Wikipedia talk:Categorizing articles about people/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality/Archive 1

Some archives may be at different names, such as Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality/Archive 9 and Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people/Sensitive categories/Archive 8.

Irony

The article states: "sportsperson categories should be split by gender, except in such cases where men and women participate primarily in mixed-gender competition. Example: Category:Male golfers and Category:Female golfers should both be subcategories of Category:Golfers, but Category:Ice dancers should not have gendered subcategories." But when you click on Category:Ice dancers it is sub-categorized by both gender and nationality. Should these categories be deleted or should we change the policy? Timmyshin (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that ice dancers were always a bad example of the rule — men and women don't compete in it as standalone competitors directly against each other, but in pairs which have to contain one male and one female member each. (There might exist non-competitive examples of two men or two women ice dancing together, but that would never fly in any of the competitions that ice dancers can actually attain notability from.) So gender is not actually irrelevant to ice dancing, because it has a direct impact on the formation of the teams. Better examples would be things like snooker or poker, where AFAIK there aren't separate gendered competition circuits and both men and women just compete on their own directly against each other. So yes, ice dancers should be removed from this document as an example, rather than the categories being deleted as violating it. Bearcat (talk) 18:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree with you on ice dancers. The reason I'm checking this article is I'm creating a bunch of subcategories under Category:Women short story writers by nationality, but now I'm thinking I may be creating too many WP:SMALLCAT especially since story-writing has very little to do with gender (and there are probably more women writers than men so under-representation isn't an issue). This article confirms that subcategorization by gender isn't encouraged except "where gender has a specific relation to the topic", but I'm discovering gender-specific categories have been created for many things under Category:Women by occupation and nationality. It's obvious the guideline isn't being followed, and I think it's time to either delete a huge chunk of subcategories, or completely get rid of the guideline. Timmyshin (talk) 18:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

In the case of writers, those nationality subcats have already been taken to CFD and debated, but consensus ended up on the keep side and actually forced us to revise this document — the policy used to be that we could have Category:American women writers undifferentiated by type of writing, sitting alongside Category:Women novelists and Category:Women short story writers categories undifferentiated by nationality — but we weren't supposed to intersect them to create Category:American women novelists, specifically so that we weren't ghettoizing women and leaving Category:American novelists as a male-only grouping. But consensus forced us to significantly revise how those are structured, in part because it was resulting in the high-level categories becoming too large to be navigable or useful anymore. So those are allowed to exist per the use of nationality as a way to keep a very large category diffused. Gender does have an impact on writing in general; while it's true that it doesn't have unique impacts on short story writing or novel writing separately from the impact it has on writing in general, those categories are still allowed to exist because general writers categories almost always need diffusion on size grounds for type of writing and/or nationality. Bearcat (talk) 18:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

The criteria for creating such gendered categories isn't whether or not gender has an impact on the subject, it is whether or not the gendered category "is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic" worthy of a full-fledged Wikipedia article. Categories like Category:Belizean male short story writers certainly don't meet that criteria. Also, just because other people aren't following the guideline isn't a good reason to disregard it. Kaldari (talk) 08:20, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Queer category and Zoophilia

I note that the Queer category contains pages on Zoophilia. Queer does not include abuse/rape/pedophilia so should not include zoophilia, which is effectively rape of an animal since an animal cannot consent. Therefore I will remove the Zoophilia pages from this category if nobody objects with a valid reason in the next three days. --92.5.89.119 (talk) 16:08, 29 June 2017 (UTC) This is User:Bethgranter but my login is broken.

