User talk:WhatamIdoing/Sex and gender in medical articles

Archive

This page grew and grew to about 187,000 words, which is a big novel (e.g. The Fellowship of the Ring). An axe was taken to it at this version and only a stump remains here. -- Colin°^Talk 14:31, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Please be nice

I don't want anyone to lose any wiki-friends over this. Some days are more stressful than others. Step away when you need to. Use Special:EmailUser/WhatamIdoing if you don't want to post in public. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm out now. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; thanks for trying, though. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:30, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I've archived most of this (more than a million characters) at User talk:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 4/Archive. Please feel free to link to those discussions, but it would probably be best not to carry on a conversation over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Please share worked examples

A worked example is like your math teacher saying "show your work". It gives a specific, concrete example. For example:

• Idea: Articles should be written to use as few gendered words as possible.
• Example: Change "A man's hairline may recede as he ages" to "Receding hairlines, called pattern hair loss, may appear in older people".
• Reason: Anyone can get a receding hairline, including people of all genders and sexes.

(Don't worry about the format. Worry more about sharing good examples with clear reasons.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Avoiding a trans hostile environment

At talk:pregnancy, an editor asked for examples of where the discussion was "trans hostile". So I've been thinking and reading about editor interactions wrt trans issues on a few of our sex-related medical articles.

Advocacy and activism

A newbie editor attempts to make an article more trans inclusive. Their edit or talk-page request will be labelled advocacy and they will be called an advocate or even an activist. Are they, at this point, an activist, or is it the person shouting WP:NOTADVOCACY at them? What do these labels mean and why use them. We have essays on both (WP:ADVOCACY and WP:ACTIVIST) and editors have proposed merging them due to the similarity. Both refer to using Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas in a way that fouls our neutral point of view or verifiability policies. In other words, "advocacy" is WikiJargon, a word that means something specific to Wikipedians that means something different at other times. After all, we all engage in advocacy when we nominate or support an admin candidate or comment at AN/I about an editor's behaviour, to pick two examples. Advocacy is fine if our agenda aligns with our mission and values, and when our behaviour is acceptable. The newbie editor reads WP:NOTADVOCACY, which tells them "to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions". But hold on, the person who reverted you or who is filling the talk page with 101 reasons why your request was the worst thing ever, is also surely trying to convince people of the merits of their opinions. This seems unfair, but as a student, who has just been told by an experienced editor you have broken important policies, you back down, and you let your account lapse into disuse.

The problem here is that in fact both editors are engaging in advocacy on the talk page, to use the real-world definition but only one has been accused of it, and they have been accused of the WikiJargon form, which is not in fact the case. One editor has been advocating a progressive language approach and the other editor is advocating a conservative language approach. The student editor has not, at this point, broken any of our policies or asked anyone to. Their claim that trans men and non-binary people who were assigned female at birth can and do menstruate, become pregnant, breastfeed, etc, etc does not break our verifiability policy. It is trivially easy to find reliable sources that support that. Nor does it break our neutrality policy. This isn't a minority opinion or view, but an established medical fact. Their issue is the words we choose to present our information. The lead of our third core policy reminds us "rewriting source material in your own words while retaining the substance is not considered original research." So, this is in fact merely a dispute about how to write, which of our own words we should use when conveying our information. The means of resolving that dispute do not lie in the core content policies, which are concerned about information and misinformation. We resolve the dispute by seeking consensus. And specifically, we are asked to go about that especially carefully with newcomers. We are told please do not bite the newcomers. And we are told to assume good faith.

What about that other word, "activist". What makes someone an activist? I'm sure all of us would like a world free of nuclear weapons. But I suspect none of us are members of CND and marched outside a nuclear base, waving banners and getting arrested. The student edit or talk page request hardly falls into the category of a "protest" or "campaign", even if it is heartfelt and passionate. This is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. We are encouraged to be bold and edit it. The timid might ask first. Identifying a problem with an article and requesting that it be improved is entirely normal. That's not activism. The essay WP:ACTIVIST helps us identify activists. Essentially, this is someone no longer working in good faith to find some way to cooperate, collaborate and compromise with others, who is not seeking consensus, but seeks to impose and promote their own view alone. Here are some key signs:

• Activists will insist on their version of the article.
• Activists have a highly flexible approach to policy interpretation, ultimately driven by the sole motivator of delivering their message and obscuring or eliminating any competing messages.
• Activists will try to drive away editors they don't approve of, making them unwelcome.
• Activists will revert unwelcome edits with curt or misleading edit summaries.
• Activist editors are just as, if not more, rude and mean to the newbie participants as to any other unwelcome editors. They will be bullied with a mountain of WP:SHOUTING and belittled for their ignorance of "how we do things around here".

