Talk:Gender-critical feminism

Conversion Therapy / Gender Identity Change Efforts

@Void if removed you reverted my recent addition to the article stating Remove not WP:DUE, WP:COATRACK, WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:POV material, argue for this in talk please.

• WRT WP:DUE - Gender-critical activists have very prominently and repeatedly opposed bans on gender identity change efforts (particularly in the UK). Kathleen Stock did so, and wrote about it, and we have a secondary source analyzing her argument against it (that respecting trans kids is actually sexual orientation change efforts). Whether or not you like it, it is a recognizable view and campaign platform of the GC movement covered in RS
• WRT WP:COATRACK - Material that is supported by a reliable, published source whose topic is directly related to the topic of the article, is not using the article as a coatrack. It clearly doesn't apply. Same for WP:NOTEVERYTHING.
• WRT WP:POV - how so? Is it not a neutral/verifiable statement that gender-critical groups have lobbied against bans on gender identity change efforts? Frankly, per WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV, the added text should have been more clear that conversion therapy does indeed include GICE regardless of what GC feminists say.

Since you removed 5 sentences and 6 sources, it would also help if actually listed specific objections relative to those instead of broad unsubstantiated complaints about the whole subsection. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Just want to state back up of this opinion and comment that I believe GC feminists have been against conversion therapy bans for trans youth in the UK for a couple of years by this point. LunaHasArrived (talk) 17:37, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Since it included content clearly tied back to the main subject of gender-critical feminism, I don't see a good reason for reverting the entire thing. I agree that if there are objections to specific parts, then it would be better to challenge those on a case-by-case basis. Hist9600 (talk) 21:05, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The information about supporting conversion therapy from GCs must be included in the article. It is obviously a significant fact. The academic sources: 1, 2. Reprarina (talk) 08:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

"Opposing bans on conversion therapy" is not equal to "supporting conversion therapy". Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:16, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Very true. It is important to be precise when editing Wikipedia. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• I think it's a reasonable paraphrase, but either way that's certainly not a strong enough objection to remove the entire section, especially since the section itself didn't say they supported conversion therapy. --Aquillion (talk) 05:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

So, my issues in turn.

1. This is supposedly an article about an "ism". The views of that "ism" should as far as possible reflect the views of the "ism", as sourced to multiple, reliable, independent sources. I don't think citing the views of one individual is enough to establish that this is the "views" of an "ism", especially when the phrasing is questionable, and especially when it is hard to extrapolate nuanced positions on specific legislative proposals to general opinions on general concepts. The idea that Kathleen Stock rejects Stonewall's interpretation of gender identity conversion therapy is reflective of gender-critical feminist opinion on conversion therapy as a whole is improper.

2. The continual widening of interpretation of "gender-critical feminism" to just anything "gender-critical" is improper and widens an makes an already overly broad article worse. So material about Genspect for example is not relevant (they are not a gender-critical feminist organisation). They have an article, and are already mentioned heavily across multiple other articles that touch on conversion therapy vs exploratory therapy, I'm not sure why it needs dragging in here too. Likewise talk of "gender-critical therapy" or a random noticeboard that just happens to have "gender-critical" in the name. None of these are anything to do with "gender-critical feminism" and again WP:NOTEVERYTHING.

3. The paraphrasing as "Gender Identity Change Efforts" is WP:POV. The UK gov did not remove "gender identity change efforts" from any proposed bill.

4. The material on Kathleen Stock is paraphrased, seeing as the article in question was actually about Stonewall's interpretation of gender identity conversion therapy. This is a complicated and nuanced difference of opinion expressed by a living person, and needs the strongest possible sources expressed in a fair and balanced way. On her article this is handled with a direct quote of her own words, which is fairer. Even so, I don't think that random opinions of individuals are the best way of establishing the "views" of an "ism". There is neither the space nor the reason to give a full rendition of the state of opinion on - very specifically - the UK government's proposed ban on conversion therapy here. For example, this submission by Labour Womens Declaration (arguably a gender-critical feminist organisation) amounts to: it is complex, wait for the Cass Review to finish.

So - you added one sentence saying what Kathleen Stock's opinion is, paraphrased in wikivoice instead of an attributed quote like on her own article. You added four further sentences not actually about the views of gender-critical feminists, but about:

• criticism of it via WP:RSOPINION rendered as wikivoice instead of attributed (one-sided, ignoring all the contradictory views, so there's no WP:BALANCE here).
• the UK gov flip flopping on legislation (doesn't seem WP:DUE here, there's not a lot of coverage, no direct mention of "gender-critical feminist/ism", but WRN are quoted as saying "Watching and waiting therapies are not 'conversion' and this bill obfuscated that fact.", so if it were due I think it would be via a quote like that at best IMO)
• The Trevor Project and Heron Greenesmith's opinions on conversion therapy that have nothing to do with gender-critical feminism
• Genspect's opinions on exploratory therapy, who aren't a gender-critical feminist org, and again why is this under the heading "conversion therapy".

Adding a contentious new section on the views of an "ism" where at least 80% of it doesn't describe the views of the "ism" is why I say this is WP:COATRACK stuff.

Personally I think a better way to deal with this would be a section elsewhere on responses to specific legislation, where that legislation was notable and covered in WP:RS, perhaps in this case in the "united kingdom" section. It is hard to extrapolate general views on "conversion" to specific bills in particular regions where what may be opposed is particular wording, not the practices, or the timing and lack of evidence. And again, those views should be attributed to specific organisations that are well-established as "gender-critical feminist" orgs.

So in the UK section, a paragraph about proposed conversion therapy ban and the feminist response to it would be possibly WP:DUE, as long as it didn't get derailed into reiterating every single exploratory vs conversion argument yet again here. Void if removed (talk) 10:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

1. We don't say it reflects it as whole, but every GC organization in the UK opposed the conversion therapy ban so it seems to be a unifying view
2. Please provide a single source corroborating the existence of a "gender-critical" movement larger than "gender-critical feminism".
3. That was the title of this talk page discussion and wasn't put in the article, but yes, they did remove that, that's literally what they did (the term GICE means conversion therapy on the basis of gender)
4. Stock has written on it repeatedly. Quoting her opinion piece on her article is bad writing. Quoting a reliable secondary source summarizing her arguments across multiple articles she wrote is much better.

• WP:RSOPINION does not mean "a reliable source said something I disagree with". It is a WP:RS. The characterization of Stock's views is fine. Per WP:FRINGE,
• Nearly all BBC coverage of the conversion therapy ban mentioned opposition from gender-critical groups
• Greenesmith links to an article explaining the change from "TERF" to "GC" when introducing the term... And the UK Government Equalities Office cited her on the growth of such boards.

Most of your points boil down to the second point you listed, and frankly it's a huge reach to say they're referring to something else by "gender-critical".

WRT moving to the UK Section, I don't think that's a good solution as there is indeed a recognizable view independent of the UK: ie affirming trans kids is actually SOCE, conversion therapy bans shouldn't include GICE as it's different from SOCE. Here's anther GC activist opposing the ban[1] and here's another one explicitly using the argument SOCE and GICE are different.[2]. Here's another source examining UK GC campaigning against conversion therapy bans/ the belief that affirming kids is actually conversion therapy.[3] Here's one on TERF activists in France opposing such bans on trans conversion therapy saying the same. [4] Here'sWomen's Declaration International arguing affirming trans kids is conversion therapy[5]. Here's one on arguing Raymond supported conversion therapy for trans people[6] Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, page 37 of this book analyzing GC feminism notes that LGB alliance calls affirming trans kids conversion therapy. [7] Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The material added under the heading ‘Conversion Therapy’ is about Conversion Therapy, on which we have an article. It is not about g-c feminism, which is the subject of this article. This is classic WP:COATRACK.

Also, the text about the UK government’s plans regarding banning conversion therapy is out of date – in December 2023 Kemi Badenoch announced plans to “bring forward a bill to ban conversion practices, which seek to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” See [8].

Sweet6970 (talk) 14:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

For the record, by that same line of reasoning, we should remove "Sex and gender" from "Views" too, since we have an article on it so it's coatrack apparently... The section added was about GC views on conversion therapy, not all of conversion therapy, in the same way we have a section on GC views on sex and gender in addition to an article on the sex-gender distinction. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

to YFNS: by that same line of reasoning… No, my reasoning is not that if we have an article on a subject, mentioning it in another article automatically makes this coatracking. My argument is that the material you added is about conversion therapy, and therefore should only be considered for inclusion in that article. It is not about g-c feminism, and therefore it does not belong in this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:58, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

It is not about g-c feminism, and therefore it does not belong in this article Hard disagree. I've re-reviewed the content added by YFNS and content about gender-critical feminist views on conversion therapy is on topic for this article. A direct parallel here is the ex-gay movement. Their views on conversion therapy are off-topic for the conversion therapy article, and they are mentioned very briefly in that article's content in the ex-gay/ex-trans ministry section. But they are on-topic within the ex-gay movement article, where they are discussed in detail in the sexual orientation change efforts section. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

20% of the material was one person's opinion of one specific interpretation of gender identity conversion therapy, and not directly quoted like on their own article, but filtered via someone else's unattributed opinion of it.

80% of the material was not about gender critical feminist views, but tenuous other views and out-of-date/unsupported statements about the UK government's position on paraphrased "gender identity change efforts" etc. This is exactly what WP:COATRACK is about. And in any case this particular legislation has ample, and better, coverage here.

Ex-gay is not a good analogy, since the ex-gay movement is entirely about conversion therapy. That's the very core of what it believes to be possible and encourages or condones. Gender-critical feminism OTOH is not in any sense "about" conversion therapy. That individuals or groups may take issue with the wording of specific legislative proposals in one region is several steps removed from core beliefs or views.

If there was significant secondary coverage of actual gender critical feminist views on this topic, we'd be able to use those sources. And even if so, this is a nuanced subject that needs approaching fairly, their opinions need to be given ample space in their specific context, and not taking one person's indirectly-presented opinions about one legislative proposal as a launching point for a bunch of other material, presented as if this is the "views" of an "ism" about "conversion therapy" as a whole. Void if removed (talk) 10:58, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of your framing of actual gender critical feminist views; we do have coverage of actual gender-critical views on the topic, that's what the sources you're objecting to are. The section cites secondary coverage of prominent gender-critical figures and campaigns in-depth, including via high-quality academic sources. There may be room for improvement, of course, using sources that discuss the broader topic, but given the amorphous nature of these sort of movements, covering the views of prominent figures and major activists is appropriate, and indeed, the way this section does so is comparable to several of the other view sections; given the breadth and quality of coverage, I don't think you've successfully made the argument that it ought to be omitted entirely or that there were serious problems with it in its current form. And a quick nose-count in this discussion shows a general consensus for inclusion in some form, so I've restored the section for now. --Aquillion (talk) 05:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

How is a footnote quoting the Trevor Project in passing calling something undefined and unverifiable "gender-critical therapy" a reflection of "gender-critical feminist views on conversion therapy"? Especially when that footnote points to an archived page that no longer exists and was deleted in 2021?

When the latest Trevor Project report on conversion therapy doesn't mention "gender critical therapy" at all?

If this was a widespread viewpoint of gender-critical feminism - the subject of this page - to the point of specifically advocating "gender-critical therapy" as a form of conversion therapy, why is this source so tenuous? Why is there not a single gender-critical source - feminist or otherwise - advocating "gender-critical therapy" anywhere that I can find?

Why, when I search for "gender-critical therapy" is the oldest usage I can spot an opinion piece by Gemma Stone, not reporting that that is actually a practice, but coining it to refer to something they are criticising? That is, in response to an attempt to create a list of gender critical therapists, Stone repeats activist warnings about "gender-critical therapy"?

In fact what seems to have happened is Stella O'Malley tweeted "I hate the phrase gender critical but I am making a list! A large number of people contact me seeking help and I don’t know enough Irish therapists who can provide compassionate and nuanced therapy."

And a number of opponents tweeted that "gender critical therapy is conversion therapy" and now this particular myth is here, constructed from one WP:PARTISAN opinion piece based on hostile tweets, a long-deleted Trevor Project page, and an article in Teen Vogue.

This looks like the only ones using the term "gender critical therapy" are opponents, which got into a Trevor Project page temporarily and is now removed and never mentioned again I am guessing because it doesn't actually exist.

Digging even deeper - the other citation used here is a GEO report. This says nothing about gender-critical therapy. However it does say - in the footnotes again - "For instance, there have been reports of people sharing lists online of therapists for parents of transgender children seeking non-affirming therapists (Greenesmith, 2020; ILGA, 2020)" so nothing about gender-critical feminism or therapy at all, so this it WP:SYNTH based on the fact that it cites Greensmith's Teen Vogue piece again, making this redundant. It also cites an ILGA report which bases its claim on the Gemma Stone article in the Independent.

There's nothing here. There is no independent corroboration of any of this, no source outside of the Stone opinion piece and the Greensmith Teen Vogue piece, which are demonstrably using their own terminology, not describing anything actually offered with the name "gender-critical therapy".

Assembling this kind of WP:SYNTH from fragments of primary sources, deleted self-published sites and WP:PARTISAN opinion pieces is completely wrong.

Compare this approach to sourcing to the dozen or so high quality and unambiguous sources and 9 days on and off discussion it took simply to amend this page with media coverage of highly relevant legal rulings. I don't think incredibly contentious and inflammatory material based on a three-year-old partially-deleted game of telephone belongs here, frankly. Void if removed (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

When the latest Trevor Project report on conversion therapy doesn't mention "gender critical therapy" at all? Maybe because that newer report doesn't enumerate all of the alternative names for it. It only explicitly mentions the reparative therapy, ex-gay, and unwanted same-sex attraction alternate names. But we know from other sources that there are other names, especially when the practice is targeted at specific demographics like trans and non-binary people.

And a number of opponents tweeted that "gender critical therapy is conversion therapy" and now this particular myth is here, constructed from one WP:PARTISAN opinion piece based on hostile tweets, a long-deleted Trevor Project page, and an article in Teen Vogue. It's not a myth, it's an alternate name. Also your timeline doesn't take into account the ILGA's February 2020 report on conversion therapy], which predates the Trevor Project report by about a year, and the Teen Vogue piece by about four months.

based on hostile tweets, If we're going down the OR rabbit hole, which is fine on a talk page but not on an article, then we need to go deeper. Looking at the archive you provided, O'Malley's tweet (3 February 2020) was a quote retweet of one by Graham Linehan (3 February 2020) where he said that O'Malley was trying to assemble a list of Irish gender critical therapists as a resource for parents (emphasis mine). Linehan's tweet predates Quibilah1's by a day, but there's more. After doing a search on Twitter, the oldest tweet I was able to find that uses the term was from June 2018 from someone who seems to be a gender-critical activist or supporter. Maybe there's older tweets than this, Twitter's search function isn't the greatest at the best of times and has only gotten worse since Elon's takeover. But with the term gender-critical only coming into existence circa 2016 it seems unlikely. Stating that the term was based on hostile tweets does not stand up to scrutiny I'm afraid.

This looks like the only ones using the term "gender critical therapy" are opponents, which got into a Trevor Project page temporarily and is now removed and never mentioned again I am guessing because it doesn't actually exist. And ex-gay ministries is a term used by conversion therapy proponents. That doesn't preclude it being a valid alternate name to describe what is the same overall type of pseudoscientific practices couched in therapeutic language. There are also still contemporary examples of the term being used as one of the alternate names for conversion therapy. For example, a September 2023 article on The Therapist written by a licensed psychologist mentions the term as one of several alternate names for conversion therapy. As does this UNDP handbook (page 17) April 2023.

Assembling this kind of WP:SYNTH from fragments of primary sources SYNTH only applies to us as enwiki editors, and like all of our policies does not apply to the sources that we use. Indeed synthesising information from primary sources is the expected role and function of any reliable secondary source on a given topic. Please stop trying to apply our policies to content that appears in reliable sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I cited the ILGA report. I pointed out it is cited by the GEO report. I said It also cites an ILGA report which bases its claim on the Gemma Stone article in the Independent.. The usage in the ILGA report is based on:

• Stone's opinion piece
• The GCN story about O'Malley
• A medium blogpost

Forgive me if I don't consider this to be the strongest sourcing.

I'm not engaging in WP:OR. I'm verifying what the sources say. When sources are simply repeating other sources, they're not independent and there's no point adding them as additional citations. And I specifically didn't search for earlier tweets - I looked at the ones mentioned by the supposed WP:RS.

And when you drill down into the opinion piece that seems to be the original basis, the phrasing "gender critical therapy" comes from twitter criticism of O'Malley and Linehan. A list of "gender critical therapists" is a different thing to alleging there is such a thing as "gender-critical therapy", and even more so to claim any of this is WP:DUE for an article that is about "gender critical feminism", in a section about "conversion therapy".

What this is is opponents hyperbolic views expressed on social media of therapists who are gender-critical, via a broken telephone. This is not gender-critical feminist views on conversion therapy. Void if removed (talk) 18:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm verifying what the sources say. That is not how WP:V works. V starts and ends with the source that's being cited and asks if it contains the information that supports our content. For example, if we're citing a source that says the sky is blue, then we verify that by checking if the source contains content that supports that assertion. There is however an acceptable limit for how far someone may reasonable question the validity of what most other contributors consider to be reliable sources. And saying that a report by a major international human rights organisation like the ILGA is invalid because of what it cites is kinda over that limit. A better way to dispute the validity of the ILGA report would be to cite another report by a reputable organisation or a peer reviewed research paper that disputes it. Bonus points if that report or paper disputes the content you're finding objectionable.

When sources are simply repeating other sources, they're not independent That is not how WP:INDY works. An independent source is one that is not closely affiliated with a subject. The citations that a source may or may not use for its content do not determine its independence. For example Ray Blanchard would not be considered independent from James Cantor, because they regularly collaborate on research papers. However someone else, unconnected to Blanchard or Cantor, citing Blanchard's work as an example of "here's something this other study found" would be considered independent from Blanchard. If we were to use your definition of independence, a great many research papers published in reputable journals would be considered non-independent, not to mention a great deal of news and current event coverage, because they repeat what other sources have said.

And when you drill down into the opinion piece that seems to be the original basis, the phrasing "gender critical therapy" comes from twitter criticism of O'Malley and Linehan. No, it doesn't. As I said in my reply above, the oldest use of the term "gender critical therapy" that I could find on Twitter was from 18 June 2018, by someone who is either a gender-critical activist or supporter, when they were criticising the then recently published 2018 Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for trans and gender diverse children and adolescents and its content on conversion therapy. It is incorrect to say that the original basis for the term comes from criticism of O'Malley and Linehan's tweets on 3 February 2020. The term predates those tweets by approximately two years and was used in context to describe conversion therapy. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The source used in our article regarding ‘gender critical therapy’ says that ‘gender critical therapy’ is just a name for conversion therapy. The source doesn’t even say that ‘gender critical therapy’ exists, still less does it say that it has anything to do with gender-critical feminism. So the source is basically saying that ‘gender-critical therapy’ does not exist. So there is no reason to mention this in our article. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:26, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, gender critical therapy is another name for conversion therapy, I don't think anyone here has disputed that. So is gender-exploratory therapy, reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries, and about a dozen other terms. However unless you're going to dispute the existence of conversion therapy, it is erroneous to say that it does not exist. Briefly mentioning it, as we do, seems due to me.

