mean that they are both orange, or both light brown?

When talking about the preregendered person, what is the perspective of the writer? Is the writer writing from behind the subject eyeballs? From the perspective of an observer present in the same room? Is it a report compiled from multiple sources, much later and far away?

Usually, Wikipedia writes from a detached perspective. However, when articles cover fine details, splitting into multiple sections by chronology and with spinout articles, individual sections can become close in perspective.

Bradley_manning#Early_life. "Manning's sister Casey, 11 years old[er]... became Manning's principal caregiver ...Manning was fed only milk and baby food until she was two, and was always small for her age, particularly for a boy; as an adult she reached..." The perspective here is confused. It is both recompiled and remote, but close at the same time. Here is a neglected, undernourished, fetal abused boy who would later regender. Was this a little boy who would develop psychologically as female, or a female recognized by observers as a little boy? This is too hard. I want to resort to the gender use of the sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but resorting to sources' usage invites a different problem. I point to a scenario I mentioned several sections earlier: one source uses male pronouns to describe J. Doe's childhood: "Doe moved with his mother from New York to Virginia when he was six. He spent the next five years there, leaving only for a trip to Ithaca with his father on his seventh birthday." Another source uses female pronouns: "At age 6, Doe went to live with her mother in Virginia. Her teachers described her as a lonely child who often complained that she missed New York." Both report Doe's move to VA, but each also reports something the other does not. If Wikipedia is to defer/resort to sources, is it left switching back and forth between pronouns from one fact to the next? Mimicking the pronoun uses of the sources from which one takes individual facts actually seems harder than using one pronoun consistently... -sche (talk) 07:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

If the sources were unanimous, we'd follow them, yes? If similar sources are mixed, then we should choose a consistent usage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:18, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I support using the same pronoun all the way through, but I don't think this question presents a real worry. The problem described could be one for people who change names as well. when talking about the career, for example, of John Cougar aka John Cougar Mellencamp aka John Mellencamp there might be sentences that span across all three names. By carefully choosing when to use a name and when to use a pronoun the problem is easy to solve. So to go back to your examples the problem goes away when you write: "Although Doe began performing in 1990, it was not until the release of her fourth album The Foobarians in 2005 that she found widespread acclaim." For the other sentence, you could write: "In 2001, her membership in the Singers' Guild, which Doe had joined in 1990, lapsed."

These unusual problems are not hard to solve when people take the time to consider the range of available alternatives. It is part of why I think people are talking nonsense when they worry about how "confusing" it will be to a reader to say "she" and "boy" in the same sentence. Once people know the article is about a transgender person the "confusion" goes away for everyone except dumb people and people who don't want to understand what is being said. 99.192.51.41 (talk) 13:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

On retroactivity

Just a thought experiment: why is listing the Ohio State Buckeyes football team as the sole winners of the 2005 and 2008 Big Ten Conference okay and accepted, but retroactively applying pronouns to a trans person controversial? Answers on a postcard. Sceptre ^(talk) 12:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

This is a bad example for two reasons: (1) The Buckeyes' page lists them as co-champions, not as sole winners. The same is true for the specific pages for their 2005 and 2008 seasons. (2) Being the 2005 champion and winning the 2005 championship are two different things. It makes sense to say that in 2005 they were co-champions while today they are the sole champions of the 2005 season. Status as "champion" can change, but gender does not, so there is no analogy.

I don't know of a good example where Wikipedia pages were actually changed, but there are a couple of pretty good historical cases where pages would have been retroactively changed on the discovery of an error. One I mentioned above: It wasn't until 1974 that Jack Nicholson learned the true identity of his parents. His mother is a person he believed to be his sister, and the person he thought was his mother is his grandmother. This all happened after he was a world-famous movie star and twice nominated for "Best Actor" Oscars. So if in 1971 he had taken his mother (who he thought at the time was his sister) as his date for the Oscars, the Wikipedia page should not say "his date for the Oscars was his sister" even if every reliable source of that time reported that as the case. When errors are discovered (as reported in more recent reliable sources) we correct past errors.

Another good example is the relationship of Meg White and Jack White. For a period of time when they first became famous they claimed to be brother and sister. Many, many reliable sources took them at their word and printed it as fact. Later it became known and was reported that they are not siblings, but were married and divorced. If their Wikipedia page had reported that they were siblings and used the words "brother" and "sister" in passing references to them it all would have had to been changed when the truth was reported.

Sometimes, as with Jack Nicholson, notable people are ignorant of facts about themselves and so make mistakes in what they tell the media. Sometimes, as with the Whites, notable people lie about themselves and so the media is duped for a time by their false claims. In either case the normal practice of Wikipedia is to change information retroactively when newer reports reveal that the older reports were wrong. So if sometimes people represent their gender to the world as being a gender other than their actual gender, that too is a false claim that results in the media making false claims that cause Wikipedia pages to be in error and in need of correction when newer reports reveal that the older reports were wrong. For anything other than gender this practice is just common sense and is what happens every day. 99.192.68.134 (talk) 13:30, 15 September 2013 (UTC) )(=99.192....)

Actually, "gender" is not any different. There are many cases in history where someone posed as the opposite sex (for example: women who posed as men in order to fight in a war)... some sources might well have used the names and pronouns associated with that posed persona (for example, the muster roles of the regiment and dispatches to headquarters). When the pose is discovered, the "error" is corrected in subsequent sources. Even though a news report of the time might say "Corporal Jones was given a medal for his bravery", we correct it to "Miss Smith was given a medal for her bravery".

"Gender" is a simple fact of biology. If a mammal has a penis, it is Male, and a "he"... if it has a vagina it is female, and is a "she" (OK... hermaphrodites cause problems... but that is a separate issue). Easy to correct if we discover an error.

HOWEVER... "gender identity" is a different matter entirely. Identity is not a fact of biology... it is an opinion, a matter of belief ... a person might firmly believe "I am female"... other people may be of a contrasting opinion, and just as firmly believe that "no, you are male". That's why the pronoun issue is so controversial... it states opinion as if it were biological fact.

It is one thing to prominently note that the subject of an article self-identifies as male or female (it is appropriate to discuss a subject's opinions about themselves)... but when choosing a pronoun, I see no reason why humans should be treated differently than every other mammal... we should base the pronoun on biological fact... not personal opinion. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, I'm not sure this RfC is the proper venue to be contesting the validity of the gender identities of trans people. Additionally, you seem to want to treat humans exactly the same as other animals which, whatever merits that position may or may not have, is most certainly not how Wikipedia handles it (Not using "it" to refer to humans, for example).

(I typed this in before you edited your comment. I've have decided to leave it here because I feel others have made similar claims to your pre-edit comment)Regardless, your assertion that ignoring gender identity is the only valid WP:NPOV position that can be taken is incorrect. First off, the claimed gender identity of a subject is fact. You might believe that they are just mentally disturbed and that gender identity is nonsense and therefore no weight should be given to it in regards to pronouns, but the fact remains that once it is reported in reliable sources that subject X identifies as gender Y it cannot just be ignored. What you are suggesting is to take the extremely subjective political position of completely ignoring the stated gender identity of the subject under the guise of being neutral, which is entirely against the point of WP:NPOV. Neutral does not mean picking what you feel is the status quo or what you think most people believe, it means giving sources proper weight.

As outlined in the links I posted above as an IP, the American Psychological Association states "Use names and pronouns that are appropriate to the person’s gender presentation and identity; if in doubt, ask.", whereas the American Medical Association links to at least one resource which states that a practice should be using desired pronouns and names. Transgender people are recognized by major medical and mental health organizations as real and their stated (explicitly or implicitly) positions are to refer to them by they pronouns matching the subjects stated gender identity. Unless you're going to argue that these organizations are somehow not reliable sources on these issues, I do not see how you can just ignore them in favour of your vastly oversimplified view of gender.

Under the guidelines you seem to be proposing, Wikipedia articles would be forbidden from using any gendered terms for people unless the state of their genitals at that specific point in time was known. It would also essentially forbid the ever changing of pronouns for trans people unless they provided evidence to your liking that their genitals had changed "enough", which is highly unlikely to happen in most cases because, to put it bluntly, it's not really the business of anyone else. Also, are you saying that should a man lose his penis, due to an accident or some other reason, that he suddenly becomes a neuter? A woman? What about a woman without a vagina for some reason?

And just because you want to ignore intersex people (This discussion is about people and the term intersex is generally considered to be more accurate and proper to use when talking about people compared to hermaphrodite) doesn't mean you're free to just do so. Such people cannot just dismissed because they complicate the black and white position you are trying to take.

Finally, you are making some rather strong assertions in your post without sourcing them in any manner. Simple Sarah (talk) 15:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand... what I am suggesting is that we distinguish between gender and gender identity. The first is based on biology... the second is based on belief. I deeply respect the beliefs of others, and think they should be mentioned prominently in articles. But my opinion is that pronouns should be based on actual gender not gender identity. We can and should note gender identities, and give them DUE WEIGHT and respect, but DUE WEIGHT gives precedence to scientific fact over identity, and the fact is gender is determined by biology, while gender identity is not. Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

With the repeated invocation of the APA and AMA suggestions, it should be noted that these are not intended to be writing style guidelines aimed at objectivity. The APA statement is specifically to answer "How can I be supportive of transgender family members, friends, or significant others?" That is clearly not the central goal of Wikipedia (nor should being specifically nonsupportive be a goal, of course.) Similarly, the GLMA guidelines are for dealing directly with the trasngendered individual themselves in a relationship as a patient, where not being of discomfort to them is the key goal (as they emphasis in one of the other questions of language, a given terminology choice may "interfere with information-gathering and appropriate care".) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Are these medical associations attempting to minimize a non-trivial chance that harm could result? __Elaqueate (talk) 17:17, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Not by any statement I see in their documents that would apply to use in Wikipedia, as we are not seeking to provide folks with medical care. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, you seem mistaken about the biology of gender. A penis is indeed a male trait, but it is not the only male trait. In humans, the biology of gender includes external genitalia, genes (chromosomes), gene expression, body chemistry, secondary sexual characteristics (like breasts and facial hair) and the anatomy of the brain, and these things do not always match. A person can have four male traits and one female trait or two and three. For example, a person with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome has XY genes, which are expressed, high testosterone levels in the blood, largely inactive gonads, female secondary characteristics (breasts and no facial hair) and, usually, a female gender identity. Similarly, it is possible for someone to have a working penis but a female brain and female-like blood chemistry. That is probably what is going on with Manning.

Gender as reported by the subject is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of limited evidence. We can't give Manning a blood analysis and fMRI, and even if we could, the results would be questionable. We take the subject's word for it because Manning is the only one capable of observing his or her own gender identity.

So yes, gender (in the general definition of the word) is a biological fact, but it is not quite so simple a biological fact.