 Done nothing in the article supports inclusion in the category. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Bold move reverted

I reverted Koavf's bold move of this page because, as seen at Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality/Archive 9 and Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality/Archive 10, renaming this page has been debated times before. And that includes the proposal to rename it to Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, and disability. I suggest that Koavf start a WP:Requested moves discussion. The title should perhaps match the change that was made to the page in 2014. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not opposed in principle to moving the page if it's covering additional areas of identity-categorization that aren't reflected in the title. However, I wonder if instead of adding even more points of categorization to its name, thereby making the title even longer, we wouldn't be better off aiming for a shorter and more generically inclusive title, such as "identity categories" or something else that could remain stable going forward, instead of continually adding more words every time somebody expands the document to cover some new area of human diversity that isn't already reflected in the title. It's reaching the point, rather like the ever-expanding alphabet soup of LGBTQIQ2THJGJKLGHJHFHJ+++, where what's needed is one standard umbrella term that can include everybody without having to have yet another new term added to it every 4.3 seconds.

Also while we're at it, the document could use some updating to reflect the current state of consensus as of 2017. For example, while some parts of it have been updated to reflect the new consensus about making categories like Category:American women novelists non-diffusing, other parts of it do still reflect the former consensus that categories of that type shouldn't exist at all. And in the "special subcategories" section, there's one example (Category:African-American economists) of a category that's cited as a thing that shouldn't exist because it's not a WP:DEFINING intersection, but is bluelinked and therefore obviously does exist — so we need to either replace it with a new example so that the document isn't undermining itself, or pursue having that category deleted if anybody feels strongly enough that it's still in violation of current principles (which I have to admit that I don't.) Bearcat (talk) 12:56, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, but, unlike the continual LGBT matter, we don't continually have people adding yet a new term onto the title of this page. Other than "disability," I don't see what else would need to be added to the title. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Just because you don't foresee any further possibilities doesn't mean some won't come along anyway. Half the letters in the most extended versions of the LGBTQ alphabet soup represent things that people didn't foresee either. (For example, as recently as just a few years ago nobody actually foresaw an organized asexuality movement either emerging at all, or attaching itself to LGBTQdom the way it has. And neither did people foresee labels like demisexual emerging as things that people would start to organize identity around, either.) Bearcat (talk) 13:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

But what other word could be added to this title other than "disability"? "Sexuality" covers all the sexual matters. And the other terms cover all the other matters. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:29, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

"Categorization by personal attributes" or "Categorization by personal characteristics" might be good page titles. They encapsulate the range of identities, behaviors and physical attributes mentioned on the page. Trankuility (talk) 05:32, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Does the policy re categories regarding sexuality enjoy consensus on the site as a whole?

Soon after retired sportsman/current commentator Colin Jackson came out as gay, the categories LGBT sportspeople from Wales and LGBT track and field athletes were added. Gregor B and I both argued for removal of the categories, on the grounds that while the first condition (publicly self-identified) was met, the second (relevant to their public life or notability) was not.

Consensus in discussion there was very much for retaining the categories, with arguments either totally ignoring the second clause, or based on the assertion that publicly announcing his sexuality meant that it was relevant to his public life.

To some extent, the quality of the arguments in that example are irrelevant: when this policy is tested on real articles, it does not have effective consensus. Review needed? Kevin McE (talk) 23:06, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Publicly announcing his sexuality on the public record does mean that it's relevant to his public life — no higher standard of relevance is required than "person has come out on the public record", as opposed to "person's sexuality is sourced to rumours or unverified hearsay". The people who typically argue that coming out isn't enough in and of itself never actually follow up by explaining how much more "relevance" would be enough to satisfy them — what specific kind of content would be required to satisfy these people that it had now become "relevant" enough is a question that never actually gets answered, thus igniting my suspicions that the real argument is that nothing would ever be enough and such categories simply shouldn't exist at all. Bearcat (talk) 23:59, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, it does kind of raise the question, doesn't it? Why do we have categories for gay writers, etc.? An argument can be made that this isn't appreciably different from "Category:Writers who like rubber outfits and thigh-high stiletto boots" or "Category:Writers who are into muscular brunette men" or "Category:Writers who don't have a known sex life at all and seem to be loners" or "Category:Writers who are furries". Notability is largely disconnected from sexual preferences/activity/identity. If someone's notability it intimately entwined with LGBT activism, there are categories for LGBT activists. If we continue to have categories for gay writers and lesbian businesswomen and so on, however, it seems weird and pointless to exclude people who have publicly "come out", just because someone on WP wants to exclude them. Either have and use the categories, or don't have them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:42, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

