Talk:LGB Alliance

Description of group in lede

Please see Talk:LGB Alliance/Archive 6#RFC on opening sentence, where adding "hate group" as a descriptor in the lead was question 2. ... The first part of the RfC found clear consensus on describing the subject as an "advocacy group" in the opening sentence as a neutral term. The second part also found clear consensus against describing the subject as a "hate group" in the opening sentence.

History, Founders, Reliability of Pink News

There is now yet another high quality source (Amelia Gentleman in The Guardian) that describes the only two founders of LGB Alliance as Kate Harris and Bev Jackson.

• "LGB Alliance was founded in October 2019 to campaign for the rights of same-sex attracted people by two veteran lesbian activists: Bev Jackson, a founder member of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, and Kate Harris, who was previously a volunteer fundraiser for the leading gay rights organisation Stonewall. They were concerned at the implications of Stonewall’s decision to alter its definition of sexual orientation in 2015 from “same-sex attracted” to “same-gender attracted”."

This could not be any clearer. It also corroborates - yet again - the information on their about page and their history page.

Pink News, on the other hand, has published a piece listing five founders, in the exact same non-alphabetic order as they first appeared in this wiki article:

"The LGB Alliance was formed by co-founders Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott"

This is the second time they have done so, and if they haven't just copied and pasted this information from Wikipedia at some point it is quite the coincidence. No other source anywhere listed those five names in that specific order before this article did.

I would like editors to take seriously the fact that while Pink News may be an acceptable source for events or controversies, they are not a clearly reliable source for basic factual matters about LGB Alliance, such as who founded it. They should be used with caution.

We have multiple high quality sources to indicate there were only two founders, including the org itself. We need a clean out of all the numerous old, dubious, ambiguous and disputed sources and make this whole thing drastically simpler and less WP:SYNTH. It should not take five sources to establish the founders, and the only single sources for all five in one place post-date this wiki page.

We can cite their about page and this new Guardian article to establish the only two founders are Kate Harris and Bev Jackson. Any citation for founders beyond Kate Harris and Bev Jackson should be based on a high quality source that directly disputes who the founders are, not simply any passing mention that could at this stage be an error (such as OpenDemocracy's description of Eileen Gallagher as a 'founding member') or even WP:CITOGENESIS. Void if removed (talk) 09:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Not this again. -- Colin°^Talk 09:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this again. New, high quality source, stating again, unambiguously only two founders. Recent sources are much clearer on this than the older ones and should be favoured, per WP:RSAGE.

• "newer secondary and tertiary sources may have done a better job of collecting more reports from primary sources and resolving conflicts, applying modern knowledge to correctly explain things that older sources could not have, or remaining free of bias that might affect sources written while any conflicts described were still active or strongly felt"

As the org has got more serious press it has also got more accurate press. The outliers tend to be biased sources like Pink News, who are now printing information suspiciously identical to this Wiki page. Void if removed (talk) 10:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

First up, this is all an absolutely massive waste of time. Second up, I don't understand the desire to extrapolate from the sources who list two founders to infer only two founders. Third up, I don't understand the obsession with the word "founders" anyway. Does it really have such a specific meaning?

If we can keep the peace by describing them as something like "founders and initial active members" or "founders and key early members" then I'd be happy with that but I don't see any argument to remove the five names. All five are key people in this tiny organisation and all five should be named in some significant capacity.

I fully share Colin's exasperation here. We do not have any sources saying that the other three were not founders. As far as I know, none of them has objected to being described as "founders". If they have then somebody please say as that could well be relevant but, assuming that they haven't, this is all an absolutely massive waste of time. --DanielRigal (talk) 10:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

We've been over this lots - at least one (Malcolm Clark) directly disputed the label "founder", multiple times, with Pink News head of news, and this was never corrected.

Multiple high quality sources say two and only two. It is not a waste of time - the history laid out in multiple sources is that the entire org was the brainchild of two lesbians, who worked for months to organise the initial meeting to launch their own organisation. Corroborated - again - in this column from today.

This article cannot reflect that history, because in 2021 editors synthesised a list of five names from passing mentions in multiple sources and focused on The Times letter as a possible starting point. That's understandable given the paucity of coverage at the time, but high quality secondary sources are doing a better job, which should be reflected here.

> We do not have any sources saying that the other three were not founders.

Yes we do. We have multiple sources saying there were precisely two founders. We have multiple sources saying those two founders invited the others to the meeting to launch their organisation. We have zero sources saying there is any controversy about who founded it. We have statements from at least one of those listed explicitly denouncing coverage that says he is a founder. Are you expecting a piece in the Guardian saying this Wiki page is wrong? OpenDemocracy called Eileen Gallagher a founder - should we add her until The Guardian publish an article saying she isn't?

We should follow what reliable sources say and we should not combine sources to reach conclusions that aren't clearly stated in a single source because that is WP:SYNTH. Void if removed (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The "founders and key early members" approach or similar seems the right one here. There seems to be no ambiguity that two indiviudals, and only those two, started the process, but it's also clear that other people had significant involvement in the first formal stages: roughly speaking the distinction seems to be between "founders" and "founding directors", with some media reports unhelpfuly conflating the two. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 12:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the lede and about box should say who the founders are, as they are very clear, and the others mentioned inline in the history. Same as the trustees. Void if removed (talk) 13:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Fine with me. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:24, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

A "founders and key early members" approach would be unverifiable bordering on original research. We have many reliable sources, see the discussions from November 2022 and February 2023 that name founders other than Jackson and Harris. We do not, to my knowledge, have sources that describe those other individuals as "key early members" or some other synonym for the same meaning. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death. The points you are making Void are no different to the points that you made in November 2022, and February 2023 that other editors did not find convincing. Would you please just drop this stick?

The outliers tend to be biased sources like Pink News While The Times certainly has a bias in this area, it is a different bias to that of PinkNews and they are still considered by many to be a high quality source. Yet, in January 2023 they quite clearly said Clark, a co-founder of the LGB Alliance, a national advocacy group. Sinnott appears to have been out of the news cycle for a while now, with the most recent article even mentioning her being over a year old. As for Bailey, CTV News in January 2023 said Alliance co-founder Allison Bailey sued the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, all of that is irrelevant because you are combining multiple sources to reach a combined conclusion not supported by any single one of them, which is WP:SYNTH.

This comes up again, because - once again - we have an unambiguous, high quality source saying there are two founders. Not mentioning someone in passing in some Canadian article that isn't even about LGB Alliance at all, but actually saying very explicitly this is who founded the organisation, when and why. This is very different. This is a good secondary source for the founding of the organisation.

If this were a new article, with none of the baggage of the synthesis that took place here in 2021, we would take their about page, and this latest article, and that would be it. It is obvious that titles have been misreported over the years, and the longer this is maintained here, the more WP:CITOGENESIS there will be.

At this point you have to ask: what standard of evidence would it take? This is a serious question. It is unrealistic to expect all the past errors to be corrected - although some have - and that's why we should defer to WP:RSAGE. Void if removed (talk) 18:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, firstly this cannot be a case of citogenesis. This article was created on 15 January 2021, however we have reliable sources predating the creation of the article that mention founders other than Jackson and Harris (The Times, October 2019, PinkNews, January 2020, The Times, January 2020, The Guardian, February 2020). So that argument straight up doesn't hold water.

we have an unambiguous, high quality source saying there are two founders You are repeating the same arguments you made in November 2022 and February 2023. Those arguments were not found convincing by other editors present.

If this were a new article, with none of the baggage of the synthesis that took place here in 2021, we would take their about page, and this latest article, and that would be it. No. If this were a new article, we would report only what independent, reliable sources with a reputation for fact checking and corrections state about the organisation. In this case, those sources state that there were founders other than Jackson and Harris. They stated there were other founders prior to the creation of this article (see my list earlier in this reply), and newly published articles by the same sources continue to do so (see the lists when we discussed this previously, along with those from my last reply). Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

You have no HQ sources that list all five as founders, so you're still engaging in WP:SYNTH, and dragging up old, questionable sources (and aware of the issues with those four so no point hashing it out again) is exactly why WP:RSAGE exists, else ancient mistakes like this will live forever. A high quality recent secondary source should override editors interpretation of conflicting older sources.

Every time a new high quality source comes out that so clearly states when and by whom the organisation was founded, this article looks more and more wrong and the risk of WP:CITOGENESIS increases (and I argue is already happening in the case of Pink News, which says something about their fact-checking on this subject).

I'm not going to continue to argue the same points, but it is absolutely right that new sources like this receive consideration. Void if removed (talk) 09:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Companies House lists Malcolm Clark as a director from the same date as Bev Jackson. Likewise Anne Marie Sinnott and Katherine Rosemary Harris: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12338881/officers. As @DanielRigal pointed out, "the 2 founders Bev Jackson and Kate Harris" does not mean there are only the 2 of them.

With respect, @Void if removed, @Sideswipe9th provided links that show this can't be CITOGENESIS. In the UK, effectively all major news organs provide reporting has anti-trans bias; that Pink News is one of the few that does not does not make it unreliable. I'm inclined to agree that the problem here is more of a STICK than CITOGENESIS or SYNTH. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 09:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

It's the classic problem of the distinction between "founders" (who had the original idea and called the first meeting) and "founding directors" or equivalent (who has roles when the organisation first took formal shape), with media reports using the word "founders" indicriminately for both. It's pretty clear here that Bev Jackson and Kate Harris were the original founders, with the rest following immediately afterwards, but you will struggle to find reliable sources formally confirming all that in one place. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Having been involved in the efforts of setting up non-profits itself, I'm not sure the distinction between "people who had the original idea" and "people who added expertise and effort to bring the organisation to fruition" is all that useful. And if we struggle to find RS confirming something, then I'm not sure it's all that clear. I don't believe the distinction is important here; we have plenty of sources dating before the article saying that all of them were involved in founding the organisation; we have none saying the others were not. I'd suggest it's RS to say that Clark, Sinnott, Bailey or Gallagher were not founders. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 11:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:ABOUTSELF, as I have said many times, the fact that we have Malcolm Clark explicitly saying "I'm not a founder" to Ryan John Butcher, Pink News' head of news, should be enough to cast doubt on both the claim that he is, and also Pink News factual credibility as a source, given this has never been retracted or corrected. Void if removed (talk) 12:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Given that being involved with a group widely seen as being transphobic is, to say the least, controversial, a person's denial that they were a founder is not the same as them not being a founder.

Given that Companies House says he was a director of the organisation from the date of its establishment, it might be said that that such a claim were exceptional.