Our newbie and student editors are not WP:ACTIVISTs then, though one or two of the editors they encounter may be. Perhaps they really are activists in the real world? Students often care about social and political issues with an intensity that fades with age. And students may be doing courses that cause them to over-focus on some issues. It is common for both sides in a culture war to label the other side "activists". We have "trans activists" and "gender critical activists". There's nobody, it seems, with moderate views, trying to find a common ground. And there is a bias where the people who write in our newspapers or online columns are often activists. But the word is polarising. That your views are so extreme, you must be one of those people going on marches, gluing themselves to things, being hateful on Twitter. I don't think it is fair to use that label until an editor has given us ample evidence. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Negative analogies

Let's say you are in group X and I compare you to group Y as an analogy. If I am doing so in order to make a point that has negative consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to find any reason that group X is not like group Y. If you find one, you'll use it to attack my analogy. So, I'm likely to be only doing this because (or perceived to be because) I think group X and group Y are very similar indeed. On the other hand, if I compare you to make a point that has positive consequences for you, you are strongly motivated to be satisfied by any common ground between X and Y. If group Y has any kind of flaw or is stigmatised, then I'll likely perceive a negative analogy as hostile. For example, if someone were to repeatedly compare trans people to people born without arms and legs, in order to justify why they believe some articles should entirely ignore both groups. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Policy misuse

We saw above how our policies designed to keep Wikipedia free of misinformation pushed by advocates are being misused to eliminate an opponent in a dispute over word choices. This is not uncommon. WP:STICKTOSOURCES is commonly mis-cited to claim our word choices are compelled to come from our sources. It is nonsense but will likely require an essay to kill that trope off. WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is another, typically aimed at someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language. The problem is, if you read the gender critical or right-wing writers, they complain that the world has already accepted "trans ideology", they write books about "How Woke Won", and how you can no longer say some things in case you get cancelled. And the last refuge of the scoundrel, WP:NOTCENSORED, gets cited, as though trying to write with sensitivity towards all our readers is actually wrong. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

So apparently there's only "progressive language" and "conservative language". Everyone is an activist, therefore, making the WP:NOTADVOCACY policy useless. Crossroads ^-talk- 15:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

It's not that NOTADVOCACY is usesless, it's that folks are misusing it. There's part of a footnote in that point, that ideally needs to be moved to the text of the policy itself. That part reads Talk pages, user pages and essays are venues where you can advocate your opinions provided that they are directly related to the improvement of Wikipedia and are not disruptive.

I don't think it's controversial to say that all Wikipedia editing involves a degree of advocacy. Editors will naturally disagree on how to word sentences, paragraphs, and sections. Deciding how much weight to give perspectives requires interpretations of sources, many of which need to be tempered by policy and guidelines like WP:RS, WP:BIASED, WP:YESPOV, and WP:BLP (not an exclusive list). The problem is, certain editors like yourself Crossroads are very, very quick to decry editors who disagree with you on how to do this as WP:ACTIVISTs. When that happens, you immediately put the other editor(s) into defending against that statement, which gets in the way of forming a consensus compromise. Ironically you're doing this right now, when you're casting this as a "progressive" versus "conservative" language battleground. By making statements like that, you are somewhere between preventing the formation of a compromise consensus (in a small discussion), to excluding yourself from being in the process of forming a compromise consensus (in a large discussion).

Colin is also correct in pointing out that STICKTOSOURCES is commonly mis-cited. STICKTOSOURCE quite clearly tells us to The best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words, with each statement in the article being verifiable in a source that makes that statement explicitly. (emphasis mine) That makes sense, because if we repeat verbatim what our sources say, not only would our articles be a mess of different phraseology and writing styles, almost every article would be an instant WP:COPYVIO.

