Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Drafts/Disinformation report

Disinformation report

Anti-trans advocacy on Wikipedia

By Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist

Some have attempted, or been successful, at using Wikipedia to promote anti-trans misinformation and pseudoscience for over a decade. Here, I present an arbitration case from 2013, and an arbitration enforcement case in 2024, to illustrate the severity of the issue and Wikipedia's history handling it.

Sexology (2013)

The lead up

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology (2013) focused on the interactions between two editors: User:Jokestress (Andrea James) and User:James Cantor (James Cantor).

James Cantor was recently described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of an old guard of sexology researchers which advocated treating trans identity as mental illness with associated conversion therapy-style “cures”[1] - he worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health under fellow old guard members Ray Blanchard and Kenneth Zucker, later shut down due to attempting to persuade transgender children to be cisgender.[2][3] Cantor's professional focus was the research of paraphilias (an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals.) Apart from arguing that hebephilia should be included in the DSM-5, he was also an avid proponent of Blanchard's typology, which posts that all transgender women who aren't exclusively attracted to men transition due to the paraphilia "autogynophilia".[4]

Andrea James was a notable critic of bailey (NOTE add sources/details).

Andrea joined Wikipedia in 2004, making approximately 50,000 edits prior to the case (NOTE: figure out when she disclosed her identity).[5]

Cantor joined in 2008 pseudonymously, he edited articles he had both positive and negative conflicts of interest on pseudonymously until taken to the COI noticeboard whereupon he changed from User:MarionTheLibrarian to User:James Cantor, having made over 1000 edits in two months.[6] The COIs in the top-edited pages are obvious: Blanchard's transsexualism typology (115 edits), Autogynephilia (66), J. Michael Bailey (36), The Man Who Would Be Queen (24), and Ray Blanchard (21). For talk pages it was Talk:Pedophilia (35), Talk:Conversion therapy (26), Talk:J. Michael Bailey (19), Talk:Autogynephilia (13), etc. A clear pattern emerges, even the discussion on conversion therapy, he is arguing that it shouldn't even be mentioned Zucker's practices were, even then, described as conversion therapy.[7]

In 2009, Cantor wrote an article on the Feminine essence concept of transsexuality. Then it was brought to AFD on the grounds of WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, and WP:COI - where consensus was to keep it as there was enough sourcing - we'll revisit it later. In 2011 he launched a tendentious AFD for Androphilia and gynephilia and bludgeoned the discussion with 55 edits[8]. In 2012 was the only one to call for the deletion of the Benjamin Scale, one of the first medical typologies of transgender people which defined people's lives for decades. Also in 2012, Andrea attempted to delete the article Gynandromorphophilia as a POVFORK of attraction to transgender people, but the discussion found no consensus. It was re-opened in 2013 on the same grounds during the ANI case, but deferred due to ARBCOM case. We shall also revisit this.

The Arbitration Committee and ARBSEX

As the Signpost reported at the time, the dispute between the two began on the hebephilia article and involved articles on paraphilias and "transgenderism" - Cantor was accused of excessive self-citation and negatively editing Andrea's article, Andrea was accused of promoting WP:FRINGE theories.[9] The Arbitration Committee found the two were involved in advocacy and activities relating to sexuality and it was the primary topic they edited on Wikipedia. The commitee found Andrea is a prominent party to an off-wiki controversy involving human sexuality and imported the controversy to the detriment of editing environment. No findings of fact were proposed for Cantor.[10]

Andrea and Cantor were given a mutual interaction ban; unlike Cantor Andrea was banned from human sexuality (later expanded to include gender in 2019), and mostly ceased editing then[11]. The arbitration committee floated two sanctions for him, neither of which gained support: either indefinitely prohibit him from editing biographies of sexology researchers and related advocates, or from that and Hebephilia, in both cases with the ability to leave talk comments.[12] This was despite evidence provided by multiple editors during the case that Cantor had COI issues.[13][14][15][16][17]

Discretionary sanctions were enabled for all pages dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification (e.g., hebephilia). This case would soon be folded into GENSEX after a meander through the Chelsea Manning Naming Dispute clarifying it applied to pronouns and names. That may be the subject of a future article. In 2013, an arbitrator had wisely noted the decision in no way implies a side is "right", hence the reason for the "limits of arbitration" principle. There are issues here with discussions over what constitutes reliable sources and fringe theories that are not addressed by the decision.[18] And thus, the can was kicked down the road. At least, right after the case the 3rd AGD for Gynandromorphophilia saw it deleted.