Referring to gender identity as an opinion suggests that the subjects have a choice in the matter. They do not. It is better described as an observation. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

With regards to the Buckeyes, I was making reference to this list: List of Big Ten Conference football champions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Sceptre ^(talk) 11:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I give you the 1956 World Series. It was played "between the New York Yankees (representing the American League) and the defending champion Brooklyn Dodgers (representing the National League)". Later, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and changed their name, but that doesn't mean we write that the 1956 World Series was played between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. --GRuban (talk) 14:51, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

You give us an irrelevant example. Names change, gender does not. Wikipedia's policy is to refer to people (and teams and places) by the name they had at the time of a notable event. Wikipedia's policy is also to use the gender they had at the time (as opposed to the gender that people might have falsely believed they had). A transgender person's gender does not change. When a transgender person reveals their true gender they are revealing a fact about themselves that was always true, even though no one knew it. So it was Bradley Manning who joined the military, but she was a woman at the time that this happened. She had a male body and she represented herself as a man, but it was not the truth. She was a woman named "Bradley Manning". For our articles to be accurate, we must acknowledge both of these facts about her identity. 99.192.88.142 (talk) 14:58, 18 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

Er - I'm responding to the statement that opened this section. The one that mentions sports teams? --GRuban (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

You make an assumption that cannot be proved, that Manning was always female and only realized it after reaching a certain age. The only provable parts of Manning's life are actions taken and communications made by Manning—there is no objective all-knowing position from which we can assess what gender is the real one or only one. We cannot change policy based on unprovable "facts". I support a MOS which allows gender to change in the article, referring to the subject as he/him for some portions of the biography and she/her for other portions. This would be based on easily verifiable words and actions. Binksternet (talk) 15:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I make no assumptions. I deal only in the facts as reported by reliable sources. Fact 1: The experts on gender identity say that it is fixed in infancy and does not change. So whatever gender any person is (you, me, and Manning included) does not change. Fact 2: Manning has reported that she is a woman and has always felt that way. Each of us are in the unique position to be able to assess what our gender is, so the very best source of all has spoken on the subject. These facts are only unprovable if you choose to ignore the proof that is provided. 99.192.89.57 (talk) 16:26, 18 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

The other comparisons that are made in this thread, like the White Stripes being (falsely) sister/brother, or teams changing names, are simply not apt - because we're dealing with a pronoun that carries a massive amount of semantic meaning behind it; and if there was a pronoun that encapsulated "sister of", then I don't think we'd be amiss using it to describe Meg White during those years - but there is no such pronoun. Because gender roles are so entrenched in our society, and "man" and "woman" is such an important and high-level binary division, we can't really effectively compare this to other cases. "He" and "she" carry within those few letters a whole package of meaning about gender. For someone who hasn't yet transitioned, such as Manning, it is clear they were perceived, especially in early years, as a boy, and treated as such. Using "he" in this context (descriptions of Manning's youth) makes much more sense to the reader because it highlights that at that time, this person was perceived as, and treated as, a boy. Using "she" to describe a young awkward gay boy is more confusing to the reader, as that whole package of meaning around "female" impedes the understanding of how Manning interacted with society. Gender identity is internal, but gender roles and acceptance of a gender identity are determined by society at large. It is arguably much more NPOV to use the pronouns by sources that described this person - at the time - and then switch pronouns once sources start to switch pronouns, or once the person starts to present as a different gender. None of this is intended as a commentary on whether Manning "always" was a woman or "always" felt female, because we're not dealing with absolute facts or "truth" here, we're dealing with socially mediated roles and interactions. There aren't any comparisons I can think of to this issue, because there aren't any other pronouns that encapsulate these packages of meaning in the way "he" and "she" do.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:10, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

When most English-speaking readers see "gender," they think "state of being male or female" and they are right to do so (even though that's not the only correct definition). They do not pause to conduct an inner debate about whether that state is the result of biological or social factors. It just is. The idea that Manning really was "she" the whole time and merely mistaken for a boy at birth is a lot closer to what the word actually means to anyone who hasn't stopped to read an essay on the subject. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:29, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Closure

I have submitted a request at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. – Smyth\^talk 14:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Oxford spelling on topics related to Britain and Ireland

MOS:TIES says that an article on a topic with strong ties to a country should use the English of that country. As you may know, both –ise (realise) and –ize (realize) are acceptable in British English and Hiberno-English, where it's known as Oxford spelling. However, –ise is more common.

MOS:RETAIN says that the existing spelling variety should be retained, but if the topic has strong ties to a country it should use the English of that country.

So, if an article with ties to Britain or Ireland has used Oxford spelling since the beginning, should it ever be switched to non-Oxford spelling? If so, under what circumstances? ~Asarlaí 19:50, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Since both Oxford and non-Oxford spelling are acceptable in British English, the answer is "no". If British English is appropriate and Oxford spelling has been used from the beginning, it should never be changed under MOS:RETAIN. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to say that this is not the practice we have usually used up until now. It's been entirely common and usual practice to alter British English articles to the non-Oxford spelling, as this is now far, far more common in Britain. I don't think it's written into any policy or guideline, but it's certainly been standard practice. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I would dispute both assertions as to what is common or usual. I write a lot of articles in Oxford English and only very rarely have to revert people changing them, which I do when necessary. Johnbod (talk) 13:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

And FWIW, I've seen people complain about it (about the fact that they'd written articles using Oxford spellings, and tagged them as such, and people had tried to change the articles to use non-Oxford spellings). -sche (talk) 19:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If the initial choice was for Oxford spelling, I don't think it should ever be changed unless the subject has strong ties with a locale that uses non-Oxford spelling. Especially if the article has been tagged with {{Use British (Oxford) English}}. Oxford spelling is a legitimate choice supported by a major style guide, and altering the initial choice is just the kind of unnecessary picking of squabbles that the MOS so frequently tries to rule out of order. It's a pity that MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN specifically say strong national ties (even though MOS:TIES mentions Tolkien). Is there any appetite for a slight rewording to replace national with something like local? --Stfg (talk) 09:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

There are approximately 274 articles currently tagged with {{Use British (Oxford) English}}, and Because -ise and -ize are both British, but may vary depending on the participating editors, I think it's pretty meaningless and we would get our knickers in a severe twist if we were to attempt a rewording of the guideline to read "local" instead of "national" without any meaningful being achieved to preserve the Oxford "-ize". -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 09:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Oxford spelling is not specifically used locally in and around the city of Oxford - it is a form used within the UK by people who tend, perhaps, to be (WP:OR) older and/or more academically-minded. Without expressing a view for or against its use, my point is simply that it is not a "local" style. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

As I'm one of those who regularly tags articles I create as using Oxford British English, I would object most strongly to any attempt to change the guideline. As noted above, "local" doesn't make any sense; this is a national British variant.

I have to plead guilty to age and being a (retired) academic, but also I prefer this ENGVAR in Wikipedia over "standard" British spelling because it offers a bit more commonality, which is surely a good thing.

There's a discrepancy between articles in Category:Use British (Oxford) English and those in Category:Wikipedia articles that use Oxford spelling (where there are only 155). Some articles are in both categories but others appear to be in one but not the other.

I wish article creators would regularly use an ENGVAR tag, at least on the talk page. It helps to create consistency and avoids disputes. There are several articles I work on that have inconsistent spelling and grammar but no clear national ties and such a tangled history that it's impossible to tell what ENGVAR they are supposed to be using. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, I don't need any more convincing: "local" was a bad idea. I was only trying to express that jumping wilfully between the two national variants is also a bad idea. Looking again, MOS:RETAIN does seem to cover this. MOS:TIES speaks of "the English of that nation" as if each nation only had one, but perhaps that's liveable with. --Stfg (talk) 11:21, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• We must reconcile the tagging as best we can. Problem is that we have non-Brits who work British articles, so it's often very difficult to know that an article has -ize words because the editor who placed was a Brit who used it deliberately or because he/she was American or Canadian. And my script defaults to -ise words because it's definitely the most prevalent form in British English. We also need to ensure that the articles you deliberately write in Oxford have {{Use British (Oxford) English}}. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 13:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The use of the two methods of tagging needs perhaps to be clarified. Normally I just put an ENGVAR tag on the talk page (like {{American English}} at Talk:Cactus or {{British English Oxford spelling}} at Talk:Roscoea). Only if there's an issue with editors changing spellings do I consider an editnotice on the page itself (which was necessary at Cactus where there were persistent attempts to change US spellings). Maybe this is the wrong approach? Why are the two separate tagging methods necessary? Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that British English articles should be able to use either form and that Oxford spelling shouldn't be changed. The ratio of -ise to -ize in the British National Corpus is only 3:2 (I thought there would be a greater difference). However, according to our article,[9] the ise form strongly prevails in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (I can attest to that last one, as a native speaker of New Zealand English). So the -ise form should probably be used in articles written in those forms of English or related to those countries, and it might well be appropriate to change -ize forms if they have been used. Neljack (talk) 07:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I also agree that it shouldn't be changed and that those articles in the sphere of OE should have "-ize" changed to "-ise". "-ise" is the predominant way of spelling it in the UK. Mabuska ^(talk) 16:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Help requested

There is a requested move in progress proposing moving the names of some Royal Navy ship types to lower case titles. If you understand what constitutes a proper noun, and the Wikipedia guidelines on capitalisation, please wade in. The discussion is being mainly conducted at Talk:Motor Gun Boat. Thanks. Shem (talk) 21:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Standardized notation for titling articles whose terms differ among the national varieties

In an international encyclopedia like Wikipedia, it is inevitable that some article titles will have to use language that is only correct in a subset of the various national varieties of a language and is not correct in all of them. This will force Wikipedia to show case by case a limited amount of favoritism to one national variety or another; and while this is unavoidable and therefore perfectly acceptable, it should be recognized as favoritism.

It is often found that the first line of the introductory paragraph of an article reintroduces the title term in bold; and in cases where national varieties differ on the term for the title subject, I propose that we adopt a standard notation that shows as little further favoritism as possible to the national variety used for the title. I propose that the standard notation be: TermA or TermB.

Some articles have taken to mentioning by name the regions which use a national variety different from that used in the title. I recently edited the article for cesium fluoride to this proposed standard; previously, it had read: caesium fluoride (or cesium fluoride in North America). The problem here is that the article calls out North America by name even while it uses the term "or" to denote the existence of multiple possibilities. This implies heavily that the there are multiple possibilities in North America; and by extension that the title term "caesium fluoride" is correct everywhere, whereas the national variety "cesium fluoride" is rather a mere colloquialism used by North Americans in place of the standard term. In reality most North Americans aware of the existence of cesium are unaware of the existence of any spellings of the word with an 'a;' and the academics who might know otherwise nevertheless use "cesium fluoride" and not the British spelling.