Though I would also suggest expanding further upon the gender exploratory therapy content, as that too is another name for the same thing, and one that has somewhat more use by both its proponents within the gender-critical movement and opponents outside it. At least one source, a 2023 report by Tranzycja (a collaborative knowledge project between Stonewall Poland and Fundation Kohezja) has mentioned that the GET term has superseded all of the previous terms in use, and there may be other more reliable sources that state the same thing. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

gender critical therapy is another name for conversion therapy

It is a term those sources are using. They don't describe it beyond that - it just means that The Trevor Project and ILGA are calling conversion therapy "gender critical therapy". That's it.

Which means that what this is is those sources' opinions on conversion therapy. This is not gender critical feminist views on conversion therapy. The sources are the only ones calling conversion therapy, gender-critical therapy.

This is backwards.

In order for this to be relevant you first have to establish from WP:RS that "gender-critical therapy" is actually a coherent thing, that is advanced, advocated or in some way directly related to "gender-critical feminism". This material could then be offered in response to it - but it does not, on its own, establish relevance or notability.

unless you're going to dispute the existence of conversion therapy, it is erroneous to say that it does not exist

That's false logic. It is completely possible to dispute that anybody, anywhere actually offers such a thing as "gender-critical therapy" and that the term is merely a label used by opponents of "gender-critical" beliefs more generally, while accepting that conversion therapy is a thing.

Please give a one line description of what "gender-critical therapy" is and how it relates to "gender-critical feminism".

Here's what the currently offered sources say:

• ILGA -

Activists and survivors have pointed out that the term “gender critical therapy” is a term used to refer to a form of “conversion therapy” practiced on trans youth

• Deleted Trevor Project Page -

“Conversion therapy” can come in many forms and is sometimes known by other names, including: “gender critical therapy”

• The Therapist website:

Conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, gender critical therapy, or sexual reorientation, refers to a set of harmful practices that attempt to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

• The UNDP handbook:

Conversion therapy: An umbrella expression to refer to any sustained effort to modify a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Other terms include: “reparative therapy”, “gay cure”, “ex-gay therapy”, “gender critical therapy”

So what is it? "Gender critical therapy is conversion therapy" is a tautology. Unless it exists outside of this claim, it does not actually exist - it is just a label applied to conversion therapy by these sources, that's all.

We can find actual WP:SECONDARY sources about practitioners using the other terms to obfuscate conversion therapy. As such, if the subject of an article actually espouses "reparative therapy", we should be able to a) source them advocating it and b) respond to that with these sources saying it is really conversion therapy per WP:BALANCE.

What we cannot find is any source actually connected to the subject of this article calling for "gender-critical therapy". What is happening here is the "balancing" viewpoint is being used as its own justification for inclusion, with nothing to actually balance.

This is why I say it is not WP:DUE. The opinions of these sources are irrelevant to gender critical feminist views on conversion therapy, because all they are is the sources' views on conversion therapy. If you have WP:RS of gender critical feminists advocating gender-critical therapy, saying what it actually is, you could argue these would be appropriate WP:BALANCE but as things stand this is WP:COATRACK material.

By analogy, this whole exercise is like relying on this source:

I cannot stomach the thought of allowing my own labours to feed a press willing to lend its reputation to 'gender critical' fascism.”

To add a section on "Fascism" in views, with the implication there is such a thing as "gender critical fascism", that is somehow espoused by gender critical feminists.

Except at least this is a reasonably recent WP:SECONDARY source and hasn't been deleted.

I would also suggest expanding further upon the gender exploratory therapy

And I don't think the answer to a WP:COATRACK is to put more coats on it. Void if removed (talk) 10:46, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I add my voice to Void’s request: Please give a one line description of what "gender-critical therapy" is and how it relates to "gender-critical feminism". Sweet6970 (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

One sentence, drawing from the sources: gender-critical therapy is a form of conversion therapy targeted at transgender youth which presupposes a pathological cause for being trans (autism, misogyny, homophobia, social contagion, take your pick of ridiculous claims) and has been advertised through online forums which share lists of "gender-critical" therapists who will refuse to affirm their trans patient's identity.

• An additional explanatory sentence per the Tranzycja report: it was pushed by groups like gender-critical groups like SEGM and Genspect and figures like O'Malley, though has been superseded by the more recent term "exploratory therapy"

We already have sources in the article detailing how a prominent GC position is "respecting trans kids is actually conversion therapy since they're just traumatized, gay, autistic, or whatever else we can try and blame", they support criminalizing trans kids transitioning, and oppose bans on conversion therapy because they believe trans kids should instead be treated for whatever pathology "made" them trans...

1. These are extremely WP:FRINGE positions.
2. It provides obvious relevance to the related fact there are boards advertising GC therapists who hold these views to prevent trans kids from transitioning.

Saying "Gender critical therapy is conversion therapy" is a tautology makes no sense to me. ILGA is clear in their section that[9]:

• There is no one single term consistently and universally adopted to denote attempts to modify a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. It then goes into different examples and the historical context of each term like "conversion therapy", "Reparative therapy", "ex-gay therapy", "gender-critical therapy" etc.
• Activists and survivors have pointed out that the term “gender critical therapy” is a term used to refer to a form of “conversion therapy” practiced on trans youth It then notes Stella O'Malley, who wrote for a book calling trans kids an "ideology" and "dangerous", made a compilation of gender-critical therapists

And here's some quotes from the TeenVogue piece[10]:

• The names being recommended on the Gender Critical Support Board include psychiatrists, endocrinologists, pediatricians, and therapists. The thread tying them together is their commitment to “gender criticism,” a term that’s morphed from its introduction in women’s and gender studies departments into a dog whistle for anti-trans-affirming activists. (link to article explaining the change from TERF to GC in original)
• The Gender Critical Support Board was founded in part by an anonymous internet user who goes by the name Gender Critical Dad or GCDad. Gender Critical Dad is active in gender-critical spaces on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, on his own blog, and, of course, on the comment board he founded.
• But a fundamental rejection of trans identity is the end goal of so many of the other “gender-critical” therapists, pediatricians, counselors, and endocrinologists whose names are passed around by members of the board.

The sources are so obviously talking about the GC feminist movement that your walls of text to the contrary are getting into WP:IDHT territory, if they aren't already there. Please answer my earlier question, what gender-critical movement are they all referring to if not the subject of this article? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a lot of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. What is "gender-critical therapy"? It is apparently a term for conversion therapy. Who uses it and what do they describe with it?

For example, reparative therapy has a history, and literature, of advocates and practitioners. We can find people describing what they mean by it, as advocates of the practice, and we can find critics, and now a consensus that it is a harmful, conversion practice.

Your "wall of text" OTOH makes clear that no such resource exists for "gender-critical therapy". This is a term invented by, and used exclusively by, critics of therapists who are "gender-critical". Which makes it not a "view of gender critical feminism" at all.

None of this belongs here. Void if removed (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a lot of ... WP:OR Citing information that is present in reliable sources is not OR. It is the anthesis of OR. As WP:NOR policy states in its second sentence On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. (emphasis from original text).

This is a lot of WP:SYNTH I would ask you to please elaborate on this, as there does not appear to be synthesis here. However as SYNTH is a part of WP:NOR, and there does not appear to be OR here, there also cannot be SYNTH here.

What is "gender-critical therapy"? It is apparently a term for conversion therapy. I said this in my reply on two days ago on 23 January. It is an alternate name for conversion therapy.

Who uses it and what do they describe with it? Both gender-critical supporters and their opponents have used the term. For use by the opponents, see the sources that YFNS has provided and we've already discussed. For the supporters, I demonstrated in my comment on 23 January that the earliest use of the term I could find on Twitter was from 2018, and posted by a gender-critical activist. An October 2020 article by PinkNews mentioned that the now defunct Canadian anti-trans organisation We The Females were at one point a proponent for gender-critical therapy. We know from the TeenVogue article, the term was used by parents seeking support on the Gender Critical Support Board, though linking to specific instances of that is impossible as while the forum still exists, most of it is in a private member's only area.

Part of the difficulty in identifying proponents is that the terminology shifted shortly after the tweets by Linehan and O'Malley, with the current term for the same thing is gender exploratory therapy (GET). This difficulty is compounded by some gender-critical organisations, like the aforementioned We The Females, becoming defunct and being replaced by others, often with the same people involved. Of course, for our purposes that doesn't really matter too much. All that matters is what reliable sources, like the ILGA report and UNDP handbook state. And in this case, they describe gender-critical therapy as an alternative name for conversion therapy.

This is a term invented by, and used exclusively by, critics of therapists who are "gender-critical". Not only is this demonstrably not true, see the rest of my reply above, it also doesn't matter. The purpose of an article on Wikipedia is to cover all of the mainstream and significant minority viewpoints on a topic, as published in reliable sources. One of the viewpoints on this topic is that gender-critical feminists and activists promote what is understood to be conversion therapy, even if they don't call it conversion therapy. At one point this was called gender-critical therapy, then the terminology shifted and now it's called GET. It's entirely possible that in another few years, the terminology might shift again to some other name.

Currently we have two sentences on gender critical therapy. One summarising the Trevor Project and ILGA reports, and one summarising the TeenVogue report. In the overall sense of that section, that seems due, given that this was a relatively short lived name, and a small part of the overall story on gender-critical support for conversion therapy. The only thing we lack is a source that gives a timeline of the terminological shift. Conversely we only have a single sentence on GET, and that is something I think we could expand to be a full paragraph or more in its own right, based on the multitude of academic and other sources about the gender-critical movement being a major proponent for it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:02, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sweet6970, you just removed a paragraph about GC opposition to the UK conversion therapy ban including protections for trans people stating removing out of date material – see Talk page, my comment 14:19 21 January 2024, with the link to the news story. The article does not mention GC feminism once, and is unrelated to the statement you removed. Please self-revert, as the fact the government has once again U-turned on it's position has nothing do with what GC feminists campaigned for it to be (as reported in multiple RS, see my earlier comment to VIR). "A asked B to do C; later B did D" in absolutely no way means "A asked B to do C" is somehow false or out of date... No issue with adding a sentence after the one you removed like Kemi Badenoch later announced that she planned to ban conversion therapy and suggested gender-affirming care could be considered a "new form of conversion therapy" for gay kids, stating "no child is born in the wrong body".[11][12] Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The material I removed is out of date trivia. See WP:NOTNEWS. And the stuff about Kemi Badenoch is also trivia. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:33, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 31 January 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Gender-critical feminism → Trans-exclusionary radical feminism – We should rename this article for WP:COMMONNAME reasons. "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is more commonly used in reliable sources than "gender-critical".

To survey how common the respective terms are used in the academic literature, I conducted two searches on Google scholar, with the following result counts:

• ("gender critical" OR "GC feminism" OR "GC feminist" OR "GC feminists") - about 6,840 results
• ("TERF" OR "TERFs" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminism") - about 29,400 results

When I combined the two queries, I got a listing of sources overwhelmingly using "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" rather than "gender-critical feminism":

• ("gender critical" OR "GC feminism" OR "GC feminist" OR "GC feminists" OR "TERF" OR "TERFs" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminism")

In addition, there are three academic journal issues listed in the "Further reading" section of this article. These are the only academic journal issues dedicated to this article's topic that I am aware of. All three of them primarily use "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" instead of "gender-critical feminism":

• TERF Wars: Feminism and the fight for transgender futures
• Trans-Exclusionary Feminisms and the Global New Right
• Varieties of TERFness

"Gender-critical feminism" as a title cannot be justified on WP:NPOV grounds alone, because "gender-critical feminism" itself is described as a non-neutral term by reliable sources. Even assuming that "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is not neutral, it being the most common name and the lack of a neutral alternative justifies its use as a title under WP:NPOVNAME. PBZE (talk) 02:43, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• Weak support: I don't think that there's a huge advantage to either name, but I do agree that "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is both slightly more common and slightly more neutral than "gender-critical feminism". Loki (talk) 07:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Why did you only survey academic sources? If you want to make a COMMONNAME argument, academic sources are probably the weakest class of source, because academic papers are only read by ~hundreds of people whereas mainstream media reaches ~millions. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Because of this sentence in WP:CRITERIA: Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject, and this sentence in WP:COMMONNAME: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources) as such names will usually best fit the five criteria listed above. Academic sources are generally the most high-quality sources about this topic.

  Regardless, repeating the same queries on Google shows us that "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is used far more frequently:

  • ("gender critical" OR "GC feminism" OR "GC feminist" OR "GC feminists") - about 659,000 results
  • ("TERF" OR "TERFs" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminism") - about 3,530,000 results

  And when combining the two queries on Google, "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is shown more frequently in the leading results:

  • ("gender critical" OR "GC feminism" OR "GC feminist" OR "GC feminists" OR "TERF" OR "TERFs" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminism")

  PBZE (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Including "TERF" - which is a common term of abuse that means far more than straightforwardly "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" as has been demonstrated time and time again including links to the OED - massively skews this result.

  The correct comparison is "gender critical feminism" (the current title, 22,000) and "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (the proposed title, 21,000).

  And even then - as I've said already - some of those results are explicitly saying that trans-exclusionary radical feminism should not be used. Void if removed (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Ok, doing a variant of this shorter search, allowing for use of both feminism and feminist for both titles to catch text like "according to gender critical feminist theory" which is also the subject of this article, on Google Scholar:

  • "gender critical feminism" OR "gender critical feminist" - 516 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" - 1,340 results

  On JSTOR:

  • "gender critical feminism" OR "gender critical feminist" - 13 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" - 45 results

  On Google Search:

  • "gender critical feminism" OR "gender critical feminist" - about 42,100 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" - about 76,200 results

  So in every single search comparison between the two equal terms, the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminism/feminist" has roughly double the number of hits as "gender critical feminism/feminist". Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:32, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Trans-exclusionary radical feminism/feminist are not equal terms.

  Because "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" contracts to TERF, whereas ""trans-exclusionary radical ferminism" does not, and TERF is a widely used term of abuse.

  Stick to the suggested titles, please. Void if removed (talk) 22:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Trans-exclusionary radical feminism/feminist are not equal terms. You've misunderstood what I meant when I said between two equal terms. I'm not saying that feminist and feminism are equal terms, because that would be wrong. What I'm saying is that the combination of trans-exclusionary radical feminist and trans-exclusionary radical feminism is equal to the combination gender critical feminist and gender critical feminism. This is important because when assessing the breadth of all papers published on this topic, a verbatim search for only feminist will exclude any papers that exclusively use feminism and vice versa. If you want to include the full breadth of papers published on this topic, you have to include both feminist and feminism variants in a logical or.

  Because "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" contracts to TERF, whereas ""trans-exclusionary radical ferminism" does not There are plenty of high quality reliable sources that contract trans-exclusionary radicial feminism to TERF. For example a research paper published in Sexualities, a research paper published in Women's Studies in Communication, a research paper published in Journal of Lesbian Studies. Arguably you cannot talk about either feminism without also talking about either feminists.

  However, if you truly want the results of papers that just use feminism and exclude feminist then, on Google Scholar:

  • "gender critical feminism" -"gender critical feminist" - 243 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" -"trans-exclusionary radical feminist" - 416 results

  On JSTOR:

  • "gender critical feminism" NOT "gender critical feminist" - 7 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" NOT "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" - 16 results

  On Google Search:

  • "gender critical feminism" -"gender critical feminist" - about 25,800 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" -"trans-exclusionary radical feminist" - about 24,000 results

  Note Google uses a minus operator for a boolean not search, whereas JSTOR uses the NOT operator. So within academia, once again the primary term seems to be trans-exclusionary radical feminism, by a 2:1 margin. It's only when you add a general Google Search that the two terms become about even.

  And for comparison's sake, here's what happens when you invert that search, searching for sources that use feminist and exclude feminism, on Google Scholar:

  • "gender critical feminist" -"gender critical feminism" - 208 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" -"trans-exclusionary radical feminism" - 870 results

  On JSTOR

  • "gender critical feminist" NOT "gender critical feminism" - 4 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" NOT "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" - 27 results

  On Google Search:

  • "gender critical feminist" -"gender critical feminism" - about 15,800 results
  • "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" -"trans-exclusionary radical feminism" - about 58,600 results.

  Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Again, you are jumping through hoops. The terms at issue are:

  • "gender critical feminism"
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism"

  No others. Stop making this more complicated than it needs to be.

  On Scholar (excluding citations):

  • "gender critical feminism" (304)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (468)

  On Scholar (excluding citations), since 2020:

  • "gender critical feminism" (259)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (334)

  On Scholar (excluding citations), past year:

  • "gender critical feminism" (125)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (118)

  Older searches favour trans exclusionary radical feminism, newer searches reverse the ratio. I doubt that is stable.

  Google:

  • "gender critical feminism" (23,700)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (22,800)

  Google (since 2020):

  • "gender critical feminism" (3450)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (2910)

  Google (past year):

  • "gender critical feminism" (1630)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (1140)

  Gender critical feminism edges it, again with the gap widening in recent years.

  Google trends (12 months and 5 years) show "gender critical feminism" more popular.

  Google news:

  • "Gender critical feminism" (1290)
  • "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (136)

  Significant weight for gender critical feminism there.

  And the issue is that you haven't done a qualitative analysis of the papers or results that come back in a straight search and several of them don't support this argument, but instead note the inflammatory nature of "trans exclusionary radical feminism" in passing before moving on to a more neutral term instead (or indeed, the reverse). These google searches tell us little, but "gender-critical feminism" is clearly favoured by mainstream sources - especially news - and putting extra terms together merely confuses the issue. Void if removed (talk) 13:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Again, you are jumping through hoops. No, in my last reply I provided the search results you asked for. Chiefly, the terms gender critical feminism and trans exclusionary radical feminism in isolation from the feminist variant of the name. The search results in your reply implicitly include those variants, because Google search returns related terms even in verbatim searches, unless you explicitly exclude them from the search. This has been the case since circa 2019, when Google started to use large language models and natural language processing algorithms when generating search results. That is why your search for papers containing gender critical feminism on Google Scholar had 304 results, and mine had 243. Your search results contain the terms that you do not want to be included in this comparison, mine do not.

  And the issue is that you haven't done a qualitative analysis of the papers or results that come back in a straight search Please point to the policy or guideline that has this requirement, because WP:COMMONNAME does not. The COMMONNAME policy point implies that a frequency analysis alone is sufficient for demonstrating the common name of a topic. And all of the frequency analysis so far support the proposed move. I suspect you'd be hard pressed to find many Wikipedia editors who even know how to perform a qualitative analysis on terminological differences, much less editors who could preform such an analysis in the week long period a typical move request is open for.

  These google searches tell us little The correct Scholar and JSTOR searches tell us as a rule of thumb that the term trans-exclusionary radical feminism is more typically used than gender critical feminism. That alone is sufficient to meet COMMONNAME as that policy point is written. but "gender-critical feminism" is clearly favoured by mainstream sources - especially news Scholarly sources are mainstream sources. As WP:SOURCETYPES tells us Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. News sources are one type of source that we can include in a frequency analysis, but even the highest quality news organisation is typically considered of a lower quality than academic sourcing. As WP:NEWSORG states Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics, and this is an academic topic. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your search results contain the terms that you do not want to be included in this comparison, mine do not.

  No - your search results simply don't work, and spuriously exclude material that should be included, like this this. You are wrongly excluding material that happens to use both feminism and feminist.

  Or this, where your search applied to recent review articles compared to mine wrongly excludes things like this, seemingly because your combined criteria exhibits the weird behaviour of wrongly excluding a ti ligature.

