User:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist/sandbox/Draft:Disinformation report
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Last revised 15:44, 25 May 2024 (UTC) (4 months ago) by Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist (refresh) |
Anti-trans advocacy on Wikipedia
Some have attempted, or been successful, at using Wikipedia to promote anti-trans misinformation and pseudoscience for over a decade. Here, I present two cases, from 2011 and 2024, to illustrate just how much and how little has changed.
The first is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology (2013) - focused on the behavior of two editors: User:Jokestress (Andrea James), who'd edited since 2004, and User:James Cantor (James Cantor), who joined in 2008. This case would soon be folded into GENSEX after a meander through the Chelsea Manning Naming Dispute clarifying it applied to pronouns and names. That may be the subject of a future article. Jumping back, James Cantor was recently described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of an old guard of sexology researchers which advocated treating trans identity as mental illness with associated conversion therapy-style “cures”
[1] - he worked at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health under fellow old guard members Ray Blanchard and Kenneth Zucker, later shut down due to attempting to persuade transgender children to be cisgender.
[2]
The Arbitration Committee's findings of fact were that the two were involved in off-wiki advocacy or activities relating to human sexuality
and the topic is a primary area that the two edit on Wikipedia
. They were given a mutual interaction ban, but Andrea, who'd joined in 2004, was banned from the topic of human sexuality, including biographical articles
, later expanded in 2019 to the topic of human sexuality and gender, including biographies of people who are primarily notable for their work in these fields
. Discretionary sanctions were enabled for all pages dealing with transgender issues and paraphilia classification (e.g., hebephilia).
In 2021, Cantor, who joined in 2008, was blocked for using sockpuppets to edit Andrea James' page in violation of the IBAN.[3]
Two things immediately jump out here. The first is that "transgender issues" were lumped with "paraphilia classification" with "hebephilia" as an example. This is easily explained: Cantor's focus was the research of paraphilias (an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals.
) Apart from arguing that hebephilia should be included in the DSM-5, he was also an avid proponent of Blanchard's typology, which posts that all transgender women who aren't exclusively attracted to men transition due to the paraphilia "autogynophilia".[4] The second, is that while Andrea was banned from the topic area, James Cantor continued to edit[5] without sanctions almost a decade. During the case, the arbitration committee floated two sanctions for him, neither of which gained support: either indefinitely prohibit him from editing biographies of sexology researchers and related advocates
, or from that and Hebephilia, in both cases with the ability to leave talk comments.[6]
What damage did Cantor do, you ask? About 8000 edits worth across multiple accounts - nearly all containing major conflicts of interest.[7][8][9][10]
Prior to being open about his identity, he edited articles he had COIs on pseudonymously and without disclosure until taken to the COI noticeboard.[11] After his ban, he created two new accounts to continue his COI editing.[12][13] I recently launched a successful AFD for the 'Feminine essence concept of transsexuality' - the article was written by Cantor and was entirely a POV fork of gender identity, it was chock full of WP:Original research serving to legitimize the Blanchard typology citing primary sources from himself, Blanchard, and Bailey. While it was deleted near-unanimously in 2024, it had previously been kept at AFD in 2009 based on claims of notability per the source count (of unrelated sources). Cantor launched a tendentious AFD in 2011, attempted to delete the article Benjamin Scale in 2012, had his POV fork with COI issues Gynandromorphophilia deleted in 2013, and in 2016 he used a sock to delete an article on a sexologist who criticized him which he failed to delete in 2013. In 2015 he bludgeoned and tried to delete the article of a famous sexologist he disagreed with. In 2019, he got away scot-free for calling as his critics "autogynephilic mtfs".[14][15] Need I go on? For cheek, I shall - more COIs were noted during the case.[16][17][18][19][20]
A WP:FRINGE sexologist, known for his pathologizing views on transgender people, edited wikipedia's articles on trans topics and researchers he worked with for over a decade. Like Al Capone getting got on tax evasion - Cantor's years of COI editing and CPOV pushing was not enough, but the use of sockpuppets was. In 2013, an arbitrator had wisely noted the decision in no way implies a side is "right", hence the reason for the "limits of arbitration" principle. There are issues here with discussions over what constitutes reliable sources and fringe theories that are not addressed by the decision.
[21] Alas, the issue was kicked down the road, only to bounce onward until 2021 when he was blocked for breaking his IBAN and socking. Perhaps it is only coincidence that since 2021 he has testified in 25 cases seeking to restrict transgender rights in the U.S after being hired by the Alliance Defending Freedom?[22]
Now, we can look at the more recent example. In April of this year, I filed a report at WP:AE for User:A Wider Lens.[23] Having received the equivalent of a GENSEX block on the Dutch Wikipedia for tendentious fringe promotion after years of issues,[24] this user began to edit the English one and swiftly began to edit war. What immediately popped out was the username was a reference to the "A Wider Lens" podcast, produced by Genspect. A quick review of their global contributions showed they consistently cited Genspect and Genspect in a trenchcoat the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. These organizations advocate gender exploratory therapy, a not-so-subtle rebranding of conversion therapy. For transparency, I wrote the articles on Genspect and SEGM - while they objected[25][26], consensus and RS have continued to agree they are quacks. A Wider Lens was swiftly blocked, aided by their incivility. Shortly after, they (and a sock they created) were globally locked due to cross-wiki abuse.[27][28]
Remember that SPLC report mentioned above describing Cantor as part of the old guard? It described the new guard as Genspect, SEGM, and a whole host of other astro-turfed organizations - which heavily cite, support, and work with the old. The fringe groups and activists advocating these views have passed the baton.
What can we take away from this? What can we make of the fact that on the same platform, the same fringe views were treated incredibly differently just a few years apart? Have these views gotten more FRINGE or the community better at recognizing them for what they are? While it's sad to think that in the past, queerphobic advocates have subverted Wikipedia successfuly, I choose to have the cheerful takeaway that the times they are a-changin'.
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