Colin is also correct in how RGW is misused to prevent any use of progressive language. RGW tells us that If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles. (emphasis from source) In many cases, sources have moved on to more progressive language than we currently use. For example, our articles and sub-articles on sex reassignment surgery (sub-articles: sex reassignment surgery (female-to-male), sex reassignment surgery (male-to-female)) are now at least five years out of date on both title and terminology. Our Autism series of articles are currently undergoing a substantial rewrite and restructuring, again because terminology has moved on from unhelpful terms like "low-functioning" and "high-functioning".

And if you want to see how WP:NOTCENSORED gets branded around as a thought-terminating cliché, the recent contentious RFC at Talk:Kiwi Farms is a fantastic place to start. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:23, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I am not quick to point to ACTIVIST, nowadays I usually only bring it out in detailed discussion if necessary. Advocating one's opinion as to how to follow policy is a completely separate thing from using Wikipedia as a tool for some unrelated form of advocacy, such as language reform.

You're casting this as a "progressive" versus "conservative" language battleground - no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing so by stating things like someone wanting to use progressive language from someone insisting on using conservative language (also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either side). It also follows from such a view that any use of any language-reform-advocates' preferred terms, no matter how rare in reliable sources, is acceptable because anyone against it is themselves an activist. So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic.

As I've said many times, COPYVIO has nothing to do with it - 'sources generally don't use X term so neither should we' has nothing to do with plagiarism whatsoever. Much of MOS uses the exact same argument, like MOS:CAPS.

If sources in general have indeed moved to "progressive language", then, and only then, can we change. For SRS, some evidence suggests that is the case because the body of sources has largely changed (although I'll suspend full judgment until evidence is laid out at the move request). This isn't the case for edits like the "people with uteruses" one that people are defending. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

no, my point is that it is a major problem that Colin is doing so No. Colin is describing actions by editors like yourself. Colin is not the problem here, he is describing the problem here. If you think that Colin is the problem, it is because Colin is describing actions that you do or support. also note the contrast between the tones of "wanting" and "insisting", when both can be and are a property of either side This isn't a both-sides issue. Many editors, particularly new ones, and in medical articles particularly those who are undergoing current relevant training, are suggesting that we use gender-neutral language. However editors like yourself insist that they cannot do this, preventing any form of compromise on language from forming. So, it's okay to replace women with womxn for inclusion, by this logic. please stop with this straw-woman. It was old the second time you did it, however this is now the 25th time you've used it on this page. (Note: womxn appears 33 times on this page, Crossroads uses it 25 times, Colin 7, WAID 4.

COPYVIO is very relevant here. The way you cite STICKTOSOURCE is when you have a preferred term a source uses, despite guidance like STICKTOSOURCE telling us to paraphrase in our own words, and MOS:GNL telling us to use gender-neutral language where it can be done with clarity and precision. While we have to accurately convey the concepts described by our sources, we cannot repeat what they say verbatim.

If sources in general have indeed moved to "progressive language", then, and only then, can we change. There you are, dictating terms again. Statements like that make it impossible to reach a compromise consensus, because when you think like that there is only the right way and the wrong way to phrase something. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I bring up womxn because it works - the same 'anything goes'-type arguments apply to it, so defenders of "people with uteruses" cannot explain why it and other terms even more fringe can't also run rampant in our articles.

Regarding "compromise consensus", those are nice, but not always optimal - see golden mean fallacy. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

What 'anything goes'-type arguments are you referring to? That looks like a straw goat to me.

I also find it darkly amusing that you are eager to point to "compromise consensus" proposals for other editors to factor in, but your own strongly-held opinions situate themselves in cades where the golden mean fallacy applies. Doesn't that seem awfully convenient? Newimpartial (talk) 17:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Dictionaries

A current anti-trans slogan: "Woman: noun. Adult human female" You can go buy the t-shirt if you want to walk about informing everyone you are feeling hateful towards trans people. The Tertiary-source fallacy essay goes into some detail of why dictionaries cannot settle the argument about what words might or should mean to our readers. It is an offensive argument, because it suggests those with differing views haven't even checked the dictionary to see if they might be wrong. That any reader insulted by our choice of words is linguistically dim. Overly simplistic arguments like this, which superficially may seem attractive to those already persuaded, are the basis of slogans. They don't encourage progression towards agreement and consensus. It's the sort of thing that derails any hope of a thoughtful RFC on a topic: you just get oppose votes repeating the slogan without engaging. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Bullying