  You are needlessly overcomplicating this. The move proposer should at the very least have done the straightforward searches I did, up front, and they do not support this move (especially taking recency into account). If this were a simple move request to clarify WP:COMMONNAME that is indeed the sort of unambiguous search results it would take. However:

  who could preform such an analysis in the week long period a typical move request is open for

  Because this is not a typical move request. This is not like deciding between "Dr. Pepper" and "Dr Pepper". This is using a move request to take a side on a fundamental difference of WP:POV. There is in truth no WP:NPOV on this, because these are two distinct subjects (split, as much as anything, down the atlantic).

  this is an academic topic

  No, it is not. A good hint to this is that the we have a separate "Scholarly analysis" section of the article we are currently discussing, and it sits way, way down the page. Of the 165 citations, something like 110 are non-academic.

  Feminism is not an exclusively academic subject. It isn't even a majority academic subject. Academic feminism and feminist theory are subsets of feminism, and trans/gender studies theorisation of particular feminist movements (from a standpoint of politically opposing them and calling them sophisticated insults like FART because they are like racists/fascists/white supremacists) is not the last word on those movements - especially not to the exclusion of others. The academic viewpoint is part of the picture, but not the complete picture and certainly not the overriding picture.

  Defending Women's Spaces is a feminist book. Hags is a feminist book. Feminism For Women is a feminist book. FiLiA is the largest feminist conference in Europe. Absolutely every description of the rise of "gender critical feminism" - even in hostile sources - talks about the grassroots opposition to the GRA reform in the UK, creation of campaign organisations like Fair Play For Women, Mumsnet as a vector for organising etc. None of these are academic and all of them are better described as "gender critical feminism" than "trans exclusionary radical feminism" which is a term they all reject completely, and that simply isn't used in the majority of news reports, popular coverage etc.

  The criticism or study of these positions, by their political opponents, may well be something that goes on in academia, and WP:DUE for inclusion. But this subject isn't loop quantum gravity or sociology of race and ethnic relations. Academia is only one part of the picture, and trying to suggest that the (overwhelmingly critical) academic perspective should override the (far more neutral and numerous) coverage in mainstream press, books and indeed in multiple legal rulings is explicitly WP:POV.

  If you want to spin off an article for "scholarly criticism of trans exclusionary radical feminism", fine, but we need an article for "gender critical feminism", which might well not be a WP:POVFORK but valid per WP:SUBPOV. Void if removed (talk) 12:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Academic sources are the main sources in Wikipedia and they establish Wikipedia terminology. Mass media, opinion journalism - not the main sources. When academic sources contradict mass media, when academic sources contradict many opinion journalism books, we prefer academic sources. If academic sources say little about their philanthropy for women and a lot about their racism and support for conversion therapy, then the Wikipedia article should say little about their philanthropy for women and a lot about their racism and support for conversion therapy. Reprarina (talk) 15:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  You are wrongly excluding material that happens to use both feminism and feminist. You asked for that, when you said But that is not the proposal. You can't just add up lots of vaguely similar terms and say they count as your preferred common name. The whole point is which of the many variants is the most common. in this reply, and again when you said Stick to the suggested titles, please. in this reply. Without doing a NOT search, the search results will include those that use both feminism or feminist, but it will not include every alternate, hence the difference between the NOT search versus the OR search results. If you want to have an apples-to-apples comparison of just the terms gender-critical feminism to trans-exclusionary radical feminism, then you have to explicitly exclude the feminist variants.

  Or this, where your search applied to recent review articles compared to mine wrongly excludes things like this, seemingly because your combined criteria exhibits the weird behaviour of wrongly excluding a ti ligature. No, the link you used for my search was wrong and does not match the link in the reply where I added it. The link you've copied here adds a space between the dash and gender critical feminist. This results in the search term being "gender critical feminism" - "gender critical feminist", instead of the proper "gender critical feminism" -"gender critical feminist". Because of the extra space, the NOT operator is not applied to the second search term. If you use the link in my actual reply, and the click on the Review articles option, the search results include that review as well as four others. Conversely, your search term for review articles includes three publications (Sex and Gender, Gender: A Postmodern Idea Developed in Association with the Modern Concept of Sex in Considering the Implications for Evolving Sexuality, and The Participation of Trans Women in Competitive Fencing and Implications on Fairness: A Physiological Perspective Narrative Review) that do not contain the phrases gender critical feminism or even gender critical (including dashed variants) anywhere in their body text. They only contain the phrase within citation titles in their respective reference list.

  Of course, at this point we're getting into the weeds. The search engine test is useful primarily as a rule of thumb. Any search term is going to be imperfect, with all having some degree of noise. Some however will have more noise than others. The purpose of the Google Scholar results are to show a general trend for which term is more widely used, and not to find the exact result for which is more widely used. To find the exact result would again, be out of scope of a move request, because it would require skills that many editors do not possess and a more significant time investment than move requests typically run for.

  Because this is not a typical move request. Then as this is not a requirement based in policy or guideline, it is in effect an unreasonable request. I trust that the closer of this request will make a careful analysis of which arguments have so far been based on enwiki policies and guidelines, and which have not when determining the consensus of this discussion.

  There is in truth no WP:NPOV on this, because these are two distinct subjects The NPOV on this topic is how this topic is described within the highest quality reliable sources. Within those sources, they overwhelmingly use the terminology trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

  A good hint to this is that the we have a separate "Scholarly analysis" section of the article we are currently discussing, and it sits way, way down the page. Of the 165 citations, something like 110 are non-academic. Deficiencies in how this article is written, structured, and sourced do not prevent this from being an academic topic. A great deal of the non-academic sources could easily be pruned and replaced with higher quality sources, and such an undertaking would ultimately be necessary if editors wished to take this to featured article status.

  Defending Women's Spaces is a feminist book. Published by John Wiley & Sons, an academic publishing company. Feminism For Women is a feminist book. Authored by Julie Bindel, a former academic researcher. Of the three books, only Hags seems unconnected to academia in some way.

  FiLiA is the largest feminist conference in Europe. FiLiA claims to run the largest feminist conference in Europe, but I've not seen any independent confirmation that it such is true.

  Absolutely every description of the rise of "gender critical feminism" - even in hostile sources - talks about the grassroots opposition to the GRA reform in the UK Actually there are quite a few academic and non-academic sources that consider the opposition to be non-organic, for example this peer-reviewed paper states that it is the result of manipulation from the Christian Right. This paper considers the opposition GRA reform to have been lead from organisations external to the UK, primarily from the US. And an investigation by openDemocracy found that many of the European anti-trans lobbying organisations are being funded by dark money from evangelical Christian groups in the US.

  Mumsnet as a vector for organising etc The radicalisation of Mumsnet's feminist board is something that has been widely discussed in both academia and the mainstream press. Its role in disseminating anti-trans disinformation is something that has been discussed in several high quality reliable sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your attempt to "fix" google's default behaviour results in worse behaviour, you can't fix it by making it differently worse.

  As was noted in the naming of this article in 2021:

  Let's also take into account the fact that, in this rapidly-shifting field, scholarly sources from the last two years may be considerably more "accurate", or at least well-grounded in their assumptions, than ones from 5 or 10 years ago. This is especially true of terminology IMO.

  Please note the search terms in that past discussion are the ones that I have used now, and by the most correct term search, the more you favour recent entries, the more the balance tips towards gender-critical feminism, even in google scholar.

  They only contain the phrase within citation titles in their respective reference list.

  So? That's true both ways.

  Within those sources, they overwhelmingly use the terminology trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

  You can keep saying this all you like, but the only way to get there is to ignore the vast majority of actual WP:RS, use inappropriate search terms, ignore shifting ratios in academia in recent years, and pretend that this is an exclusively academic subject, when it is a far larger sociopolitical subject of which academic views and analyses are merely a subset. The general usage is overwhelmingly against you, especially in news searches.

  I'm not responding to the other tangents. Void if removed (talk) 13:58, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your attempt to "fix" google's default behaviour results in worse behaviour, you can't fix it by making it differently worse. Even that title/naming discussion you linked to from 2 years ago makes a clear distinction between the sources that use feminist from the ones that use feminism. Your search term does not do that, and conflates the two terms that you have already said don't want conflated. As for terminology shift, that does not appear to have happened yet, and as one poster below notes, there seems to be an attempt at another terminology shift by the individuals described by this article occurring on social media.

  So? That's true both ways. It is, and as I said any search term will be imperfect and have noise. That's why they're only ever a rule of thumb and not definitive. However with a smaller number of hits for your term, the signal-to-noise ratio (for lack of a better term) is much higher and clouds the results more.

  The general usage is overwhelmingly against you No, it's really not, especially when you consider that enwiki policies and guidelines rate academic sourcing to be of a significantly higher quality that news sources. Within the highest quality sources, it is clear that trans-exclusionary radical feminism is the commonly used name for this subject.

  I'm not responding to the other tangents. Then why raise those tangents to begin with? If you don't want them to be responded to, don't include them in your replies. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  No Wikipedia article should rank sources that are not highly cited academic works above highly cited academic works, if such exist. Reprarina (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't about judging specific individual individual sources, this is about establishing WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:COMMONNAME doesn't say anything about deferring to google scholar. For anything like that you have to go to WP:SET and even then it can only conceivably apply to exclusively academic subjects which based on the publishing of papers, which this is not, given that feminism in general is not predominantly about the publishing of papers, but a wide array of sociopolitical acts, ranging from academia to direct action, political lobbying and so on, and the vast majority of "Gender critical feminism" has played out outside academia and in public campaigns for or against specific political reforms, etc, as evidenced by the sources used in this article.

  Stop repeating this argument. I've given my response. Void if removed (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose– gender critical feminism is the original form of second-wave feminism. It exists in it own right. To call it transexclusionary radical feminism is to look at it only from the point of view of transgender ideology. That would about as biased as it is possible to get. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:39, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  having searched through both this article and second-wave feminism the only time either mentions the other is a quote on this article saying that considering Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism an extension of second wave feminism is a misnomer. Because of this I don't see where the claim that gender critical feminism is the original form of second wave feminism comes from. LunaHasArrived (talk) 12:38, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  According to Holly Lawford-Smith, in Gender-critical feminism, p13 , gender-critical feminism ‘has its roots on radical feminism, influential during the second wave, before the various cultural influences that broadened out the scope and constituency of feminism came along.’ Also, the view that it is trans-exclusionary is looking at it backwards – g-c feminism exists without reference to transgender ideology – it is a feminism which is critical of the ideology of gender. Also on p13 ‘Some think of it as being a new name for an old position, while others see it as a new position. Many perceive it as being focused on a single issue, namely the uptake of gender identity. One of the arguments I will make in this book is that this is a mistake. Gender critical feminism is a general feminist theory (albeit one that is a work in progress). The fact that it currently gives the bulk of its attention to a single issue is explained by the urgency of that issue, and not anything more fundamental to the theory of gender-critical feminism itself. It is about being critical of gender, and this has implications for a wide range of feminist issues, not just gender identity. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Nowhere does that say gender critical feminism is the original form of second-wave feminism - it says the opposite. It says GC feminism developed from radical feminism, which developed during the second wave (ie, it developed from an influential subset of second wave theory), and explicitly calls it a work in progress. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:25, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  According to Holly Lawford-Smith. This book is rarely cited by anyone (unlike “transgender-ideological” works) and therefore is not included in the core of sources on which Wikipedia terminology should be based. Reprarina (talk) 02:44, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Although I disagree with the renaming: Janice Raymond's "The Transsexual Empire" (1979) was among the first (and also one of the most influential) works of gender criticism to be published during the second wave of feminism.The act of transitioning is described in the book as "rape" since it "appropriates this body for themselves, reducing the real female form to an artefact." The book additionally promotes the idea that "transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence." The early theories of gender criticalism were based on the marginalisation of transgender people and their access to healthcare. The movement's foundations are anti-trans and "trans-exclusionary". Don'taskwhyImadethis (talk) 13:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  During 1979-2014 they didn't call themselves gender-critical. They called themselves radical feminists. People who called themselves gender-critical during 1979-2014 supported trans rights. See Cristan William's article "TERFs" from The SAGE Encyclopedia in Trans Studies. Reprarina (talk) 14:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  What exactly is "Transgender Ideology" to begin with? And how is this relevant to whether the term "TERF" or "Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist" is appropriate or not? BLACKCATFOXRABBIT (talk) 22:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  1) Transgender ideology says that everyone has a gender identity; trans people have a gender identity which is different from their biological sex; gender identity is more important than biological sex; gender identity should take preference over biological sex when it comes to legal rights, and, in particular, over women’s desire for safety, privacy, and dignity. In general, trans ideology says that what makes you a man or a woman is not the kind of anatomy that you have, but whether you conform to a masculine or a feminine gender stereotype. So, according to transgender ideology, a woman who is not feminine is not ‘really’ a woman. Transgender ideology has this in common with the (wrongly-named) ‘anti-gender’ movement. Gender-critical feminism, on the other hand, says that gender identity does not exist, and that gender is a social construct with the purpose of oppressing women. What makes you a man or a woman is your biological sex, and you should not have to conform to gender stereotypes.

  2) Name of article: Gender-critical feminism is a form for feminism which exists in its own right. Referring to it as ‘transexclusionary radical feminism’ in effect, defines it in relation to its opposition to transgender ideology. But this is a minor and incidental aspect of g-c feminism, which is equally opposed to the attitudes of the so-called ‘anti-gender’ movement. Sweet6970

  Sweet6970 (talk) 12:32, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  A bunch of bullocks. The statement "a woman who is not feminine is not 'really' a woman" has been attributed to trans activists. while idea is fundamentally anti-trans. Being transgender has nothing to do with gender nonconformity under the guise of gender expression. There exist feminine transgender males and masculine transgender women. It would be inaccurate to say that gender expression defines one's gender identity if one were to also misgender transgender persons whose gender identities don't fit into stereotypical gender roles. Furthermore, claiming that transgender identity is essentially a game of "gender stereotypes" misses the reality that, for the typical transsexual, "passing" might occasionally mean the difference between life and death—or at least harassment and abuse. For the typical transsexual, passing is also a safety precaution. Don'taskwhyImadethis (talk) 13:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Where is this supposed evidence that "masculine women" are "not considered women" by Transgender "ideology"? This sounds like a strawman. You are purposeful conflating Gender Identity and Gender Expression; the latter does have to do with your appearance, but the former is psychological. BLACKCATFOXRABBIT (talk) 14:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  "Transgender ideology says that everyone has a gender identity" It's literally a straw man. Transgender rights activists don't deny the existence of agender people. However, most people have gender identity, and it's not the transgender ideology - it's the mainsteam position in academic psychology. This is the dominant scientific paradigm, and its denial can only be a fringe theory, prohibited from popularization on Wikipedia. "In general, trans ideology says that what makes you a man or a woman is not the kind of anatomy that you have, but whether you conform to a masculine or a feminine gender stereotype." Straw man № 2. Transgender rights activists clearly distinguish gender identity and preferred gender expression. Good luck with attributing the transgender movement to supporting gender stereotypes in editing the article Transgender rights movement. Reprarina (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose: aside from anything else, the search criteria and reasoning are flawed.
  "gender-critical feminism" itself is described as a non-neutral term by reliable sources
  This is selective, when even this flawed search turns up results that explicitly state they avoid using TERF/trans-exclusionary radical feminism because they are inflammatory, and totally missing other WP:RS that disagree. All of these have been recounted on these talk pages many times. Must we collect a comprehensive list of all the same sources once again?
  In any case, the sources you rely on do not universally support your position, some using the term gender-critical, some avoiding it, some arguing that it is neutral but that neutral terms should not be used, because they believe the people being described are transphobic, and that it is important to use non-neutral terms for such people.
  • Pierce et al (in TERF Wars) use "gender-critical" throughout. This doesn't support your argument.
  • Bassi & Lefleur (in Trans-Exclusionary Feminisms and the Global New Right) use "gender-critical" throughout. This doesn't support your argument.
  • Amery (in Varieties of TERFness). Doesn't support your argument, and also supports argument that trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism aren't even the same thing:

• Although the moniker ‘TERF’ (‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’) is often applied to this variant of anti-trans activism, in practice the UK movement consists of an assemblage of radical feminists and liberal feminists [...]. Members of this movement usually define themselves as ‘gender critical’ and this is the terminology I use in this article. However, following Sara Ahmed I reproduce this term in scare quotes throughout

  Grinspan et al (in Varieties of TERFness). Argues that gender-critical is a more moderate term, but that that's a bad thing:

  we see the expression ‘gender-critical feminism’ – a self-definition by some individuals and groups labelled TERFs by others – as problematic because it serves specific actors to ‘rebrand’ their anti-trans activism and to legitimise their own positions by presenting them as more moderate

  Accepting this opinion that the neutral term should be avoided to stop the people being described legitimising their positions smacks of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.
  And I note again this is hardly a neutral source when it contains lines like this (with no supporting citation or justification for its juvenile and insulting inclusion):

  some feminists have recently started using the term ‘FART’ which stands for Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobe (instead of TERFs).

  Must we do this for every hostile academic paper? How many papers did you evaluate that did not support your position, can you provide an exhaustive list? Can you list the ones that resile from using your language, because they recognise it is inflammatory? What about books like "Gender-critical feminism" and "Sex & gender: a contemporary reader" and "Female Masculinities" and "Material Girls" and so on? How do we account for media reporting? Or the employment tribunals in the UK which have ruled "gender-critical" a protected belief, while also ruling that calling someone who is gender-critical "TERF" constitutes "harassment" and "derogatory name calling.".
  It is pretty clear that invariably the academics who use language like trans-exclusionary radical feminist and TERF are those who are highly critical of them. This is the kind of perspective that has to be included per WP:BALANCE, but is a long way from WP:COMMONNAME, especially with this over-reliance on niche academic sources.
  Have you considered the impact on all the articles that link to gender critical which will stop making any sense after this title change? The fallout from the TERF (acronym) debacle was non-trivial. Void if removed (talk) 15:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  Pierce et al (in TERF Wars) use "gender-critical" throughout. This doesn't support your argument. That's not correct. In the introduction to TERF wars, with only one exception every instance of gender critical is in single quotation marks. Conversely that chapter also uses the full term trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and to a slightly greater degree than the quotation marked gender critical. TERF wars is also a multi-chapter monograph, subsequent chapters (accessible with WP:LIB) seem to primarily use either the acronym TERF, or one of it's full spelling variants (ie trans-exclusionary radical feminist(s), trans-exclusionary radical feminism) when referring to the subject of this article.

  Bassi & Lefleur (in Trans-Exclusionary Feminisms and the Global New Right) use "gender-critical" throughout. Not wholly correct. Bassi and Lefleur also use the terms trans-exclusionary feminism/feminist and trans-exclusionary radical feminism/feminist throughout. It also seems to be drawing a distinction that trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism are either separate but related movements, or that TERFism is a subset of GCism, something that most other sources including those in the rest of the journal issue don't do. Also, as with TERF wars above, you are focusing on only the introduction within what PBZE has correctly identified as a full special journal issue about this topic. Not counting the introduction and erratum, there are 13 papers within that issue (all accessible through WP:LIB), and with only one exception the other papers within the issue primarily use the term TERF or its full spelling.

  Amery (in Varieties of TERFness). Doesn't support your argument, and also supports argument that trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism aren't even the same thing The quotation you've highlighted doesn't support what you're asserting, primarily because of the content you've elided from the quotation. What Amery actually said was that those who use the terminology gender critical are a collection of radical feminists, liberal feminists, conservatives and others with little prior connection to feminist activism or thought. Amery is quite clearly discussing a broader gender critical movement (for lack of a better term), of whom feminists (be they radical or liberal) are only a part.

  Grinspan et al (in Varieties of TERFness). Argues that gender-critical is a more moderate term, but that that's a bad thing Yes, that is what that introductory editorial to the journal special issue appears to be saying. I would argue this is no different to how anti-abortion activists brand themselves as pro-life activists, or how scientific racists brand themselves as race realists. The purpose of all of these rebrandings is to present the movements they represent as less extreme and more moderate than they are.