A person claiming a thing that a news organisation believes not to be true an thus does not correct or retract does not cast doubt on the credibility of the news organisation. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 16:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The idea that he's in any way embarrassed is absurd. There's not one shred of evidence to support that, and years of evidence that the opposite is true. What he has actually said is:

"I don’t run @ALLIANCELGB. Two wonderful lesbians, for whom I’m full of admiration, founded it. I’m merely on the management team which is all LGB with a lesbian majority and overseen by a group of eminent trustees. You can find out more on our website."

And also:

"Yes I’m a director. Didn’t say I wasn’t. Two lesbians founded the organisation months before it was incorporated. They organised the launch event. It’s a lesbian led organisation."

He wrote an opinion piece just this past weekend stating it is "an organization (transparency alert) which I have strongly supported".

This article puts the founding at the launch meeting on October 22nd 2019. They became a limited company a month later in November 2019, which is not "from the date of its establishment". These are different things, again, you are engaging in WP:OR, and misinterpreting primary sources.

And, once again, the response of Pink News' Head of News to Clark's insistence that he wasn't a founder was:

"oh, fair. noted."

I would say the claim that he is a founder when he and the organisation and recent secondary sources all corroborate that he is not is actually the one that is WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Void if removed (talk) 09:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

You might be right that he's not distancing himself from it because of transphobia allegations per se. But your quotations actually demonstrate that there seem to be clear marketing reasons why he and others prefers he's not listed as a founder. So we end up at the same point namely that sources after looking at the evidence, dispute his denials of being a founder. Nil Einne (talk) 07:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

No sources dispute it and not a single one anywhere says anything about his denial being false. Editors here dispute it, and that's WP:OR.

The continual assumption of bad faith as the first and most likely explanation with no evidence is really inappropriate. Perhaps it's just true? Void if removed (talk) 07:50, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:ABOUTSELF the charity's own "about" page should be sufficient, absent a source directly calling their story into question. Void if removed (talk) 12:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to note that WP:ABOUTSELF is a "may be used" permission in a section about "Sources that are usually not reliable". It's really a "if you have absolutely nothing better, and editors still think it is important information to include, then we'll accept that as a source". Not a rule that whatever an organisation says about itself is gospel. -- Colin°^Talk 09:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Here's my summary.

• "Bev Jackson and Kate Harris" are the "Founders of LGB Alliance" according to LGB Alliance,[1] and nobody disputes they organised the first meeting in October 2019.
• The incorporation at Companies House 26 November 2019 lists four directors.[2] "Beverly Ruth Jackson, Ann Marie Sinnott, Katherine Rosemary Harris, Malcom Clark".
• The court document in the recent Mermaids appeal[3] notes "LGB Alliance is incorporated as a company limited by guarantee. Its founding members and directors are (1) Beverley Jackson; (2) Ann Sinnott; (3) Kate Harris; (4) Malcolm Clark." These are "CHRONOLOGY AND AGREED FACTS".
• In the above case Dr Belinda Bell, Chair of Trustees of Mermaids, states[4] "LGB Alliance’s views can be found in its publications, on its Twitter account, and in communications by Beverley Jackson, Ann Sinnott, Katharine Harris and Malcolm Clark (the four founding directors of LGB Alliance) as well as Allison Bailey, who has acted as a co-founder and remains one of its main public-facing figures (she is credited by LGB Alliance for having “helped us set up” [BB1/7] and gave the keynote speech at its October 2021 conference)".
• Allison Bailey, the only one to have a Wikipedia article, is described literally everywhere as a co-founder of LGB Alliance, including in our own article on her.
• The term "founder" simply means someone who helped setup an organisation, but has no distinction between "had the initial idea", "first talked about it together on the phone", "organised the first meeting", "attended the first meeting", "gave money to help set it up", "was among the initial set of directors", "was one of the very first members". As noted in previous discussions, the term "founder member" has occasionally been used as an incentive for people to make an early donation and apply for membership, that they can then brag about ever after, but that doesn't seem to have occurred here. Sources could use the word "founder", "founded", "co-founded" and "founder member" to describe the same person. There's no accepted cut-off.
• As Void themselves has already noted, there is a narrative they are keen to promote that LGB Alliance is a lesbian-led organisation founded by two lesbians. One of the founders we list is heterosexual and resigned under a cloud, which fits better in the idea that LGB Alliance is a gender-critical (feminist) / anti-trans group, than that it is a group for lesbians, gays and bisexuals. Another founder we list is a man, and last time I checked, LGB Alliance were pretty keen on the idea that "lesbians" and "women" didn't have a penis. So he doesn't fit into their narrative that this is a lesbian led/founded organisation campaigning for women's rights.
• It is entirely possible there hierarchy of foundership at play here, with some being earlier or "more important" than others. It may also simply be an ego thing, with Jackson and Harris both wanting everyone to know it was their clever idea and everyone else had a lesser role. But we don't have sources that say as such. So we just simply lack the ability to explain the disagreement in our sources between two or four or five.
• We have excellent indisputable evidence for two founders (LGB Alliance) or four founding directors (companies house, court documents, etc) and Allison Baily is reported by countless sources as a co-founder.
• We have recent sources listing all five. Pink News is claimed by Void as simply copying the Wikipedia article. We can't know but as a newspaper covering LGBT matters and critical of LGB Alliance since the beginning, I'm not convinced their journalists need to read Wikipedia to get their facts.. The other source listing five is Bell in the Mermaids appeals. I don't have to hand a convenient link about Wikipedia's attitude to court documents as sources. However, for the purpose of us hammering things out on this page, this is a statement presented to a court and presumably under oath and the claim made is not under any dispute: those four were indeed founding directors and Bailey is indeed their most prominent figures and frequently referred to as a co-founder.
• Listing all five as founders is not wrong. They all helped found LGB Alliance. That this doesn't fit with the narrative LGB Alliance want to project (lesbian-led, lesbian founded, campaigning for women's rights) isn't Wikipedia's problem. They had a heterosexual woman and a man among their founding directors and Allison Bailey told the world she was a co-founder and provided the tweets to a court to prove it. Not our problem. -- Colin°^Talk 16:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Good summary. I'd also add that any falling out between the initial key players is not our problem unless Reliable Sources write about it in a non-trivial way. It is not for us to help them to de-emphasise people who they no longer wish to be associated with. So long as we are sure that the word "founder" lacks any precise legal meaning in the way that, say, "director" does, I'm more than happy that this is the correct approach. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Colin and Daniel here. -sche (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that 'founder' doesn't have a precise meaning and given the full facts, these people can all legitimately be referred to as 'founders' or 'founding directors', 'founding members' or whatever each one's role was. But why is this list in the second sentence of the lead? Only one of them (Bailey) has a linked article, so the general reader learns nothing from the naming. Those 'in the know' may know about each one's sexual orientation, but that isn't a very good reason for listing the names in the lead para IMO. Pincrete (talk) 05:00, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not fussed about where it appears in the lead. Bailey has an article because of their court case, and no other reason. They aren't notable for anything else. Jackson apparently co-founded UK's Gay Liberation Front in 1970. Harris was a volunteer fundraiser for Stonewall, from which this group split. Clark is a TV producer. Sinnott was a Labour councillor who quit her job because trans women were allowed to use female toilets.[5] We don't restrict our articles to mentioning only other people if they have articles on Wikipedia. As a young organisation that has "yet to get around to" doing much, being founded is pretty much the highlight of their achievements. -- Colin°^Talk 07:57, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

What I should have said is that as most of the 5 founders are not notable, there really is no good reason to name them ANYWHERE in the lead. Doing so in the body would give the opportunity to clarify exact roles. Incidentally, if Jackson really was a significant part of the founding of the UK GLF, that actually makes her a very big fish, even if in a relatively small pond. UK GLF was an extremely 'in your face" campaigning group and probably the first of its kind in the UK, openly and unapologetically campaigning for LGB people. But notability isn't inherited and sources cover these historical connections fairly scantily in relation to LGBA.

However, it really isn't very rational to paint these 5 as near-nobodies, in an near-insignificant org, but simultaneously insist on listing them in the lead. What useful info does naming them convey to the reader? Pincrete (talk) 10:38, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Bev Jackson was not only a founding member of GLF, she was also the spokesperson at the first ever gay rights demo in the UK, in November 1970.

The October 22nd launch of LGBA was - according to Bev Jackson's witness statement - precisely because of the cancellation of a GLF event at the LSE:

• "I had been invited to join the panel of a public-facing event at the London School of Economics on 22 October 2019 to mark the 49th anniversary of the formation of the UK Gay Liberation Front. This event was cancelled in July 2019 immediately following an email I sent to the moderator outlining my views on the problematic composition of the panel. My email is at [Exhibit BJ13]."
• "Kate Harris and I then decided to hold an event nearby LSE on the same date, which would focus on our concerns about the direction taken by the LGB rights movement. This became the meeting at which LGB Alliance was formed."

Void if removed (talk) 10:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Colin; that's a very helpful and clear summary — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 06:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"We have recent sources listing all five."

The five are listed non-alphabetically and there is a less than 1% chance of producing them in that precise order by chance. Pink News and GPAHE however have both listed them in exactly this order, after they first appeared here. Nowhere lists those five as "founders" in any different order. Pink News also describes their founding as starting with the letter to The Times, as this article does (and not how they describe their own founding), and I pointed out in the archive how swathes of the GPAHE report seemed plagiarised from this wiki page. Put those together with the high odds against getting those names in that order and this all looks like quite blatant WP:CITOGENESIS.

Also, aside but why doesn't this fall under WP:BLPGROUP? Void if removed (talk) 08:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"presumably under oath and the claim made is not under any dispute"

No, the tribunal was not under oath. Also, Bell's statements here were not part of the agreed facts. This is a wholly inappropriate primary source - a submission by someone actively attempting to shut down the organisation making unevidenced statements about how a person "acted" as co-founder, that wasn't even agreed by both parties? I urge you to reconsider suggesting this is in any way a viable source for a factual claim it doesn't even make (speculating from the outside whether someone was "acting as" something is not the same as being it).

Especially since I gave Bev Jackson's witness statement here about a year ago to demonstrate that she and Kate Harris were the co-founders, and was rebuffed as it was an inappropriate source.