In any case, the topic "cesium fluoride" is not really improved by noting where people use which of its names (thus I support my first proposed standard), but should Wikipedia find that it is helpful to readers to know where people use which name, then I would propose that the standard notation for national variations be: TermA (TermB in RegionB). By leaving off the word "or," there is preserved the sense that in RegionB, TermB is the only correct variation; in most cases, this will be both more neutral and more factually correct. In a situation where a spelling popular in one national variety of a language is truly considered by the people of that national variety to be less correct than the variety used in the title, then inclusion of the subordinating "or" is appropriate; but this was not the case for cesium fluoride, nor I'm sure would it be true for the majority of the variation favoritisms shown by necessity on Wikipedia.

130.132.173.179 (talk) 05:49, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I think a form such as caesium fluoride (or cesium fluoride in North America) implies that North America is the exception to the standard that is accepted everywhere else, perhaps suggesting that North America is subjugated to the rest of the world. A more neutral representation would be Term A (in British English) or Term B (in American English) or XYZ-1 (mainly in North America) or XYZ-2 (mainly in the UK). Aside from the order in which the alternate terms are presented, these forms do not imply that any particular term is the "norm" and others are regional "exceptions". —sroc 💬 13:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Is it not the exception to the standard used elsewhere? There are far more varieties of English than British and American English you know. However, I would suspect that most non-American English-speakers (who vastly outnumber those in America) use the "British" form. There's no reason to parenthesise the American form (using "or" is fine, although it doesn't need a link to the MoS), but I think it's perfectly acceptable to specify that it is the American form. Stating that "caesium" is the British English form would be inaccurate, since it's doubtless also the form used in many other varieties of English. Stating that "cesium" is the American English form is entirely accurate. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The "vastly outnumber" part is only if you count second-language speakers. Actually Americans make up more than 60% of first-language English speakers, worldwide. Now I have nothing against second-language speakers, but there's an enormous range of how much they use the language and how well they speak it, so it's hard to know how to count them. --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Let's remember that English is an official language of India, which has a much larger population than the USA. But the issue is not counting up the numbers of first- or second-language speakers (which is actually impossible to determine), but the distribution of the usage of the form around the world. I really do not believe that 60% of people who speak English speak "American English"! They speak a huge variety of forms of English. Do a majority of people who use the word spell it "cesium"? I very much doubt it. It is therefore perfectly acceptable to state that this is an American spelling. It is. Fact. -- Necrothesp (talk) 20:22, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It might be an official language in Inda, but that's a formality. Only a very small fraction of people grow up speaking it in the home.

It is in no way acceptable to assume that Commonwealth English is the default and American English is a variant. ENGVAR says that they are on an equal basis.

Now, as to c(a)esium specifically, the situation is slightly clouded by the fact that the Commonwealth spelling is also the IUPAC one, which I don't personally give much weight, but unfortunately other editors do. In chemistry articles specifically, the settled convention is to follow IUPAC for spellings (of element names at least). --Trovatore (talk) 20:54, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Are we not counting second-language speakers? Anyway, you'll note that I took care in my examples to include British English and American English versions in different orders in different examples to avoid bias. But I take the point that there are certainly other variants of English, but I suppose Term A (in British English, Australian English, New Zealand English and Indian English) or Term B (in American English) would become both unwieldy and incomplete. I still don't like the idea of singling out American English as an exception, but not sure how better to represent this. —sroc 💬 09:00, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I should imagine that most Indian people who are aware of the existence of caesium do speak English (since most educated Indians do - English being an official language is far more than a formality) and spell it "caesium". Nobody has suggested that Commonwealth English should be the default on Wikipedia. I'm not sure where you've got that from. But the fact that "cesium" is a spelling peculiar to North America and most of the rest of the English-speaking world (whether they speak English as a first language or second language) spell it "caesium" is a simple fact. We are usually in the business of recording facts. I have no idea why this should be an exception. If the American spelling was the world standard and the British spelling was peculiar to Britain I would support specifying this too. There's no nationalism involved here on my part, I assure you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

There are basically two varieties of English spelling, Commonwealth and American (sometimes "North American"). On Wikipedia they have equal status. You don't get to promote Commonwealth higher by counting countries.

In the specific case of chemical elements, in chemistry articles specifically, we follow IUPAC spelling — I don't necessarily like that but it's pretty well settled. So for caesium fluoride, yes, fine. Don't try to generalize it to colo(u)r! --Trovatore (talk) 19:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is! We are not talking about the article title in any case or even about in which variety of English the article should be written. That is fully defined in WP:ENGVAR and as far as I can see nobody is arguing with that. Certainly not me. We are talking about whether it should be specified that one version is specific to one country. This is very commonly done in thousands of articles and I don't see why there should be an exception here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Isn't this what we have {{redirects}} for? The initial author(s) gets to select which variety of English the article — and title! — conforms to, and any variant spellings are handled with redirects. Right? So why are we having this discussion? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:57, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it isn't. This discussion is about referring to the subject of the article in the lead (and reflecting the various regional variations), not the actual title of the article. —sroc 💬 23:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Look, this is all well-settled stuff. See WP:ENGVAR. Any serious change to that would need a very wide discussion. The bottom line is, this particular article fits in the chemistry exception, and therefore we say caesium. --Trovatore (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

So you are not concerned about the actual title itself. Is your concern in including variant spellings (including those of possibly regional significance)? Or supposed favoritism in how regions are identified? The simple answer to that is to leave off the region (locale). Sometimes caesium is spelled cesium — does it really matter where? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Putting aside the example of caesium/cesium, there are cases where it is useful and informative to indicate where particular spelling variants are used. For example, see knit cap, which is variously known as bobcap (British English), stocking cap or watch cap (American English), beanie ("much of the English-speaking world"), touque (Canada), amongst other names. Then again, there's aluminium which simply begins: "Aluminium (or aluminum)…" without indicating where each spelling is used. —sroc 💬 00:47, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Although it probably would do if there wasn't a substantial section on etymology further down the article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Look, none of this is about who uses what word where. It is also not about the fact that first titles will use whichever regional variant comes first. It is only about subject introductions that follow the title and which retitle the subject using the names of other regions. It is about whether names other than the title one ought to be labelled by region, and if so, it is about how the labeling should be tailored to the specific conditions encountered. Because quite apart from whether or not anyone thinks it's peculiar that Americans or Brits or Atlanteans spell anything any which way, there is the established certainty that you cannot call anything peculiar in an encyclopedia without breaking neutrality. Neither can you imply that a greater number of regional variants, total speakers, or native speakers makes one term more "standard" or more "universal" than another. It is indeed effectively nationalistic if you are setting any one thing as standard when there are multiple, equally unyielding paradigms reigning in multiple places, no matter how small or insignificant one paradigm may consider another to be, and no matter how solid you may consider your reasoning for establishing one or the other as correct.

Hence, my original suggestions: one, leave off the labeling; or two, stop applying the word "or," or any of its variants, in cases where the paradigm not represented in the title does not itself use the title term. Maybe caesium is the proper spelling even in America because of the standard set by IUPAC; and if so, that specific case's resolution is entirely irrelevant to the general notion that "or" should not be used when it implies the existence of options that don't exist.

Here's a better example of what I mean. I typed in the word "pants" in the search bar. In my country, that means trousers. Accordingly, I was redirected to the page for "trousers" where I was informed of this: "Trousers are an item of clothing worn from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending across both legs as in skirts and dresses). They are also called pants in the United States and some other countries."

I have absolutely nothing at all against the word "trousers," nor against its use as the title of the article; but my lack of antipathy toward the word "trousers" does not change the fact that it is still factually inaccurate to say that trousers are "also" called pants in the US. In the US, trousers are only called pants. It is far more factually accurate to say that "Trousers are called pants in the United States and some other countries," without applying frivolously the word "also" in a way that could be misinterpreted as an establishment of the universal standard-ness of the word "trousers" (Misinterpretation of the word "also" would, of course, require unfamiliarity with the distinctions between British and American culture; which is to say, it would require one to be the only kind of person who would actually need to look up what trousers/pants are in the first place.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.179 (talk) 05:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Should it be "optional" as to whether a second comma after a date/place should be included?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This RFC concerns policy from WP:MOSNUM (MOS:DATEFORMAT and MOS:BADDATEFORMAT), MOS:COMMA, and WP:NCPLACE:

My proposal is that instead of being mandated or not being mandated, MOS should be changed to make it optional as to whether a comma should be included after a date or a place: April 14–16, 2011 tornado outbreak or April 14–16, 2011, tornado outbreak; Rochester, New York metropolitan area or Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. If passed, a second part of this proposal would mandate that all pages within a certain Project be the same. This means that the comma would be optional on the "national" standpoint, but one version would be mandated by a discussion from a "local" Project standpoint (all pages within any Project either with the comma or without the comma). This allows members of a project to decide themselves on what to do and prevents ridiculously long site-wide discussions such as this. United States Man (talk) 19:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Note: I realized after several editors had already commented that I had left out the important part that this should only apply to titles and not sentences within an article, which should have the second comma. I was alerted to this after User:sroc's comment in a below section. United States Man (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Second Note: Another issue that I did not think about was the use of the date or place as an adjective: July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike or Graniteville, South Carolina train crash. Per reasons above, I propose that this also be made optional. United States Man (talk) 16:58, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I failed to realize the connection between my correction and what I had already said. I mistakenly corrected something that was already correct and I will thus strike out the above comment. United States Man (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

This would be an ideal situation if the RfC is passed:

• General rule: include a comma after the year in m–d–y dates (e.g., On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft.)
• General rule: include a comma after the state/country (e.g., The plane took off from Portland, Oregon, and was headed east.)
• Exception: use as an adjective (especially in a date or place) is optional in article titles only, according to Project preference (e.g., July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike / July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike or Graniteville, South Carolina train crash / Graniteville, South Carolina, train crash)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by United States Man (talk • contribs) 13:15, Today (UTC+11)

Support

• Support, especially when a date/place is used as an adjective, as it is with the tornado and Rochester examples. For authority, see Garner's Modern American Usage, pp.225-226. Here are some excerpts:

• "Stylists who use [the Month Day, Year] phrasing [as an adjective] typically omit the comma after the year, and justifably so: in the midst of an adjective phrase (i.e., the date), it impedes the flow of the writing too much."
• "The idea of the comma after the year, as it has commonly been taught, is that the year is in apposition, so the second comma is required....The more plausible argument - supporting the absence of the comma after the year - has two parts. First, the comma is really just separating the two numerals, so if a second comma isn't syntactically required, then it doesn't belong....Second, the comma after the date marks a nonexistent pause: when a full date is used adjectivally, a knowledgeable speaker of the phrase marches toward the noun instead of pausing after the year."
• "It makes little sense to punctuate a forward-looking adjective with a pause at the end of it."
• "Most usage books that call uniformly for a comma after the year in a full date, by the way, don't address the question raised just above. They show the comma without illustrating what happens when the date functions as an adjective. In other words, they illustrate the easy cases, not the more difficult ones."