  Accepting this opinion that the neutral term should be avoided to stop the people being described legitimising their positions smacks of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That is not the argument that PBZE made when suggesting this move. The primary argument that PBZE has made is that the common name of the topic this article is trans-exclusionary radical feminism. Based on the sources provided, as well as the Google Scholar search results, that does seem to be the case. The primary name for this topic in academic literature seems to be trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

  And I note again this is hardly a neutral source There is no requirement in WP:RS or WP:NPOV that sources must be neutral (see WP:BIASED and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources. As RS states, non-neutral sources can be among the best possible sources for supporting information about different viewpoints on any topic. However the term feminism-appropriating reactionary transphobes does appear to exist, and is remarked on in at least one other research paper, and at least one academic book. Remarking that some feminists have started using the term does seem supported by other sources, even if Grinspan, et al.'s introductory editorial for the special journal special issue does not have a citation for it.

  What about books like "Gender-critical feminism" and "Sex & gender: a contemporary reader" and "Female Masculinities" and "Material Girls" and so on? While I don't doubt that these are important books to the followers of this ideology, they do not appear to represent the mainstream academic view of this topic.

  How do we account for media reporting? Per WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:NEWSORG, they are typically given lesser weight than academic publications. As NEWSORG states Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics, and this is undoubtedly an academic topic given its intersections with feminism and sociology. And even if you wanted to include the results of a Google News search using the same terms as PBZE did above, it only accounts for a few hundred extra articles. TERFism is still ahead by an order of magnitude.

  Or the employment tribunals in the UK While there is certainly a place to mention tribunal findings, the views of the legal system of any one country do not represent the full view of this topic.

  It is pretty clear that invariably the academics who use language like trans-exclusionary radical feminist and TERF are those who are highly critical of them As I mentioned earlier in this reply, you could also make the same argument for the anti-abortion/pro-life movement or scientific racism/race realist articles, as the terms anti-abortion and scientific racist are typically used only by those who are in opposition to those who describe themselves as pro-life and race realists. However you'd still be wrong in doing so.

  Have you considered the impact on all the articles that link to gender critical which will stop making any sense after this title change? Not only can we easily leave a redirect behind after the move, we can easily account for this in the first sentence by simply changing the order of the words. Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism could easily become Trans-exclusionary radical feminism, also known as TERFism or gender-critical feminism. The topic of the article isn't changing, as we're still talking about the same ideological movement. We would just be using what appears to be the common name for this topic within high quality reliable sources.

  The fallout from the TERF (acronym) debacle was non-trivial. This proposed move is not comparable. The issue with the move from TERF to TERF (acronym) was that many of the incoming links to that article were already erroneous after this article was moved into the mainspace in June 2023. That article, per its first sentence from its creation, was about the acronym, not the ideological movement the acronym was used for. Many of the incoming links to it were correct, as they were intended to link to an article about the acronym. However many more were not correct, as they were used in a context where they were discussing the ideological movement. The "fallout" from that requested move was that manual intervention was required to figure out which links needed updating to point towards the acronym article, and which became correct as a result of the move because they were now pointing towards this article. The issue that you're worried about has already been resolved. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  That's not correct

  I make it 8x for "'gender critical' feminist/ism", 2x for "gender critical feminist/ism" and 3x for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist/ism". I don't see how putting "gender critical" in scare quotes changes that they use it more.

  The debate is whether to change "gender critical feminism" to "trans-exclusionary radical feminism". Counting instances of variants like "trans-exclusionary feminism" is irrelevant, because that's not the proposed title.

  This is a common theme in these academic texts, many of which drop back to saying "trans-exclusionary feminism" instead, and precisely beacause trans-exclusionary radical feminism is both contentious and largely false (since the "radical" part is disputed in these sources as I quoted above.

  But that is not the proposal. You can't just add up lots of vaguely similar terms and say they count as your preferred common name. The whole point is which of the many variants is the most common.

  The purpose of all of these rebrandings is to present the movements they represent as less extreme and more moderate than they are

  That is, again, opinion, and disputed.

  And even if you wanted to include the results of a Google News search using the same terms as PBZE did above, it only accounts for a few hundred extra articles. TERFism is still ahead by an order of magnitude.

  A news search for "gender critical feminism" (the current title) brings back 1600 results.

  A news search for "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (the proposed title) brings back 20 results.

  the views of the legal system of any one country do not represent the full view of this topic

  The views of trans studies does also not represent the full view of this topic.

  racist

  I suggest not using this comparison, and that doing so merely makes it look like this is about WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.

  we're still talking about the same ideological movement.

  No, it means that a whole lot of people who are never called "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" anywhere in any WP:RS will become "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" even when they have specifically rejected it and when that makes no sense to call them such. You keep ignoring that you

  The search results that have been used here are on the sole basis that lots of people use the word TERF, because if you exclude that from your search results none of this holds water, since trans exclusionary radical feminist is a niche term with almost no impact outside of academia. But TERF is a widespread term of abuse. The page for Jo Phoenix describes her as a gender critical feminist. She has just won an employment tribunal on the basis that calling her a TERF was harassment and abuse. You cannot both link her to "trans exclusionary radical feminist" on the basis that that is a neutral descriptive term AND use the prevelance of "TERF" to do so when it is so well established that it is widely used as a term of abuse.

  Establish WP:COMMONNAME with the exact proposed new title. Void if removed (talk) 22:49, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  I make it 8x for "'gender critical' feminist/ism", 2x for "gender critical feminist/ism" and 3x for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist/ism". You've excluded the 25-27 times the introduction uses TERF outside of the title and citations. Not that it really matters however, as TERF Wars: An introduction is only an introduction to the other chapters in the monograph.

  That is, again, opinion, and disputed. Disputed by whom? As far as I can tell it has not been disputed nor has there been mention of a dispute within peer reviewed literature on this topic. If you're saying that it's disputed by the adherents of this ideological movement, then a large degree of Mandy Rice-Davies applies. Are there academic sources that dispute this? And do they represent the mainstream view on this topic, or the viewpoint of a significant minority?

  The views of trans studies does also not represent the full view of this topic. The TERF Wars monograph was published in The Sociological Review. The research paper about the FART acronym was published in the European Journal of English Studies. Then there's the Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education that I linked below. In a reply above I have linked to a trio of papers that were published in Sexualities, Women's Studies in Communication, and the Journal of Lesbian Studies. The scholarship we've been discussing here is very broad, and not limited to trans studies.

  I suggest not using this comparison Why not? It is a perfectly legitimate comparison to make when discussing the differences between the names that adherents or members of a movement or ideology use, versus those who are describing the group from the outside.

  doing so merely makes it look like this is about WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS I would strongly suggest that you re-read that essay, because it does not say what you think it says. To right great wrongs, as the essay states, one has to be writing or proposing content that is not verifiable to secondary and independent sources, or does not represent the mainstream view on a topic. Making a contextually appropriate comparison, as I have done, about groups that name themselves something different than the mainstream accepted name of the same group, when that comparison has already been made in a peer reviewed research paper published in Sexualities, is never righting great wrongs.

  No, it means that a whole lot of people who are never called "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" anywhere in any WP:RS will become "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" even when they have specifically rejected it and when that makes no sense to call them such. Again, high quality reliable sources consider gender critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism to be alternative names for the same thing. This is why the very first sentence of our article states Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism. That the adherents of this ideological movement dispute that is immaterial to us at this time, unless that dispute is covered within high quality reliable sources and that dispute represents the mainstream view on the topic. To paraphrase William Lenthall Wikipedia has neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak but as reliable sources are pleased to direct us.

  The page for Jo Phoenix describes her as a gender critical feminist. No, in the current revision it states that she is known for her gender critical views. It does not state that she's a gender critical feminist. The article doesn't even contain the words feminist or feminism.

  You cannot both link [Jo Phoenix] to "trans exclusionary radical feminist" on the basis that that is a neutral descriptive term AND use the prevelance of "TERF" to do so when it is so well established that it is widely used as a term of abuse. There are two answers to this point. First, regardless of the outcome of this move request, Phoenix' article will continue to state that she's known for her gender critical views. That isn't going to change, for Phoenix or any other article that wikilinks to the term. Secondly, the link between trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender critical feminism that you're concerned about is already established within the first sentence of this article. This is no different a situation than how our articles on Focus on the Family or Kristan Hawkins describe them as anti-abortion, where they would instead use the term pro-life. And like this article, our article on anti-abortion movements states in its first sentence that anti-abortion, pro-life, and abolitionist are different names for the same topic. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:02, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  You've excluded the 25-27 times the introduction uses TERF

  Yes. Because that's not the proposed title.

  As far as I can tell it has not been disputed

  Of course it has. I am not here to WP:SATISFY you.

  a large degree of Mandy Rice-Davies applies

  You are veering off WP:COMMONNAME with this line of argument, and into justifying a name reflective of a specific WP:POV on the subject, on the grounds that the current name is a politically motivated rebranding. That's a) disputed and b) irrelevant, unless this move is really about WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, ie.

  Explain what you are sure is the truth of a current or historical political, religious, or moral issue

  It is one thing to argue that one term or another has wider usage or more/less neutral connotations. It is quite another to say "gender critical feminism" should be denied because it is more neutral. To avoid using the more numerous, more neutral term because you don't think that the perspective represented is worthy of a neutral term - ie you want to ensure readers are not "fooled" by the seeming neutrality of the term - is WP:POV. And yes, plenty of hostile sources think that, but WP:MANDY applies there too. Invoking WP:MANDY is little more than a justification for ignoring inconvenient sources and begging the question.

  The scholarship we've been discussing here is very broad

  Of the three sources offered by the the proposer - which you said were persuasive in your own vote - and the two additional ones you suggested, four are queer or trans studies. I don't care about the uncited origins of juvenile insults Grinspan et al chose to recount for no justifiable reason.

  Why not?

  These analogies reveal nothing, because they presume the conclusion. Racism is bad, so if it is like racism, then it is bad. It is circular, adding heat and no light. That's not the question - the question is, is it like racism? And hyperbolic trans scholars think it is, while gender-critical feminists think it is not, and the balance of neutral reporting of the subject along with the UK judiciary agree with the latter.

  when that comparison has already been made

  That's a completely different context. That context was talking about the use of victimhood narratives, silencing etc. The sources cited at the top go a step further and state that a deliberately denigrating, non-neutral term is necessary, because the belief itself is akin to racism. And that is, again,WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Stating that the belief is like racism (it isn't) and choosing to use a non-neutral term in order to deny political opponents the cloak of moderate language is not how you establish WP:NPOVNAME.

  The article doesn't even contain the words feminist or feminism.

  One of the editors who supports this move edited that page to remove "feminist" from the bio less than a week ago, when it had been present for about 2 years previously. I've reinstated it.

  This is no different a situation than [...] Kristan Hawkins

  Kristan Hawkins hasn't just won an employment tribunal stating that drawing this comparison constitutes bullying, harassment and discrimination, while Jo Phoenix has.

  The insistence on continuing to make this comparison - indeed the general free-for-all with terms like "racism" and "TERF" - is increasingly at odds with mainstream treatment, and the view of UK civil society.

  It is also at odds, frankly, with natural and understandable usage on Wikipedia. For example, this recent topic ban appeal. Does this appeal read sensibly if you substitute "trans exclusionary radical feminism" for "gender critical feminism"? Would responding editors have taken issue with that? Would it even have succeeded if phrased like that? What about if "TERF" had been used, if it is so allegedly neutral?

  This move is inherently WP:POV, and frankly shows this article is trying to encapsulate two irreconcilable WP:SUBPOV and needs to be split.

  I suggest if you want to discuss further off topic, create another section, these votes are already a dense mess of argument. Void if removed (talk) 14:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  You seem to constantly be appealing to the authority of a UK judge and perceived notions of UK society whilst academic sources around this exist. As well as this you seem to have Wikipedia:POV against any academic source that is a so called "queer or trans study". I don't see how either of these practices are helpful for producing quality Wikipedia articles. LunaHasArrived (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes. Because that's not the proposed title. If you're going to exclude TERF from the count in the TERF wars introductory editorial, then you also need to exclude every instance of gender-critical feminist and trans-exclusionary radical feminist from those counts as well. Because to use your argument they also aren't the title.

  Of course it has. I am not here to WP:SATISFY you. Again, please read these essay points before you wikilink them into discussions. Asking for a source that supports an unsupported assertion you are making is not covered under SATISFY. It's asking that you comply with WP:V. If the purpose of the rebrand has been disputed, can you provide a reliable source for that?

  You are veering off WP:COMMONNAME with this line of argument, and into justifying a name reflective of a specific WP:POV on the subject, on the grounds that the current name is a politically motivated rebranding. That the current name gender-critical feminism is a politically motivated rebranding, is something that is directly supported by high quality reliable sources, and the paper that paper cites. That isn't righting great wrongs, it is simply following what high quality reliable sources have published on this topic.

  Of the three sources offered by the the proposer Ok, but as can be clearly seen from the rest of my reply in that paragraph, I was talking about more sources than just the three offered by the proposer and the two in my !vote. When considering all of the sources that have been linked and discussed, we're talking about a very broad array of scholarship.

  while gender-critical feminists think it is not, and the balance of neutral reporting of the subject along with the UK judiciary agree with the latter. The opinions of the tribunals service in any one country do not determine the NPOV of a topic. The judiciary are only authoritative with respect to the law of the country in which they serve, and are never considered experts on the underlying subject matter of a case before them. And even within the realm of the law, judges can and often do make mistakes that are subsequently overturned at appeal. This article isn't gender-critical feminism in the United Kingdom. As for what the subjects described by this article think, while their views are a part of this topic, we can only include them insofar as how reliable sources that are independent of them describe them. If the highest quality reliable sources about a topic are negative (or positive), then per policy our articles follow the tone that those sources set. To do otherwise would see Wikipedia engaging in a dispute.

  The sources cited at the top go a step further and state that a deliberately denigrating, non-neutral term is necessary, because the belief itself is akin to racism. And that is, again,WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. As the essay point states, you must be reporting something that is not verifiable to reliable sources. As you freely admit, this comparison is sourced, and if reliable sources make the comparison between the topic of this article and racism, then that is something we can include in this article if there is a consensus to include it.

  One of the editors who supports this move edited that page to remove "feminist" from the bio less than a week ago, when it had been present for about 2 years previously. I've reinstated it. Okay, however even in your revision, the article still doesn't state that Phoenix is a gender-critical feminist, nor does it state she is a feminist in general. It still states she is known for her "gender critical views", and now additionally but unverifiably states that she is a feminist researcher.

  Kristan Hawkins hasn't just won an employment tribunal stating that drawing this comparison constitutes bullying, harassment and discrimination, while Jo Phoenix has. The outcome of Phoenix's employment tribunal has no effect on the terminology that our article uses to describe her. English employment tribunal rulings are in no way binding on our content. The only factor that effects how we describe a person is how that person is described in reliable sources about them.

  The insistence on continuing to make this comparison - indeed the general free-for-all with terms like "racism" and "TERF" - is increasingly at odds with mainstream treatment, and the view of UK civil society. Again, this isn't an article titled gender-critical feminism in the United Kingdom, nor is enwiki as a whole written from the perspective of any single country. Our content is written from a global perspective, not a geographically local one.

  frankly shows this article is trying to encapsulate two irreconcilable WP:SUBPOV and needs to be split Feel free to start a split request in new section below. However when doing so, make sure to demonstrate that high quality reliable sources consider gender-critical feminism to be a separate topic from trans-exclusionary radical feminism. My understanding and recollection of the sources, supported by the many sources that have been linked in this move request, is that they are merely different names for the same underlying ideological movement. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  If the purpose of the rebrand has been disputed, can you provide a reliable source for that?

  You know that those labelled "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" did not invent the label and never accepted it. I am very aware of the claims in the sources you're citing, have referenced them multiple times, and think that (given the mash of subjects covered in this article) they should be included for balance, but that you pretend that there is absolutely no dispute over what they claim is simply wrong.

  "Trans exclusionary radical feminism" was never a "brand" to "rebrand". We have been over this. It was always a label invented by opponents and applied to feminists with a different perspective. Claiming it was a politically motivated rebrand is like saying atheism is a "politically motivated rebrand" from being called heathens. It isn't, it is a rejection of an imposed, pejorative label and articulation of a clear, self-defined philosophical position. How many times must we quote WP:RS on gender-critical feminism saying that it isn't about trans at all, it is about sex?

  You aren't making a claim here for which no evidence has ever been presented, you are offering one side's portrayal of their opponent's philosophy - again - which the other side fundamentally disagree with, and invoking WP:MANDY on the WP:RS that point that out

  I've quoted Holly-Lawford Smith in Sex Matters here before:

  while gender-critical feminism is ceaselessly positioned by its detractors as being about trans issues — indeed, as being essentially `anti-trans' — gender-critical feminism's disagreement with gender identity activism (the activism of some members of the trans community and their allies) is actually just an implication of its core commitments to a sex-based feminism, and not its central preoccupation.

  But since you're insisting on yet more, here from Gender-critical Feminism :

  And finally, we don't call ourselves trans-exclusionary radical feminists' because, as I have already said, gender-critical feminism is not about trans people. It has implications for trans people, in that it includes transmen and not transwomen. But those implications fall out of its larger feminist analysis, and are only important because they come into conflict with gender identity activism, which is currently enjoying widespread institutional power. Our calling ourselves `gender-critical' is not a euphemism for anything. Rather, the new generation of radical feminists tend to self-describe as gender-critical rather than radical in part to carve themselves some space to do things differently without being accused of getting radical feminism wrong.

  And more, on your continual comparison to racism and white supremacy:

  White people are the dominant social group when it comes to race, and `races' have been shown not to be the precise biological categories they were at one time believed to be. White supremacists calling themselves `race realists' in order to justify discrimination against people of colour is ignorant and propagandistic. For the parallel to gender-critical feminism to hold up, gender-critical feminists would have to be a dominant social group when it comes to sex/gender, the concept of sex would have to be based on outdated science, and calling ourselves `gender-critical' (a name we chose for ourselves) rather than 'trans-exclusionary radical feminists' (a name made up by our opponents) would have to be a euphemism for what we really are.

  The entire claim that it is a politically motivated rebranding is - from the perspective of "gender-critical feminists" - completely incoherent. I would very much like it if disputes on this page didn't start from zero every time, and I didn't have to trawl a dozen sources just to state - again - the absolutely obvious position that gender-critical feminists reject the characterisation that the name they adopted after rejecting being branded "TERFs" is a politically motivated rebranding rather than - in their view - an accurate rendition of their position, hence WP:SATISFY.

  something we can include in this article if there is a consensus to include it

  This isn't an argument about specific source inclusion. The argument being made, repeatedly in the support for this move, is that - irrespective of the clear numerical superiority in neutral coverage - "gender-critical feminism" should be avoided because some niche academics have argued that they should be referred to by more clearly insulting terms. This is what you are doing by likening it to racism. You're not saying "let's include this well-sourced, significant viewpoint as balance", you're saying we should go further and agree with that viewpoint, and follow the example set by these niche academic sources even though it is unrepresentative of wider coverage per WP:COMMONNAME.

  If the overwhelming weight of neutral sources that come up in a google search agreed with you (as with, say, race realism vs scientific racism), you'd have a point in a WP:COMMONNAME dispute - but they don't, and the only way you can claim they do is by giving WP:UNDUE weight to a google scholar search and disregarding that this is not a subject substantially determined by academic papers, per WP:SET.