When I read the sentence "If rando newbies or WP:Student editors make a fuss, we revert if necessary and inform them of how we do things around here." I had deja vu that I'd seen that hostile language before. I found it at a discussion on breastfeeding: "As a WP:Student editor, you may not be as familiar with how Wikipedia does things." The writer of this then mansplains to the several women in the discussion what the term "breastfeeding" means. I don't know whether "how we do things around here" is meant to refer to policies and guidelines or a brutally honest assessment of the hostility to expect if you go around thinking our articles could be a little less cisnormative. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Is it better to revert and not explain why? Or are we supposed to not revert bad edits at all because it's not 'inclusive' enough? Crossroads ^-talk- 15:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

It is better to copy-edit, than to wholesale revert student edits solely because they are student edits. I regularly see edit summaries from you on my watchlist like Recent WP:Student editing cleanup. Tweaks to match the previous wording in the rest of the article and our sources (WP:STICKTOSOURCE). Also following community consensus. (source:[1]) Not only are you belittling student editors who have a different perspective than you by calling it a "cleanup", you are also misrepresenting both STICKTOSOURCE and the close of the RfC on gender-neutral language. I've already addressed the STICKTOSOURCE issue above so I won't repeat myself here. However for the close of the RfC, it quite clearly states that there was a lack of consensus for implementing a bright-line rule, but it then goes on to state accurately that MOS:GNL encourages the use of gender-neutral terms in articles when it does not impact on the clarity and precision of those articles.

So lets look at the edit I've linked above by change in the diff. First change is on the capitalisation of the section heading. That's fine as it's a MOS:SECTIONCAPS issue. Next change is replacing all pregnant people to anyone who is pregnant. That change didn't need to be reverted, those sentences are broadly synonyms and clarity was not improved by restoring the old version. Next change is replacing pregnant person with pregnant woman. That change also didn't need to be reverted. The close of the RfC you like to cite already tells us that we are encouraged to use gender-neutral terms when it does not impact on the clarity and precision. Not only does this not impact on the clarity, it actually improves the precision because people other than women can get pregnant. The next change you remove a source that was improperly added, with an inline link. That's fine. Then you do another pregnant person -> pregnant woman swap, not fine. Next you add a citation needed tag, which is a mistake because the source you just removed actually supports that sentence.

Next change is to swap patient and their for woman and her. This has the same issues as with the pregnant person swap. Then there's another two SECTIONCAPS fix, which is fine. This is followed up by swapping gestational parent for mother, which again doesn't improve clarity and reduces precision as not all gestational parents are mothers. Then you remove See section By pregnancy stage for more information, which might be OK, but possibly could have been addressed with a footnote directing to that section. Then you close up with another SECTIONCAPS fix and a generic MOS:CAPS fix. Those are fine.

In summary, most of those changes were not necessary. They were not against the community consensus, which is enshrined in MOS:GNL. The changes made by the student editor did not impact on the clarity of the article, and in several cases improved on the precision of the article by using modern terminology. Looking at both the student editor's talk page, and the article talk page, you have not explained tried to justify to the student why you've undone their work, nor explained why you think they were not made in accordance with policy and guidance, or the community consensus that you keep misstating. Nor have you reached out to the course instructor or the courses Wiki Ed co-ordinator both of which are linked on the course page. All you have done is leave a pointed edit summary, that will show up in that editor's notification panel. You have done nothing to reach out to that editor to try and retain them, and quite possibly by your actions have driven a future subject matter expert away from editing Wikipedia. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe that was on your watchlist. How is this not WP:FOLLOWING. I don't need a point-by-point analysis, thanks.

Per the consensus you are misrepresenting, but it is important to balance it with the need to maintain "clarity and precision". As outlined below, the terminology in articles, especially medical articles, is dependent upon the support of reliable sources and it is expected that editors would use the same terminology presented in said sources. The edits you are defending here, and which I rightly reverted to the status quo, negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sex, and are not representative of the sources as required by community consensus. The 'non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is better' argument was specifically criticized repeatedly in that discussion and led to that closure. The lack of consensus for a bright-line rule was regarding the proposed rule for such language, which you are nevertheless defending as better - as essentially required - now. The only way you could possibly defend such edits are by ignoring the clear full statement of the closure.