We should not mandate an awkward second comma where it is not syntactically required, especially when omitting it is already WP practice, and when omitting it is recommended by a major style guide such as Garner. Dohn joe (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The authority you cite specifically relates to dates in m–d–y format, so this only addresses half of the proposal. As to using placenames as adjectives, Garner says this:

• "The practice of using as adjectives place names having two or more words is generally to be resisted. But it is increasingly common. Although California home and Austin jury are perfectly acceptable, Sacramento, California home and Austin, Texas jury are not. To make matters worse, some writers place a second comma after the state. Thus, using a city plus the state as an adjective disrupts the flow of the sentence [example omitted]. Such constructions contribute to NOUN PLAGUE, lessen readability and bother literate readers."

Thus, place names with commas should not be used as adjectives; rather such titles should be rephrased to avoid the awkward construction, not adopt a faulty style. —sroc 💬 23:35, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and even about dates, Garner says

• "Modern writers have taken to making adjectives out of dates, just as they do out of place names—e.g. 'His 1998 book contract ...' ... Although occasionally using dates adjectivally is a space-saver, the device should not be overworked: it gives prose a breezy look.

  "And the practice is particularly clumsy when the day as well as the month is given—e.g.: '... its July 12, 2001 privilege order.'"

(my emphasis). And note that Garner explicitly acknowledges that his position on the comma differs from that of most style guides. --Stfg (talk) 09:00, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, no - Garner says that most guides don't address the date-as-adjective situation. He also says that most stylists who do use that construction omit the second comma. Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Dohn joe: Omitting the second comma is not recommended by any style guide I'm aware of. In fact, using an adjectival form where you could use two commas is recommended against in every major style guide where I've seen it mentioned, particularly Garner's. —Frungi (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support Largely per Dohn joe. These commas can be disruptive and rarely help with any actual clarity issues. I'd almost prefer to proscribe them altogether, but if I think really hard, I can almost conceive of a case where it might be desirable to include them. Might as well let it be a local decision. --BDD (talk) 01:45, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

BDD: Do you still support applying this to placenames used as adjectives despite the extract from Garner quoted above? —sroc 💬 23:41, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

*Support, for reasons listed from Garner's above. "National" varieties of English shouldn't matter as much as clarity and readability in the English language Wikipedia. Reify-tech (talk) 11:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Reify-tech: Do you still support applying this to placenames used as adjectives despite the extract from Garner quoted above? —sroc 💬 23:41, 26 October 2013 (UTC) (Reversed position; see below)

• Support—optional, and I agree with sroc that individual projects should not read this as a sign that they are free to straightjacket their editors into one or the other. Within-article consistency is the most important issue. Although I think this is not an issue on which the MOS should mandate a single style, my personal preference is not to punctuate unless it makes it easier for the reader. Tony (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I note the excuse often given is that a particular title format needs to be adopted for "title stability" because "it's always done that way" even if it goes against the style guides. (See this list of pertinent examples.) I suspect this may be what ‎United States Man is trying to address, allowing such users to rely on this to say: "Ah, but this exemption allows us to ignore the general rule!" in order to shout down those that insist on using style consistently in titles as with article bodies. —sroc 💬 23:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikiprojects should follow the centralised style guide unless there's a strong reason not to (and not personal prefs). Where there's an issue, it should be raised on this page first to allow the community to debate the matter. Tony (talk) 09:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support There is no reason to require the second comma, and in my experience it is usually omitted (I wonder if it is more common in the US). As Garner says, the first comma is just separating the two numbers, so there is no syntactic need for a second one. Neljack (talk) 11:38, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support per Dohn joe. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

• Strongly oppose: Firstly, the proposal is not restricted to the uses of places or dates as adjectives, despite the examples given. As such, the omission of the final comma in expressions such as he died on July 14, 2013 in Austin, Texas with his wife by his side is simply wrong and against the style guides. Secondly, style issues may vary according to national varieties (e.g., British English vs American English) but the use of commas in this way does not vary by "local" usage and should not be determined by individual projects in ways that contradict other projects, as this merely promotes inconsistency and confusion. —sroc 💬 08:36, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Also: "This allows members of a project to decide themselves on what to do and prevents ridiculously long site-wide discussions such as this." This argument ignores the likely outcome that "members of a project" will have "ridiculously long" arguments over which form to adopt. Much better to have a standard, Wikipedia-wide policy and avoid factional breakaway style policies. —sroc 💬 08:45, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I amended the proposal to make it only apply to titles (which I mistakenly left out before), so that the use of the comma in sentences (which I agree with) is still mandated. Also, apply some common sense to your statement about the style issues and inconsistency. How many people in the world do you think are going to notice that. As long as all similar pages are the same, there should be no problem. United States Man (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the important clarification; I'm not quite so strongly opposed now. I'm not sure I follow your "common sense" comment though, as I don't think that exempting titles really avoids arguments over proper usage; if anything, a clear style guide would avoid arguments on individual projects. It also seems that if we have one rule for proper usage in sentences but explicitly say that the rule does not apply to titles, then it tends to favour the converse construction for titles (e.g., use September 11, 2001 attacks in the title but September 11, 2001, attacks in the text), which only promotes inconsistency. —sroc 💬 16:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

As I said, that will not be noticeable be many people, and most of those will probably not put it together. It is obvious that many people do not like the second comma in the titles, so relegating it to a Project discussion will (probably and hopefully) limit it to just one discussion. If anyone else pops up, that discussion could easily be "squashed." But, if it is kept at a site-wide standpoint, the same discussions (which, from that level, are not as easy to dismiss) will just keep coming and never rest. United States Man (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, I don't follow your logic that having differing policies for article titles vs running prose and then allowing individual projects to have their own individual style policies will avoid arguments. If anything, it will just mean every project will have its own little arguments without a clear overall guideline to refer to. In any case, having an overall guideline is never a guarantee that arguments will not flourish, as evidenced by the recent discussions over Rochester despite having guidelines in the MOS guidelines you mentioned — after all, consensus can change and renewed discussion may be needed from time to time, but it will be better informed and more productive if such conversations are had in a central place related to WP-wide style rather than individual micro-discussions on 1000s of different projects. —sroc 💬 23:01, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose; I see no reason to treat article titles differently than running prose. Powers ^T 19:07, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
• Strongest possible oppose (a) That "ridiculously long site-wide discussion" took ages and never reached consensus, and now you're dragging us through that stuff yet again? We flogged this to death. How many bites of the cherry do you want? I feel badly put upon by this, and consider this RFC to be serious disruption. We have better things to do than argue about commas every other month. (b) Has everyone who took part in that discussion been notified of this one? Certainly not, since I wasn't. It would be going behind their backs if you fail to do so. (c) The proposal is not properly thought through: the examples in your main proposal are all cases of "the use of the date or place as an adjective", so why the afterthought in the second note? What other forms of title do you envisage, apart from those employing that adjectival use? (d) The normal approach of WP:STYLEVAR is consistency on a per article basis, not on a per project basis. That idea just threatens multiple project-wide debates about this subject, with instruction creep the end result. --Stfg (talk) 19:39, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
  (e) Garner, who is being quoted as the authority for this, admits that he differs from most other style guides on this point, states "The practice of using as adjectives place names having two or more words is generally to be resisted", and calls the adjectival use of the mdy construction, even without the trailing comma, as "particularly clumsy". Yet these are what we are being asked to tolerate. (Item (e) added by --Stfg (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC))

As I just noted above, Garner actually says explicitly that most stylists that use the adjectival construction omit the second comma. He goes on to say that most guides do not offer guidance about it. Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I removed the second note after realizing what I had done (you are the only one who commented on it so it won't affect the discussion). To address your (b) comment, I had not got around to notifying anyone yet. I was planning on doing it and will still do it (after all, these last about a month). And to address (d), as I have tried to explain above to sroc, I have personally seen that after members of a project have reached a consensus, they will be quick to dismiss any new arguments (unless they are different and well thought out) and prevent endless discussions that keep popping up. I have observed that site-wide discussion such as this keep going forever and (especially in this case) never end. United States Man (talk) 02:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Please restore note 2 and then, if you wish to, strike it. You have orphaned my comment, and although nobody else mentioned it, they may have considered it. You are giving us a moving target. Your reply to (d) doesn't address my points. Please don't delay in notifying previous participants. Any delaying may distort things. Please explain why raising this RFC so soon after the previous one is not tendentious and disruptive. I am considering taking this to ANI, you know. --Stfg (talk) 10:03, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Please tell me just exactly how you can take this to ANI because I started an RFC. The last time I checked, any editor is free to do that any time he/she feels. You say it is "tendentious and disruptive." That is entirely your opinion and if you didn't like this RFC, then you didn't have to comment here. United States Man (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

"if you didn't like this RFC, then you didn't have to comment here" -- that's exactly the problem: the expectation is that the opposition will tire; we either have to give in or spend yet more time. That is why it's disruptive. It's tendentious because we are being dragged back to issues we discussed massively very recently. There's nothing new here at all. ANI is not only to beat up on editors, and I haven't done so. What I've done is here. --Stfg (talk) 18:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: I'd plead for this differentiation – in all instances. (from a practical standpoint, if you compartmentalize the issue into individual projects, I'd presume the situation is bound to get even worse) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 12:54, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I stand by my previous comment, this being essentially part of the previous proposal. It looks awkward with the comma, and wrong without the comma. I'd rather we look awkward than wrong. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:23, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

  What's your justification for calling the one-comma construction "wrong"? Garner doesn't think so.... Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  Garner doesn't like the construction, with or without a second comma. I don't see how his commentary helps to support this. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  Garner is the only style guide that makes an exception. As you know, Chicago Manual of Style states that this construction should be avoided as "a second comma may be deemed obligatory" and many other style guides require the second comma and make no exception for adjectives. So there's your justification for calling the one-comma construction "wrong". —sroc 💬 10:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose because these commas are needed. They are needed for clarity, and that's why they are required by standard rules of punctuation. --Orlady (talk) 19:26, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

  Please see above - Garner does not require that second comma, and rather eloquently argues against it both grammatically and syntactically, don't you think? Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  See above — Garner is one source at odds with others. —sroc 💬 10:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: adjectives comprised by "Location, State" or "Date, Year" are not ideal, but introducing a grammatical error by omitting the comma just makes everything worse. As Orlady said, it's standard rules of punctuation. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