  Retitling this article for the WP:POV reasons given is tantamount to saying "editors on this page think gender-critical feminism is like racism, therefore we're going to say in wikivoice that everyone linked to this article is really a 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist', even though we couldn't make such a claim in wikivoice on their own articles". Given this consensus against doing that, this rename has huge scope and implications.

  For example, we have a whole section on this article describing "gender-critical feminist" views, and quoting books with titles like "gender-critical feminism" - so does that section get retitled? Do we replace all references to "gender-critical feminist" with "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" on this page, despite that being something we generally have to attribute? When Holly-Lawford Smith is espousing gender-critical feminist views, do we say in wikivoice that they are trans-exclusionary radical feminist views? If the "race realism/scientific racism" argument holds, then ultimately we should change all references, including on linked pages, making this a deeply consequential move. We don't allow proponents of scientific racism to self-describe as race realists in wikivoice. Does that apply to gender-critical feminists? If not now, how long till that argument is made based on this page, and this rename?

  they are merely different names for the same underlying ideological movement

  As before, only in the same way that heathens and atheists are "the same ideological movement", ie it depends on your WP:SUBPOV. And as I have shown, before, in talk, here, citing some of those same WP:RS you are relying on, they are not even in agreement about what this supposed "same underlying ideological movement" even is, ascribing to it completely conflicting ideological positions and beliefs, like this absolute howler:

  a branch of feminism whose ideological beliefs hinge on the idea that sex is biological and fixed, rejecting the idea of socially constructed gender.

  Forcing all these different incompatible views into one article is not working, and isn't serving the subjects with anything like WP:NPOV or WP:BALANCE. Void if removed (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  You know that those labelled "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" did not invent the label and never accepted it. That is only half true. As our article on the acronym states, the term trans-exclusionary radical feminist and its acronym was coined by a trans-inclusive radical feminist. There are however trans-exclusionary radical feminists who accept the term, and even display it proudly, both historically and currently, for instance Kari Jaquesson is one notable example of this per her article. The objection to the term, as Thurlow notes, only started in the mid-to-late 2010s.

  You aren't making a claim here for which no evidence has ever been presented, you are offering one side's portrayal of their opponent's philosophy Incorrect. I'm stating what independent reliable sources have stated on this rebrand. Per policy and guideline enwiki articles are based on what independent reliable sources state about a topic, that means our content is based upon how others describe the topic, not how the topic describes itself.

  I've quoted Holly-Lawford Smith Though she may be an influential source, Lawford-Smith is not an independent source. She is, by her own words, including those you've quoted from her books, an activist in this area, and her book in particular is written from the perspective of a gender-critical feminist writing about gender-critical feminism. While we may be able to include her words as an influential source, per policy and guideline, we cannot base our factual content on her words. Conversely Thurlow, Fradella, Campbell et al. and the other sources on the rebrand are independent sources. They represent mainstream scholarship writing about this topic from an outside perspective.

  Retitling this article for the WP:POV reasons given is tantamount to saying "editors on this page think gender-critical feminism is like racism, therefore we're going to say in wikivoice that everyone linked to this article is really a 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist', even though we couldn't make such a claim in wikivoice on their own articles" I've re-checked every !vote made in this discussion so far, and I only see one editor making a !vote somewhat along those lines. All other editors who have mentioned the comparison have done so stating that reliable sources are making the comparison. The distinction between "I think" and "reliable sources state" is an important one. The vast majority of arguments presented in favour of the rename however are that it is the common name for this topic, and if the move is successful I suspect it will be so because of the common name arguments.

  we have a whole section on this article describing "gender-critical feminist" views, and quoting books with titles like "gender-critical feminism" - so does that section get retitled? The section I believe you're describing is simply titled sex and gender. In that section, there are only three citations that contain the words gender critical in their title; a paper in the Industrial Law Journal, a blog post by Holly Lawford-Smith, and a citation to Lawford-Smith's book Gender-Critical Feminism. The title of that section obviously would not need to change, but the first words of the first and second paragraph of that subsection would if they are to match the article title. However, even then we have some flexibility in how we present that information, and some of it like Lawford-Smith's views could be presented elsewhere.

  When Holly-Lawford Smith is espousing gender-critical feminist views, do we say in wikivoice that they are trans-exclusionary radical feminist views? There is nowhere in the article where we state that Lawford-Smith is "espousing gender-critical feminist views". Her name appears in the article body 4 times, twice of which is in proximity to the words gender critical feminism. One is a verbatim quotation from her book which wouldn't need changing. The second could be removed without impacting on the factual content. The other two instances are Lawford-Smith making commentary on intersex conditions, and a claim of language appropriation for the term assigned female at birth, so wouldn't need adjusting at all.

  We don't allow proponents of scientific racism to self-describe as race realists in wikivoice. Does that apply to gender-critical feminists? Right now? No. While we do briefly discuss the shifting terminology in the Terminology section, including about the rebrand being problematic, we don't actually mention anywhere in the article that the rebrand has been compared to the scientific racism/race realist rebrand. We should mention the comparison though, as there are multiple high quality sources for it, and we can make note that the comparison has been disputed by the subjects this article describes. The use of gender-critical as a non-neutral descriptor does not appear to be the mainstream point of view at this time, unlike race realist or pro-life.

  If not now, how long till that argument is made based on this page, and this rename? In bad faith, I suspect someone could make that argument right now. I doubt it would be convincing though to experienced editors. Assuming good faith, I would not make a timescale prediction. Ultimately it would depend on whether or not the term gender-critical becomes perceived as a non-neutral descriptor within the mainstream point of view. If it becomes the mainstream view, then of course it could happen, though I suspect there would be several contentious discussions leading up to that. But that's a pretty big if.

  That is however a separate argument as to what is or is not the common name for this topic.

  Forcing all these different incompatible views into one article is not working, and isn't serving the subjects with anything like WP:NPOV or WP:BALANCE. If you think that is the case, start a start a split request discussion. That will have the strongest chance of success if you can present an array of sources that consider this to be two distinct topics when starting that discussion. I would also strongly suggest reviewing the past discussion where you raised this, to find out why it was unsuccessful, so that you're not simply restating arguments others did not find convincing. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Kari Jaquesson is one notable example of this per her article. The objection to the term, as Thurlow notes, only started in the mid-to-late 2010s.

  To back up your narrative of a mid-2010's "rebrand" by feminists, you're citing an article on someone described as a "conspiracy theorist" who is labelled a TERF, because in a Norwegian article in 2018 she said (in the english translation):

  He cannot be included in the movements, quotas and safe spaces reserved for women. There are specific reasons why we have had to establish this. So in that sense I am a "TERF" (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist). This term is used as a pretext to use violence and make threats against women who do not accept that men are women. What do Sælen Hafstad and Rødseth Tokheim promote by using this term? Men are not subjected to threats or violence, it is us women they are after.

  This doesn't support you chronologically, and there is a significant difference between this statement - which is explaining why she is called a TERF and this is a term of abuse - and self-identifying as a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". This is precisely the usage that was rejected and lead to the 2013-ish coining of "gender-critical feminism".

  independent sources

  As I've pointed out, Thurlow doesn't say they are straightforwardly the same, even noting difference in moderation of their positions, and also stating the general meaningless of TERF:

  By my reading, that paper explicitly acknowledges TERF and gender critical feminism are not the same thing, uses the two terms distinctly, points out different theoretical/ideological approaches, and notes that gender critical feminism arose in part because TERF had come to be used in derogatory terms for merely transphobia in general, ie someone "labeled a TERF for being transphobic" need not be a feminist at all.

  Quoting Thurlow:

  once the term was popularized, being trans-exclusionary and therefore liable to being labelled a TERF did not necessitate being a feminist at all, with the term also being used to describe trans-exclusionary positions from right-wing or religious perspectives.

  Fradella only notes, in the abstract,:

  a relatively small but vocal group of selfproclaimed “gender-critical feminists” (who are sometimes called transexclusionary radical feminists or “TERFs,” for short)

  But goes on to refer to gender-critical feminists/ism throughout. Noting that they are "sometimes called" does not help your argument. That they are "sometimes called" this is obvious, but there are multiple sources from a range of perspectives for why this is inaccurate and rejected, and this paper does not support the WP:COMMONNAME argument because it does not favour this term at all (9 mentions of trans-exclusionary, compared to 77 for gender-critical).

  Even in the footnotes the author concedes (citing Pearce et al):

  Those who subscribe to this perspective are often referred to as trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). Many gender-critical feminists assert that the term “TERF” is a slur

  The picture is far from as straightforward as you imply, and as this renaming claims.

  does not appear to be the mainstream point of view at this time

  I have demonstrated that it is, if you actually search for the current title and proposed title, and not a number of alleged synonyms (when in any case the whole point of WP:COMMONNAME is to decide which of those synonyms is the most common). You have demonstrated that a majority of academics presently disagree, though I have shown this is increasingly less so, but in any event the dispute there is really whether this is a subject mostly governed by the publishing of academic papers, per WP:SET. I don't see how you can claim it is, when so much of this material is political, legal and mainstream media. Academic critiques are a tiny niche.

  I think the only way you can get to WP:COMMONNAME is either a) looking only at a google scholar search or b) including "TERF" in search terms. Void if removed (talk) 11:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  To back up your narrative of a mid-2010's "rebrand" by feminists, you're citing an article on someone described as a "conspiracy theorist" who is labelled a TERF No, I cited Jaquesson as a notable (insofar as we have an article about her) example of someone who has said they are a TERF. This was not to back up [my] narrative of a mid-2010's "rebrand", but instead to respond to your statement that You know that those labelled "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" did not invent the label and never accepted it. That statement is demonstrably wrong, there are those who accept the term. Now I could have easily gone onto social media and find you countless examples of folks who have "I am a TERF" on their profiles, however that would go against WP:BLP, so I picked Jaquesson as an example because her article clearly states that she self-describes as a TERF in a BLP compliant manner. That is all.

  Quoting Thurlow That quote doesn't really support your assertion that trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism are two separate topics. In the context of the rest of the paragraph it is describing how the TERF term specifically became used to describe a group of people wider than those who are/were radfems, and in-fact included those who could not be described as feminist at all. That however says nothing about trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism being separate terms.

  The end of the following paragraph however is far more illustrative: Amidst the melee of controversy and connotations attached to ‘TERF’, the term ‘gender critical feminism/feminist’ began to be used by proponents of trans-exclusionary feminism. While this constitutes a late 2010s renaming of TERF, it would be more accurately described as a rebranding. Thurlow explicitly considers this shift towards gender-critical feminism to be a rebranding of what was already described. The subsequent sections of Thurlow's paper document the shifting language, with Thurlow noting that it started in 2016 as a result of the failures of TERF-related tropes to garner public support against the reforms to the GRA proposed by Theresa May.

  this paper does not support the WP:COMMONNAME argument I know it doesn't, because I wasn't using it to support the COMMONNAME assertion. What Fradella notes is that trans-exclusionary radical feminists and gender-critical feminists are synonyms for the same group of people. That is in response to your repeated tangents that we should split trans-exclusionary and gender-critical into two separate articles. What Fradella supports is the concept that Thurlow has reported, that gender-critical feminism is a rebranding of trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

  I have demonstrated that it is Eh? You have demonstrated that the use of gender-critical is one of a non-neutral descriptor, on par with race realist and pro-life? Because, unless I have massively misinterpreted your statements, you have thus far been arguing the opposite.

  I don't see how you can claim it is, when so much of this material is political, legal and mainstream media. Academic critiques are a tiny niche. Leaving aside the rest of the rest of what you've said in this paragraph, because it seems as though you're replying to something I didn't say, this is because per policy and guideline, enwiki articles are primarily based upon academic sources. Reputable non-academic sources can be used, but they are typically afforded less weight than high quality academic sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  her article clearly states

  Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and checking the source of that claim in the article to me it seems this quote has been taken massively out of context, completely eliding the subsequent explanation that she considers it a term of silencing and abuse. Not at all sure how this doesn't violate WP:BLP.

  You can find gay people with slurs in their profile on Twitter. That does not mean they accept them. The use of TERF as a term of abuse makes it impossible to reason about and I'm not sure that "trans exclusionary radical feminism" is something anyone self-identified with.

  Thurlow explicitly considers this shift towards gender-critical feminism to be a rebranding of what was already described.

  There is a whole section of the paper about how "gender-critical feminists" represent a modification or expansion of the previous rationales, and an engagement with literature, and another that talks about changes in language and theory, and elucidates Serano's distinctions between trans-hostile (TERF) and trans skeptical (gender-critical).

  Taking one word out of context misses all of this. Thurlow does not straightforwardly support the claim that these are equivalent names for the same thing.

  Eh?

  Apologies, disregard all of that - I missed the "non-" in "non-neutral". and completely inverted the meaning of what I was replying to!

  enwiki articles are primarily based upon academic sources.

  But we're talking about WP:COMMONNAME and WP:SET says that a scholar search is only appropriate for subjects that are primarily based on published papers, which this is not.

  I have no dispute with relying on academic sources for relevant material in the article, but I think counting prevelance only in scholar is inappropriate for determining the title, especially when any distinction seems to be narrowing or reversing over time, the nature of the discussion in many scholarly sources is just as much about why "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" shouldn't be used as that it should, and that straight google searches and news searches give the opposite result. Void if removed (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  Not at all sure how this doesn't violate WP:BLP. Feel free to discuss that on that article's talk page then.

  You can find gay people with slurs in their profile on Twitter. It depends. You will find many LGBT+ folks who proudly associate with the term queer as a reclaimed slur. Less so though perhaps for some of the other terms. There are however countless examples of people with terms like "Proud TERF" in their bios, and who identify interchangeably as either a trans-exclusionary radical feminist or gender-critical feminist.

  represent a modification or expansion of the previous rationales, and an engagement with literature, and another that talks about changes in language and theory Yes, that is what a rebrand is. A rebranding is not the same as a renaming. To give an example, New Coke was a rebranding of Coca-Cola. Both the corporate style and the formulation of the drink changed when New Coke was launched and original Coke was withdrawn. The reason why Thurlow and others describe the transition from TERF to GCF as a rebranding is that it coincided with a change in rhetoric, particularly so that the movement would stop being perceived in terms like anti-trans and start being perceived in terms like pro-women.

  Thurlow does go on to note that the rebrand did result in a somewhat of a schism between those who [preferred] the more uncompromising position of the past (the TERF) and those embracing an allegedly more moderate rhetoric (the gender critical). Coincidentally there's even one of these splits happening at the moment on Twitter as a result of Janice Turner's interview with Debbie Hayton published on 3 February, seemingly as a result of Turner using she/her pronouns for Hayton. There appears to be two distinct camps surrounding which pronouns are acceptable to use in reference to Hayton. This sort of thing happens with ideological movements as those movements react to world events around them.

  Serano's distinctions between trans-hostile (TERF) and trans skeptical (gender-critical) That's not Serano's distinctions my friend, that's from Thurlow, and even from Thurlow you're eliding some important context. One of the two citations where Thurlow the distinctions is cited to a 2018 blog post by Serano on Medium. In that blog, Serano states outright that trans-exclusionary radical feminists and gender critical feminists are the same thing by different names: TERFs: an acronym for “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists,” a subgroup of radical feminists (who sometimes self-identify as “gender critical” feminists) that are strongly opposed to transgender identities, experiences, and rights. Now I don't know if her views have changed since that blog was published, I've not been able to find anything conclusive but I've also not done an exhaustive search.

  When Thurlow makes the distinction between the "trans-antagonistic" and "trans-suspicious", she states that the trans-antagonist might be viewed as the TERF position and the trans-suspicious might, in good faith, be viewed as the gender critical position. In this sentence, she is not definitive on whether the gender-critical position is or is not trans-suspicious. That's why she's using words like "might" and "in good faith". However she goes on to state in the following paragraph that the distinction itself is ultimately meaningless. Its function is to allow them to be understood as 'reasonable' to the trans-unaware, [but] its substance differs little from the trans-antagonistic approach. As Thurlow noted earlier in the paper, the reason why the opposition to Theresa May's 2016 proposed reforms of the GRA failed was because they were perceived to be unreasonable. The reason why the movement has seen more success in recent years is because they are now perceived to have "reasonable concerns" as a result of their rhetoric change despite having the same fundamental goals of [dismissing] trans identities and to restrict access to health care. Again, Thurlow is considering this to be a rebrand of the same movement, with the same goals, and she is consistent throughout the paper in this assertion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Can I politely suggest to both you and @Void if removed that this argument is unlikely to convince anyone and therefore should be dropped? Loki (talk) 00:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Agree that we need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the TERF (acronym) move incident, and discuss what to do with links to this article before the move discussion is closed. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:38, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Given this consensus on labelling article subjects "trans exclusionary radical feminists" I think this is a significant article rename that should be raised at the BLP noticeboard. Void if removed (talk) 14:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Please elaborate further. The consensus you're referring to is 5 years old and states:

  There is consensus that we should generally provide in text attribution when using the term "TERF" in BLP.

  Based on your line of argument, what you propose is a non sequitur. I do not see how renaming an article about a topic (ideology/movement/whatever you wanna call it) has anything to do with BLP articles, especially if the consensus only states that in-text attribution is required when using the term in a BLP. TucanHolmes (talk) 14:52, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not saying it applies directly, but it highlights the longstanding contentious nature of this issue and I think the consequences are more than a simple rename. Let's take some examples.

  The page Maya Forstater links here, under the sentence:

  The case established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010

  The definition of "gender critical views" in that context is:

  sex is biological and immutable, people cannot change their sex and sex is distinct from gender-identity

  To click on a link in the above article and be taken to a page titled "trans exclusionary radical feminism" is WP:ASTONISHING. It makes no sense, and it isn't even true in context either, because "trans exclusionary radical feminist" views aren't protected.

  Or the page on Holly Lawford-Smith whose specific area of interest is gender-critical feminism. But she's a significant scholarly source of material saying these two things are different, and people who say they aren't are misrepresenting gender-critical feminism.

  Or the page on Arts Council England which states a gender critical woman, Denise Fahmy and links here.

  When you call someone gender critical, saying they have gender critical views, or study gender critical feminism it is innocuous to link to a page called "gender critical feminism", because these are terms they themselves accept, and are the ones used consistently about them in neutral WP:RS.

  But to swap that for "trans exclusionary radical feminism" is to implicitly assign beliefs and values to them that they reject, and doing so for some of the justifications given here (ie, it is "like race realism") is making an explicit value judgment about the acceptability of the term "gender-critical feminism" full stop. All three of those would reject being labelled "trans exclusionary radical feminist" or accept that "gender-critical feminism" is a synonym for "trans-exclusionary radical feminism", and WP:RS would not support that claim as things stand.

  This is setting up a conflict on every WP:BLP that links here I think. Especially if, as is inevitable once the name changes, the lede and much of the body is rewritten to prefer that term. Given that a substantial majority of pages on this subject link to Gender-critical and only a tiny number link to trans-exclusionary radical feminism (with or without the hyphen), the impact of this is going to be WP:ASTONISHING on many more pages than currently.

  No, this isn't saying someone is a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" inline, granted, but I think it is only a matter of time if this move goes ahead and until then it is still - by indirection - saying it in wikivoice, in a manner of speaking. In exactly the same way that someone claiming to be a "race realist" is actually considered a "scientific racist", this is applying the same level of consideration to these views, ie that their self description is not acceptable. What does that rationale imply about every WP:BLP that links here? It is a little bizarre to have an article explaining how gender-critical views are legally protected in the UK because they aren't like racism, linking to an article that has specifically been renamed because editors insist it is like racism, really.