But if we're talking about witness submissions, Bailey's evidence in her case against Stonewall/GCC was only that she attended the meeting, tweeted about it on the way home, and joined the steering group on October 23rd:

• "I met Kate Harris at a get-together in a Covent Garden flat. Later she would invite me to the launch of LGB Alliance. I met Bev Jackson for the first time at that launch on 22 October 2019"
• "I was not involved in setting up or preparing for the 22 October meeting."
• "I got the bus home from the meeting. While I was sitting on the bus, I sent out the tweet of 22 October 2019 (Bundle Page 2129). There was no prior plan for me to do so, and nobody knew or asked me to do it. It was spur of the moment that reflected my relief that something concrete was being done to challenge Stonewall and gender identity politics that had taken over lesbian and gay rights. In fact, I found out later that there had been a plan (or at least, the recognition of a need for a plan), which I was not aware of, to set up and announce the formation of LGB Alliance in a more formal and structured way. By sending that tweet I effectively launched LGB Alliance prematurely and by accident. From 23 October 2019, I worked with Kate, Bev, Malcolm Clarke and Ann Sinnott on the Steering Group, and continued to do so for the first 7 months of LGB Alliance’s existence."
• "During 2020, I decided to step back from LGB Alliance. I was very sad to do so. I am still a staunch supporter of theirs. I was delighted that they asked me to give the Key Note speech at their conference in November 2021."

Bailey's own press release states "founding member". You say Allison Bailey "Allison Bailey told the world she was a co-founder and provided the tweets to a court to prove it", but I don't see that anywhere. In fact she said, on November 9th, 2019

"On Tuesday 22nd October 2019, at Conway Hall, London; an historic institution committed to placing logic, reason & evidence before dogma & enforced thinking, Kate Harris and Bev Jackson, founded & announced the birth of the LGB Alliance. Hats off to you both, and thank you."

It is obvious that Kate Harris and Bev Jackson worked together for several months to found LGB Alliance, organising the October 22nd meeting and inviting all the attendees and speakers, after which the other three joined to form an initial steering group, four of them going on to become directors of a ltd company a month later.

Continually conflating early directorship, joining the steering group, a founding member and founder is inappropriate, and the amount of effort being poured into selectively highlighting primary sources to justify this WP:SYNTH over the clear objections of the named individuals, the org itself, and recent high-quality secondary sources is puzzling. Void if removed (talk) 10:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

• Allison Baily.co.uk:

"I am suing Stonewall Equality Limited to stop them policing free speech.

I am a barrister and I helped to set up a new organisation for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, the LGB Alliance, to provide an alternative to Stonewall. In retaliation, Stonewall had me investigated by my chambers, in an attempt to cost me my livelihood.

"The need for a new lesbian, gay and bisexual organisation: the birth of the LGB Alliance

In 2019, I helped to set up the LGB Alliance with other campaigners and activists who felt, like me, that organisations such as Stonewall had...

• Employment tribunal

Then in October 2019, she was involved in setting up the Lesbian Gay Alliance to resist transwomen self-identifying as women."

Launch of LGB Alliance and Resulting Twitter Storm

On 22 October 2019 (tweet 3) the claimant sent the “launch tweet” that led to an avalanche of tweets in response, and to the Garden Court actions complained of as detriment. Commenting on the launch of LGB Alliance in London she said:

“this is an historic moment for the lesbian, gay and bisexual movements. The LGB Alliance launched in London tonight, and we mean business. Spread the word, gender extremism is about to meet its match”.

The claimant’s launch tweet generated a strong reaction on Twitter, some of which was specifically directed at Garden Court

The claimant has argued that her reference to “what we have endured getting LGB Alliance off the ground” included by implication Garden Court’s action against her.

• Employment tribunal preliminary judgement

Then in October 2019 the Claimant launched (with others) an organisation known as the LGB Alliance to campaign for LGB rights without the gender theory espoused by Stonewall, and made various tweets in connection with that launch.

There is also evidence that some members of Chambers, and some employees, were concerned about the Claimant’s launch of the LGB Alliance in October 2019, and the tweets that the Claimant sent around that time

• BBC

"In 2019, Ms Bailey founded the LGB Alliance, a charity which argues ..."

• House of Commons Library

"Allison Bailey, a barrister and founder of the LGB Alliance campaign group, brought a discrimination claim against Garden Court Chambers, where she worked"

• Guardian

"The decision, on Wednesday, that LGB Alliance founder and barrister Allison Bailey had suffered..."

• Independent

"Ms Bailey founded the LGB Alliance group in 2019, which argues that..."

• JULIE BINDEL on Unherd

Such was Bailey’s disenchantment, she helped set up the LGB alliance which advocated for the rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.

• The Times

Bailey, a criminal law barrister, founded the LGB Alliance in 2019. The group argues that there is...

• Law Gazette

Allison Bailey, works as a criminal defence barrister at Garden Court Chambers in London. She is a founder of the charity and pressure group LGB Alliance and holds gender critical beliefs.

• Daily Mail

[Ms Bailey] founded the LGB Alliance group,

• Debbie Hayton in The Spectator

inaugural meeting of the LGB Alliance last week...I was at the meeting, ...Allison Bailey, a criminal defence barrister, who had sat just in front of me. Her apparent crime? To tweet:

“This is an historic moment for the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual movement. *LGB Alliance* launched in London tonight, and we mean business. Spread the word, gender extremism is about to meet its match.”

I could keep going. So we have Companies House and accepted court documents saying there are four founding directors. We have Bailey's own laywers in court saying that not only did Bailey help set up LGB Alliance but it was Bailey herself who launched it with their tweet. And Bailey's own fundraising page says she helped setup LGB Alliance. So you are telling me that Bell, in their court documents, deliberately lied about "Beverley Jackson, Ann Sinnott, Katharine Harris and Malcolm Clark" being founding directors and deliberately lied that "Allison Bailey, who has acted as a co-founder", because she's from Mermaids and so incapable of telling anything truthful about LGB Alliance in a court of law? The world and his dog says you are wrong and Bell is absolutely correct, Void. Please drop the stick. -- Colin°^Talk 11:12, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

What you said was: "Allison Bailey told the world she was a co-founder and provided the tweets to a court to prove it".

I note in this response you haven't provided evidence of Allison Bailey telling the world she was a co-founder.

And don't say I'm accusing people of lying when I am not please. Void if removed (talk) 14:00, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, if they weren't lying, why did they write something you insist isn't true, to a court of law. You say she is "someone actively attempting to shut down the organisation making unevidenced statements" but in real life people don't put little [1] citations after everything they say. If I say Rishi Sunak is prime minister of the UK, you don't argue I'm making an unevidenced statement. What possible motivation would she have for getting those facts wrong? LGB Alliance agreed and accepted the court documents that listed the four "founders and directors". LGB Alliance on their own website says "She helped us set up LGB Alliance and publicised our launch with a tweet on 22 October 2019." Why are you trying to discredit Bell who is stating accurate and widely accepted facts, in a court. I'll tell you why, because you have run out of argument and are just randomly picking up something to fling.

Only you seem to be stuck on the difference between "helped to setup" and "founded". A person who single-handedly launched it to the internet on Twitter after attending its inaugural meeting. Those are the tweets in the court. She got into problems with her employer for launching LGB Alliance. It doesn't get much more "foundery" than that. But really, Void, if LGBA's best mate Julie Bindel says Bailey founded the LGB Alliance, and the entire cross spectrum of the UK press says she founded the LGB alliance, why does do you keep making repeated requests that this widely accepted fact be removed from the article? -- Colin°^Talk 15:58, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Since we know the distinct roles filled by each of these individuals, (and possibly others) why don't we record them? Simply lumping everyone into a list isn't very informative. On one level, the organisers of the initial meeting are clearly the key founders, on other levels everyone attending that meeting and voicing support is a founder - or founding member. Other names quickly became attached. Some people adopted legal roles following the meeting - usually an indication of legal and reputational 'standing' and experience, rather than their centrality. Bailey appears to have (informally and seemingly not wholly intentionally) 'launched' LGBA. What is the advantage of treating these people as "equal" founders? And why are they listed in the lead with no info attached to their names. We might as well be recording who answered the phone at the beginning in terms of info imparted IMO. Pincrete (talk) 08:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

While some of this information helps us discuss it on the talk page, we need to go with how sources describe the individuals, rather than extrapolate from who attended which meetings. All five of these people have at times been described by reliable sources as LGB Alliance founders or as someone who founded LGB Alliance. I don't think Void would accept your suggestion that everyone who was at the inaugural meeting is a founder or founder member. For example, Debbie Hayton above, describes being at the meeting, and I don't think anyone has suggested they founded LGB Alliance. One could attend out of interest but not be involved. Founder is a suitably encompassing term that includes anyone involved in setting up an organisation, and it is also a term used by our sources. We don't have sources that speak of two as "key founders" and at the same time speaking of the others as some kind of lesser founders, and we really do need such in order for us to state this distinction. I accept it isn't an ideal situation and there does appear to be that kind of distinction, but it simply isn't one that any source has described. I don't accept that our list "isn't informative". These people founded, setup, LGB Alliance, and they are important people in either its history or continue to be important to the organisation. Colin°^Talk 09:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I am absolutely fine with the other three being referred to in the body as founder members or early team members, or (in the case of Clark and Sinnott) the directors when it became a ltd company. None of those are disputed and can all be sourced. That is the approach I have advocated since I first foolishly raised this, thinking it would be a trivial change, many months ago.

I merely maintain there is a distinction between founder (the two who instigated the org), and those who joined at the point of founding. The first two should be mentioned in the lede and the about box, the others described in the "history", along with all the current cruft that is attached to them.

We don't have sources that speak of two as "key founders" and at the same time speaking of the others as some kind of lesser founders, and we really do need such in order for us to state this distinction

So having synthesized a list of five from multiple separate sources, that cannot be undone except by a new source naming all five in one place, and stating three of them aren't founders? This is an unreasonable standard of evidence. We have never had any sources that speak of all five together in any capacity except the ones that are now 99% likely to have been copied from here. But we have a couple that name four in distinct fashion:

Debbie Hayton in the Spectator:

"Its founders Bev Jackson and Kate Harris were veteran lesbian campaigners. They were joined by filmmaker Malcolm Clark and barrister Allison Bailey"

LGB Alliance - Who What Why When

"LGB Alliance was founded at Conway Hall on 22 October 2019 by two lesbians -- Kate Harris and Bev Jackson."

"But Kate and Bev – and the rapidly-assembled little team including Allison Bailey and Malcolm Clark" Void if removed (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, it is not WP:SYNTH that we are doing. Synthesis is about a source for fact A and a source for fact B and concluding fact C without a source linking that conclusion. We have a source that A and B are an X and we have a source that C is an X and we can say A, B and C are all X's. It is actually synthesis that Void is doing. Because they are taking a source that says A and B are an X and concluding, without a source that says so, that C is not an X. And further more, doing so in the face of multiple sources that say C is an X. -- Colin°^Talk 15:03, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You can't just add these together like that, "founder" is not an adjective disconnected from surrounding events.

It isn't like source A saying X is a company's director, and source B saying Y is a director, therefore X and Y are both directors. A straightforward job title like "director" doesn't relate to mutually exclusive claims about a particular event in time.