  Please see above - it's not an error. Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  See above — Garner is one source at odds with others. —sroc 💬 10:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: I don't see the need for changing the existing policy. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: if the correctly-punctuated result looks awkward, then rephrase. As I’ve remarked at WT:MOSNUM#Comma after the year in MDY format where the date is an adjective, I don’t think adjectival uses deserve exception. I’m not generally opposed to projects’ using a ‘house style’ for the nomenclature specific to their areas of interest, but I draw the line at allowing local deviations from general principles, especially considering the large number of articles that fall within the purview of multiple projects.—Odysseus1479 00:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  Please see above - the one-comma construction is not incorrectly punctuated. Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  See above — Garner is one source at odds with others. —sroc 💬 10:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. First of all, there is already a discussion about at least one aspect of this, which is located here. It hasn't really been resolved, to the extent that that's even possible, and I don't see how having this (almost) same discussion all over again is going to be productive. Furthermore, WP:USPLACE already says "When a place name continues past the state name, as in City, State, metropolitan area, a comma is normally included before and after the state name (see MOS:COMMA)." Are we going to change that, too? I foresee a beast of a discussion. Second, if we are going to have this discussion again, I'd like to point out that the article title "Rochester, New York metropolitan area" is particularly terrible because, based on the way other Wikipedia articles are titled, it suggests that "Rochester" is a place within the "New York metropolitan area". Obviously it isn't, but how are random readers from other countries supposed to know that? This is why we should properly use commas, to keep people from being confused. Moreover, if people think it's too awkward to use so many commas, the titles can always be rephrased, to maybe "Rochester metropolitan area (New York)" or something else like that. Third, I think it's a terrible idea to allow various local consensuses of different wikiprojects to create their own rules about when people should and shouldn't use commas. It's hard enough to figure out what the grammar and style rules are here if you aren't familiar with them without having to consult myriad other wikiproject pages, and furthermore, I think especially with article titles at least some level of internal consistency is desirable. AgnosticAphid talk 17:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose (after reconsidering the issue) Although the construction with more commas can be awkward at times, it is often needed for clarity, which is more important than the secondary goal of smooth readability. Perhaps the MoS should recommend recasting a sentence if it is awkward, and give an example. Also, the optional use of semicolons with commas in lists (WP:SEMICOLON) should be cross-referenced. Reify-tech (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Note that MOS:COMMA already states: "Modern practice is against excessive use of commas; there are usually ways to simplify a sentence so that fewer are needed." Even so, I would be in favour of including a comment or revising this statement along the lines: "It may be particularly desirable to re-phrase article titles to avoid the need for additional commas after place names or dates." —sroc 💬 22:55, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: I don't know if this is the general consensus, but to me at least, consistency between articles and their own titles is important. Also, I could have sworn it was a rule that titles are written as they would be in running text, barring technical restrictions or parenthetical disambiguation—that is, if you'd use a comma in a sentence, you use it in the title, and if you don't, you don't. —Frungi (talk) 07:39, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose – Am I wrong in my impression that essentially all grammar and style guides indicate that these commas are needed to make the grammar correct? Are we proposing to re-invent grammar rules, or is there some set of sources in support of this approach? Dicklyon (talk) 03:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

  Well, yes - wrong on both counts. As Garner says, (and as I have pointed out repeatedly, here and elsewhere), "Stylists who use [the Month Day, Year] phrasing [as an adjective] typically omit the comma after the year." Others have noted the split in guidance as well. The Punctuation Guide, an online resource, says that "When a date is used as an adjective, some authorities omit the comma following the year, yet others require it." Also see the Franklin Covey Style Guide, 5th ed., p.256: "Both versions are "correct." Both are acceptable because the presence or absence after [the year] does not affect clarity." This is purely an issue of style, not grammar. We are not reinventing grammar rules any more than Garner or Franklin Covey are. One can prefer one way or the other stylistically, but either is just fine grammatically. Dohn joe (talk) 17:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I think my "essentially all" is still a fair characterization. Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Other suggestions

• I would support the MOS stating a preference... Oppose making that preference mandatory. Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
• I would prefer recommending that such adjectival forms be avoided, especially as article titles. Agree that the MOS should not mandate a single style though, in particular if the usage reflects the style in reliable sources. older ≠ wiser 13:57, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
• I agree with Bkonrad on this, at least in titles; the only situations in which I'd suggest that PLACENAME, PLACENAME be in a title is either when that's the entire name of the article, e.g. Monowi, Nebraska, or when it's at the end of the name, e.g. History of Charleston, South Carolina. We entirely avoid the issue in this manner. No comment on the rest of the discussion. Nyttend (talk) 02:37, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the MOS should recommend that article titles involving dates/place names as adjectives (relating to events, for example) be modified thusly: Baghdad airstrike of July 12, 2007; Train crash at Graniteville, South Carolina? I would support that. —sroc 💬 04:40, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

So would I, especially since Garner himself calls the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike construction "clumsy". --Stfg (talk) 09:03, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Sroc, yes. IMO Baghdad airstrike of July 12, 2007 is a far superior title for the purposes of searching (e.g., the progressive drop-down of the internal search). And unless there is some other notable train crash at a different Graniteville, Graniteville train crash is sufficient. older ≠ wiser 11:41, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I am through with starting RFCs, so if someone else wants to start one (preferably after we see where this one goes) I would support that as well. Although, the only downside is that it is longer and WP:SEVERE would have dozens of pages named "Tornado outbreak of ..." which can get old after awhile. United States Man (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Regardless of the ultimate decision, I think consistency is important. We shouldn’t use the comma in some places and not in others. If it’s decided to have no comma after a disambiguating adjectival place name or year in article titles, we should have no such comma project-wide, in titles or in running text. Same if it’s decided to require a comma. Make a style/grammar decision and stick to it consistently.
  That said, I’ll have to side with every major usage guide alongside several others here in discouraging the compound adjectival use entirely. This means we should never use Graniteville, South Carolina[,] train crash, but Graniteville train crash or train crash in Graniteville, South Carolina. —Frungi (talk) 21:56, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
• I would not necessarily be against a recommendation against using the form. But not because using one comma in an adjectival construction is wrong. Dohn joe (talk) 04:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
• Alternative proposal. Looking for common ground.... From my reading of the !supports and !opposes, some people have reservations about treating titles differently from text, some have noted the difference between adjectival use and non-adjectival use, and some have expressed concerns about letting Projects make their own style decisions that may be inconsistent with broader MOS guidance. I think that I may have found a solution that will satisfy most of the participants in this discussion.

  My proposal basically keeps current guidance on final comma usage, with three exceptions - 1) when the place name/date is followed by other punctuation (this improves the the current "except at the end of a sentence" exception, which does not take into account place names/dates followed by a colon or closed parentheses, etc.); 2) when the place name/date is used by itself (as in a title or list - this should address the "title vs. text" concern; and 3) when the place name/date is used as an adjective. We then explicitly state that the adjectival use can be unwieldy, and recommend against using it.

  This proposal puts the MOS in line with major style guides in recommending avoiding the adjectival construction. It also lets us follow Garner in dropping the second comma when it is not required for syntax. (And for those who say that Garner is only "one" guide, it is one of the four major style guides in the English language, along with Chicago, AP, and Fowler's, and the only one that explicitly addresses whether the adjectival use is proper, so we are perfectly justified in following its advice. Chicago says that the second comma "may be deemed obligatory", but does not offer guidance itself on if it is or isn't actually required.) There are no exceptions in this proposal for Project-by-Project decisions, and no justifications for treating titles inconsistently with article text. I realize that this proposal will not satisfy the die-hard "two commas at all costs" crowd, but I hope that it satisfies the people with the concerns I laid out above. Anyhow, here it is:

• In geographical references that include multiple divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element. Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year. A comma after the last element is not required when the place name or date a) is followed by other punctuation; b) appears by itself (as in a title or list); or c) is used as an adjective. Compound place names and dates can be unwieldy when used as adjectives, so such constructions should be avoided when a better alternative exists.

Incorrect:	On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Correct:	On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Unwieldy:	The April 7, 2011 trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio courtroom.
One better way:	On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio.

Dohn joe (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you're extrapolating: the fact that the other three that you call "major" don't cover the adjectival case separately doesn't mean that their authors have overlooked it. What is clear is that Garner deprecates the adjectival usage. So why insist on using it? --Stfg (talk) 22:14, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that we insist on using the adjective construction; in fact, I'm proposing that we recommend against it. That's Plan A. If people use it anyway, however, then I propose we follow Garner and advise against the final comma. That's Plan B. I agree that Garner and the rest deprecate the adjective construction. But it's equally clear that Garner establishes a solid grammatical and stylistic footing for not needing the final comma. Essentially Garner does exactly what I propose here: recommend against the form in general, but in the event that it is used, recommend against the final comma. Dohn joe (talk) 22:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I would not support making an exception for adjectival use, but support the other suggestions you have proposed. We can validly follow Chicago which says to avoid such constructions (for which there is a general consensus) without being definitive as to whether the comma should or shouldn't be there if we do (over which there is strong disagreement). I suggest it be re-framed as follows:

• In geographical references that include multiple divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element. Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year. In either case, a comma is not required after the last element when the place name or date appears by itself (as in a title or list) or is followed by other punctuation (such as a full stop, dash, parenthesis, etc.).

Incorrect:	On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Correct:	On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington.

Compound place names and dates in month–day–year format can be unwieldy when used as adjectives, so such constructions should be avoided whenever possible.

Avoid:	The April 7, 2011 trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio courtroom.
Better alternative:	On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio.

—sroc 💬 01:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

• That's good. And if you like, to make it clear that it's not only the one-comma version we're deprecating, if you like, it could also say:

Also avoid:

The April 7, 2011, trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio courtroom.

What I like about this is that we avoid the idiocy of choosing which deprecated option we prefer (which we're probably never going to agree on anyway). --Stfg (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I assume you mean this (adding the comma after "Ohio" as well):

Avoid:

The April 7, 2011, trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio, courtroom.

I also think it's fine to list both options as "Avoid" (rather than "Also avoid"), but I agree that it's a good idea to include examples of both variations to avoid. —sroc 💬 09:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we're approaching a proposal that all factions can agree on. Should we start a new RfC with this proposal clearly stated for a new !vote? —sroc 💬 10:07, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we've made a lot of progress, and I like using both variations as examples of constructions to avoid. My reservation is that even though we counsel people to avoid using compound dates and place names as adjectives, we won't be giving any guidance for when they do so anyway. Again - the Plan B situation. I'd still like to find a way to include that guidance. If someone can find a way to do it with a stronger emphasis on avoiding it than my original version, I'd be happy to see that. Otherwise, I can't quite sign off on the latest suggestion. Any thoughts? Dohn joe (talk) 02:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Well I'm afraid we're simply not all going to agree on what guidance to provide. —sroc 💬 03:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

What about the following compromise, which acknowledges the dispute without taking sides?

• In geographical references that include multiple divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element. Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year. In either case, a comma is not required after the last element when the place name or date appears by itself (as in a title or list) or is followed by other punctuation (such as a full stop, dash, parenthesis, etc.).

Incorrect:	On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Correct:	On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington.

Wherever possible, avoid using compound place names or dates in month–day–year format as adjectives, as such uses can seem unwieldy and may raise disputes whether the final comma is appropriate in this context.

Avoid:	The April 7, 2011 trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio courtroom.
Avoid:	The April 7, 2011, trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio, courtroom.
Better alternative:	On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio.

—sroc 💬 03:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I can live with that. I might collapse the "Avoid" examples into one, though:

Avoid:	The April 7, 2011[,] trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio[,] courtroom.
Better alternative:	On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio.