  Where does this stop? If it were truly the neutral WP:COMMONNAME then why would the above articles not say "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" in wikivoice in all those instances? If the arguments being made here that "gender critical feminists" are "like racists" and so their own name should be avoided, why would any pages use the term? I think there's wider implications to this rename that this local majority should not determine, and that an already non-neutral situation is becoming worse, based on very narrow and selective sourcing, claims that this as an academic subject (when it clearly isn't), and ignoring what the most straightforward google searches bring back. Void if removed (talk) 10:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not saying it applies directly, but it highlights the longstanding contentious nature of this issue and I think the consequences are more than a simple rename. [...] Where does this stop? Somewhere. The slippery slope is not a valid argument in and of itself, and irrelevant to the discussion of a page rename. If you fear that a rename would form one domino in a hypothetical larger shift of consensus, so be it. This is an RfM about a specific issue.

  It is a little bizarre to have an article explaining how gender-critical views are legally protected in the UK because they aren't like racism, linking to an article that has specifically been renamed because editors insist it is like racism, really.

  Again, and I feel like you're not appreciating this point, Wikipedia is not a British Encyclopedia, Wikipedia is written from a global perspective. Wikipedia does not care whether beliefs are found to be "protected" in the UK, it only cares about what reliable sources say. All your arguments, and many of your examples, boil down to an appeal to respect regional differences and sensitivities, a special exemption from Wikipedia's general policies. The neutral point of view policy, which you have often invoked in this discussion, also includes not representing the views prevalent in one specific area (including one specific country) as representative/authoritative on a subject as a whole. To do that, you would need to demonstrate that "gender-critical feminism" in the UK, where all the examples you mention come from, really is a separate/disparate phenomenon from a global "trans-exclusionary radical feminism", which, given its history, I would argue is quite difficult.

  Note: I also feel like you're misrepresenting the substance of the rulings you're referring to, which, to the best of my knowledge, essentially noted that "gender-critical" beliefs are not so dangerous to a democratic society as to warrant total exclusion and discrimination. On a related note, the UK has been slammed by the European Council for "the extensive and often virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people for several years", named in one line with "Hungary, Poland, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom", so not sure what authority we should assign to official bodies of the UK to begin with. That views prevalent in the United Kingdom have a regional bias and are not representative of other regions is indicated e.g. by this inter-regional dispute in The Guardian.

  This is setting up a conflict on every WP:BLP that links here I think. Again, you think that, but your arguments to that effect aren't convincing. You're exaggerating the effect an article rename would have, especially if there's a secondary title present in the lead. It would only be astonishing, as you claim, in the sense that the reader learns new information, i.e. that there's another name and a bigger story to the idea of "gender-critical feminism". Quoting from the principle of least astonishment:

  When the principle of least astonishment is successfully employed, information is understood by the reader without struggle. The average reader should not be shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read. Do not use provocative language. Instead, offer information gently. Use consistent vocabulary in parts that are technical and difficult. To work out which parts of the sentence are going to be difficult for the reader, try to put yourself in the position of a reader hitherto uninformed on the subject. You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. A link should not take readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would go.

  Note that this talks about the average reader. Virtually all the examples you mentioned are from the United Kingdom, so I would argue that readers from the UK would simply learn context. That's not astonishing, that's information.

  In exactly the same way that someone claiming to be a "race realist" is actually considered a "scientific racist", this is applying the same level of consideration to these views, ie that their self description is not acceptable. What does that rationale imply about every WP:BLP that links here? It is a little bizarre to have an article explaining how gender-critical views are legally protected in the UK because they aren't like racism, linking to an article that has specifically been renamed because editors insist it is like racism, really.

  It is only bizarre, if one assumes – and that is your hidden assumption – that legal protection in the UK is an authoritative statement on a subject; which I would argue it isn't. Even assuming you're right, what you're saying is still irrelevant, because the reader wouldn't know the reason for a page rename, and we do not care about WP:OTHERCONTENT. There might as well be a problem in the article you're referring to, for all we know. And yes, as I've noted elsewhere about the endonym–exonym distinction, their self-description is not acceptable in the sense that Wikipedia considers what reliable sources say about a person/topic. Wikipedia may note self-descriptions and contrast them with descriptions in reliable sources, in contentious cases with attribution, but all of this is not an obstacle to renaming this page.

  But to swap that for "trans exclusionary radical feminism" is to implicitly assign beliefs and values to them that they reject, and doing so for some of the justifications given here (ie, it is "like race realism") is making an explicit value judgment about the acceptability of the term "gender-critical feminism" full stop. All three of those would reject being labelled "trans exclusionary radical feminist" or accept that "gender-critical feminism" is a synonym for "trans-exclusionary radical feminism", and WP:RS would not support that claim as things stand.

  You are misrepresenting what people have said here. The comparison to "race realism" vs "scientific racism" was drawn, at least in my case, not because I think these views are comparable or similar, but because examples of renames/"rebranding" are more abundant the more repugnant the belief and its history are to the society judging it, which is why fascists and racists have to do this constantly – giving us many examples and case studies to work with. And, again, their rejection of a label doesn't mean Wikipedia can't use it. Wikipedia relies on reliable sources, not people's self-expression.

  When you call someone gender critical, saying they have gender critical views, or study gender critical feminism it is innocuous to link to a page called "gender critical feminism", because these are terms they themselves accept, and are the ones used consistently about them in neutral WP:RS.

  That is not a valid argument, it amounts to saying that Wikipedia should push their Point Of View. Which reliable sources would you consider "neutral" on the subject? TucanHolmes (talk) 09:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  it amounts to saying that Wikipedia should push their Point Of View

  No, I am saying Wikipedia should not ignore popular usage in order to privilege a minority point of view, and should follow the clear majority of usage across a broad range of sources, not inflate the importance of niche academic opinion when this is a non-academic topic, merely a topic on which academic opinions exist, like many others. WP:COMMONNAME on this is settled with a simple google search which, as I've repeatedly said, obviously favours "gender critical feminism", and especially when a survey of academic opinion reveals a wide range of opinions on terminology.

  Which reliable sources would you consider "neutral" on the subject?

  No source is neutral, but I would say, for example, that when a wide political spread of mainstream media (The BBC, The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph) all use the same language when discussing the same story about the same subject for a mass audience, that is as close to an indication of which language is neutral as you can get. Void if removed (talk) 19:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  "WP:COMMONNAME on this is settled with a simple google search" unless you can prove that the majority of these sources are independent and reliable I can't see how a general google search is helpful. "No source is neutral, but I would say, for example, that when a wide political spread of mainstream media (The BBC, The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph) all use the same language" as discussed before on here, the term may be popular in the UK however this article isn't solely about the UK so it would be far more helpful to have a more international view of mainstream media sources. LunaHasArrived (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  Again, the sources you mention (with maybe the exception of The Guardian) are all sources from, or primarily based in, the UK. That might be a wide political spread, but it is still a narrow regional spread. This only further suggests to me that this is indeed a regional, or at least regionally prevalent, POV. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  But to swap that for "trans exclusionary radical feminism" is to implicitly assign beliefs and values to them that they reject, and doing so for some of the justifications given here (ie, it is "like race realism") is making an explicit value judgment about the acceptability of the term "gender-critical feminism" full stop

  Here is a slightly less controversial example: climate change denial, which is the title Wikipedia uses instead of climate change skepticism. Some editors may feel offended by such a description, but as that article says, the topic is an ideological phenomenon academics and scientists call climate change denial, and so that is the title we use.

  claims that this as an academic subject (when it clearly isn't)

  Even though climate change denial isn't solely in the realm of academia (in the sense that many factors are involved, such as the oil industry, mass media outlets, economic policy, and public opinion), the article about climate change denial still considers academic sources to be the most reliable sources on the subject. Climatology and environmental science are thoroughly studied in high-quality academic sources, which we deem the most reliable sources on the topic. I don't see how sociology and gender studies are any different. PBZE (talk) 10:14, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  A major difference is that sociology and gender studies are not sciences. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  Now you're venturing deeply into original research. To quote a well-known encyclopedia:

  Sociology is the scientific and systematic study of human society [...]

  You are correct in the sense that sociology is a social science, but it uses the scientific method and still establishes scientifically valid (i.e. reproducible/verifiable) results.

  Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field, with contributions from many disciplines. It is not a monolith, and you shouldn't treat it that way.

  Your statement also isn't a response to what PBZE said, they never mentioned science, they mentioned academic sources, i.e. experts. By design, Wikipedia weighs the opinions and results of experts in a field more highly than the opinion of non-experts. It's an encyclopedia, not a news journal. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  1) You say that sociology establishes scientifically (i.e. reproducible/verifiable) results. On the contrary, there is a well-known problem in sociology, that its results are not replicatable: [13]

  2) Please do not tell me that my response to what PBZE said was not a response to what PBZE said. PBZE did mention science: climatology and environmental science. I assume you are not suggesting that climate change is an unscientific left-wing hoax (?)

  Sweet6970 (talk) 21:03, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  What are you talking about? This is exactly what I said and meant: Results in sociology are verifiable (which implies they are also falsifiable, as is happening in the replication crisis). The fact that results can be, and are being, falsified, is what makes sociology a science. That is what the scientific method is. I do not want to get into an epistemological discussion here, this is all irrelevant to the issue at hand.

  Again, PBZE talked about academic sources, using climate science as one example. Responding that sociology is not a science (which is demonstrably false) and that gender studies (an interdisciplinary field) is not a science is in no way a response to that. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  If sociology and gender studies were unscientific, we would write articles on feminism and sexism with emphatic respect for the point of view of sexists. Because there is no such consensus among politicians in the world to support feminism and condemn sexism. There are countless anti-feminist politicians in the world. But we consider sociology and gender studies to be scientific, and we write articles about feminism and sexism from the perspective of sociologists and gender researchers. Reprarina (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  But that's not really illuminating, because a google search brings back 715,000 results for "climate change denial" and only 162,000 results for "climate change skepticism", so per WP:COMMONNAME it is appropriately titled simply by a google search. It isn't to do with deference to academia at all. Void if removed (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  The FAQ for the climate change denial article makes no mention of Google searches, but it does base its rationale on the views of scientists and academics. PBZE (talk) 23:05, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  Not really my point and aside from anything else climate change is a science subject determined by the publishing of papers, and this isn't so the comparison is not relevant for an argument about naming.

  But actually, this is an example of exactly the sort of WP:BLP issue I'm talking about.

  Because this page has been named "climate change denial" and then a redirect added from "climate change skeptic" and now the pages of notable so-called "skeptics" like Bjorn Lomborg don't link anywhere because there are local arguments that the targeted page under the redirect is for "deniers". The situation on justifying the name isn't comparable, but this is what I meant when I said This is setting up a conflict on every WP:BLP that links here. Void if removed (talk) 07:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t see a big difference between deniers of the scientific consensus in climatology and deniers of the scientific consensus in transgender studies. Reprarina (talk) 12:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  This rename isn't going to change the text of other articles. To take an example, Kathleen Stock's article currently states that she is acknowledged as a prominent gender-critical feminist, and if this move request is successful her article will continue to state that. Even the wikilink won't change, because we'll leave behind a redirect. All that will change is that this article's primary title will be trans-exclusionary radical feminism, and the first sentence will very likely read Trans-exclusionary radical feminism, also known as gender-critical feminism or TERFism... (emphasis adapted from original) instead of the current Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism (emphasis from original).

  Your concern that we'll be going against the 2019 consensus on labelling article subjects as TERFs is, in my opinion unfounded. If that problem exists at all, then it already exists where we state, as the highest quality reliable sources clearly state, that gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism are alternate names for the same concept. This move request being successful won't change that. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:47, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  Recording my WP:COMMONNAME search results again here, for clarity, rather than buried under half a dozen replies upthread. I think these are clearer and simpler than the proposers, and do not support the move, especially News.

  Google Scholar (excluding citations):

  • "gender critical feminism" (304) < "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (468)

  Google Scholar (excluding citations), since 2020:

  • "gender critical feminism" (259) < "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (334)

  Google Scholar (excluding citations), past year:

  • "gender critical feminism" (125) > "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (118)

  Google:

  • "gender critical feminism" (23,700) > "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (22,800)

  Google (since 2020):

  • "gender critical feminism" (3450) > "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (2910)

  Google (past year):

  • "gender critical feminism" (1630) > "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (1140)

  Google news:

  • "Gender critical feminism" (1290) > "trans exclusionary radical feminism" (136)

  Google trends (12 months and 5 years) show "gender critical feminism" more popular. Void if removed (talk) 08:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• support per nom, particularly the bit about NPOV—blindlynx 15:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
• support per WP:COMMONNAME and NPOV. "Gender critical" is a term that multiple RS have noted is a politically motivated rebranding. Places that use it often note it's a rebranding and self-selected term and do things like reproduce it explicitly in scare quotes. We are under no obligation to call trans-exclusionary radical feminists "gender critical feminists" just because sources say that's what they started calling themselves a few years ago. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support The Google Scholar searches are useful as a quick sanity check and trend, and are supported by JSTOR searches using the same terms (gender critical, TERF), however they don't tell the full story. What I find far more convincing are the three journal special issues highlighted, and tertiary sources like The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies (pages 822-825), and the Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education (pages 695-698), all of which use the term TERF or one of its full spelling variants as the primary name or term for this topic.
  I have tried searching to see if there are any journal special issues or tertiary sources published by reputable academic publishing houses that use "gender critical" or one of its variants as the primary name for this topic, and have not been able to find any. If opponents to this move are aware of any such sources, it would be immensely helpful for those to be linked for comparison. However, in the absence of such sources and with the plethora that demonstrate the inverse, I am minded to draw the conclusion that the primary name for this topic is trans-exclusionary radical feminism as proposed above. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Support, on the following points:

1. Calling it "Gender critical feminism" is like calling racism "race realism". It's a rebrand that happened fairly recently and entirely because "terfism" had too much bad publicity.

2. "Gender critical feminism" is a vague and non-informative moniker adopted specifically for this vagueness as to be more palatable, whereas "trans exclusionary radical feminism" makes very clear the beliefs held.

3. "Terf" is not a derogatory word, anymore than "racist" is. It's simply a descriptor that accurately and neutrally characterizes a hateful ideology. Gender critical, neither accurately nor neutrally does such a thing.

4. Even if it was derogatory, which it's not, that doesn't necessarily discount it. The Nazis considered the word "Nazi" derogatory. They called themselves National Socialists. We still call them Nazis, and their ideology "Nazism". Snokalok (talk) 21:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Snokalok: Your comparison of g-c feminism to racism and Nazism is misconceived. Forstater won her appeal because the judge said that g-c feminism is not unworthy of respect in a democratic society. He specifically referred to g-c feminism as not being comparable to Nazism. And in the case of Jo Phoenix, the judge said that comparing her to a ‘racist uncle’ amounted to harassment. It does not aid civil discussion to compare feminists to Nazis. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this point as well. @Snokalok what you have just written is none other than immature polemics. "neutrally characterizes a hateful ideology" is solely your own opinion, and clearly one that is not neutral. Zilch-nada (talk) 13:00, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Judges are not reliable sources for Wikipedia. We write articles primarily based on well-cited academic works, not on judge's decisions. Reprarina (talk) 15:35, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The opinion of one man is as utterly irrelevant to the discussion as his position of legal authority.

And even if it wasn’t, which is a huge if, Wikipedia is not a British website, and it is not beholden to opinions given by foreign government officials. Unless you want to start having wikipedia comply with the words of countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia?

Also, telling someone their views are bigoted, is not harassment. Again, it doesn’t matter even slightly what the designated authority wielder on some random island in the Atlantic says. Snokalok (talk) 21:32, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

TERF ideology, which is just a form of transphobia, has indeed been widely compared to racism, antisemitism and comparable ideologies in many RS, and is commonly linked to far-right extremism. Also, a reminder that this isn't an article about the UK. In the US it's perfectly legal to be a Nazi and hold Nazi views. Just because your opinions are not prohibited does not imply you can escape critical analysis or dictate the terminology to be adopted by Wikipedia. This applies to TERFs in the same way that it applies to supporters of other fringe ideologies. And again, the UK is hardly an authority on anything related to LGBT+ rights/issues; the Council of Europe considers it to be one of the worst countries in Europe in regard to LGBT+ rights, on par with Russia for its virulent attacks on LGBT+ rights.[14] --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 14:10, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Weak Oppose, I agree with User:LokiTheLiar that there isn't a huge advantage for either name. The main problem is the perception that those who still use the "TERF" acronym tend to be opposed to the movement, since "Gender Critical" Feminists gradually abandoned "TERF" beginning in the mid 2010s. Also, despite the fact that "Gender Critical" feminism started as an offshoot of Radical Feminism, not all GCs agree that "Radical" is an appropriate label for them, instead arguing that their movement is "moderate" compared to the supposedly "radical" transgender rights movement.

I agree that the timing of the "rebrand" was suspicious, as it happened around the time where Transgender issues started to get mainstream attention, so I understand why some users are scared of legitimizing or normalizing their talking points. There is also the fact that we can't always take what "Gender Critical" Feminists say at face value, given that they are not neutral actors in this supposed "debate" and have an incentive to portray themselves in the most favorable light possible. At the same time though, they have been largely successful in "rebranding" themselves, particularly in the UK. Much of the journalist/media/pundit commentary refers to them as "Gender Critical" leading to somewhat of a divide between the academic literature (who stil use "TERF") and the media reports (who use "Gender Critical")

Arguably, it doesn't really matter since we seem to be using "TERF" and "Gender Critical" virtually interchangeably on this article, but I think keeping the current title would be a little better for clarity purposes. BLACKCATFOXRABBIT (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose I think that "Gender Critical" is the COMMONNAME, at least for now. It may not always have been and it may not be forever but that is what the right wing newspapers currently call it when they promote it on their front pages. I understand that a rebrand to "Sex Realist" (yes, really) is in progress but we need to wait and see whether they can make that stick before we adapt the article accordingly. If we are going to change anything at all, I wonder whether the name should be capitalised as "Gender Critical" to make it clear that it is a name not a description. I'd also suggest dropping "feminism" from the title because it is clear that not all in the Gender Critical movement consider it feminist. In fact, my tentative suggestion for the name would be "Gender Critical movement". --DanielRigal (talk) 01:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
  • I agree that gender-critical movement could be a viable alternative if the article is not moved to trans-exclusionary radical feminism. Gender-critical and GC are often used alone (without feminism), both by the movement itself and in descriptive use. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 01:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Support moving to Gender-critical movement. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 18:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support. We looked into this before[15] and found that trans-exclusionary radical feminism (including its abbreviated forms) was the most common name in academic literature by far. There are hardly results for gender-critical feminism before around 2020, so it's a rather recent term. Both terms are used today. Gender-critical feminism is, however, primarily a UK term, whereas trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF movement, ideology etc.) remains a widely used term elsewhere, including the United States. Gender-critical feminism has also been criticized, as noted, for being somewhat like "race realism". It's important to note that trans-exclusionary radical feminism was conceived as a neutral term and is used in a descriptive fashion by academic sources; the "radical" part only refers to its genealogical roots in radical feminism, itself a neutral term. Also, there is no requirement that every supporter of the ideology must identify with a specific term for us to use it. Compared to a term like white supremacism, trans-exclusionary radical feminism even goes out of its way to be as neutral as possible. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 01:07, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Though TERF was created to be a "deliberately technically neutral description", the term is now typically considered derogatory or disparaging. People labeled TERFs often reject the label, instead describing their beliefs as gender critical.