There are nuances which it's difficult to legislate for on Wikipedia. It's still quite rare in many quarters (and percieved as damaging to careers etc) for people to be open about being non-heterosexual. It's still almost completely unheard of for sportspeople to be openly non-heterosexual, particularly when they're still playing/competing. So unfortunately 'coming out' is usually defining. On the other hand, there are still too many people on Wikipedia that like categorising for the sake of it, for example the growing category tree of Category:Women nurses (when 90% of nurses are women). We recently failed to get that 'tree' deleted at Categories for Discussion. Sionk (talk) 14:47, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

No argument from me. I've opposed retention of such categories before. We don't need a category for male models, male nurses, female pool players, female doctors, based on gender percentage in the field in question. Male nurses are increasing in number (dunno about models); female doctors and pool players are too. We don't need these categories, because the same people can be categorized in some other more appropriately gendered one like the applicable subcat of Category:Women by nationality or Category:Men by nationality. I tried to CfD Category:Female pool players as pointless and basically sexist, and got attacked as a sexist for it! There is no win–win scenario here. Part of the issue here is that, in simple terms, conservatives and centrists just don't care, but liberals who do are sharply divided. For every progressive who wants to make a point of a subject being a female doctor, to honor the struggle that person went through in a male-dominated field, there's another who's deeply offended by this as perpetuating patriarchal stereotypes that it's a "normal" default to assume a doctor is male. For every one that wants to categorize transgender people as such, because they're convinced (whether the subject in question feels this way or not) that being TG is something special and different that needs to be highlighted, the next one over is firm in the belief that anyone self-identifying as female (or whatever) should be treated as such in all ways and all respects (and may even go to hyperbolic lengths, like the accusation that highlighting someone's TG nature in any way is a form of attack). It's the same kind of ideological factionalism that's plagued liberalism all along [1].

Under the "do no harm" spirit of WP:BLP, the safest approach is to eliminate categories that are questionable in any such regard – be they about biological sex, self-identified gender, or sexual preferences – even if some segment of editors has a socio-political objection to doing so. It ultimately becomes a WP:TRUTH / WP:GREATWRONGS matter, like various others. We can't keep everyone happy all the time.

PS: Kaldari said in an earlier thread, 'The criteria for creating such gendered categories isn't whether or not gender has an impact on the subject, it is whether or not the gendered category "is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic" worthy of a full-fledged Wikipedia article.' I don't buy the idea of taking this view to an extreme. There is no exact 1:1 match between articles and categories, and that's really a description of whether we should have an article not whether we should have a category. We should have a category if it helps people navigate related articles and there are sufficient articles for the category. If people can already be classified in our category system as female and Bostonian, and as writers, categorizing them as female writers is superfluous. (Same goes for lesbian writers, TG writers, etc.).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC); note added: 19:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

These categories need to die. They serve no useful purpose and are actually counter-productive. They generate endless controversies and occasional bad press, they sometimes are upsetting to the people who are categorized in them, and they actually make it harder for people to find what they are looking for by "ghettoizing" people who belong to minority groups into obscure subcategories. I used to think that these categories were a good idea for cases where there was actual academic interest in a specific intersection, but given the propensity for this sort of categorization to grow unchecked and our editors' complete inability to follow applicable guidelines, I'm now strongly in favor of getting rid of these categories entirely. Kaldari (talk) 19:38, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

No, they don't ghettoize anybody, because they don't replace inclusion in any other category that the person would otherwise be in. Category:LGBT novelists isn't ghettoizing anybody out of Category:Novelists, for example, because novelists are already subcatted on characteristics such as nationality and era in which they wrote, so nobody should actually be filed directly in "Novelists" in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 14:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Like a number of things on Wikipedia, the categories can cause debate and disputes. I don't see that we need to get rid of them, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:15, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

How do they help? Johnuniq (talk) 03:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

If you're studying or researching LGBT literature, for example, it's a lot harder to do if there's no category for the writers of it to help you find any of them. Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