Dohn joe (talk) 17:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

So can I, it's excellent. And I think I can live with User:Dohn joe's collapsed version too (if you're OK with it, sroc?) --Stfg (talk) 18:42, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Sure, assuming the use of square brackets to indicate optional material is an understood convention, I'd be happy with that. —sroc 💬 22:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It's been a couple of days now. What's the procedure? Do we wait it out till the 30 days are up and then start another one, or is there another way? --Stfg (talk) 22:04, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I would go ahead and request this one to be closed and start a new one with the new proposals. United States Man (talk) 22:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

@United States Man: Would you like to simply withdraw this RFC? There appears to be a strong consensus opposing it and the initial supporter, Dohn joe, whom the other supporters endorsed, now supports the new proposal, so it does not seem like this one needs formal closure.

In the meantime, I have created a new RFC below. —sroc 💬 08:16, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

The need for a comma after dates in month–day–year format and geographical references with multiple subordinate levels had been discussed on numerous occasions[10][11][12] with the consensus being that the final element in each case is taken to be treated as parenthetical and, hence, requires a comma following (unless at the end of a sentence or perhaps superseded by other punctuation). Are we seriously considering abandoning this, despite what the style guides say?

I could understand if the proposal was to exempt the comma when appearing as an adjective (e.g., a London, England townhouse), although I would not support it and would prefer rephrasing to avoid such cases. However, that is not what has been suggested, and I am concerned that some others may be voting on the misapprehension that the proposal only applies to adjectival cases based on the examples given in the original post. —sroc 💬 15:23, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

sroc, a better example? I'd advise writers never to use that item "a London, England townhouse" (rather, "a townhouse in London, England", or unless London, Ontario is in the air, "a London townhouse"). Tony (talk) 09:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, a London, Ontario townhouse is a much better example — nice one! I agree that it is better to re-cast as a townhouse in London, Ontario, which is what I do for precisely this reason. —sroc 💬 10:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Taken to ANI

I have lodged a request to have this RFC brought to a quick end at WP:ANI#Disruptive RFC. Please note that the request is just to close this, not for any kind of action against any editor. --Stfg (talk) 18:07, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why there was no followup post here, but this request fell into the archives with no action being taken. —Frungi (talk) 07:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Format for computer and video game titles

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Names and titles says "Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles:" and included in the list is "Computer and video games (but not other software)". However Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Names and titles says italic type should be used for "Computer and video games (but not other software)". Can anyone explain what seems to be a conflict, or propose how we should fix it? Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 05:22, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I propose removing "Computer and video games (but not other software)" from the Quotation marks section. The same text is already in the Italics section. SchreiberBike talk 17:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If there's no objection, I'll make the change proposed above in a few days. Thank you. SchreiberBike talk 21:39, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Italics is standard we use for VG titles at WP:VG, so no objection here. --MASEM (t) 22:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Change made per above.SchreiberBike talk 18:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Paris' or Paris's

MOS:POSS is irritatingly vague on what to use for possessives of words ending in the "s" sound. The BBC and the Guardian seem to favour "Paris's", and it looks better to me as well as passing the sound test. Are there style guides which recommend the "Paris'" form? I propose slightly tightening our recommendations on examples like this. What do others think? --John (talk) 14:39, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• I was taught the "s-apostrophe" form was correct and I largely believe that the trailing s is redundant, but others may disagree. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 14:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The trouble is that many different editors will have been taught different "rules" about this. It seems to me that the "sound test" would be an effective way of deciding; where we pronounce the s we should write it (as in this example), and where we do not, we should not, as in Jesus' parables. If we accept Paris' walls, would we also accept France' capital? I think not. --John (talk) 14:54, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Without making a call on the overall discussion, I would point out this is an apples vs. oranges comparison. Your example using France is not in the S-apostrophe-S form, and that is what the difference of opinion revolves around. Resolute 16:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
      • It's the same sound, hence the comparison. --John (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • On the US side of the pond, the National Geographic also agrees with me. --John (talk) 14:57, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • And finally (for now!) this is an interesting article with some references to how other style guides deal with the problem. --John (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Both are correct (somewhere); it's just a matter of location and taste. I'm sure I can find tons of examples for "Paris'" use in major publications (perhaps even the majority of them) as well. Most of Wikipedia's articles use the " Paris' " form since probably its origins... that's not an argument 'for', but the fact that this complaint is the first I've seen of its kind says a lot. THEPROMENADER 15:08, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with John here. The sound test is generally the best guide, imo. --Stfg (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Two suggestions:

1. Avoid wherever possible; in the examples given above, prefer "the Judgement of Paris", "the walls of Paris", "the parables of Jesus", "the capital of France"
2. Where unavoidable, allow free choice; see St James' Park, St. James's Park and St James's Palace for real-world examples of such diversity. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that pronunciation is what should govern the choice but, as John said, there are many different ‘rules’ for that. They usually take addition of the final S to be the default, however, the most commonly recommended exceptions being polysyllables and biblical or classical names. FWIW I would write Paris’s.—Odysseus1479 00:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Back in the days when I used to read style guides, the rule was that proper names always take 's, everything else s'. So it would be "Paris's", but plaster of paris' Ravpapa (talk) 04:44, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree with the pronunciation test. I would write "Paris's", as that's what I'd say. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:39, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
• I've read to omit the possessive S if the following word begins with an S. So, Paris's walls would be fine, but Paris's sights would not. Otherwise, I personally would always use an S after the apostrophe. —Frungi (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

  That's one I've never heard before. Where did you read that? Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

  Really? I’m not sure off the top of my head where I’ve read it, but I could have sworn I had. But I know there are guides that allow if not encourage such an exception. And I now realize that I didn’t specify in my earlier comment, but I specifically meant words that end with an S, in case anyone interpreted it more broadly than I intended. —Frungi (talk) 04:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

• The classic rule, still included in Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, is that the possessive of a singular always takes 's ("Charles's books") but a plural ending in s takes s' ("the cars' fenders"). I still follow this rule. I can't think offhand of a singular common noun ending in s for an example, but i would still follow this rule when I think of one. I agree that rewording to avoid a possessive is often better DES ^(talk) 22:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Yeah. It's simpler too for people to learn—a unitary formula. Same after "x", BTW. And the 's is particularly helpful when the possessive adds another syllable phonologically, as it does in the case of Paris's. Tony (talk) 03:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, the hippopotamus's teeth but three zebras' stripes. Unfortunately, there's no consensus on the pronunciation. I know someone who laughs at me and my education for pronouncing the possessive of, say, "Hayes" with two syllables. 05:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryFriedman (talk • contribs)

Translations

Over at String Quartet No. 14 (Schubert) we have an issue about translation. The article quotes (in its entirety) a translation of a German poem on which the quartet is based. The translation is quite free, and is, in fact, the translation that I have seen around. But an editor, quite justifiably, felt a literal translation would be better, which he did himself.

In my youth, many years ago, I remember reading a guideline about translations, but, for the life of me, I can't find it. Are original translations considered original research? Are they preferable to published translations which take freedoms? Do original translations (if allowed at all) have to be attributed to the translator? Ravpapa (talk) 04:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

If a translation is substantial then it is considered a derivative work and is considered to have its own new copyright. It's one of the reasons publishers come up with new translations of Dante and Dostoevsky, etc. Each translation into English has its own copyright period and protections, even when based on a work in the public domain. An "Original Research" translation is less in the public domain than one from the distant past. A translation shouldn't be assumed to be in the public domain, even if the source is. ____ E L A Q U E A T E 08:59, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:TIES applying to non-English-speaking nation?

There is currently a debate over at Talk:Case Closed#Requested move about whether WP:TIES applies to an article name on a topic that has strong ties to a particular non-English-speaking nation. In this case, a work was released under one English title in Japan, but used a completely different English title when it was released in the US, Canada, and the UK. 24.149.119.20 (talk) 10:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

As it stands, WP:TIES explicitly only applies when "a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation", so it doesn't support tying the article to the Japanese title. Many of the commenters in the RM appear to have recognised this. But NB, I wouldn't read WP:TIES as giving support to the US/Canada/UK title, either, since the game's ties to those nations does not seem stronger than its ties to Japan or other nations. -sche (talk) 19:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

"a work was released under one English title in Japan": no, no, no, it was not. This is common marketing in Japan, to throw an "English title" somewhere on the packaging. This is not even remotely like releasing it "under one English title in Japan", especially since the game >>>wasn't released there in English under that title<<<. Curly Turkey (gobble) 11:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Query on the use of small caps

See ‪Joan Pujol Garcia‬ and ‪Eddie Chapman‬.

In both of these articles small caps are used to denote their codenames. This seems somewhat jarring; is there a reason for it that I am unaware of?  pablo 12:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

My impression is that small caps is typographical convention for codenames, I've seen it in non-fiction books in the past but I can't cite a specific one. CombatWombat42 (talk) 14:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Whose convention though? Certainly not Wikipedia's as far as I can see, and not part of any style book I am aware of. (And these html-generated small caps are not pretty!)  pablo 16:20, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:MOSCAPS is very clear; the small caps should be removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:MOSCAPS is not at all clear, it dosn't mention codenames at all. CombatWombat42 (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Since it does not mention them as an exception, the general rule “avoid writing with all capitals, including small caps. Reduce them to one of the other title cases or normal case, as appropriate” applies.—Emil J. 18:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

That is true. I am of the opinion that an exception should be added, should we start that discussion? Here? A new section? CombatWombat42 (talk) 18:11, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I suspect it is the convention of those orginsations that use codenames(CIA, NSA, MI5), we are certanly under no obligation to follow their convention, and I doubt they would release their conventions in any case, but to me I actualy like the small caps, it makes it clear it is a codename. CombatWombat42 (talk) 17:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I can only repeat that as the MOS stands, it is clear that code names should not be in small caps in Wikipedia. You can of course start an RfC to try to get the MOS changed, but the chances of this succeeding strike me as exceedingly small. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Even if we could determine that the TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) used small caps for codenames, there would still be no reason that we should do it. I have seen no evidence that any published (unclassified) style guide uses small caps for codenames, and the MOS does seem clear to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur Rubin (talk • contribs) 17:35, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I think they are unnecessarily forceful and that we should stick to our MOS. What makes it clear that they are codenames is stating that they are codenames :) --Stfg (talk) 18:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I don’t see the value in using small caps here. Sure, it makes the name stand out—but why? And I’m pretty sure that the words “given the codename …” makes it clear that it’s a codename, so there’s no need for formatting to make it stand out. One might say it looks neat, but unless I’m missing something, it’s wholly unnecessary. —Frungi (talk) 21:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

support standard Wikipedia MOS, no need for a special exemption. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I've started a discussion here as this is a military history question, it should be amended there, not on the main MOS. CombatWombat42 (talk) 18:40, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Referring to a person by a noun

I thought we have guidance, but I cannot find it, on whether or not we should refer to specific people by noun phrases.