For non-student editors, there is no obligation to explain at great length why something was reverted on their talk page, as long as you do in an edit summary. Which I did. Also, no student editors were driven away because their class already ended, and student editors never stick around afterward. Literally, I don't know of a single case where it happened in Wikipedia history, although it might have happened rarely. The vast majority of their work consists of adding content; changing terms like that is a minor thing and only some of them do it, sometimes going around to another's assigned articles to enforce it. So I didn't undo the main part of their work, and enforcing personal preferences contrary to community consensus aren't valid edits. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:18, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

It's interesting that you're speculating on something that you have no access to. It's almost like you're trying to put me on the backfoot by claiming I'm harassing you, again.

No, I'm not misrepresenting that consensus, though it is interesting that you are mirroring my own language back at me. I disagree wholeheartedly that the edits negatively impact clarity and precision by making sex-specific matters out to have nothing to do with sex The word "woman" is not a sex exclusive term. If you wanted to focus the articles entirely within the realms of sex, then you would use language like pregnant females, even though that has some unfortunate connotations. Take the very first sentence of Pregnancy, Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestates) inside a woman's womb. If we were to write that article entirely in sex-specific terms, because it is a sex-specific matter, then we would not have the word "woman's" in there, because woman is not a sex-specific term. Woman is also a gendered term. I am not making a non-women can get pregnant/non-men have a prostate/etc so desexed language is better argument. I am addressing the editorial choice that you wish to enforce upon others to use gendered terms where they are not needed.

With the exception of obvious vandals and trolls, there is an obligation to justify the edits that we make. For newcomers in particular, there is an obligation to explain politely and with kindness and patience why their addition may have been reverted or copy-edited. This is enshrined at WP:BITE. Also, no student editors were driven away because their class already ended, and student editors never stick around afterward. Have you considered that there is very likely a reason why editor retention of student editors is a problem? Hint, it's the hostile environment created when student edits are seemingly reverted wholesale by the virtue of being student edits. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

"Woman" has both sex and gender meanings, based on context, as is clear from medical dictionaries and other dictionaries. What editors with your point of view are doing, in essence, is to say that only the gender meaning is correct, and that therefore the English language does not have a word for adult humans of the female sex, despite its obvious utility and, yes, need. This is not NPOV; it is an attempt to change the language from how it actually works at present, and hence is language-reform activism.

Again, I did not revert any student edits wholesale, I actually took the time to carefully fix only the issues, and I did justify it. I've seen other editors just revert outright for the same reasons I gave for editing it. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:56, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Crossroads, you are correct that "Woman" had both sex and gender meanings, based on context. You are wrong, however, to assume for example that in the context of Pregnancy, "woman" is always used in the sense of "sex" and is therefore equivalent in all instances to other terms used by various sources, so you can just ram "women" into the article wherever you like because the word (sometimes) means adult humans of the female sex. You have literally revert-warred headings into articles insisting on "woman" where the source didn't use "woman" - in spite of the STICKTOSOURCES mantra you misinterpret so generously - and when challenged you have replaced sources using terms you do not prefer with terms you do prefer. The fact that you are unable to see that this is the editing pattern of a righteous POV-warrior, rather than a linguistically moderate defender of WP:NPOV - well, it makes me wish that published case studies from the analyst's couch were still in fashion. Newimpartial (talk) 18:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

In creating this section (Avoiding a trans hostile environment) I wanted to avoid specific name-calling, even though it isn't a great surprise where many of the bad examples come from. Let's try to look at the edits and edit summaries without specifically directing things at each other here. This isn't an admin noticeboard where editors insult and diff-attack each other. You can do that somewhere else. What I was trying to achieve here was documenting activities I think are creating a trans hostile environment. Nowhere better demonstrated by the recent edit war at Pregnancy. An experienced editor is now discouraged from editing further because a few editors thought that the way to determine whether and how to summarise the trans pregnancy section in the lead was by edit warring over it. That's just bullying. -- Colin°^Talk 17:27, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