"Founder" relates specifically to a single historical fact: who founded LGB Alliance? You are answering that question by combining multiple sources.

Source A says only X and Y founded LGB Alliance.

Source B implies Z founded LGB Alliance by calling them "founder", but without actually saying "X, Y and Z together founded LGB Alliance".

Combining sources B and A to decide for yourself that "X, Y and Z together founded LGB Alliance", when no single source made that claim, is WP:SYNTH. Void if removed (talk) 09:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I was making the point that 'founder/founding member' etc are not precise terms. Since you outlined each person's role in order to justify inclusion as 'founders', why not simply include each person's role as outlined. Two women organised an initial meeting, other people came on board as directors, Bailey became involved and released a tweet that. This is more informative than a generic undifferentiated list, which is at least partially contradicted by more recent sources. Pincrete (talk) 15:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

There are no sources that "contradict" what we wrote. No source says Bailey wasn't a founder. No source says those four were not founding directors. No source, in fact, says there is any dispute over who should count as a founder. We don't really have good sources that go into the specifics of who did what. Most of that detail is coming from Twitter and what people said in court, etc. We've mentioned here as they are informative to our discussion, but they don't really have use as article sources. If all these extremely high quality sources say Bailey was a founder, who are we to say she is not, and just someone who got pre-emptively over excited on Twitter. -- Colin°^Talk 18:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

To expect a source to explicitly say all the people who weren't founders is comical. When good, recent, neutral sources (such as the Gdn), consistently refer to the same two people, as having 'started the ball rolling' it effectively contradicts the broader list of 'founders'. No one has questioned that those four were not founding directors, it is reliably sourced that this was their role. So why should the article not say so, rather than the generic 'founder'? Bailey's role is similarly documented. What -of any value to the reader- is being defended by insisting on an amorphous blob 'list'? Pincrete (talk) 05:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Of course I'm not expecting a source to list "all the people who weren't founders". But we have sources saying each of these five people "founded" LGB Alliance. To even being to consider that this is "contradicted", as you put it, we'd need sources disagreeing. Void appears to think that a source saying A & B founded LGB Alliance, and not mentioning C, is implying that only A & B founded LGB Alliance, and nobody else. If we take that interpretation of our sources, what are we going to do with all the sources saying C founded LGB Alliance. Go look at all the many top-tier sources above saying Bailey founded LGB Alliance, and not mentioning the two that Void is so keen we list alone. So the idea that "founded LGB Alliance" is without doubt a statement of a clearly restricted list of founders cannot be so. Instead, what many people here have taken, is these are not contradictory statements, and not all our sources are using the word "founder"/"founded" in a restrictive manner.

Pincrete, when we have reliable sources all using the word "founder" for these five people, and no reliable sources, none at all, saying that this is wrong, why should we use an alternative word or attempt to give different roles just because an editor thinks they are wrong. And it seems only you are finding this list to be of no value. Clearly it is of value, as it has filled the talk pages of this article on several occasions. -- Colin°^Talk 06:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Filling a talk page isn't my measure of 'value to the reader'. I regard discussion about whether someone was a 'founder' largely fruitless, since it clearly can have a number of uses. But the only 'universal' usage is attached to the two women who organised the initial meeting, but I'm not even stuck on using the term 'founder' for those two - that they organised the meeting is well documented, that others took on other roles is equally well documented, as is Bailey's involvement and actions. Why exclude reliably sourced detailed information about the genesis of LGBA in favour of an uncharacterised list? A list which is at least partially contradicted by other info. Pincrete (talk) 08:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

"Void appears to think that a source saying A & B founded LGB Alliance"

You seem to be saying that when we have at least half a dozen primary and secondary sources that say "this org was founded by two people, x and y" it is fine to interpret that as "but there could have been a dozen other people and we should add them in from any passing mention over the last 3-4 years".

Even if your logic held, we also have HQ recent sources that say:

"LGB Alliance was founded in 2019 by two lesbians, Kate Harris and Bev Jackson"

Which would preclude there being any other lesbians, which would rule out Bailey. And Malcolm Clark has explicitly said he isn't a founder.

What do you want? An investigative piece in The Times that says "only these two people, no-one else, and wikipedia is wrong"?

"what are we going to do with all the sources saying C founded LGB Alliance"

What we do is:

• Agree that unless someone is called "founder" , "co-founder" or explicitly stated that the org was "founded by" them, then they don't get called "founder" on this page, in the lede, or in the about box, but can be mentioned in whatever capacity we decide in the history section (ie. nothing that says "founding member" or "director" or "helped" or "was involved" or "acts as" or "helped start" equates to "founder"). Without that agreement, there's no point discussing sources.
• Take as a starting point the information on their website that is corroborated by The Guardian and The Times, unless there is a story specifically and directly disputing the founding of the organisation, per WP:ABOUTSELF
• Ignore older sources that don't specifically name all individuals together as founders, because assembling a composite list from individual mentions is WP:SYNTH and should never have been approached like this in the first place.
• Treat passing mentions of someone being a "founder" in headlines or in stories that aren't directly about the founding of the organisation or that are not backed up with a direct quote as less notable and reliable than a story that explicitly states eg. "the org was founded in 2019 by x, y and z".
• Treat older sources as less reliable than newer ones, per WP:RSAGE

Once that's done, you are left with a conflict between what they say - backed up at a minimum by the Guardian and The Times - and what Pink News says. And what Pink News says is 99% likely to have been copied from here, and if we cite it is WP:CITOGENESIS Void if removed (talk) 08:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

We have some options

1. Each time our sources say ".... founded LGB Alliance" we interpret this as fully definitive of who the founders were. This is Void's interpretation AFAICS. When we do that, we have sources saying one thing and sources saying entirely another. We have very high quality sources for each of these, especially Kate, Bev and Bailey. If we arbitrarily picked one (Kate and Bev, say), we have no reasonable way of telling the reader that we randomly decided Bailey wasn't a founder, even though many high quality sources says she was and even though our Wikipedia article says she was. If we picked another (Bailey, say) and stick 10 citations on the end of the sentence just to rub it in, we have no reasonable way of telling the reader that LGB Alliance themselves are mistaken or lying when they say Kate and Bev founded it. Void suggests picking the most recent source, because that suits their case today, but they'll be upset if Bailey gets into the news again. Because "recent high quality sources" will then describe, in their interpretation, Bailey as being the only founder of LGB Alliance. This path is madness.

2. Each time our sources say ".... founded LGB Alliance" we interpret this as non-limiting. If I say I saw two cats in my garden today, I'm not suggesting there weren't ever any others, or that the list of cats in my garden is infinite or uncountable should one pay attention. With this interpretation, our sources do not disagree. Indeed, to pick on your two lesbians comment, my comment about the two cats in my garden does not preclude there being a dog. This is the simplest option and no sources contradict.

3. Our sources might be doing either of these but have differing ideas of what it means to be a founder. For example, when LGB Alliance say Kate and Bev founded LGB Alliance, they are thinking about who had the original idea and organised the first meeting. But when countless sources are commenting on Bailey, mainly in the context of their court case, they are thinking about who helped setup and launch LGB Alliance, and Bailey certainly fits that role, being present at the first meeting, being the one who launched it on Twitter, and going on to offer further setup assistance. And the "founding directors" are certainly "founders" otherwise they wouldn't be "founding directors", and we have high quality sources for those four, which excludes Bailey, as she's not a director. This is a more complex option, and we can't get into their minds to know whether it is true, but it also allows us to agree that no sources contradict. Provided we use an encompassing adjective, we can draw our Venn diagram round them all.

Really, Void, I think it best if you accept our sources have different interpretations of what it means to be a founder, and that most of them at least are not being definitive. I'm sure you'll agree that none of our sources, when they say Bailey founded LGB Alliance are telling us that Bev and Kate did not. It is best, surely, to find a way to live at peace with what other people wrote and thought, rather than demand that most of them are completely wrong. -- Colin°^Talk 13:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

For some reason, you have no difficulty outlining the roles played by each of these individuals - and sourcing that outlining - in order to justify lumping the together under the the generic 'founder', but object to recording in the article what the various roles were. I'm not hung up on the specific term 'founder', though the people who had the original idea and organised the first meeting, are obviously the people most often described thus. If people involved in the setting up are worthy of being named (in the body), why is what they did not worthy of being noted? The issue of whether person A or is a 'founder' to some sources, but not others becomes irrelevant if you outline their role. There is no need to say anyone wasn't a founder if you just say what their involvement was. Pincrete (talk) 15:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The sourcing for the role detail is generally weaker than the sourcing for "founder". We can cite weak sources on this talk page in order to get a picture, and discuss, but we can't use them in the article. The people using the "generic 'founder'" are reliable sources. If we additionally want to elaborate on their roles, and we happen to have high quality sources to use for that, then I don't have a problem with adding that information. It does seem like our sources have different interpretations of the word "founder" but we can't just go with Pincrete's favourite interpretation, and ignore the sources that use another. That's a bit like rejecting sources saying someone is a rock musician because they don't fit with your own personal idea of what rock music is. -- Colin°^Talk 16:14, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Have the sources specifically said that they're using "different interpretations of founder", or is this something users have interpreted on their behalf? Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 22:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Have the sources specifically said that they're all using the above users' restrictive interpretation of founder, or is that something users have interpreted on their behalf? (It's the latter; as far as I've seen, no reliable sources say the other people [who reliable sources say are founders] aren't founders.) -sche (talk) 02:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

None of our sources define the words they are using, which is not a common thing to do when writing. I proposed several options above; there may be more. We don't know whether our sources are being definitive in their list or partial, and we don't know precisely what each source means by "founder". But there are several options that do not require our sources to be mutually at odds with each other, which would be an odd situation to be in since many of the sources are highly reliable. The campaign by Void is dependent on multiple high quality sources to be talking out of their backsides, and it is also reliant on the most recent sources happening, just by chance, to agree with him. It isn't really tenable. -- Colin°^Talk 06:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

In your examples:

1 - if this did happen, we'd have to report that sources disagreed. But there is not a single source that says "founded by" Bailey alone. There are multiple that say Jackson and Harris alone, and every other mention is lower strength ( ie, title in passing, not "here's how LGBA was founded"). In fact I propose that any source that doesn't explicitly say "LGBA was founded by..." or similar, should be discounted as irrelevant. We have good clear sources now, we don't need to go fishing through dozens of passing mentions and interpreting them.

2 - this is WP:SYNTH and if you truly believe this is appropriate, we should probably add Eileen Gallagher to the list, even though we can verify she only joined in 2021.

