Talk:Brandon Teena

Welcome to the talkpage of the Brandon Teena article. Please note the guidelines above and please see Naming conventions and MOS:IDENTITY to understand how Wikipedia addresses identity issues of people outside gender binary roles and identities.

Edit request: minor typo

There is a minor typo on this article. Within the subheading "Life," first paragraph, last sentence: "On several occasions Teena claimed to be intersex though this assertion was later dispoved."

Mother's opinion

I moved this from the article Boys Don't Cry: She also said that her child's transgenderism was a defense mechanism that was developed in response to childhood sexual abuse, rather than being an expression of Teena's gendered sense of self: "She pretended she was a man so no other man could touch her."

It was reverted and the reason given is: Mother is not a reliable sources for reasons for gender indentification. As this is a biography article and not a medical article, I don't think that reason holds weight. Zaalbar (talk) 18:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. ANY material added to ANY article has to be reliably sourced, and the mother is not a reliable source for the causes of her child's sexual identity by any stretch of the imagination. Her opinion is completely irrelevant. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong on all counts. The material is reliably sourced as an opinion. Opinions do not need to be reliably sourced as truth. Her opinion is very relevant to this article. Zaalbar (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Nope. EVERYTHING needs to be reliably sourced, without exception. Especially a statement about a third party. Nothing you've said even resembles what our policies say. Read them. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I have read them. My previous comment is completely correct. I'm re-adding it. Zaalbar (talk) 18:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Your argument is invalid because it conflicts with our policies, which clearly state that ANY medical claim in ANY article must be relaibly sourced. See WP:MEDRS. The mother's statement is a medical diagnosis, which she is indisputably unqualifed to give. Her statement carries zero weight per WP:NPOV. If you have a problem with that, take it to WP:RSN. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Already have. Zaalbar (talk) 19:17, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 137#Can this be included on Brandon Teena? Insomesia (talk) 21:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

MOS:Identity redux

Wow, this article is a headache to read. I disagree with the MOS:Identity consensus view and its application, but particularly in this article. The juxtaposition of the subjects name, and the unfortunate coincidence of his original birth surname being a traditional male name makes the use of any gender based pronouns unwise. We should trim the he's and she's with respect to the subject out altogether. Though I wouldn't object to using gender based honorific (Mr. Teena) as that would make reading the article easier to comprehend.   little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  03:53, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

You want to use "Teena" throughout the article, in place of gender pronouns applied to Brandon? Like I stated above, I have experience with editors avoiding gender pronouns regarding the Chaz Bono article; it now uses male pronouns again, however. Using a name in place of spots where gender pronouns should be reads just as awkwardly as some think referring to Brandon by male pronouns reads.

I don't have much of anything else to state on this subject, though, other than what I've already stated about it. If consensus changes on this matter, then so be it. Flyer22 (talk) 04:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The Bono article doesn't have the ambiguity issues this article does. Ridiculous as MOS:Identity is, and in conjunction with the feminine sounding surname and male name we do the reader no favors by using gendered pronouns for this BLP subject.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  04:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

This is not "BLP subject".--В и к и T 14:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

As I just randomly popped into this article, and am not transgendered, I found it to be confusing as hell. I don't really care what gender this person *is* (I was looking at the discrimination), but there's such a mish-mash of gender pronouns, confusing terms (I thought trans-male meant a woman who was born with male genitalia, not the other way 'round), etc. The combination of classical names which are usually exclusively male / female doesn't help either. Just my two cents, I agree with the OP on this being confusing, but don't really have a good idea of how it should be fixed. SlipperyDongDumpster (talk) 08:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

(1) Transgender is not a verb. (2) No, trans man means they were assigned female at birth but now identity as a man. (3) Masculine pronouns are used throughout. (4) I think WP:SURNAME is what's confusing you here. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:00, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Time line is a bit weird

There seems to be something possibly weird about the time line. In checking our sources to make sure we were quoting them right, I found out we weren't although it only offers minimal help to the problem.

