Talk:Sarah McBride

Retroactivity or gender identity vs. historical fact

Where does the balance lie between respecting transgender individuals and their right to their identity and the statement of historical fact? Is it enough to assume that people will understand the necessity of the retroactive female pronouns by the use of the word 'transgender'? Should historical fact be ignored or denied in order to respect a person's stated identity? It seems to me that an encyclopedia should include all relevant, well-sourced biographical information, even at the risk of offending individuals. After all, if someone is famous enough to merit inclusion here, their original identity will most probably be widely known and ignoring or denying it - as if things were never any different - would seem an odd, and unencyclopedic, omission. Dysfunctional Human Unit (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

See MOS:GENDERID. Any change to policy should be discussed centrally, rather than on this article. meamemg (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Birth name ***** not important to the article?

As I'm an old fogey and I didn't really understand the basics of "transgender", I had to look it up. After learning what the word transgender means, I assumed, and correctly, that a "female transgender" must have started out as a male, and thus in the highest probability was given a different name at birth, and in the case of the present subject, that would be Tim (unsuccessful in finding a reference to "Timothy"). But, I'm already on the Wikipedia page. I shouldn't have to look up facts about the subject somewhere else. I'm already here! I think this fact should be disclosed in the Early Life section. giggle (talk) 12:18, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi giggle, please check out MOS:MULTIPLENAMES to learn more about Wikipedia guidelines for handling the names of transgender people:

In the case of a living transgender or non-binary person, the birth name should be included only if the person was notable under that name...If such a subject was not notable under their former name, it usually should not be included in that or any other article, even if some reliable sourcing exists for it. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name. (See also: WP:Manual of Style § Identity, and the article Deadnaming.)

More precisely, MOS:DEADNAME. KevTYD (wake up) 20:20, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

This is line with the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy: "Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy." In short, it's generally respectful of a trans person's privacy and identity to not refer to their "deadname" unless absolutely necessary for some reason. We don't need to do it in this article - people's curiosity is not a good enough reason to include it. McBride's life in the public eye has been under her name of Sarah, so that's the right name to use consistently throughout the article. Dreamyshade (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing private about anybody stating to the world that he or she is now transgender. The fact that it is public information makes the argument for privacy pointless. 50.107.148.21 (talk) 23:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

There was recently a RfC on this issue. In my understanding the consensus is to generally exclude deadnames from articles unless the subject is notable under the previous name, and I've seen no evidence of this in McBride's case. We exclude private information unless we have good reason to include it, and the consensus on DEADNAME tells us to consider trans/NB people's deadnames private. Just because someone is out as trans doesn't mean that all the details of their transition are no longer private. SreySros (talk) 22:31, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Correction: 2nd Openly Transgender State US Legislator (not first)

When she is sworn in, Sarah McBride will become the second openly transgender state senator in the country.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danica_Roem

Danica Roem: "She is the first openly transgender person to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and in January 2018 became the first to both be elected and serve while openly transgender in any U.S. state legislature." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.186.125 (talk) 64.38.186.125 (talk) 18:23, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Danica Roem is a legislator but not a state senator. She's a member of her state's assembly not her state's senate. Rab V (talk) 04:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

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Point taken. Thanks for clarification.64.38.186.125 (talk) 18:21, 6 November 2020 (UTC)