3 - this requires applying your own interpretation to conflicting sources. That's not how to go about this. Incorrect information about a small chaotic organisation must be superceded by better, later sources, once the dust settles and where there's no actual controversy.

You keep ignoring the plain, longstanding denials of eg. Malcolm Clark, the fact that at least two original sources have been corrected since publication, and the increasing possibility of WP:CITOGENESIS over the last 2 years.

Hypothetically, let's say I'm right: Jackson and Harris are co-founders, and the others recognise and endorse this. What evidence exactly do you think it would take to reflect that here and overturn the synth list? Void if removed (talk) 09:01, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

There are plenty sources that say Bailey founded LGB Alliance, without mentioning Jackson and Harris, and without saying "co-founder". I think you are stretching things to suggest such comments are "in passing". Her role wrt LGB Alliance is the entire reason she got into trouble with her employer and ultimately went to court, which is the only reason this person is in any way notable. That she "founded LGB Alliance" is not a passing remark in such articles. And I find it hard to think anyone would be impressed with your argument that you could only mention Muhammad founded Islam if the source was about Islam and not about Muhammad.

This is English we are dealing with, not a computer program. We all have to work out what people meant by the words they wrote. You are determined to interpret a meaning for our sources that lead them to conflict with each other in the most fundamental way (i.e. every single source that says Bailey or Clark founded or co-founded LGB Alliance is dead wrong). I'm not ignoring Clark, though you only have a tweet for that. The best way to think about this problem really is #3 where each source and each person and each of us all have our own ideas of what it means to be a founder. So perhaps in Clark's view, he doesn't count as a founder. Whoopee do for him. Or maybe he was told to say that but is pissed off about it and has to toe the party line. Who knows and who cares. In the view of journalists writing about him, he is a co-founder. Bailey is clearly very proud of her role in setting up LGB Alliance and most sources writing about her describe her as a founder. Deal with it, Void. We are all different and thank the Lord we are. -- Colin°^Talk 12:25, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

"Only you seem to be stuck on the difference between "helped to setup" and "founded". "

Founder has deeper implications than just being around to help in the beginning, or joining early. As I have said before: Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter are recognised as the founders of the UK GLF by historians and by all of the founding members of the UK GLF, Bev Jackson included. Tesla went through a whole lawsuit after Martin Eberhard tried to sue Musk for calling himself "founder". I'm sure you can find lots of sources saying Patrick Moore was a co-founder of Greenpeace, but despite controversy stoked by Moore himself the wiki page doesn't say that because the org itself says he wasn't and reliable sources corroborate this. Given his stance on climate change, some have sought political advantage by inflating his importance, but HQ secondary sources have sorted out the truth of the matter and it is those that are relied upon, not a continual revisiting of ancient erroneous or partisan sources. Who an org considers its own founders is not for you to decide simply because you don't personally think it matters. Do you really think "who cares, call them a founder, it doesn't matter" would have been an adequate resolution to this actual controversy?

In the case of LGBA there is absolutely no dispute except that created by editors on this page - there is not a single story anywhere expressing any controversy over who the founders of LGBA are. The org have published what they consider to be the truth, and HQ secondary sources corroborate that.

From the timeline they have published there are four months between the July cancellation of the GLF panel event at the LSE and October 2019, during which Kate Harris and Bev Jackson worked together to prepare to launch this new org with a meeting on October 22nd. Bailey accidentally and unofficially announced the org on a bus on the way home. At least three of the invitees joined the management team after the meeting.

That three early members among an unknown number in a tiny, accidentally-announced organisation sometimes got misreported as "founder" is exactly why WS:RSAGE exists. Some examples of misreporting will never be corrected and continually bringing them up cannot trump newer sources that have had the time to sift through contradictory reports.

"What possible motivation would she have for getting those facts wrong?"

Again - she said Bailey acts "as if". That's speculation, she's giving her opinion, with no evidence that it is actually true, and acting "as if" is not being. She said the other four were directors. That was agreed in the facts. Becoming a director in November is not "founder". You are applying your own novel interpretation to primary sources to override secondary ones.

"Julie Bindel says Bailey founded the LGB Alliance"

Julie Bindel said "helped set up". There is absolutely no point weighing up sources unless there is some agreement that "founder" and "helped set up" are not synonyms.

I think "founder" requires a reference that explicitly says "founder", "co-founder" or "founded by", and I think a recent source describing the founding is stronger than an older source that simply labels an individual in passing.

If we can't even agree that, then this is even more futile than the last time this came up. Void if removed (talk) 13:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I accept Julie Bindel did not use the word "founder" but are you going to claim to me that the Daily Mail, The Times, the Law Gazette and the House of Commons library, to pick just a handful of sources, are so addled with gender ideology that they were mistaken when they explicitly state that Baily is a founder of the LGB Alliance.

Bell did not say "as if". They said "who has acted as a co-founder". So she quacks like a duck.. And Bell did not say "the other four were directors". She said they were "the four founding directors of LGB Alliance". And the earlier agreed court document described all four as "Its founding members and directors". Anyway, I'm not arguing Bell should be a source, merely mentioning this is someone who ought to know what they are talking about, writing to a body that cares very much if you tell porkies, who disagrees with you.

Wrt Greenpeace there are two differences. As you note, the dispute over who counts as a founder of Greenpeace is widely described in publications. We don't have that. If we had such a dispute in sources, we could say the list of founders is disputed and we might have a mechanism to group them in some hierarchy of foundership. The Greenpeace article does not say Moore is not a founder; it has no opinion on that. The BBC only corroborates that Greenpeace themselves dispute whether Moore was a founder. The BBC article does not have an opinion of who the founders were, only what X said and what Y said.

But the second difference is that Greenpeace is a 50-year-old organisation with 1500 staff and a budget in 2011 of a quarter of a billion dollars. Legal difficulties and controversial posts on Twitter aside, LGB Alliance has done less than your average local scout group or parent-teacher association. Nobody is going to write "The controversy over who founded LGB Alliance" in the Times, because the Times is only interested in LGB Alliance while culture wars over trans people sells newspapers. If LGB Alliance actually became a small organisation in support of LGB people, nobody would write about them at all. -- 14:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 14:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Please stop invoking WP:RSAGE as though the only sources we're discussing here are all from when the Alliance was newly formed. Earlier in this discussion I linked two sources published this year, a CTV News article that you dismissed for mentioning someone in passing in some Canadian article that isn't even about LGB Alliance, and an article published by The Times consisting almost entirely of content from Malcolm Clark that you've not acknowledged. Both of these articles were published within a day of each other in January 2023.

Also in the November 2022 discussion on this point that I'd linked to earlier, I provided a list of reliable sources in my comment at 21:56, 25 November 2022, covering a period between January 2020 through to November 2022.

If we only had sources from say 2019/2020 when the organisation was formed, you might have a point. But when we have reliable sources that were published just a few months ago, the argument that this is something that only older and less reliable sources are doing fails entirely. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

To what extent is this a question in the real world and to what extent is this just a question here on this page? If there is a genuine dispute out there about this then maybe we can document it by saying something like "Its founders have been variously reported as..." however if, as seems to be the case, this question only really exists in here (and maybe in the LGBA's tea room) then that isn't really worth ongoing discussion. It is not for Wikipedia to get involved in the LGBA's internal disputes even if one exists. If members of the LGBA really have fallen out, and are trying to rewrite their history accordingly, then that's extremely funny but it's not an issue for Wikipedia unless it gets significant coverage in Reliable Sources. If not, that sort of thing is best saved for Twitter.

The argument here is fairly close to being a WP:ONEAGAINSTMANY situation. I'm not going to report anybody but I would remind everybody that editors have been topic banned from GENSEX articles for bludgeoning Talk pages in the past and, in my understanding, maybe even for somewhat less than this. I really do think that it is time to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

+1. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 18:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Not helpful. The article does have issues. I recall someone here saying not too long ago that substantial portions of the article reads like a laundry list of (paraphrasing) "here is a collection of random things I found online about an organisation I dislike" (in the archives-on mobile, can't link now, will do later if requested). And I believe if that content was removed, a reasonable case could be made at AfD. That would arguably be the ideal outcome. Leove it all on Twitter and save us all the headache. I don't know... Aren't we all sick of the minutiae of this article (like the use of the word "founders") bursting out in to 20k+ disagreements at this point? Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 21:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The article has already survived one AfD and it is incredibly unlikely to ever be deleted. Regrettably, "It has an exceptionally annoying Talk page" is not a valid criteria for deletion. ;-) If you want to raise any issues then please start another section. Of course, there is a risk that that discussion of that might also spiral out of control but if you try to raise the point in a clear, well defined and policy based way then maybe we can avoid it. Whatever you might come up with is unlikely to be any worse than this. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

No chance of me doing that. I've already invested what I consider to be too much of my on-Wiki time to this article/talk page. I'm genuinely not all that interested in any case, and my one attempt to correct what I considered to be unsourced material in the lead was reverted by a now-topic-banned user as "POV tag-bombing", despite that same user admitting on the resultant talk page discussion that the prose was not cited to the then-current sourcing, and that it was my responsibility to go through every other source on the article to fix the sourcing issues I identified. Thankfully, the issues I identified were eventually corrected by another editor after months of discussion, but the entire topic area is clearly toxic, and with ArbCom sanctions being what they are... what's the point? Discussions like this is what we're left with, where well-meaning users are deterred and/or banned from ever contributing to the topic area again. C'est la vie on Wikipedia c. 2023. Homeostasis07 (talk/contributions) 00:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

While I agree the article has problems, and it was probably me who made the "here is a collection of random things I found online about an organisation I dislike" comment (which applies to both sides in the trans culture war). But I'm also realistic that while the culture war is ongoing in parts of the internet, newspapers and politics, there will continue to be a battle to include/remove/correct/paint articles according to activist positions. But I think we are all now quite sick of this "founders" dispute, and I don't see any movement towards a resolution. I think we should, at this point, simply agree to disagree and find something more useful to do. -- Colin°^Talk 10:30, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Views on speed-dating night

Hello @Sideswipe9th, I hope all's well.

I included the following text:

Support for excluding trans women from lesbian dating event. In September 2023, Kate Barker expressed delight that Stonegate Group, a chain of pubs, decided that a weekly lesbian speed-dating event only for "adult human females" could continue. Activists had reported the organiser as being "transphobic". Kate Barker said: "It’s a significant win. It tells the owners of pubs, restaurants and clubs that discriminating against lesbians is wrong."

It was reverted by @Sideswipe9th Undid revision 1173675362 by AndyGordon (talk) WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:NOTSOAPBOX. From reading the source, it appears as though the LGB Alliance had nothing to do with this event beyond commenting on the decision made by the pub. This doesn't seem to be of encyclopaedic value or directly related to the organisations activities.