Anyway I made these corrections [1]. The chasingthefrog source doesn't say he attended counselling sessions in 1991 with his mother. It says:

JoAnn Brandon, Teena's mother, was upset that the filmmakers failed to explain that for several years when Teena was a young girl, Teena had been sexually molested by a man. JoAnn said that Teena sought counseling in 1991, and began to dress in men's clothing and date women as a defense strategy.

In other words, it only mentions Teena seeking counselling. I'm also uncertain whether he was seeking counselling for the rape, as our article implies, or just generally, but I've left our current wording for now.

The Playboy source is more complicated, but our wording there was quite confusing. It seemed to imply the rape was revealed while Teena was at the centre. The source says he was release after 3 days (as our article says), but this happened before he started attended the counselling (well I presume there was counselling at the centre but that's not what was being referred to). The counselling was I guess for his "sexual identity crisis" and/or other alleged problems. Our article also seems to imply his mother always attended when the source seems to suggest his mother and sister sometimes but not always attended. It's not clear how long these sessions went on for, but at some stage while his mother and sister (who was also a victim) he revealed he'd been raped. After this, according to his mother, he shut down even more. It's a bit unclear to me if the two weeks is from the beginning of the sessions or after the rape revelation. In any case, I've tried to make the article neutral on the ending. Also I've tried to minimise mention of the mothers view and stick to the facts, given that she rejects that her Teena identified as a man. One odd thing, our article claimed these sesssions were four times a week but I don't see any mention of that in the source.

Anyway if you haven't noticed, the time line is a little odd here. One the one hand, we have the claim he attended counselling in 1991. On the other hand, it's claimed he attended counselling, sometimes with his mother and sister, where he revealed the rape in 1992.

Now that I've fixed the claim of him attending counselling with his mother for the rape in 1991 (only to then reveal the rape in 1992), it's not definitely contradictory. It's possible he did attend counselling in 1991 before the revelation to his mother and he informed his mother of this at some stage (may be even the mother was involved in organising these but he never told her about the rape). And as I said, I'm not even sure that the alleged 1991 counselling was for the rape (or at least that he told the counsellor/s of it). OTOT, particularly since the chasingthefrog source doesn't seem a great source, I wonder if the 1991 is just wrong and it's referring to the same 1992 counselling.

Nil Einne (talk) 21:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Gender

Why does the article use the male pronoun? Brandon Teena was a woman with a severe mental illness, or rather illnesses. One of which was her wanting to be a man. She was a woman. If someone believes they are a teapot, or a cat, we don't call them a kitchen utensil or a feline - we recognize that this is still a person, with a serious delusion. Brandon was a deluded female, not a man.Royalcourtier (talk) 07:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

See MOS:IDENTITY and the previous talk page discussions about this. Do you have reliable sources to support that the subject had "severe mental illness"? If not, such personal speculation doesn't belong anywhere on Wikipedia.- MrX 11:57, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure what constitutes personal speculation, when it is in fact based on material from the very same article. However the article currently includes the following, to quote: "Teena underwent a psychiatric evaluation, which concluded that Teena was suffering from a severe "sexual identity crisis"...later taken to the Lancaster County Crisis Center to ensure that he was not suicidal. He was released from the center three days later and began attending therapy sessions, sometimes accompanied by his mother or sister....The counselling sessions ended two weeks later".

"Gender dysphori", or "gender identity disorder", is a recognized mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association permits a diagnosis of gender dysphoria if the criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMMD)(5th Edition, 2013) is met. The Wikipedia article states that Teena's crisis/disorder was severe, therefore I believe that there is evidence that Teena did have a serious mental illness - and therefore that my statement is not mere speculation. I also note that the DSMMD expressly records that where a persons gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with they will be diagnosed with gender dysphoria. In other words if a man identifies as a woman he is diagnosed with gender dysphoria. This is not the same as being a hermaphrodite or someone who has undergone sex change surgery - a woman who has become a man. It is a man (or woman) who identifies with the opposite sex. Therefore Teena should be described by the female pronoun, not the male. I accept that I will probably be blocked from editing Wikipedia for stating this. I do withdraw my earlier reference to Brandon as deluded, that I accept was unnecessarily colloquial and offensive.Royalcourtier (talk) 04:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)