The aftermath

While Andrea's contributions dropped off, Cantor continued to edit until 2021.[19] Meanwhile, Cantor continued editing until 2021 and made approximately 8000 edits across multiple accounts - nearly all containing major conflicts of interest.[20][21][22][23] He created at least two new accounts[24] to continue his COI editing, particularly to skirt the IBAN with Andrea, in 2013[25] and 2015 [26]

In 2013, Cantor launched an AFD for Margaret Nichols that failed, Cantor being the only one to want it deleted with 6 editors disagreeing - he bravely bludgeoned almost all of them. For context, in 2008 Nichols had sharply criticized Bailey, his book, and the Blanchard Taxonomy).[27] In 2016 he used a sock to relaunch the AFD, agreed with himself, and two real editors agreed and thus the article was deleted. In 2015 he bludgeoned and tried to delete the article of a famous sexologist. In 2019, he was taken to ANI for accusing his critics of being "autogynephilic mtfs" - it was found to be an acceptable way to refer to people.[28][29].

In 2021, his two sockpuppets, User:Starburst9 and User:Banglange, were discovered and he was blocked for violation of sockpuppeting policies and his IBAN with Andrea.[30] The top edited articles for Starburst9? Those include Sexual addiction, James Cantor, and Andrea James. For Banglange? The top three are literally Kenneth Zucker, James Cantor, and Andrea James. A WP:FRINGE sexologist, known for his pathologizing views on transgender people, edited wikipedia's articles on trans topics and researchers he worked with for over a decade. Like Al Capone getting got on tax evasion - Cantor's years of COI editing and FRINGE POV pushing was not enough, but the use of sockpuppets was. One wonders if it is only coincidence that since 2021 he has testified in 25 cases seeking to restrict transgender rights in the U.S after being hired by the Alliance Defending Freedom?[31]

But hey, in 2024 I successfully nominated the Feminine essence concept of transsexuality for deletion on the grounds it was a clear POV fork chock full of WP:original research propping up the Blanchard Taxonomy - half the content wasn't about the article subject, the other half was letters to the editor from Cantor, Blanchard, and Bailey. It only took 16 years...

Modern anti-trans advocacy

The context

Before we get to the next case, we need to introduce a few groups. Genspect, SEGM, and the gender exploratory therapy association: known for their promotion of conversion therapy "gender exploratory therapy". For disclosure's sake, I wrote the articles on Genspect and SEGM, they have claimed they are biased, [32], consensus has disagreed.[33], If you recall the SPLC's description of Cantor as part of the old guard largely centered around CAMH - you may question what happened to them. That's simple, the old guard and a whole host of new astro-turfed organizations - which heavily cite, support, and work with the old. The fringe groups and activists advocating these views have passed the baton.[34]

Modern misuse of Wikipedia

Now, we can look at the more recent example. In April of this year, I filed a report at WP:AE for User:A Wider Lens.[35] Having received the equivalent of a GENSEX block on the Dutch Wikipedia for tendentious fringe promotion after years of issues,[36] this user began to edit the English one and swiftly began to edit war. What immediately popped out was the username was a reference to the "A Wider Lens" podcast, produced by Genspect. A quick review of their global contributions showed they consistently cited Genspect and Genspect in a trenchcoat SEGM. Shortly after, they (and a sock they created) were globally locked due to cross-wiki abuse.[37][38]

NOTE: Add more details of abuse at nlwiki

Takeaways

What can we learn from this? What can we make of the fact that on the same platform, the same fringe views were treated incredibly differently just a few years apart? Have these views gotten more FRINGE or the community better at recognizing them for what they are? When the next WP:RGW editor comes to push anti-trans FRINGE points of view, will we silently look away for years until they've already poisoned the Enclyopedia and editing environemnt for years? Or be proactive and not tolerate such behavior, civil or not? While it's sad to think that in the past, queerphobic advocates have subverted Wikipedia successfuly, I choose to have the cheerful takeaway that the times they are a-changin'.

In this issue

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