I don't understand why you think this would be using Wikipedia as a soapbox.

From WP:DUE, "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources."

The source article is a substantial discussion of the topic of this page, in a RS, a mainstream newspaper. The subtitle is "LGB Alliance hails decision by pub owner to allow women-only gathering after transphobia row". Of the article's 625 words, 262 are devoted to LGB Alliance's views on this matter, and another 219 on background on LGB Alliance.

It's not relevant to neutrality or WP:DUE whether or not LGBA did anything. (In fact, they did, the organiser thanked them in her Twitter feed.) The point is that for the sake of neutrality we need to include a summary of their views on this matter from this RS.

Regards, @AndyGordon AndyGordon (talk) 07:36, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I also don’t see how AndyGordon’s addition could be regarded as WP:SOAPBOX – and that comment in the edit summary is insulting.

I think the question of whether this should be included in our article depends on whether the change was down to action by LGBA. The Telegraph article says: In a statement, Kate Barker, the chief executive of LGB Alliance, said: “We are delighted that Stonegate Group has agreed that Jenny’s lesbian speed-dating event at the College Arms can continue, and we thank them for their swift response. which sounds like LGBA challenged the decision, and as a result it was changed. This is confirmed in an article by Kate Barker in Spiked in which she says that Jenny Watson asked LGBA for help, and they argued for her with the management. [6]Spiked is not a news publication, and, since the article is actually written by Kate Barker, I do not suggest using Spiked as a source. But it is support for the relevance of the incident to LGBA. Can anyone provide a news source which is more specific about LGBA’s action in this case?

Sweet6970 (talk) 10:40, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Not great sources but, per that Spiked piece and an earlier GB News interview, LGBA intervened on her behalf with both pub management and Stonegate management, accompanied her to meetings etc. There's this again on GB News, which isn't terribly specific but does have the organiser specifically crediting LGB Alliance GB News. From the transcript:

"in my case it was the LGB Alliance and they have been so so supportive you know like a couple of years ago we had nothing like that and I would have just crumbled and their support has been amazing and without them we wouldn't have we wouldn't be here you know Friday wouldn't have happened we would have shut down and yeah they've been a a

great force you know I'm so so thankful for their help"

Aside from that it is self-published sources on twitter or youtube.

This I would say appears to be a far more significant and relevant event than the numerous "social media tattle" type things currently filling this page, but the coverage is poor and hard to assemble into a straightforward "LGBA forces pub chain to back down over lesbian event" type thing. It might be worth waiting to see if a better source emerges? And I also think if it does go in in some form, it doesn't belong in "views".

As an aside, this again brings up the problem with balanced coverage of this org, ie outlets for whom LGB issues are supposedly their remit like Pink News don't cover this - an actual, material intervention specifically supporting a lesbian event in the face of clear and unlawful discrimination - because they loathe them, and outlets like The Telegraph and The Mail only really care about the trans angle. Void if removed (talk) 11:14, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Here's a better source (archive link)

"When we approached them and made our case in support of Jenny, they swiftly agreed to reverse their manager's decision". Void if removed (talk) 13:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

How about citing that last Telegraph article by Kate Barker and adding a sentence to the "gay & lesbian rights" section? Eg.

"In August 2023, after the organiser of a long-running lesbian speed-dating night made clear only female attendees would be allowed, the event was cancelled by its normal venue. LGB Alliance supported the organiser and convinced the pub's owner, Stonegate, to reverse the decision, arguing that it was discrimination against lesbians". Void if removed (talk) 15:13, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

It's seems like reliable, secondary, independent sources aren't covering LGB Alliance's role here very much. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

That second Telegraph piece is fine as a source for statements from Kate Barker, so how about something like:

In August 2023, LGB Alliance supported the organiser of a long-running lesbian speed-dating night, whose event was cancelled after she had made clear only female attendees would be allowed. The event was later reinstated by the pub's owner, Stonegate, after which LGB Alliance CEO Kate Barker stated "When we approached them and made our case in support of [the organiser], they swiftly agreed to reverse their manager’s decision."' Void if removed (talk) 15:46, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Which sources are we using for "LGB Alliance supported the organiser"? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:56, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Depends - GB News is "generally unreliable", but isn't blacklisted, and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Here we have a video with the organiser quite plainly stating that she was supported by LGBA. It is about as unambiguous a case as it is possible to get from a source I wouldn't normally recommend touching. Failing that could do "expressed support for", which is hardly controversial and can be cited to any one of their public statements expressing support, but strikes me as unnecessary. Void if removed (talk) 16:25, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Even within the realm of context matters, a generally unreliable source should not be used outside of exceptional circumstances, and this does not rise to that level. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Generally unreliable sources "may still be used for uncontroversial self-descriptions" - this is the organiser herself, describing the support she received. It is not controversial. All parties say this, and none dispute it.

As well we have a TalkTV interview saying the same thing.

"They worked on my behalf"

"They sent a letter to Stonegate"

"Without them I would have crumbled"

etc.

This is the organiser herself, in three video interviews, one appearing alongside Kate Barker, and two saying how grateful she was for their intervention. I think this constitutes support. Void if removed (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree that reliable, secondary, independent sources don't seem to be covering the LGBA's role here. From the originally cited article the only apparent involvement from the LGBA was that they commented on the outcome of the investigation by the pub owners. Hence why I reverted it citing WP:SOAPBOX, as we are not a soapbox or other promotional source for the LGBA's views. GB News, Spiked, and other unreliable sources don't factor into our decision here, and don't contribute towards due weight. Additionally the two GB News videos provided above are interviews with Kate Barker, and so would fail the independent sources test. Statements by the LGBA on their Twitter and YouTube accounts would fall under WP:ABOUTSELF, however as they are involving claims about third parties (ie the pub/pub chain, those protesting the event), we can't use those here.

As for the better source provided by Void if removed, unfortunately that's part of the Telegraph's comment section and so subject to WP:RSOPINION. As such we wouldn't be able to use that to support any factual reporting on this. It's also written by Barker, so it fails the independent sources test. At best it could be used as a secondary citation to support comments made by Barker, if those otherwise met due weight through secondary coverage in reliable sources.

As things stand right now, and with the sources so far provided or alluded to, I'm not seeing any policy or guideline compliant way to include content about this in the article. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Having done a more exhaustive Google Search on this, outside of the interviews (TalkTV, GB News), the opinion articles written by Baker (Spiked, Spectator, Telegraph), the originally cited Telegraph article, and the comments on social media, no other reliable or unreliable source has covered this in any way. This seems very much undue for inclusion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

The additional of the proposed information would not make Wikipedia a ‘promotional source for the LGBA’s views’ and I don’t understand why you have said that it would.

We can use the original Telegraph source, plus the interview on TalkTV, where the organiser of the event says she had assistance from LGBA. There really isn’t any doubt about the facts, and the report and the article by Kate Barker in the Telegraph show that the incident has attracted enough attention in a national newspaper to make it DUE.

Sweet6970 (talk) 17:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this, and I still think that that Telegraph piece by Kate Barker, per WP:RSOPINION, is a valid source for a direct quote about the nature of their involvement.

And I don't think anyone could accuse this wiki page of being a "promotional" one. Void if removed (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I'll let other people discuss the finer points of the sourcing but I have some other, unrelated, concerns with the removed content. First up, who is Kate Barker? Nobody reading that proposed section would know. She is not mentioned elsewhere in the article and yet she is mentioned by name twice as if readers already know who she is and how that contextualises the content here. (Maybe she should be mentioned elsewhere as, after Googling, I discovered that she is the CEO of the LGBA and not the more famous economist of the same name.) A reader is very likely to wonder what any of this even has to do with the LGBA. Secondly, there is no way on earth that a section title is justified for so minor an incident, which is ironic considering that the proposed section title is actually far more informative than the paragraph underneath it when it comes to explaining what the actual controversy was. If you look at the other subsections of the Views section, they all refer to broad topics or general positions, not to individual very specific incidents. This is not of the same ilk. So, I think the sourcing needs to be thrashed out first but if it is decided that we are to cover this fairly minor matter at all then I suggest that we start from scratch. Keep it short, explain the LGBA's involvement, and say what we actually mean, "excluding trans women", instead of expecting readers to be able to decode it from the euphemisms in the quotation. The other problem would be deciding where to place it in the article. The article has no section detailing the LGBA's activities, which is kind of understandable given that they have so little, but I think it would make sense to have such a section, threadbare though it may be, in order to make a place for coverage of activities such as this. DanielRigal (talk) 18:29, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

@Sweet6970 @Void if removed, we have to treat the video interviews as primary sources, and they're not independent sources as the organiser is involved. See WP:INTERVIEWS. It would be much better IMHO to wait until a reliable secondary source describes how LGBA was involved.

In the mean time, it's a much stronger case to include my original description (or something like it) that states what happened alongside LGBA's viewpoint, without making the claim that they were involved, based simply on the Telegraph article. One reliable source is enough. Most the sentences in the views section of this article are supported by a single source - and we have been reporting views rather than actions by LGBA. AndyGordon (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Without their direct involvement, this story is not significant enough for inclusion, especially not as its own section under "views". Void if removed (talk) 21:36, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

As per WP:RSOPINION, it's legitimate for us to use Kate Barker's piece (thanks @Void if removed) to summarise LGBA's opinion about lesbian speed-dating.

In The Telegraph, LGBA chief executive Kate Barker wrote that "lesbian speed-dating, by definition, is not for everyone" and said that the Equality Act 2010 permits excluding "men identifying as women and as lesbians" from a lesbian speed-dating event.

I'd propose including the text above in the original reverted text, probably before the specific incident. This is a core part of their views, sourced reliably, and we should include it. AndyGordon (talk) 07:57, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

This is not about "lesbian speed dating". It is about single-sex events and the right in UK law to events organised around sexual orientation. This falls under their views on lesbian & gay rights.

It does not require a section devoted to "lesbian speed dating", and framing this as LGBA expressing an opinion on speed dating is so trivial as to be WP:NOTEVERYTHING and I agree with its removal on those grounds. LGBA on the other hand intervening on behalf of the organiser of a cancelled event and being instrumental in getting Britain's largest pub chain to reverse this decision is notable.