What's the alternative

With all that negativity, I thought it would be good to show an example of "how we do things around here" that is a good 'un. Editors User:Clayoquot and User:Gandydancer (now editing as User:Sectionworker) had been working with others on breastfeeding for many years. In May 2021, an IP added "or chestfeeding" to the lead sentence as an alternative term (to go along with "nursing"). It was removed the following day by Clayoquot. It appears they went away and thought about it and did some research. A week later it was restored by Clayoquot with the comment "Reverting my reversion - could maybe use discussion, but major sources seem to recommend using this term". Shortly afterwards, they bold the term, adding another comment "I don't really have an opinion either way on including this, but another editor wanted to include it so let's see what others think". The term remains for a few weeks before being removed on 5th June by an IP. This prompts Clayoquot to start a discussion, which you can read at Talk:Breastfeeding/Archive 5#"Chestfeeding" in lead. In their opening post, they ask "What do people think of having this term in the first sentence". How excellent is this. We have a dispute. What do people think? It doesn't immediately get much debate. Neither Clayoquot or Gandydancer like the term but both very much accept that other people, including an important organisation, think differently. They are trying to accommodate opinions they don't themselves share.

All goes quiet till two female student editors (from different courses) show up in October. Both want trans people to be covered by the article and think "chestfeeding" is an important term to mention. In particular, kporter's argument is very article-based -- where could we put it and why it is better here rather than there. Of course, they've been thinking a lot about the article, since they have just posted a work plan. Sadly, they are confronted with some of the hostility detailed in sections above. But swiftly Clayoquot steers things back into positivity and welcomes the student editor-with-a-plan, who is clearly highly qualified to edit this article. This student works through November on the article, guided by Clayoquot, who rewards them with a barnstar. The new student editor, who was told they didn't know "how Wikipedia does things" has ended up writing 30% of the article. This new editor later helps out in March the following year, fixing up another student's weak edits. That student editor caused a lot of work, but you can tell how they were handled well from their responses:

• "Ok, sorry, I will be more careful. Were any of my edits ok?"
• "Thank you, I will keep that in mind! (about primary sources)
• "I really appreciate your assistance during my learning process."

Now, I do have some views about teachers dumping students onto Wikipedia and expecting volunteers to do all the training and educating and dealing with the consequences of bad homework ending up in article space. Nevertheless, we will continue to see newbie and student editors come to our medical articles. These new young editors will have a different way of writing to the older generation. They will quite naturally want to be trans inclusive. Some of their classmates will be trans. They may be trans. It won't seem like advocacy to them. And some of them, who's very first article-space posts are advocating for specific progressive language changes, may turn out to be capable of contributing a third of the article material, and are expert enough to identify what misinformation needs to be removed. -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for putting this together, Colin. I'm not invested enough in the matter to comment, but I appreciate how much effort clearly went into it. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 00:55, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

The language around reproductive justice

• https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/22/opinion/words-you-cant-use-anymore.html has a sort of quiz about which words people will use. Of all the (40?) potentially contested terms in the list (on a range of subjects including race, gender, and disability), chestfeeding was the least acceptable.
• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/us/women-gender-aclu-abortion.html says the shift has been abrupt in the US. In 2020, an abortion advocacy organization talked about "a woman's choice"; in 2022, the same organization promoted gender-neutral terms. But politicians who support abortion rights still talk about women, because that's what resonates with US voters.
• https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reproductive_Justice/y6owDwAAQBAJ in pages 5 to 8 (the introduction) talks about the tension between including trans men when writing about pregnancy and effacing or erasing cis women. I found this via a quotation about it being unreasonable to expect trans folks to silently accept language that pretends they don't exist; immediately after that line, the book begins talking about cis women not necessarily accepting language that effaces, or in more extreme cases, erases their existence.
• https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/women-health/is-chestfeeding-the-new-breastfeeding-explaining-gender-neutral-medical-terms/ has an interesting line: some "people feel like gender-neutral terms are erasing the gender binary". This could feel "feel challenging or threatening", which probably explains why some people react with fear or anger. (This is one of the overall themes, IMO: educated people might viscerally hate hearing 'people with prostates' or 'pregnant people', but none of them are genuinely confused by what the speaker means.)

WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't think "least acceptable" is a fair description of the NYTimes poll. The relevant page asked "Would you use these words in talking about pregnancy?" and offered the words ‘Pregnant women’, ‘Birthing parent’, ‘Breastfeeding’ and ‘Chestfeeding’, with "yes/no" as your only options. So there's no range of response from always, often, sometimes, rarely, to never. Someone might well use the word "chestfeeding" when discussing the matter with a nonbinary person, but not with a cis woman. There's not a "I've never even heard that phrase" or "It wouldn't occur to me to use it" option, that are quite separate matters from whether one thinks they are "acceptable". I imagine most of the readers of the NYT may not have come across "chestfeeding" and those that have are most likely to have heard of it from those opinion writers who are arguing against it being used. Can you find any opinion columns in a major newspaper suggesting we should all use that term "when talking about pregnancy"? I bet you can find columns in nearly every newspaper suggesting we don't and complaining such language is being "forced on us". I don't think it is at all surprising that nearly everyone would say "pregnant women" or "breastfeeding" and I struggle to recall anyone advocating such words should never be used ever. Sorry, I think this is one for the "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" box. -- Colin°^Talk 09:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe the survey results were a balanced sample of US residents, not NYT readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Your second link just confirms my suspicion. The opinion writer claims "Today, “pregnant people” and “birthing people” have elbowed aside “pregnant women.”" We both know that is untrue. Why is it that those on the conservative/gender-critical side talk so much nonsense? I read an article the other day that referred to a book which described the difference between those who lie and those who bullshit (sorry, WAID, for the language). The former know what they are saying is untrue and either know the truth or could find it out if they wanted to. The latter simply don't care what is true or not and say more or less anything if it seems to help their argument. I find the debate on this frustrating that it doesn't often seem to be a debate between two equally honest and rational people who happen to have differing views (such as, whether Scotland should be independent) but highly characterised by bullshit arguments. The writer here claims "women" is a word being "erased" and closes with a claim "some state health departments offer “people who are pregnant” advice on “chestfeeding.”" But their link is to a page titled "Lactation, Breastfeeding & Chestfeeding" (my bold) which goes on to say "Families come in all shapes and sizes! Women, transgender men, and non-binary people can have babies, and many genders can lactate naturally or with medical assistance." (my bold), which, if my eyes do not deceive me, contains the word "women". If that's what NYT readers are being fed, perhaps the survey is more "how effective are our opinion writers at influencing reader responses to polls" than "what sort of words do people in the US use?" -- Colin°^Talk 09:46, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed that the article didn't fully load the first time and I thought it ended at a point that is just part way through. Reading the rest shows the author has selected and quoted opinions from both sides. However, I do think we are still seeing an example of "Journalist has opinion and will cherry pick examples that mostly reinforce that opinion". It is interesting to see a number of government or medical or advocacy publications adopt some gender neutral language and the author claims this is happening rapidly. I suspect though that a systematic review of recent publications would demonstrate this is still a minority and so I still call bullshit on his claim gender neutral terms have "elbowed aside" the old terms. The term "chestfeeding" isn't, AFAICS, being widely advocated as a "gender neutral" replacement for "breastfeeding", and remains a term used additionally to include or when talking about transgender people. I don't think an additive approach, which some of the cited publications use, supports his argument that "women" are "vanishing". And I still think "pregnant teenagers" is a solid argument that this is more about making a fuss to score political points than it is about whether we need to use gendered language when describing those who are pregnant, as we clearly don't for those under 20. -- Colin°^Talk 10:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I can't read your third link. The fourth article is pretty good, though I have a few issues. They open with a claim that certain phrases are "often" used, even on that blog. Well I asked Google to search and "anyone with a prostate" only appears in that article on the mayclinic.org website. The phrase "person with a uterus" only appears in that article and one other article which is on uterine cancer, and uses the word "women" seven times and "people"/"person" five times. The "pregnant person" gets 112 results on that web domain and "pregnant people" 66 results. This compares to 364 for "pregnant woman" and 1,790 for "pregnant women". I think the adjective "sometimes" is more accurate than "often" even for mayoclinic.org, and the infamous "person with a uterus" is not simply a replacement for "women" in some random article about what might be described as female/woman's health.

Later they offer a list of gender neutral terms with each example offered as a "rather than" the alternative. They do go on to explain that some of the words they suggest alternatives for are not in fact gendered at all, but have other reasons for being problematic to a few individuals. But what's important is that these are replacement terms one might pick when dealing with certain people, and often people who have already explained their issues with language concerning their own bodies. If a person doesn't want to use the word "breasts" or "vagina" to describe their bits, this professional would accommodate that when talking to them. But they aren't advocating these are global replacements for describing everyone. The problem is the nuance between "everywhere" and "selectively" is lost in many of these discussions both on wiki and elsewhere. I fear this article could be cited as an example of advocates claiming we can no longer say "menstruation or period", which it really isn't.