For example:

• " Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips, and several songs were written about the comedian."

rather than

• "Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips, and several songs were written about him.

Is there such guidance or am I imagining? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:12, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't seen any and would be surprised if it exists. The first example above is old-fashioned and really unnecessary. "him" is perfectly clear, seeing as nobody else is mentioned in the sentence. (See Elegant variation). pablo 09:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC) edited 11:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Abuse of WP:TIES

WP:TIE WP:TIES stated "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation[...]" So, what is an "English-speaking nation"? This comes up when I was dealing with the decade-old article name case, as the latest RM relies on this clause, despite the subject-matter is such non-English material as anime (Case Closed, if you ask). The OP and the supporters of the RM justified the OP's use of TIE on the following:

• English is used extensively in Japan and most people know the meanings of many loan words, e.g. "début" and "water".
• Actually WP:TIES apply to any Article with strong ties to a language of a nation, not just official language (English Language in this case). To say, there are many polyglots around the world, particularly the English Language and the Chinese Language.
• I can see how it might be a little bit of a stretch for articles about Japanese works, but Japanese culture does make use of English in an official capacity and IMHO it is a very important part of that culture. Without going in to too much depth English is seen as kind of cool and a bit exotic[...]

Personally I don't accept these justifications; you pick 100 random Wikipedians and more than half (and certainly even more) would say Japan is not an English-speaking nation. The lack of definition of that term, however, opens the door to abuse. Hence, I think it should be stated explicitly that policy is only available for ENGVAR and nothing else, and state what is an "English-speaking nation" in the meaning of this guideline.--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 19:44, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

What is the relevance of this? The quote from your opening line is not in WP:TIE. If it was but has changed, what does it matter what it meant rather than what it says now? —sroc 💬 22:37, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I think you meant WP:TIES ("Strong national ties to a topic"), not WP:TIE ("Translation"). Oops. I hope you don't mind that I've corrected the heading and link in your original post so others don't follow in my folly. —sroc 💬 22:42, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I care to give a once-and-for-all characterization of what an "English-speaking nation" is, but I do strongly agree that we should not count Japan.

Now, assuming for the sake of argument that Japan were included, I don't think it's clear what direction that cuts for ENGVAR purposes. It's between American English and Commonwealth English; there is no Japanese English that's relevant to the discussion. But Japan has strong influences from both. --Trovatore (talk) 22:50, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Well... there is Engrish... which might be considered an ENGVAR, if you totally ignored the intent and twisted that policy sideways. Blueboar (talk) 23:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• The issue has nothing to do with TIES. If Detective Conan doesn't appear as the title of any English translations of the work (a cute English subtitle is not a "translation of the work" by any stretch of the imagination), then it not only shouldn't, but can't be used as the title of the article. If there's no redirect from Detective Conan, then one should be made. Curly Turkey (gobble) 11:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It is made, long made--but it is not the venue to discuss an RM here, especially on a small-scale saga that's over 9 years old. I was writing here to ask for some clarification of this guideline.--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 11:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

If my $0.02 means anything, Japan is most certainly not an "English-speaking nation", no matter how much I feel they have basic concepts down far better than any "native English speaker" I've met so far. Fortunately, names are supposed to be divorced from language squabbles, no matter how hard people try to ignore that.

In regards to Conan, "DETECTIVE CONAN" is most certainly an official translation, even if it's still an alternative title in the face of 名探偵コナン; per things like Attack on Titan, we generally use these "official readings" when referring to the original work. Thing is, article titles (and really, articles themselves) are usually based on localizations specifically made for English-speaking countries above all else. Not much more to it, really. Despatche (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

References after punctuation

What's with this guideline? It makes no sense when compared to things like logical quotation, and it certainly makes no sense within itself; the exceptions are completely arbitrary, especially because these dashes can be used in many of the same contexts as commas at least. I've even been told that references before punctuation hurts the base line somehow... but it's going to be hurt either way; just take a look at any complicated sentence that has multiple sourced (not "multiple-sourced") statements. Clearly, there is a need for "logical punctuation"? I can't be the only one who thinks this. Despatche (talk) 05:45, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

There is an important difference between ". (required sometimes in LQ but forbidden in the normal US punctuation style) and ^[1]. Since the raised reference link can be longer (e.g. ^{[note 1]}.), the ugly baseline blank span before the full stop can be much longer. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I concur with Peter coxhead. The baseline is not disrupted within the sentence by a footnote after the terminal punctuation (e.g., like this.^{[note 1]} As opposed to this^{[note 2][clarification needed]}.). —sroc 💬 22:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is! This is insane, there is absolutely no difference between those two examples there. The important thing is that the punctuation has nothing to do with the reference, which is the exact same logic behind LQ. That basic logic is going to beat some perceived "ugliness" that is still going to be there no matter how you handle it. What we have now is nonsensically arbitrary and completely inconsistent, and I'm suddenly very curious as to how LQ has gotten anywhere with anyone. Despatche (talk) 00:38, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"the punctuation has nothing to do with the reference": That's silly; the punctuation has everything to do with a well-formed sentence. The reference refers to the content of the sentence, not the form (unless it's a quotation). Curly Turkey (gobble) 01:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a difference between these examples:

• like this.^{[note 1]}) — the full stop is neatly next to the final word.
• As opposed to this^{[note 2][clarification needed]}.) — the full stop is divorced from the final word.

The first example is easier to read, hence it is preferred.

With regard to your point "the punctuation has nothing to do with the reference", consider these examples:

• This is a fact.^[1]
• This is a fact^[1].

It is a nonsense to argue whether the reference supports the sentence with or without punctuation, as the reference supports the fact however it is written.

• The Earth orbits the Sun^[2] and the Moon orbits the Earth.
• The Earth orbits the Sun and the Moon orbits the Earth.^[2]

In this case, the reference supports the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun but not that the Moon orbits the Earth, so the footnote needs to appear after the relevant text to make this distinction clear.

• The Earth orbits the Sun and the Moon orbits the Earth^[3].

In this case, the reference supports the fact that the Moon orbits the Earth but not that the Earth orbits the Sun. Putting the superscript before the punctuation doesn't serve to make this distinction clearer, so more would need to be done (e.g., by stating in the footnote what it actually supports or by providing an additional footnote for the other claim) — see WP:INTEGRITY. —sroc 💬 01:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd also add that the situation by white space is worsened when we talk commas and not periods. --MASEM (t) 01:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Surely the point is also that LQ is common in the real world and the proposed footnoting style is not. We have a real-world justification for endorsing LQ (even if maybe not for requiring it, but that's another matter) but do not for the proposed punctuation style for footnoting, regardless of whether the current style "makes no sense" to individual editors when contrasted with the principles underlying LQ (which is a debatable argument anyway). N-HH talk/edits 09:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Has this guideline changed recently? I am seeing Yobot moving many citations in front of full stops. Strange that this has not been picked up at WP:FAR. I've been adding citations after punctuation for many years believing this is the correct method. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Might be my eyes as it seems to be working correctly but the edit summary is very misleading (References before punctuation), it seems to be moving citations in both directions. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:53, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Today it did this one, and I can't for the life of me see anything there other than the removal of a redundant space at the end of a paragraph. That kind of edit is highly annoying, because of its effect on watch lists. --19:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)~

Nope, can't see what it did there either!! True, the bots do light up the watchlist annoyingly and because I don't trust them after the dates and numbers saga I check them all. I assume this bot has gained approval to carry out mass changes in accordance with a guideline, not a policy? The edit summary is definitely misleading, watching it closely. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Collapsible galleries concerning content of difficult nature in medicine

I have a suggestion concerning collapsible galleries of images which by some may be deemed as very graphic or which retract from the average users ability to read an article, especially medical articles which can be considered rough by a large group of non medical professionals. WP:NOTCENSORED states:

Controversial images should follow the principle of 'least astonishment': we should choose images that respect the conventional expectations of readers for a given topic as much as is possible without sacrificing the quality of the article.

This I interpret as stating that images that convey the subject matter in a way that is comprehensible without disgusting the curious user is the best choice. This in no way means that these images always can explain all aspects of the article. So as not to scare off the regular reader pages such as Anencephaly may profit from a collapsible image gallery, such as:

Disclaimer: Graphic images
A side view of an anencephalic fetus A front view of an anencephalic fetus An anencephalic dead newborn

This removes risk of censorship while at the same time keeping the possibility for vulnerable users to avoid seeing the images, while being able to take part of the textual information. This may apply to quite a few medical articles. Common practice at most European and American medical schools is to have ethical discussions and to offer counseling for students before entering difficult subjects such as anatomy and pathology. A naïve user stumbling upon these subjects does not have the support given to many medical and dentist etc. students, and as such may be deterred from Wikipedia after seeing these images. CFCF (talk) 23:04, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Copied to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Collapsible galleries concerning content of difficult nature in medicineCFCF (talk) 23:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA regarding geographical references and dates

MOS:COMMA currently states:

• In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element (except at the end of a sentence). Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year (except at the end of a sentence). In both cases, the last element is treated as parenthetic.

Incorrect:	On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Correct:	On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington.

This overlooks that the final comma may be superseded by other punctuation. There is also heated debate regarding whether the final comma is needed when the place name or date is used as an adjective, although there is a general consensus that such constructions should be avoided (for example, see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) § Commas in metro areas). It is therefore proposed to replace the above section with the following:

• In geographical references that include multiple divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element. Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year. In either case, a comma is not required after the last element when the place name or date appears by itself (as in a title or list) or is followed by other punctuation (such as a full stop, dash, parenthesis, etc.).

Incorrect:	On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington.
Correct:	On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington.

Wherever possible, avoid using compound place names or dates in month–day–year format as adjectives, as such uses can seem unwieldy and may raise disputes whether the final comma is appropriate in this context.

Avoid:	The April 7, 2011[,] trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio[,] courtroom.
Better alternative:	On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio.

This is an alternative that gained support in an earlier RFC, Should it be "optional" as to whether a second comma after a date/place should be included?.