While it would be nice to get a single article in The Guardian laying everything out clearly, I think there are good enough sources to make the nature of their involvement here plain regardless, but if there is no consensus on that, recording it as their "opinion on lesbian speed dating" is not a compromise, it makes the whole thing too inconsequential to matter, and it should be left off entirely. Void if removed (talk) 08:17, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Hooray for Kate Barker who seems to have managed to self promote this entire thing and as usual get Wikipedians to write more words (on talk pages) about it that anyone else put together. I'm not impressed at "getting Britain's largest pub chain" language. That's like saying your local NHS hospital reviewed whether a poster someone put up was ok, after complaints, and decided it was, after someone wrote a letter defending it, and claiming this was a reversal by the world's fifth biggest employer. Void, if it is big, then independent people will go "wow, that's big". I don't see any. I didn't turn on the 10 o'clock news and be told in the headlines that Britain's biggest pub chain was forced to ...

This is at the level of the consumer help pages in the Guardian. Someone complains that BT over charged them and the journalist contacted BT by email and suddenly BT dropped the charges, and then suddenly there's a new section in The Guardian crowing about how they can push the UK's biggest telecom firm around.

Including random factoids that tangentially mention the article topic is not how we should be building articles. We have a dearth of source material on LGBA and I can understand that there's a desperation whenever anything turns up on a google search or in someone's favourite hate rag. And it is desperation.

This is a weekly night at one pub. If the disabled toilet at your local ASDA is out of order for a week, and you get your local MP to complain and then it gets fixed, I don't expect to see the Conservative party article boasting about their campaigning for disability rights. Have I given enough examples of how embarrassingly desperate this all sounds? -- Colin°^Talk 09:12, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

This is a lesbian speed-dating event that ran for 5 years, that was cancelled as soon as the organiser posted a message asking people to respect that that means women-only.

As a result the organiser was reported to her employer, abused, harassed, and received a threat of gang rape delivered to her home.

For wanting to run, I repeat, a lesbian speed-dating night.

You are doing a disservice here. As well as support both public and private through the ordeal of being abused, they accompanied the organiser to in-person meetings and confronted the pub manager with whatsapp messages revealing that he denigrated the organiser as a "TERFy asshole" among other things. They escalated to the CEO of Stonegate, and extracted a reversal, no doubt when Stonegate checked with their legal department that they would lose a discrimination claim, badly.

This is more significant than the majority of the nonsense on this page, and nothing like your trivial examples.

I did not raise this issue, and I don't agree with trying to shoehorn it in as a "view on lesbian speed-dating" as it originally was, as that is vapid. I have however put forward a constructive, alternative, neutral framing of this event based on what I think are justifiable sources that actually give it enough weight to deserve inclusion, and I have said clearly it should only be included if it rises to that level of weight. Void if removed (talk) 09:50, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Did I miss this source? I see your source to a "Comment" piece in the Telegraph written by the CEO of LGBA. Someone that LGBA describe as "A communications adviser to political parties, think tanks and campaign groups". She did her job. Well done. You don't need to persuade me about how awful the abuse is or argue the pros and cons of allowing people to find love in their own terms. Weight isn't governed by how strong you feel, but by sources. Look, if LGBA was actually a support group of national importance, there'd be audited reports on the hundreds or thousands of people helped. People would be writing books about how they shifted the momentum in the country. But it isn't. It is a few twitter accounts and folk who've got lucky that the UK right is currently on an anti-trans culture war and so welcome their opinions in right wing newspapers. Be careful labelling things "trivial". Disabled toilets being out of order long term is not a trivial thing and is the sort of discrimination covered by equality acts and handled by support groups and MPs. It is bread and butter for actual real support group. They might cite a case as an example of the countless they have dealt with. Instead here we have one case, written about by LGBA's CEO and professional promoter. Colin°^Talk 11:13, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

We have a telegraph article describing the original situation and reversal (which IMO is not enough on its own as it doesn't make clear the material involvement of the charity and is just expression of views, and thus trivial), the opinion piece in the telegraph which is valid for a direct quote if we can establish that the story is WP:DUE because of their actual involvement by another route, and a talk.tv interview with the organiser covering both their involvement, and justifying the use of the word "support". Depends which way you look at it - the talk.tv interview gives you the whole story, and the other two support it and flesh it out.

Over the course of 3 weeks (from initial cancellation to reversal), aside from social media this story seems to have got coverage in the mail, the express, the telegraph, the spectator, GB News and talk.tv (julia-hartley brewer), with a mix of opinion, and factual reporting that invariably left out LGBA's involvement. All right-wing sources, ranging from mostly-ok to don't-touch-with-a-bargepole.

I think there's definitely something significant there, but some of these are highly unreliable, partisan sources. The total silence from the gay press doesn't mean this isn't notable, but there is no top-tier secondary source putting all that together.

I've made my case - on a subject I did not raise - for what I think is reasonable presentation of the currently available sources and a neutral framing of the events that doesn't get bogged down in the more incendiary details. Aside from expressing my support for its inclusion on this basis or similar, and rejecting any attempt to include it as "views on speed-dating", I now wash my hands of it until another source comes along. Void if removed (talk) 12:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi all, another source has come along!

TERF Wars at Lesbian Speed Dating | The Free Press (thefp.com)

It's behind a pay wall but a short quote: "So Watson reached out to the LGBA, which orchestrated a media blitz in August, leaking the story to the Daily Mail and booking Watson to appear in various media outlets. The organization also sent open letters to Watson’s employer and the Stonegate Group, the company that owns and operates The College Arms, pressuring them to reconsider their actions, arguing that Watson’s gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equalities Act of 2010."

Also, "“I would have crumbled without the LGBA,” Watson tells me."

It's published by The Free Press, which is run by experienced journalists. It's a relatively new news org, but apparently has about half a million paid subscribers. The writer is a new journalist to the site, but says she directly met with Watson.

The source is independent of anyone involved.

As per WP:NEWSORG, "News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact." Still, The Free Press says it cares about accuracy and has published at least one factual correction, which is regarded as a signal that a news org engages in fact-checking.

Roughly, we'd paused the discussion because the Telegraph news source did not explicitly say that the LGBA had intervened in this case. Now we have an independent secondary source that says so. The one concern may be that less-established news sources are deemed less reliable than say the Telegraph. Less reliable is not the same as unreliable. WP:RSCONTEXT: the context is that we have the interview sources mentioned above that make clear that she did get help from LGBA, and now we have an independent source.

So, I'd propose to include some version of my original summary, taking into account suggestions above, but now including the fact that LGBA intervened. AndyGordon (talk) 22:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

So The Free Press was discussed at RSN back in February 2023, when it was noticed that it was a rebranding of her pre-existing Substack Common Sense. The current consensus seems to be that it's a self-published source, and though ultimately it's a discussion for RSN, I'm not sure much would change in that regard. There's still no documented editorial policy, or evidence of an editorial board, and I'm not seeing any particularly convincing use by others. I am however seeing some criticism of their publishing of unsubstantiated claims in relation to a transgender youth clinic in St Louis from at least two major regional newspapers, the St Louis Post Dispatch, and Missouri Independent.

I think a discussion at RSN would be warranted before we could consider including any content sourced to this site. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear @Sideswipe9th,

Thanks for your comments. I always learn about Wikipedia ways from your comments, sincerely.

I can't see how this piece can be seen as being self-published. It's by a freelance journalist. She's not named as part of the Free Press team on their site. It looks like work for hire to me, published by the Free Press company, so not self-published.

On reputation for fact-checking:

• They won the Dao Prize for Excellence In Investigative Journalism
• They have published at least one correction
• They have an experienced senior editor Peter Savodnik

You mention that they published a self-authored opinion piece based on a sworn affidavit by Jamie Reed in early 2023. As you say, there were a couple of articles (in the St Louis Post Dispatch, and Missouri Independent) that criticised and in some cases rebutted Jamie Reed's position. Subsequently, the New York Times published their own investigation which seems to largely back Jamie Reed. In any case, it was an op ed which we know to be less reliable than new pieces. I didn't see pieces directly criticising the Free Press rather they were criticising Jamie Reed. I think plenty of op ed's are controversial but that doesn't necessarily impact the reputation of the publishing news organisation.

Like lots of outlets, Free Press has a particular POV, but its run by reputable journalists so it seems safe to rely on it as an independent secondary source for the simple non-BLP fact that LGB Alliance intervened to assist this speed-dating night to continue.

Probably we should go to RSN, but I wondered about your response to the above. Thanks! AndyGordon (talk) 00:53, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The Dao Prize for Excellence In Investigative Journalism only came into existence this year, and appears to be a joint effort between the National Journalism Center (itself a spin-off of the highly controversial Young America's Foundation), and the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation, a conservative-religious whose website states they were founded in 2016 but I can't find any information on from reliable sources. Despite a prestigious sounding name, it does not appear to be a prestigious award.

For everything else, that's a discussion best held at RSN. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

‘Claims’

@Sideswipe9th: You have reverted my change from ‘claims’ to ‘has said’ in the Conversion Therapy section, with the edit summary: this is actually an appropriate use of claim, as not only does the source states that it is a claim but the claim itself is demonstrably false). But you have not provided any ‘demonstration’ that the claim is false. So your revert of my edit is in breach of MOS:CLAIM. Please self-revert. Sweet6970 (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

...

The claim in question is affirmation-based therapy for transgender youth is gay conversion therapy and that campaigns to ban conversion therapy for transgender people are "being used as political cover to promote an affirmation-only approach to gender identity".

I have spent the last 5 minutes trying to figure out how to put this as nicely as possible: these claims are so ridiculously WP:FRINGE it's absurd. Please, provide an example of a single reputable medical organization that says "affirming trans kids is actually gay conversion therapy". Or a single reputable medical organization that says "conversion therapy bans shouldn't include trans->cis conversion attempts". None of them say that, they say the opposite, the only people who do make these ridiculous claims are LGBA and co. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

To Your Friendly Neighbourhood Sociologist: This is not a medical article – whether LGBA’s view is correct or not is irrelevant. The purpose of this article is to give information about LGBA and its views. Therefore your remarks are irrelevant. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

MOS:CLAIM doesn't require us to never use words like claimed in articles, it merely requires us to be careful when using it and other synonyms for said in articles. There are circumstances, like this one, where it can be appropriate to use the word claim in an article, especially when an article subject is expressing a demonstrable falsehood. There are, to my knowledge, no reputable medical organisations who support the assertion that gender-affirming healthcare is "gay conversion therapy". As Florence Ashley said in their paper a 2020 paper The suggestion that gender affirmation and access to transition-related care are homophobic and tantamount to conversion therapy are groundless.

If anything, per WP:EVALFRINGE we should probably be following that sentence with another one that [refers] the reader to more accepted ideas (ie, the mainstream point of view) on this issue. Otherwise we've likely got a WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV violation here. In these circumstances however, I will not be self-reverting at this time. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

To Sideswipe9th: You said in your edit summary that the view expressed by LBGA was ‘demonstrably false’.You have referred me to a paper by Florence Ashley, who is, according to Wikipedia, ‘an academic, activist and law professor at the University of Alberta’. Therefore, nothing she has said could possibly ‘demonstrate’ anything other than her opinion on this matter. LGBA has another opinion. As with YFNS, you seem to be mistaking this article for a medical article, and you also seem to be mistaking a law professor and activist for a medical expert. Please self-revert. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Per policy I will not be self-reverting.