But these are not categories about LGBT literature, they're just intersections of writers and whether they prefer same-sex couplings in their private life. We already have categories for LGBT-themed or -targeted literature and other media (and we might need more of them – I'm not sure how well that categorization has been done, and to the extent it has not been its probably because of the intersection categories of the writers/producers making them seem, incorrectly, to be superfluous.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:20, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Writers who prefer same-sex couplings in their private life have a funny tendency to make some of their work about LGBT people, because of the "write what you know" principle. Sure, they're not limited to only that, but few to no writers who are LGBT-identified in their personal lives ever go through their entire careers without ever addressing the subject in at least some of their work. Works that already have their own standalone articles about the work are not the only works that a person who's researching LGBT literature needs to be able to find — they need to be able to find the writers who've written LGBT-themed works that don't have separate articles yet too. A person writing an academic thesis on Canadian LGBT literature, for example, would need to be able to find out about Ann-Marie MacDonald's Adult Onset and Michael V. Smith's My Body Is Yours and Scott Symons's Place d'Armes and Edward A. Lacey's The Forms of Life, none of which have articles yet and would therefore be inaccessible if the LGBT literature in Canada tree only categorized works while disappearing the writers. Bearcat (talk) 17:27, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Yet few of these works are primarily about homosexuality as their focus, so the fact that a gay writer will probably have some gay characters/relationships in their works is neither here nor there. It's a bit like suggesting that Blade should be categorized as a work of African-American cinema just because Wesley Snipes has the lead role in it. WP's categorization system isn't geared toward steering readers to non-notable works on which we have no articles, anyway. If it's thought important in a paritcular case to do so (e.g. because the work really is focused on lesbian or TG or whatever people/relationships/subculture, and the author is notable, and the work title should be an {{R with possibilities}}) then create a redirect from the work title to the section on the work in the author's article, and categorize the work's redirect in the LGBT category for such works. Standard operating procedure for categorizing subtopic redirects.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  21:32, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

What you're missing, for starters, is the significant distinction between "non-notable work that will never have an article" and "notable work that just doesn't have an article yet. And at any rate, as I already noted, a characteristic does not need to itself be the crux of a person's notability for a category to be appropriate — if it did, we wouldn't categorize people by where they were born, or what year they were born in, or whether they're living or dead, either — it merely has to be a characteristic that reliable sources address in actual coverage, which "LGBT people who write literature" most certainly is. Bearcat (talk) 20:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

If one of these categories is discussed for deletion, please post here to alert watchers. I agree with SMcCandlish that stuff like Category:LGBT track and field athletes is a pointless intersection. Such a category should only be applied if the person is not notable for LGBT activity, and is not notable as a track and field athlete, but is only notable as an LGBT athlete. Tagging articles with these cats only serves the purpose of boosting the number of times "LGBT" appears in Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 03:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

They help per what Bearcat and especially Sionk argued above. Heterosexual categories would be useless. LGBT categories are not. In any case, if editors want them abolished, we will need a bigger discussion on the matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:51, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

That's a highly unrealistic standard that very nearly no person would ever satisfy. There's virtually nobody on earth whose notability is inherently contingent on specifically being an LGBT practitioner of their career, but would somehow fail a notability criterion if they'd done the exact same things while being straight — that's inherently impossible, in fact. The categories exist because identifying people who are out as LGBT is an important and culturally relevant thing, which reliable sources regularly do and which people actively seek, for exactly the same reasons that people might very well be looking specifically to research women in a particular field, or people of colour in a particular field: the group has a context which matters in the real world. Being a WP:DEFINING characteristic does not depend on being the crux of a person's notability per se, because then we wouldn't categorize people on criteria like where they came from or what year they were born in either. It merely depends on the characteristic being a thing that reliable sources address in their coverage of the topic, and writers being LGBT satisfies that standard. Bearcat (talk) 17:39, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Revisiting gendered categories

Some here may be interested in the following discussion: Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Revisiting gendered categories: Let's have a clear criterion of "has or can have a proper article". A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2018 (UTC)