  It is not correct to say that "TERF" lacks contention, nor "to be as neutral as possible". Even if TERF was originally neutral, we cannot use the same logic now, given that virtually no self-proclaimed GCFs describe themselves as TERF; GCF is a rebranding. My personal opinion is that the rebranding is significant enough such that we should have two articles. Zilch-nada (talk) 07:05, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Numerous TERFs call themselves TERFs, there are TERF groups that call themselves TERFs as part their names featured at major TERF conferences, TERFs widely use the term as a self-description. The term is descriptive and neutral in mainstream usage (scholarly, media). But all of this doesn't matter. TERFs don't get to dictate how we refer to the TERF ideology, just like white supremacists don't get to decide that our article on their ideology must be named in accordance with their preferences ("race realism"). TERF and the self-description GCF, invented around 2020, used by some mainly in the UK refer to the same thing, and we don't have separate articles for the same thing just based on their preferences regarding the name. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 11:21, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Comparing this to white supremacy is utter juvenile tripe. Take a break. Zilch-nada (talk) 11:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  There are many well-cited academic sources which links racism and TERFism and find them to be analogical. We can't ignore it. Reprarina (talk) 15:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  Cite sources comparing GCF to white supremacy, right here. Zilch-nada (talk) 05:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  It only took about five minutes to find this and this. Loki (talk) 05:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  Please remain civil. User Amanda Brant did not directly compare gender-critical feminism / trans-exclusionary radical feminism to white supremacy, but just pointed out that we don't use self-descriptors (endonyms, if you are inclined to call them that) for ideological currents/positions, just as we don't always use endonyms in article titles in general. Use as a self-descriptor, by itself, is not a strong argument as far as Wikipedia's standards for article titles are concerned. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:50, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Strong oppose, nominator's WP:COMMONNAME analysis is flawed as the Google Scholar results for trans exclusionary feminism includes the terms "TERF" or "TERFs" which includes articles unrelated to this topic. For example, on page 10 I see an article relating to a chemical with "terf" in the name, O3/H2O2 Treatment of Methyl-terf-Butyl Ether in Contaminated Waters: Effect of Background COD on the O3-Dose. Removing "TERF" from the search results, we get 2,260 results, which is a third of the results nominator found for "gender critical feminism". —Panamitsu (talk) 01:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. But investigating further, I've noticed that "gender critical" also has false positives, like:

• Sex and gender: critical variables in pre-clinical and clinical medical research
• Reproducing gender: Critical essays on educational theory and feminist politics
• Gender, critical mass, and judicial decision making
• General introduction: gender-critical turns in the study of religion

If we only include the full names, both having the word "feminism" in them, we still get "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" outnumbering "gender-critical feminism":

• ("gender-critical feminism" OR "gender-critical feminist" OR "gender-critical feminists") - about 836 results
• ("trans-exclusionary radical feminism" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" OR "trans-exclusionary radical feminists") - about 2,260 results

PBZE (talk) 02:02, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

There were plenty of still reliable sources in which the term “gender-critical” is used not related to the subject of the article. This is an appropriated term. People who called themselves gender-critical just 10 years ago meant that they are against gender binary, against discrimination against non-binary people, against gender stereotypes, against gender policing. Just do a contextual search on ten-year-old sources and see that Cristan Williams is reliable for this claim. And even today only a very small number of scholars use the term “gender critical feminists” unironically in relation to TERFs. I can even say that opponents of the renaming keep calling the same names, such as Holly Lawford-Smith. They do not name anyone who is actively cited, who writes actively cited third-party source. Wikipedia should not give the impression that “gender-critical feminism” for those feminists who say that trans women are not women is mainstream academic terminology. It is not mainstream one, it is peripheral one at best and fringe one at worst. Reprarina (talk) 03:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Reprarina – as our article says, g-c feminists are opposed to gender stereotypes etc. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:22, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

That's what they say. But not what academic sources says about them. Academic sources clearly view them as gender essentialists. Reprarina (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, since g-c feminism is the opposite of gender-essentialism, this is presumably a misreading. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:16, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Not Universally. From Finn Mackay’s “Female Masculinities”, in the section titled “GC is critical of essentialism” :

GC campaigns are frequently charged with being essentialist. I would suggest that this, in fact, is one of the main critiques of GC feminism; sometimes, it must be said, unfairly. While I have much to disagree with in GC narratives, I can also see that it is frequently misrepresented and simplified. [...] In 2018, journalist Sarah Ditum wrote for The Economist, 'Feminism offers the radical proposition that what you like, what you wear and who you are should not be dictated by your chromosomes, hormones or any other marker of biological sex' (2018a). This is usually a foundational stance of GC positions, which also, importantly, has much in common with Radical Feminist theory, as I argued earlier in Chapter 2. GC activists are thus not default essentialists, and I suggest it is a mistake to label them as such

Void if removed (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

We do need to remember that ideological movements aren't necessarily logically consistent, and there's no reason for us to assume that TERFism is. In fact, some sources describe TERFism as having contradictions, such as in this excerpt from The “new” white feminism: trans-exclusionary radical feminism and the problem of biological determinism in western feminist theory:

The biology-based/sex-essentialist ideology of TERF is constituted by two contradictory assumptions that are joined in dialectical opposition. First, TERFs adopt aspects of a socially constructivist approach to argue that people are taught gender attributes based on the biological sex that they were assigned to at birth (Williams, "Gender"). In particular, they argue that all biological "females" are socialized to be feminine and that all biological "males" are socialized to be masculine, and it is only through such socialization that people come to adopt a "gender identity" (Bettcher, "Feminist"; also see Raymond; Hungerford). For TERFs, a social constructivist perspective of gender de-essentializes gender differences and thus undermines the patriarchal belief that men are naturally superior to women (Williams, "Gender").

It is because trans* women disrupt this logic, identifying with gender categories based not on their biological sex but according to an internal sense of self, that TERFs believe that trans* women naturalize hegemonic gender-sex norms. Yet at the same time, the very idea that gender is always constituted on the basis of sex suggests a biological rather than a social foundation for gender development (Williams, "Unpacking"). If, as TERFs claim, gender identification is based solely on biology, then biology is an essential component of gender's materialization, therefore making it, at least in part, biologically determined. Hence, while TERFs reject biology, they simultaneously invoke it.

By posturing biology as both the cause and antithesis of feminist theory, TERFs simultaneously invalidate and villainize trans* women (Bettcher, "Evil"). On the one hand, TERFs use biological determinism to normalize the idea that a certain experience of gendered being exists that not only marks the "authentic ground" for womanhood but does so based on Western prescriptions of gender-sex embodiment (Ahmed; Green; Oyewumi, Invention). As a result, TERFs can discredit the subjective experiences of those whose bodies and minds emerge within and through the rupturing of analogous Western gender-sex categories, such as trans* people (Stryker 254). Consequentially, trans* women are rendered "inauthentic" or "not real," thereby pushing them outside the political and ideological boundaries of feminist praxis (Ahmed 30; Bettcher, "Evil"). Yet, at the same time, TERFs also draw on aspects of social constructivism to claim that trans* people adopt a biological approach to gender difference, which then makes it appear as if TERFs are the ones who are "countering gender essentialism and that trans* people are the ones reinforcing it" (Williams, "Unpacking").

— Jade Crimson Rose Da Costa, The “new” white feminism: trans-exclusionary radical feminism and the problem of biological determinism in western feminist theory

PBZE (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm still not convinced because these are just the Google Scholar sources, which the COMMONNAME is not limited to. On Bing (Google has removed search result counts for me), Gender-critical feminism gets 65,100 results whereas trans-exclusionary radical feminism returns 36,500 results and trans-exclusionary feminism yields 12,800 results. —Panamitsu (talk) 10:28, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strong support. 1. The core of reliable sources from which Wikipedia is written is the most cited academic literature, and only this core can establish dominant terminology for Wikipedia. 2. If academic enviroment is captured by activists disliked by Wikipedia editors, see paragraph 1.Reprarina (talk) 02:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think these should be two separate articles to avoid contention. The article TERF (acronym) could be moved to Trans-exclusionary radical feminism, whereas this article should remain. I must indeed admit that this article absolutely should mention the "GCF" terminology's relationship to "TERF"; these two are not synonymous - GCF as being often known as TERF - and certainly mostly by opponents - does not make them synonymous. But the two are closely linked, as other editors have said, given that GCF is a sort-of rebranding. But I think that it is a "rebranding" that is important enough for its own article, given the numerous sources citing "gender-critical beliefs" associated with the movement.

Zilch-nada (talk) 06:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Moving the article TERF (acronym) in its current form to Trans-exclusionary radical feminism would make no sense, since it's specifically about the acronym, i.e. abbreviation. Please clarify what you mean by "move". TucanHolmes (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The article on the acronym should be expanded to cover TERFism in general, including the term. The GCF article should remain, showing the link with such TERFism Zilch-nada (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

This is the issue with that article and the move & redirect. Rather than incorporate material about purported "TERFism" in that article, it was:

- Incorporated to this long-gestated draft article titled "gender-critical feminism", which was met with substantial disagreement once the page moved out of drafts last Summer, then, within weeks and while those disputes over balance and tone were still in progress:

- TERF was redirected here, without notifying this page for any discussion ahead of time, and TERF renamed to TERF (Acronym)

- Now an attempt to rename this article to "trans exclusionary radical feminism"

All of which manages to obscure the most common usage of TERF as a term of insult, tacitly violates the longstanding consensus to not refer to BLP subjects as "TERF" or "trans exclusionary radical feminist" unattributed in wikivoice by changing all the "gender critical" links underneath them, and denies the existence of "gender-critical feminism" as a distinct subject in its own right. This is a difference of WP:SUBPOV and ideally "gender critical feminism" should be separated. Void if removed (talk) 16:11, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Again, I do not follow your line of reasoning. We can not refer to living persons as TERFs / trans exclusionary radical feminists in wikivoice and still link to an article that calls the movement "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" at the same time. These things are not contradictory, especially if we list gender-critical feminism as a secondary title. Your retelling of the history leading up to the creation of this article could also be easily interpreted in a different way: This article being a POV fork of an article called "trans-exclusionary radical feminism".

It's also unclear to me what your goal is with this line of reasoning: Do you want to explicitly split the subject into two articles (trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism), with a third article dealing with TERF (acronym)?

As for your claim, all of which manages to obscure the most common usage of TERF as a term of insult, the whole point of the article TERF (acronym) is that there's disagreement over whether the term even constitutes an insult. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but the comparison to terms such as "racist" (vs "race realist") is apt: Just because a label for an ideology is considered "insulting" to the ideologue, and they then invent a new term for their ideology, which is functionally indistinguishable from the original ideology complete with its original label, then that ideologue gets lumped into the original category, with the original label. You can choose your endonym, but not your exonym. TucanHolmes (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Do you want to explicitly split the subject into two articles (trans-exclusionary radical feminism and gender-critical feminism), with a third article dealing with TERF (acronym)?

That would be absolutely fine by me. Failing that, I think an article titled "gender-critical feminism" should actually be about "gender-critical feminism" and not a dumping ground for every bad thing anyone ever said about TERFs as if they are the exact same thing, and not continually derailed by TERF discussions and TERF redirects and TERF renames.

there's disagreement over whether the term even constitutes an insult

There is scholarly disagreement over whether it is technically a slur. That is a specific thing.

There is no serious disagreement that TERF is an insult. Even some of the papers arguing in favour of using it concede it is an insult. Even sources arguing it isn't technically a slur, concede it is an insult.

the comparison to terms such as "racist" (vs "race realist") is apt

It is only apt if "gender critical feminist" is a term that is a sanitisation of a coherent, pre-existing "bad" view that is accurately described by "trans-exclusionary radical feminist". This is disputed, and not borne out by neutral coverage outside of academic niches, which invariably (in mainstream media sources across the political spectrum, particularly in the UK), recognise "gender-critical" as a term in its own right, indeed treat that as the more neutral and respectful term. The amount of digression and argument over really basic matters in these replies I think illustrates why this move request has been rushed, ill-conceived, and should not proceed, because this is nowhere near a straightforward WP:COMMONNAME request, but really an article that is in dire need of a WP:SUBPOV split. Void if removed (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

If you feel like the article is in dire need of a SUBPOV split, you may discuss this elsewhere.

It is only apt if "gender critical feminist" is a term that is a sanitisation of a coherent, pre-existing "bad" view that is accurately described by "trans-exclusionary radical feminist".

Yes, that is what a lot of sources argue. As for your claim that This is disputed, and not borne out by neutral coverage outside of academic niches [???], this is all your opinion. You don't get to just decide which sources are "neutral" and which are by this logic disqualified, we consider what reliable sources have to say, and only disqualify sources if there are clear problems. Please be more specific. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

And I would additionally be open to the idea of this article being moved to "gender-critical movement" as another editor has suggested, given that most of the contention against GCFs in this article engages with their views on feminism ("not real feminists" etc.) as opposed to actual gender-critical views themselves. GC"F" is encompassed by a much broader movement, clearly beyond feminism. Zilch-nada (talk) 07:11, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I think this definitely fails WP:COMMONNAME for the article in its current form, and also encompasses more than just a simple "move", since it would imply a significant shift in the focus of the article, widening it to a purported broader movement. Either way, this would probably have to be discussed elsewhere on this talk page, since it clearly goes beyond the scope of this discussion. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:45, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Support per nomination, I agree that neither gender critical feminism or trans exclusionary radical feminism are currently neutral LunaHasArrived (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

That neither are neutral? Then why do you support a change from one to another? Zilch-nada (talk) 05:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Because it's clear that Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is the preferred term in academic literature. Also remember the purpose of Wikipedia isn't meant to be neutral but rather should be accurate. LunaHasArrived (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Support per nomination, trans-exclusionary radical feminism is a term with much more history and is much more descriptive. People who identify as both gender critical and feminists tend to openly identify as radical feminists, and the trans-exclusionary terminology distinguishes them from trans-inclusionary radical feminists, who do not exist any longer in great numbers but who were very much a part of second wave feminism. Gender critical includes both feminists and non-feminists and perhaps should have its own article as @Zilch-nada suggested. For example, basically all trans-exclusive radical feminists are concerned with sex work, rape, and pornography, but many gender critical people are only concerned with trans people. In my opinion, whether or not trans-exclusionary radical feminist or gender critical is more neutral is almost immaterial. The word "communist" can be used in a derogatory way towards non-communists who support social programs and diversity, but it remains in use and on Wikipedia is considered distinct from the term Democrat or Liberal for example.Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 17:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Computer-ergonomics: the comparison with communist doesn't seem to be particular apt to me. AFAIK, most people who support communism have no problem with being called communist to this day. At most they may dispute whether stuff commonly called communism like the Soviet Union is actually communism. The fact that communist is sometime used a slur against people who should not be called communist only concern them as they find it offensive to claim people who only support a limited amount of what they support are inaccurately called communist. This isn't the case with TERF, where the vast majority of people called that seem to find it offensive. I mean AFAIK, even most of those who may say something like "I'm a proud TERF" consider it a slur, but treat it as a reclaimed slur so something they're allowed to say but other's should not call them. To some extent as others have said there is also a problem where TERF is used to refer to people who should not reasonably be called it TERF, e.g. J K Rowling may have similar views regarding trans-issues and may also be a feminist, her views seem somewhat far from TERFs outside of trans-issues. However this also isn't the primary reason why even they find it offensive, it's not because they doesn't want to be associated with the other TERF views it's just that they too find the term offensive even when used to describe people who the term does fit, let alone them who doesn't subscribe to a bunch of their views. I mean because the term is sometimes use so widely to include people like KJKM who reject the feminist label or heck even people who are even further from being feminist e.g. religious conservatives who think a woman's place is in the home etc (but this is much rarer), there are a few people who might find the term offensive not just because they think it generally is but because it associates them with stuff they thoroughly reject, but this only describes a small portion of the slur concerns. Nil Einne (talk) 19:12, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that I said "derogatory" - a derogatory term is much different than a slur. If we look at list of pejorative terms there is no category for slurs based upon political beliefs. Category:Pejorative terms for women also does not include TERF, because people are widely aware that it is a political belief. The page for TERF (acronym), though it discusses the slur debate, "curiously" has only cisgender people claiming that it is. And crucially, rather than being tagged as a pejorative term, it is tagged as Discrimination against Transgender People, Linguistic Controversies, and related terms. Because there is no such thing as widespread discrimination against cisgender women who do not believe in science, whether that be related to vaccines, fluoride, cooking your vegetables, or hormone replacement therapy. Computer-ergonomics (he/him; talk; please ping me in replies ) 21:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes they think that it's offensive. They also think that cisgender is offensive, so what? Reprarina (talk) 03:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Oppose, on the basis that "radical feminism" is an inaccurate description of this ideology.[16] Although the TERF/GC movement has its roots in radical feminism, a substantial number of present-day TERFs/GCs, particularly the movement's figure-heads, are not RadFems, and only qualify as "feminists" insofar as they co-opt the language of "women's rights" (strictly cis white women) in support of their ultimately right-wing and misogynistic goals. TERFs are not feminists,[17] but at best a feminism-adjacent anti-trans movement. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 18:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

One alternative could be TERF movement, since most sources tend to use the abbreviation. It's arguably a more common and widely recognized name than gender-critical feminism, particularly in a global and U.S. context. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Is it? I did a Google Scholar search for TERF movement and it only brought up 37 results. Going for the fuller trans-exclusionary radical feminist movement only brought up 5 results. Even a general Google Search for TERF movement only brings up about 3,380 results. So I don't think that's a term that has particularly widespread use in reliable or unreliable sources. Maybe on social media it has some use, but we don't base our article titles on social media hits. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

One alternative could be Transphobia in feminist movement. It's a significant topic, there are plenty of sources about it. Therefore an article about this phenomenon should exist. Reprarina (talk) 04:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

An interesting point. However, personally, I believe this should be a separate article - the TERF/GC movement is separate to the feminist movement, despite some overlap.- TransButterflyQueen Ɛï3 15:20, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

As opposed to “gender critical feminism”? They both still have the word “feminism” in them Snokalok (talk) 21:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

"TERFs aren't feminists" - nothing but a mere opinion. There is controversy; to say that it has been established that they are factually not feminists is atrociously unhelpful. Zilch-nada (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I could see renaming this to "trans-exclusionary feminism" because I agree modern GCFs aren't necessarily radical feminists. But I could also see it the other way: to some extent "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is a bit of a calcified name, and refers to the group this article is about regardless of its technical accuracy.