Please comment below. —sroc 💬 08:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Support – Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA

1. Strong support. These additions are in line with most grammar/style guides that discuss these issues. —Frungi (talk) 08:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
2. Support I think the suggestion to re-cast to avoid the awkward adjective forms is useful; If the adjective form must be used, there should be no terminating comma. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 08:44, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
3. Strong support This is what the best style guides advise. With this approach, the contentious issue of the terminating comma becomes irrelevant. --Stfg (talk) 08:51, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
4. Support - looks good to me, and should avoid disputes down the road.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
5. Support: although this will no doubt reduce the number of contentious wordings/phrases, I think there will still be occurrences of the compound construction, unfortunately specifically in titles, where it's harder to reword without making it into a sentence. I might add that I think it was a good call to name the article on the WTC attacks "September 11 attacks", removing the ", 2001" bit. Parenthetically, I would have preferred "September 2001 attacks" though. Maybe we could look for more such solutions. HandsomeFella (talk) 09:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
6. Support: The new wording is clearer, and gives a good example of rewording to avoid an awkward construction. Reify-tech (talk) 13:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
7. Support: Good recommendation. --Orlady (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
8. Support. Astonishing that some editors continue to maintain that such adjectival forms are clear. In some contexts, such as tabular constructs (or data derived from such constructs), there may be some value, but as a general practice, it is best to avoid such forms. older ≠ wiser 17:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
9. Support, more or less. If the adjective form is used, there must be a terminating comma, per the style guides, although some say that it is perceived that there must be a terminating comma. None of the style guides say the terminating comma should not be present. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
10. Support as a good compromise and an improvement to current guidance. Note that the proposal punts on the issue of the final comma in the adjectival construction. And maybe that's okay. As Franklin Covey says, both are acceptable. Dohn joe (talk) 17:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
11. Strong support – Great proposal and solution to a recurring problem. United States Man (talk) 22:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose – Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA

1. Oppose: As per reasons already stated here and repeated here. If people want to avoid the constructions in question whenever possible, fine, but
   • "The April 7, 2011, trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio, courtroom." remains wrong to me and is muddling meaning, while the without-commas variant doesn't and isn't, so equating the two strikes me as improper, and
   • in some instances, rephrasing isn't feasible or advisable – and while that might be debatable in the case of "September 11 attacks", it's still needlessly sacrificing precision. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 12:48, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   The reasons you link to provide a perfect example where the adjectival construction is flawed. Your argument is that Rochester, New York metropolitan area is correct "[b]ecause metropolitan area is referring to the whole term Rochester, New York, not just to Rochester and not just to New York."

   However, Rochester, New York, is not a single name for one place, but a noun phrase combining two names: the city of Rochester and the state of New York. The noun before the comma ("Rochester") describes a smaller area within the larger area described by the second noun ("New York"). By this same logical pattern, the term Rochester, New York metropolitan area suggests that "Rochester" is a smaller area within "New York metropolitan area". If the intended meaning refers to a metropolitan area in or around Rochester (i.e., the Rochester metropolitan area), this is unclear: it is left up to the reader to assume that the adjective modifying "metropolitan area" is "Rochester, New York" and not "New York", as this is not evident from the punctuation.

   Look at this another way. Say you wanted to refer to the town of Gates, which is in the Rochester metropolitan area. You could say Gates, Rochester metropolitan area, meaning Gates in the Rochester metropolitan area; but you could not say Gates, Rochester, metropolitan area, which conveys the different meaning of the metropolitan area of Gates in Rochester. You can see how the insertion or omission of the comma makes a critical difference to the interpretation.

   At worst, the Rochester, New York metropolitan area construction is wrong (at least in the minds of many). At best, it is certainly confusing. In either case, this form is best to be avoided to evade possible confusion or disputes, which is what this proposal is aimed at achieving. —sroc 💬 14:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   You write, "[t]he noun before the comma ("Rochester") describes a smaller area within the larger area described by the second noun ("New York")". To which I say, no, it's not about larger and smaller, subdivisions and whatnot, but about a specification to differentiate – in this case – Rochester, New York from
   

   Rochester, Victoria; Rochester, Alberta; Rochester, Kent; Rochester, Illinois; Rochester, Indiana; Rochester, Kentucky; Rochester, Massachusetts etc. pp.
   

   I'd argue the qualifier is part of the name. (And, frankly, I see nothing clumsy or awkward with constructions like "a Lansing, MI-based band".)
   

   So, no, I don't agree it's confusing, on the contrary. As for you "Gates" example: now we're talking. To me, you're making my case here. Sure, you could say Gates, Rochester metropolitan area (one can say anything), but I don't think you ever should, as, the way I understand it, that would actually mean "metropolitan area of Gates in the state of Rochester". When referring to that town, I'd [almost] always just write either Gates or Gates, New York / Gates, NY. If you want to point out that gates is part of the aforementioned metropolitan area, why not just write "Gates[, NY], in the Rochester, New York metropolitan area"? (And I don't get why you would even bring up Gates, Rochester, metropolitan area, as that's exactly the kind of construction I'd argue against, anyway.) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 16:39, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   I disagree that one should never say Gates, Rochester metropolitan area. IMHO, it's a perfectly valid construction. It's not unlike Darwin, Northern Territory, which identifies the city of Darwin located in the Northern Territory, not a territory called "Darwin, Northern". We'll have to agree to disagree on this, but it illustrates just why adjectival constructions should be avoided. —sroc 💬 21:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   Well, at least we managed to stay civil, not a given in these parts... However, since escalation surely is 'round the corner (not saying coming from your direction, but as the MoS is a magnet for charged atmospheres, sudden changes in the weather are always to be expected) and I'm not very good at stating my case anyway (these things would benefit from oral communication, by the way, as the written back-and-forth can get quite tedious), I'll leave the field to others and get back to reading and some WikiGnoming. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 23:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   @Ὁ οἶστρος: at the contrary, I would say that the "The April 7, 2011 trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio courtroom.", without the commas, is confusing, because it breaks down to "The April 7", followed by the insertion "2011 trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo", followed by the ending "Ohio courtroom.", rendering the main phrase as "The April 7 Ohio courtroom.". HandsomeFella (talk) 14:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   No, it doesn't, it doesn't break down anything, as the first commas just serve to structure the qualifying elements to follow, which are still part of the "whole package" → subpart one / the subject-matter – "April 7", "Toledo" – is defined more closely by subpart two – making clear we're not talking about any ol' "April 7", but the one in the year 2011, and not just any "Toledo", but the one in Ohio (obviously, there often still are several communities with the same name per state). – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 16:39, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   Or, put another way, just replace "April 7, 2011" with "recent" and "Toledo, Ohio" with "local". You then get these:
   

   The recent trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the local courtroom.
   

   The recent, trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the local, courtroom. – seriously? Anywoo, I'm outta here. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 23:10, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

   In any case, we are not "equating" or taking sides in whether the with-comma or without-comma format is to be preferred — the proposal is to explicitly state to avoid using the adjectival construction at all. —sroc 💬 14:31, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

2. Oppose; I see nothing awkward about using commas in adjectival expressions and remain baffled as to why it's a concern. Powers ^T 21:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
3. I don't mind the second point about avoiding avoiding clunky adjectival usage of full dates; the first example is just so wrong, starting with a prepositional phrase ("On ... ,") that would often have a comma anyway. It would confuse editors. Tony (talk) 11:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments – Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA

• I could support this if it were stated as a flexible preference (ie when in doubt, punctuate this way). I would oppose if stated as an inflexible "rule" (ie always punctuate this way). Lack of flexibility is what leads to endless debates. Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that what the wording "Avoid" / "Better alternative" accomplishes? --Stfg (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've seen it mentioned above that the proposed change is how style guides treat the issue, but I didn't see any specific guides mentioned after a brief skim of this page. Does anyone have any citations or links to where style guides treat this issue? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:02, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• Garner's Modern American Usage, 3rd ed (2009), pp 225-226:

Modern writers have taken to making adjectives out of dates, just as they do place names—e.g.: "His July 1998 book contract resulted in a record advance." The more traditional rendering of the sentence would be: "His book contract of July 1998 resulted in a record advance." Although occasionally using dates adjectivally is a space-saver, the device should not be overworked: it gives prose a breezy look.

And the practice is particularly clumsy when the day as well as the month is given—e.g.: "The court reconsidered its July 12, 2001 privilege order." Stylists who use this phrasing typically omit the comma after the year, and justifably so: in the midst of an adjective phrase (i.e., the date), it impedes the flow of the writing too much. Still, that second comma sometimes surfaces…

Most usage books that call uniformly for a comma after the year in a full date, by the way, don't address the question raised just above. They show the comma without illustrating what happens when the date functions as an adjective. In other words, they illustrate the easy cases, not the more difficult ones.

• Chicago Manual of Style: For Authors, Editors, and Copywriters, 15th ed (2003), p 165:

A place-name containing a comma—such as Toronto, Canada, or New Delhi, India—should generally not be used as an adjective because a second comma may be deemed obligatory [we met in a Toronto, Ontario, restaurant] (the comma after Ontario is awkward).

• Howard Lauther, Punctuation Thesaurus English Language (1991), p 87:

11.7 City and state act as an adjective. When a city and state precede a noun and help to describe it, no hyphens are used. Also, make sure a comma (,) follows the name of the state. …

The Miami, Florida, building contractors were up in arms about the proposed new taxes.

More examples abound here. —sroc 💬 02:44, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• Bryan A. Garner (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style (2000), p 11:

The practice of using as adjectives place names having two or more words is generally to be resisted. But it is increasingly common. Although California home and Austin jury are perfectly acceptable, Sacramento, California home and Austin, Texas jury are not. To make matters worse, some writers place a second comma after the state. Thus, using a city plus the state as an adjective disrupts the flow of the sentence… Such constructions contribute to NOUN PLAGUE, lessen readability and bother literate readers.

—sroc 💬 02:54, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

• C. Edward Good, A Grammar Book for You and I-- Oops, Me!: All the Grammar You Need to Succeed in Life (2002), pp 374–375:

When you indicate month, day, and year, put a comma after the dat and after the year (unless some other punctuation mark, like a period or question mark, follows the year). Include these commas even if the month-day-year expression serves as an adjective:

On July 1, 1991, the committee dismissed the employee.

We already responded to your July 1, 1991, letter.

A Note of Inevitable Disagreement

Many writers express their displeasure at putting a comma after the year when the expression serves as an adjective, because "it looks funny." Perhaps so. But this seems to be the rule, and it does make sense. The year is serving in apposition to the month and day, and thus requires commas before and after. You can design around the problem by inserting a prepositional phrase: Use "letter of January 17, 1998," instead of "January 17, 1998, letter."

…

The same would apply if we revealed a city and state:

Greensboro, N.C., is where Miss Hamrick taught Damron and me English.

If we used that expression as an adjective, the commas would remain:

He traveled to the Greensboro, N.C., regional office.

—sroc 💬 03:20, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to Dicklyon and Dohn joe for uncovering those sources, too. —sroc 💬 03:22, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Terminal punctuation

The page currently says:

"Periods (also called "full stops"), question marks, and exclamation marks are terminal punctuation, the only punctuation marks used to end sentences in English."

This is incorrect. In dialog, a sentence may end with a dash to indicate that it was interrupted or broken off short. Granted, this will be rare in encyclopedic prose except perhaps in quotations. DES ^(talk) 21:29, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention ellipsis… --Pete (talk) 09:17, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

But neither of those end a complete sentence, which is clearly the point the quoted excerpt is making. Please, there's enough pedantry on this page as it is ... N-HH talk/edits 11:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with previous. And I can't see how a dash completes a sentence, or an ellipsis at the end of a sentence doesn't finish with a single period, as follows: "blah blah. ... The next point is that ...". Tony (talk) 11:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)