I cited Ashley here because it was a succinct way of proving the point, and as a reasonable alternative from citing a dozen or so other sources on this point. As for mistaking a law professor and activist for a medical expert, Ashley was going to be one of the 21 member panel developing the forthcoming WHO guidelines on trans and gender diverse healthcare as one of the experts in this field, but they had to withdraw due to a scheduling conflict. By a relevant body, Ashley is considered to be an expert in this field. In addition to being an assistant professor of law, they are also an adjunct assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at University of Alberta.

You say that myself and YFNS are mistaking this article for a medical article, and no we are not. The article is very clearly about a highly controversial advocacy group from the United Kingdom. However included in the content in this article, we cover their views on a medical topic. The views they are espousing on this topic are considered fringe by mainstream medical bodies. When describing fringe claims in an article, policy requires that those claims are described in context to the mainstream view on the topic. As I said in my last reply, we should probably be following that sentence with another one that describes the mainstream point of view on this particular issue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:33, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Sideswipe: The paper by Florence Ashley which you have referred to actually supports LGBA’s position. The argument is, to put it politely, somewhat confused, but she does give as an example of her reasoning:The trans man who goes from being viewed as a Butch lesbian to affirming himself as a straight man is not changing the structure of his sexual attraction by transitioning, merely aligning its external expression with his internal schema. Just before he transitions, he’s already a straight man—others just don’t know it. A more economical interpretation of this situation would be that the lesbian has undergone conversion from being same-sex attracted to being trans. The procedure may not be as overtly forced as is usually meant when speaking about ‘conversion therapy’, but the end result is the same.

Also, importantly, it says at the beginning The scientific consensus is increasingly moving towards the affirmation of youth’s gender identities and access to medical transition. So Ashley is admitting that there is currently no scientific consensus in favour of gender-affirming therapy.

Sweet6970 (talk) 14:38, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Your version of a more economical interpretation is just ignoring every point Ashley says to conclude the opposite of their argument... I'll also note, you're making the same FRINGE argument Kathleen Stock does (see Gender critical feminism#Conversion therapy) and conversion therapy#Gender exploratory therapy explicitly notes that the latest justification for trans->cis conversion therapy is saying "they're just saying they're trans because of internalized homophobia".

The procedure may not be as overtly forced as is usually meant when speaking about ‘conversion therapy’, but the end result is the same - is frankly just mind-bogglingly offensive.

• Conversion therapy targeting sexual orientation means attempting to change who you're attracted to. If a butch lesbian underwent conversion therapy, that would entail trying to make them attracted to men (and usually more feminine too).
• If a trans man who previously identified as a butch lesbian wants to transition, who they are attracted to does not change, and nobody attempts to change it (The key point of Ashley's paper and the critique of Stock)
  • Relatedly, if a trans man who previously identified as a butch lesbian wants to transition, and one insists they shouldn't because they're just lesbian and confused in their eyes, that is actually gender-identity conversion therapy. I'll note Ashley's paper touches on how over the last few decades, some conversion therapists moved to trying to prevent only being trans, not gay.
  • In Ashley's example, a straight trans man previously was viewed as a butch lesbian then affirmed himself. You referring to them as the lesbian is refusing to engage with the example. It's like if somebody said "Bob used to be viewed as straight but affirmed himself as gay" and you responded A more economical interpretation of this situation would be that the heterosexual has undergone conversion.
• The majority of trans people are LGB (see Transgender sexuality) - ie, the majority of trans people by your definition of conversion therapy are undergoing straight->gay conversion therapy.
• Nobody has undergone conversion to be trans, and calling somebody identifying the way they're comfortable and transitioning the same end result of conversion therapy is, again, just offensive. If you want to know how offensive, please reflect on whether you would tell a trans person to their face that "your transition is the same end result as conversion therapy".

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:21, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

You have entirely missed my point and I do not think that there is any chance that this discussion is going to lead to a constructive outcome. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:11, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Can you distill your point down to a sentence or two then please? AFAICT you seem to be arguing one or both of the following points:

1. the claim that "affirming trans peoples identities is a form of conversion therapy" is not a WP:FRINGE one - though it very much is
2. regardless of whether it is fringe, WP: FRINGE doesn't apply because this isn't a medical article - though FRINGE repeatedly discusses how it applies to those known for advocating fringe positions and never says "this applies only to medical articles"

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Support

There's a back and forth adding more representative supportive names to the lede but TBH I think the extensive listing is pretty redundant, and I'm generally in favour of cutting out a lot of the padding in this article. Also as it stands, the lede is not following the body.

I propose removing the sentence in the lede:

The group has received support from Labour politicians including Rosie Duffield and Tonia Antoniazzi as well as from conservative politicians, including MPs Ben Bradley, Jackie Doyle-Price, and Neale Hanvey, as well as support from The Spectator writer Brendan O'Neill.

And replacing it with something like:

However, the group has received support from a small number of politicians from most of the major UK political parties.

While at the same time expanding the relevant line in the body:

A number of other Conservative politicians, including MPs Ben Bradley and Jackie Doyle-Price have voiced support for the group.

To something like:

LGB Alliance has received support from politicians from most of the major UK political parties, including Boris Johnson (Conservative), Rosie Duffield (Labour), Baroness Sarah Ludford (Liberal Democrats), Joanna Cherry (SNP) and Neale Hanvey (Alba).

Each of those can be well sourced I believe, and its more straightforward than trying to list everyone as it will never be comprehensive and any incomplete listing will be WP:POV. But whatever happens to this section, I think Boris Johnson is by far the most notable Tory to weigh in for starters, and the omission of Joanna Cherry is glaring when she is the most vocally supportive, having written specifically in support.

Thoughts/objections to this approach or something like it? Void if removed (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with these proposed changes. We should certainly mention Johnson's support for the LGB Alliance, especially since he was Prime Minister at the time. Meanwhile it may be worth noting that both Ludford and Duffield are out of step with the official stance of their respective parties. Alarics (talk) 13:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I support Void’s proposed changes to this article. Regarding Rosie Duffield’s position being out of step with the Labour Party – I’m not sure the Labour Party has a position on this issue, but Wes Streeting apologised to her last summer [7]. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:29, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I’d argue the progressive (ie Corbyn) wing of labour is still pretty strongly against, but the liberal (Starmer) wing is either becoming more sympathetic or at least willing to position themselves as such [8] Snokalok (talk) 03:23, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

As someone who hasn't really taken much part in discussions one way or another, I did think this was excess padding for the lead section and am in favour of the proposed changes. – GnocchiFan (talk) 15:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

“ LGB Alliance has received support from politicians from most of the major UK political parties”

I’d change “from most” to “within most”, to indicate it’s not necessarily representative of the entire party, but that there are still supporters in every party.

Otherwise though this looks fine. Snokalok (talk) 19:03, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree; I think this wording would be best. GnocchiFan (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• "However" is synthesis and can't be used in this manner unless sources specifically present this as a rebuttal / response to the previous point. Likewise, "most of the major political parties" strikes me as potential synthesis in the sense that it implies broad support in a way that the sources themselves don't really say. Truthfully, I would probably remove the list entirely - on reflection (and looking over the history) it looks like it was added to rebut the sentence before it in a similarly WP:SYNTH-y manner; even if the initial synthesis was fixed, they're still very different things. The prior sentence doesn't mention names for nose-counting, it attributes an important opinion about the group (one that has received significant coverage, and was stated by people important enough to matter, but which probably requires attribution.) Vague "it has supporters tho" isn't really meaningful, comparably. If we want to present an opposing opinion we'd need to state the actual opinion rather than "but some people support it." --Aquillion (talk) 14:58, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

  Not quite sure why you reinstated a list of names in the lede while saying lists of names in the lede are problematic - this was exactly what I was trying to get away from. I replaced the existing weak list with a more representative one with stronger sourcing in the body, and trimmed this cruft from the lede. Plus the names currently cited are exceedingly minor figures, especially compared with a sitting PM.

  I think it is pretty fair to say there's support from figures within most major UK parties, but if that's contentiously WP:SYNTH-y I'm happy to take that out.

  In reverse order of notability, I would say the minimum names worth mentioning are:

  • Boris Johnson
  • Joanna Cherry
  • Rosie Duffield

  And I'm pretty sure I discussed this first and got a fairly good consensus, so I've put the names back in the body, removed the part about "most UK parties", and now I think the line in the lede should be cut to just something like "LGB Alliance has received support from a number of UK politicians, including Boris Johnson" and leave it at that. Void if removed (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Is the full extent of Johnson's known support that letter sent to them by an aide while he was Prime Minister, saying he is too busy to go to their conference? I guess at least some sources reported it as significant and maybe we should follow that - it seems pretty clear to me that it's a more or less a form letter, and not really comparable to the years of overt and specific support from people like Cherry and Duffield. TSP (talk) 16:26, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I think the sitting PM approving a letter of congratulations in that climate is fairly significant, to the point it receives a whole article in the Times. Compare that to the current sourcing for Ben Bradley, which is a passing mention here, who's been cluttering up the lede for years yet isn't even quoted saying anything about LGB Alliance, based on a tweet. I agree the most significant support in terms of level is from Cherry and Duffield, probably along with Kemi Badenoch, Tonia Antoniazzi and Neale Hanvey, but the most notable figure is Johnson by far, and its also got a very clear source. Void if removed (talk) 16:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

The Times would clearly like it to be significant. I think I'd give it 50/50 whether he was actually aware he'd done it at all, or whether the person who wrote the letter had any idea anyone would find it significant. The letter reads like the standard "Thank you for writing to the Prime Minister, your event is clearly very important but sadly he can't attend" wording that I suspect they send to thousands of events. (And was clearly the letter the invitation was intended to elicit - if you actually want the Prime Minister to attend an event in 21 October, you don't invite him on 15 October!) But, it is reported - by both sides - as significant, so probably not our place to question it. I'm not sure I'd see it as enough to name him as the most significant political supporter, though, as we have nothing on the subject in his own words at all. TSP (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

• No, I wasn't the one who reinstated anything in the lead; I only removed the recent addition of additional names, which had made it even more bloated. The person who originally added those names had already reverted you. I saw the revert, realized I didn't like either version for the reasons I mentioned, and just removed their recent additions. Your current version seems fine, though. --Aquillion (talk) 17:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

  Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood. Void if removed (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)