That's also how I view the dispute about whether they're feminists. Some pretty clearly are feminists in some sense (it's hard to say that Germaine Greer is not a feminist at all, for instance) and some very clearly aren't (Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull doesn't even call herself a feminist at this point), but the name of the movement overall ends in "feminism" regardless of whether every individual in it is a feminist. It's like how the article for dwarf planet goes into great detail about how dwarf planets aren't planets. Some names are just like that. Loki (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your semantic reasoning, although it's clear that "trans exclusionary feminism" fails COMMONNAME Zilch-nada (talk) 05:24, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

although it's clear that "trans exclusionary feminism" fails COMMONNAME — on what material are you basing that strong assertion? TucanHolmes (talk) 15:14, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Provide sources that use "trans exclusionary feminism"; very few, certainly compared to "gender-critical feminism" and "trans-exclusionary radical feminism". Zilch-nada (talk) 18:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with you that lacking actual use is the biggest problem with naming this page "trans-exclusionary feminism", and I'm the one who proposed it. Loki (talk) 01:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Weak Support: I agree that trans exclusive radical feminism covers WP:COMMONNAME better than GC feminism. However, I understand as a trans woman, I may be biased in such toward such a change, and am open to other opinions. - TransButterflyQueen Ɛï3 15:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Strong oppose. This move would name the movement only according to one analysis/criticism of it. Gender-critical feminism is the more neutral name. Zanahary (talk) 16:14, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

It is not neutral, because the academic sources don't agree that TERFism is gender-critical and that they should be called gender-critical. Reprarina (talk) 16:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Many academic sources criticize conservatism as not truly conservative, various nominally communist parties and movements as not actually communist, many forms of radicalism as not truly radical. That doesn't mean that wiki articles on those movements should be titled after an epithet chiefly used by the movement's critics. Zanahary (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes and the article Conservatism also must be about those who are called conservatives by academic sources, not about people who call themselves conservative. Reprarina (talk) 05:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Many academic sources exist for both gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusive radical feminism; neither dwarfs the other at all. They're both controversial terms. The former is really used as a criticism, generally disowned by adherents, while the latter is more self-described and the subject of external criticism. I think using the title that sees a greater breadth of use (in that both in-group and out-group use it), which includes adherents to the movement described in the article, is the right move. Zanahary (talk) 07:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: When you say ‘former’, do you mean ‘latter’? Sweet6970 (talk) 13:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes! Good catch. Zanahary (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Support. Per the rationale in the nomination, especially WP:COMMONNAME. The name for the proposed move seems to be far more prevalent in academic sources. Unless there are extraordinarily good reasons (and I haven't seen any here so far), then I think it would be most appropriate to move it. Hist9600 (talk) 23:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Neither name is entirely neutral, of course, given the serious debate over both terms; but clearly "gender-critical feminism", which most sources on the history of the topic emphasize was a rebranding intended for political purposes ala "pro-life", isn't neutral, either, while also failing to be the common name. Meanwhile the extensive academic coverage indicates that trans-exclusionary radical feminism is more widely used as the WP:COMMONNAME, which overrides neutrality concerns for titles. It's also much more widely-used internationally; "gender-critical feminism" is mostly specific to Britain and among the British press. Between the two it's clear we should go with the international usage and the one with more academic support. This doesn't mean that there's no coverage of the term used for the current title, of course, but it's clearly less common, especially outside of Britain. And while some people have attempted to argue that they're not the same thing, again, the vast majority of academic coverage seems to disagree - as does our current article and its sources. That aspect of the topic has been discussed extensively and we already have a clear consensus on it. Even people who could be called "friendly" to the movement treat the terms as referring to the same thing, they just object to trans-exclusionary radical feminism. And that objection (which is the other argument people have presented against a move) isn't a policy-based reason not to move an article; it's not uncommon for the subjects of an article to object to things that are nonetheless well-cited and accurate. Neither are we required to cover anything in the way its adherents prefer and to ignore sources from anyone they identify as "the enemy." It is certainly true that the movement's adherents and activists frame the vast majority of academics studying gender and sexuality as their enemies, but that doesn't grant them some sort of WP:FALSEBALANCE equality with them; just the opposite, it makes their views marginal. --Aquillion (talk) 10:16, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • This is a very good summary of the arguments for the title "trans-exclusionary radical feminism," firmly grounded in Wikipedia policy. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 14:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    • It has been stated that ‘gender-critical feminism’ is a ‘re-branding’, but not what the term is supposedly a re-branding of. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

      Trans-exclusive radical feminism, presumably. - TransButterflyQueen Ɛï3 15:51, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

      Academic sources (Grinspan et al., Thurlow, Fradella, Campbell et al.) consider gender-critical feminism to be a rebranding of trans-exclusionary radical feminism. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:58, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

      Thurlow doesn't quite say this so straightforwardly. Even in the abstract, Thurlow notes they are distinct:

      I will map two telling changes that I argue currently separates gender critical from TERF, this involves (i) the linguistic pivot from ‘anti-trans’ to ‘pro-woman’ and, (ii) the nascent questioning of the traditional theoretical underpinning of trans-exclusionary feminism.

      In the section of the paper on "Engagements with more recent literature", Thurlow goes into this and notes that gender-critical feminism represents a modification and/or rejection of previous more hardline trans-exclusionary feminist thinking.

      Claiming Fradella independently supports this is a reach, when that is based only on a direct quote of Thurlow in the footnotes. And in any case Fradella also notes the following in the footnotes, which doesn't support using this scholarly source to guide WP:COMMONNAME usage, quite the opposite:

      I nonetheless follow Deborah Shaw’s lead by refraining from referring to this brand of “feminism” as trans-exclusionary feminism and those who subscribe to it as trans-exclusionary feminists; instead, “I will apply ‘gender critical’ here out of respect for people’s rights to self-define”

      Campbell et al simply does not say anything of the sort. All they they do say is that it is a

      rebranded form of radical feminism

      Which is a completely different claim. Without the "trans-exclusionary" part, this citation actually supports the opposing position of eg. Holly Lawford-Smith, who says the exact same thing in Gender-critical Feminism, ie this is just "a new iteration of radical feminism". Void if removed (talk) 12:01, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

      The TERF/GC movement is an elusive movement and ideology, one that seems to frequently adapt its beliefs and terminology to align with its anti-transgender sentiments. Despite the heterogeneity within the movement, with numerous facets and factions holding differing views and using different terminology, it is largely treated as one movement by most external observers. The term "gender-critical" is a very recent neologism, one that only gained traction around 2020, but the movement wasn't new then. It had existed for years. Additionally, it's mainly used in the UK, while TERF remains the most common term in continental Europe and America. Some adherents of this movement simply identify as radical feminists, yet their activism is primarily focused against transgender people, and they aren't representative of radical feminism as it used to exist (that is, without the monomaniacal focus on anti-trans activism). In addition, other even newer terms have also been introduced. The use of "gender critical" in quotation marks by third-party sources (e.g. Beck, Dorothee; Habed, Adriano José; Henninger, Annette. Blurring Boundaries – ‘Anti-Gender’ Ideology Meets Feminist and LGBTIQ+ Discourses. Verlag Barbara Budrich. p. 29. ISBN 9783847418573) indicates its status as a neologism and suggests a perception of the term as in-group jargon and lacking neutrality. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support per reasons listed by the nominator and Hist9600 and Aquillion. Paintspot Infez (talk) 22:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
• Strong oppose for the reasons given by Panamitsu, Void if removed, Zanahary and others: the analysis and limited scope of the evidence of the incidence of the terms is flawed; the term 'TERF' (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) is a misnomer as it implies all transgender persons are excluded when that is not the case; the lack of a complete overlap between the ambit of the two terms: a person could be critical of gender without being exclusionary of any transgender persons.--Zeno27 (talk) 19:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  This discussion isn't about a person [being] critical of gender, it's about the phenomenon known as "gender critical feminism". That latter is primarily about trans people and how their inclusion relates to [cis] women's "sex-based rights". — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 21:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  No, gender-critical feminism is about gender-critical feminism. It is only the transgender movement which insists that g-c feminism only exists in relation to trans people. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:11, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  It is only the transgender movement which insists that g-c feminism only exists in relation to trans people.

  This is, at best, original research. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:19, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  "that is not the case" Yes, it is, because for TERFs "inclusion" of transmasculine people means promotion of conversion therapy of their identities and misgendering of them. They think it's inclusion, but RSs don't think so. Reprarina (talk) 04:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  the term 'TERF' (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) is a misnomer as it implies all transgender persons are excluded when that is not the case; [...] a person could be critical of gender without being exclusionary of any transgender persons. (emphasis mine). This is all original research, directly contradicts what reliable sources say when they evaluate gender-critical beliefs and actions, and no justification to "strong oppose" a page rename.

  As other editors have already noted, we're not talking about specific people here, we're talking about a phenomenon, an ideology, a movement. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose.
  This goes against wikipedia's rule of WP:NPOV & WP:COMMONNAME and nothing I've read has dissuaded me.
  1. There is an existing gender critical femininist movement who do not refer to themselves as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists and now have legal protected status in the places UK under this clear description through judgments such as Forstater (and many other cases which have found in favour of these women since). We as editors should not be attempting to control language simply because there are more references to a term created by those who dislike them on Google Scholar (and a standard Google search gives results in the opposite direction) without any analysis of whether these articles are in favour of its general use to describe this group of people. The deep diving into academic studies that has been done with relevance to the name change above undermines the original proposers argument.
  2. I found an equivalent issue that prompted me to decide to oppose this edit today as when on a totally unrelated page discovered taking the waters redirects to Spa towns, when I wanted to use it in the context of sea swimming. Some people may consider taking the waters purely a spa town phenomena, but to redirect the entire word to a different page/title can be confusing or misleading. Whilst I see there a link between GCFs & the proposed title, these women do not largely consider themselves 'trans exclusionary' based on all the research I have seen, this is a label applied to them by their opponents. It is also not common parlance and is not consistent with the concept that wiki's voice is neutral.
  3. I disagree with comments suggesting the current name is taking a side, ie remaining as GCF is not following WP:POVNAMING guidance. Gender Critical Feminism is clear and unbiased. Stating it is not is like stating transgender is biased and transvestite would be more accurate. Ditto using Native American's over Native Indians. These would clearly be inappropriate and disrespectful. We accept the term adopted and used by the people it represents, and don't attempt to impose another. Interestingly Transvestite does not redirect to Transgender or Transexual.
  4. I agree the context picked up previously regarding the recent redirect from TERF to this page, by creating TERF_(acronym) which like my example in 2 doesn't appear in line with Wikipedia's aim to provide knowledge, but opinionates and potentially confuses. It has clearly now led on to this proposal. Given we seek to be neutral, why are we consistently making changes that one side in this politicised debate will approve of, and the other disapprove/consider offensive? We shouldn't as neutral editors be seeking to further entrench this.
  5. I am very concerned at the number of users responding in what could be considered aspects of WP:REHASH in an attempt to WP:EXHAUST. There are by my current my count at least 6 accounts who have commented on the affirmative side an average of 10 times each on this move proposal section of this page alone, with only 2 opposing maintaining the stamina in opposing response. This change should not happen because of a small number of regular responders. scolly69 (talk) 23:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  And a court in Russia decided that LGBT is an abbreviature for extremist movement. What difference does it make what this or that court decided? Wikipedia is written based on reliable sources, and not on the basis of court decisions in any one country. Reprarina (talk) 03:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC) P.S. British and Russian law also don't recognise rape of males to be rape. It doesn't mean that we should rename article about it.Reprarina (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t know where you got the idea that British law doesn’t recognise rape of males – see [18]. Please be more careful in your statements about British law. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think Reprarina specifically means female-on-male rape, which is not recognised in the UK, and not in New Zealand either. (See Rape in English law) This is getting a bit offtopic though. —Panamitsu (talk) 12:53, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  Reprarina is right. The fact that representatives of countries with strong anti-LGBT+ records defend anti-LGBT+ views has no bearing on our article title. This is not an article about the UK. The UK and Russia have very poor reputations in anything related to LGBT+. Also, a reminder that most views are in fact "legal". In the US you can be a Nazi and it's all legal; but that does not mean that we should rewrite articles on Nazi, white supremacist, racist movements in accordance with the movements’ own preferences. We still get to write about them from a mainstream perspective. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  All co-signed. Zanahary (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  This change should not happen because of a small number of regular responders. That's not how consensus works. These things aren't decided by vote or majority. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose for the following reasons:
  • If we look at the Google Scholar stats in an article naming discussion from 2021, the GCF:TERF ratio is much improved now in favour of GCF. The gap closes even further if we restrict the analysis to recent papers. Gender-critical feminism seems to be the ascendant term.
  • However, the COMMONNAME arguments citing academic sources are leveraging the presumed superior reliability of academic sources, when in fact the COMMONNAME policy states as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources, i.e. no restriction to academic sources. Since scholarly articles are an extremely small niche in the universe of reliable discourse that exists, it is by far not enough to rely on a Google Scholar search to establish the common name.
  • General search engine results are ambiguous. I see more (but not overwhelmingly more) Google results for "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" than "gender-critical feminism", but the opposite on Bing search.
    • (But search results are a weak and indirect form of evidence anyway due to the opaque mechanisms behind these counts, the lack of a way to restrict to independent, reliable sources, and the possibility of filter/geo bubbles).
  • If you squint, this is a borderline WP:ENGVAR dispute: An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation. It's arguable that this subject has its centre of gravity in the UK. I'm not suggesting that ENGVAR strongly requires us to adopt UK conventions, but it should count for something.
  • The persistent aspersions re the subjects being racists, white supremacists, hateful, etc. is uncivil, even if not directed at specific editors. Whether or not the subjects are intrinsically hateful is part of the very essence of the controversy, with substantial weight of supporters on both sides - completely unlike the one-sided weight of public opinion against nazis. Some arguments for the page move seem founded in the belief that the subjects are rightfully punishable, and that "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is the more condemnatory title, and therefore that we should act to punish accordingly. This is incompatible with the principle of NPOV, even if the incumbent title is also not neutral. And needless to say, incivility of this nature creates a chilling atmosphere for editors who want to write neutrally.
  • On writing neutrally, I agree that "gender-critical feminism" is not fully neutral. However, it is clearly still more neutral and less inflammatory than the alternative TERF formulation. True neutrality is hard to come by. Many academic sources fail independence, or wilfully take sides. When we look at sources which attempt to write neutrally, we find some instructive examples of the use of gender-critical feminism:
    • The Guardian: [19] [20]
    • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a tertiary source): Consider [21] from 2020 which mentions a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. By 2022, they had published [22] which which mentions gender-critical feminists - initially in quotes, but they go on to use it anyway, as if it is the least worst option.
    • People Management magazine, which as far as I can tell has no editorial stake in either side of this war: [23]
  • Note that the purpose of the above point is not to identify bias-free sources, but to look at what sources write when they are trying to write neutrally.
  • For all of the above reasons, there is insufficient justification for overturning the long-standing consensus for the article title.

Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 12:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: The uses of the name cited are almost always by people in opposition to the position. Supporters almost always use the term "gender-critical feminism". *Dan T.* (talk) 05:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  That has no bearing on our article naming policy. We go with what reliable sources say and strive to be as neutral as possible, while using the most common name for a subject, if possible. That a name is used mainly by supporters or those opposing them is irrelevant to this discussion. TucanHolmes (talk) 08:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  A tribunal in the UK has ruled the term "TERF" to be "a term of insult" and "in breach of the Respondent’s bullying & harassment policy" as "derogatory name calling". (Paragraph 337 of Phoenix v Open University judgment). *Dan T.* (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Employment tribunal rulings are in no way binding upon Wikipedia, nor are their views really representative of anywhere other than the country of their jurisdiction. According to the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website, English and Welsh employment tribunals aren't applicable in the rest of the UK (Scotland and Northern Ireland), as there are differences in employment law and case law across the constituent nations of the UK.

  Additionally when determining the article title we rely on how the topic is named in reliable sources. Per other policies and guidelines (WP:PSTS, WP:REPUTABLE, WP:BESTSOURCES), Wikipedia content is derived primarily from reliable secondary and to a lesser extent tertiary sources, which would apply to COMMONNAME assessments as well. A tribunal ruling is inherently a primary source, so wouldn't factor into a COMMONNAME assessment. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I second what Sideswipe said, and also: I would imagine that "racist" would also be considered to be "a term of insult" in some situations but we have an article on racism. "Fascist" definitely is a "term of insult" in some situations but we have an article on fascism. And on the other side of the ideological spectrum I've certainly heard people use "anarchist" and "communist" as terms of insult, but we have articles on anarchism, communism, and even anarcho-communism.

  Many names of extreme or controversial ideologies are sometimes used as insults. That doesn't mean that those ideologies aren't named those things. Loki (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  The content of our articles on extremist, fringe ideologies is not determined by employment tribunals in Russia or the UK, both of which are among the countries with the poorest LGBT+ records in Europe. In the US there is no prohibition on holding Nazi or racist views, but they don't get to dictate the titles of our articles. The bar here is not whether it's "legal" to be transphobic in a particular country – particularly a country with a bad LGBT+ record. The deciding factor is the name used by reliable sources, particularly scholarly sources. TERF is used in a descriptive fashion by academic sources and is a perfectly appropriate term. The claim that it is somehow insulting to have their trans-exclusionary views highlighted is made only by TERFs, or at least by some of them (we know that many TERFs and even TERF groups openly call themselves TERFs). --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your several comparisons of the UK to Russia is offtopic, especially coming from an extremely biassed and borderline propaganda source. I think we should be careful given the RfC, but that tribunal did not say that just saying "TERF" was harassment. It was referring to other behaviours such as deplatform campaigns.—Panamitsu (talk) 23:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Despite the many, many, many discussions on it, PinkNews is considered a generally reliable source. Neither would I call the Council of Europe, who wrote the report which directly calls out the UK's record of anti-LGBT abuse and anti-trans rhetoric while making a comparison to Russia and several other countries, as extremely biassed and borderline propaganda. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your perception[24] of the Council of Europe as "an extremely biassed and borderline propaganda source" speaks volumes about your perspective, rather than reflecting on the Council itself. The analogy is fitting. In this context, the viewpoint of an employment tribunal in the UK – a country notorious for its assaults on trans people's rights in recent years – holds as much weight as that of a minor Russian official. Our articles are based on reliable sources, neither UK nor Russian officials get to dictate the content here. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 23:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  No, I was describing Pink News. —Panamitsu (talk) 23:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  PinkNews is just reporting on the resolution adopted by the Council of Europe. PinkNews is a reliable source. Do you believe ITV and other media outlets reporting the same thing are also engaged in propaganda?[25] --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  No I don't. Maybe I shouldn't have described it that way but you do realise that I said more than that right? This conversation contains a lot of offtopic content, such as comparing the UK to Russia. The tribunal is also offtopic, given that it does not establish common name, and it says Whilst we accept that the historical use of TERF was not inherently an insult, the term used by Dr Downes and Dr Snarey by their retweets is a term of insult. People here are misrepresenting the ruling, saying "TERF" in itself was not the issue. It was the way it was used and coupled with deplatform campaigns. —Panamitsu (talk) 00:16, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  A lot of you are ignoring the note at the top of the page that "This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." *Dan T.* (talk) 01:18, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  People above have made many accurate comparisons to the naming of this subject to that of "race realism" and "climate change skepticism". I would suggest reading those if you haven't already, I personally found it quite compelling. ~ TransButterflyQueen Ɛï3 13:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Co-signed Zanahary (talk) 20:27, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Lets not prejudge the closing folks. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Comment. It is clear that there is a strong consensus for this move, in light of solid evidence and policy-based arguments cited by several editors (for example, see the comment by Aquillion above, which neatly summarizes the policy-based reasons for the move). The opposing voices don't really cite policy-based arguments or evidence. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2024 (UTC) Are you kidding? The utter audacity to say that: I count 10 statements of opposition, most of whom clearly and explicitly state opposition in accordance with their views of policy. The opposing voices don't really cite policy-based arguments or evidence - how on Earth is this nothing more than your own, mere, opinion? It is not clear; it is your opinion; I personally - in my opinion - see a clear lack of consensus. Zilch-nada (talk) 19:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:COMMONNAME; sources appear to be moving towards "Gender-critical feminism", as can be seen in Google Scholar, with the proposed title recieving 121 scholarly uses since 2023, while the current title has recieved 135. BilledMammal (talk) 01:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Whoa

171 comments 31 people in discussion Please think about it your next reply is going to convince the other editor you're going back and forth with. This discussion is already around a perfect 1.0 tomats, Please take pity on the closer. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Reflist

References

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.