The article, by health professionals themselves, is actually very good at explaining how real actual considerate professionals deal with these matters, which is a wonderful considering that most writing on the matter comes from random opinionated people and journalists. I'm not quite sure how we got into the mess where people with economics degrees or children's authors have been given such a big platform. -- Colin°^Talk 10:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

On the last point, it doesn't feel too different to me from the mess we have around Multiple chemical sensitivity. The non-medical folks either believe that these people aren't sick, or that it's all in their heads, or that every story about it ever told is absolutely, completely true and totally caused by 'chemicals'. The medical textbooks, meanwhile, instruct future physicians to ignore causality (even to gently avoid validating any fears of "chemicals") and get on with the business at hand, which is helping this individual patient feel better, rather than, say, telling people they're feeling fine because the disabling symptoms are probably caused by a neurological injury instead of being caused by "chemicals". But when someone is wrong on the internet... WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

And I still think "pregnant teenagers" is a solid argument that this is more about making a fuss to score political points than it is about whether we need to use gendered language when describing those who are pregnant. I think that people assume pregnant teenagers refers to girls and young women while pregnant people is jarring to them because it is read as intentionally gender neutral. I don't know whether that challenges your point or not. Also, I haven't participated in this discussion in months so I don't know if females has been proposed as a substitute for women and girls. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Using females is not a bad idea, but I think it irritates some people because it's read (by them) as intentionally gender neutral – you know, "They won't say women because they're so woke". Additionally, sometimes the point isn't about biology; sometimes it's "pregnant women are discriminated against in the workplace", which is a gendered effect (as is the equally true statement that "pregnant trans people are discriminated against in the workplace").

I don't think we'll find a one-size-fits-all solution, but I do think that we'll see more editors writing about males and females. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The other problem with males/females is that it doesn't even imply a human subject, so the argument about dehumanising holds some water. And, can't remember where I mentioned this earlier, you can't assume a trans man is any more comfortable being referred to as a female than as a woman (see last sentence in lead of Female). -- Colin°^Talk 15:20, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I believe you, but I'm willing to write uncomfortable things. People don't like it when I write that babies die, and sometimes they even get in touch to say that it's not kind to disabuse desperate parents of their hopeful fantasies, but I still write that fatal diseases are fatal.

It may be uncomfortable for someone to read about "pregnant people", but it's factually accurate, and I'm okay with them being uncomfortable. It may be uncomfortable for someone else to read about "pregnant females", but that, too, is factually accurate, and I'm okay with them being uncomfortable, too.

Speaking of which, the recent history of Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is interesting. Someone tried the "people with body parts" approach, but they named the wrong body part. It looks like "people with uteruses" was being used as a way to wave at female biology without having to say "woman" or "female", but the uterus itself is not biologically relevant for PMDD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Uterati anyone? Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I think it is going to far down the path of saying that if a word's dictionary definition #2 is what you meant when you used it, then it is unreasonable for anyone to be upset if you use it. And it may be reasonable for you to expect folk to accommodate "pregnant people" in a sentence or two at pregnancy but probably not for you to eliminate "women" from the article entirely, even if the remaining text was "factually accurate". Consider also "chestfeeding" thing. It doesn't matter how much one might complain that everyone has breasts, and therefore "you are just being silly", it would be entirely inappropriate to "correct" a trans man who said they were doing that with their baby, or to remove the concept from Wikipedia.

It is a statistical fact that men's brains are around 10% larger than women's on average. If we went around referring to women as the "small brained" then I don't think a "I'm willing to write uncomfortable things" that are "factually accurate" would get us far. -- Colin°^Talk 09:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

We wouldn't describe a friend as obese if we knew it would make them uncomfortable either, but that's unrelated to how we write articles. But here we're also limited to what RS say. Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:45, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

We are only limited to sources wrt facts and opinions. Not the words in Wikivoice. We choose our own words. My point is that if someone is uncomfortable with the way you are writing about a topic, then you have to be really sure it is more important to say what needs to be said in that way, than to consider their comfort (e.g., that their illness is fatal). If it isn't important to our purpose, then making someone uncomfortable through our choice of language has a cost that isn't relevant to our mission. As we've seen in this debate, though, it isn't possible to pick language that everyone is comfortable with. If I think being upset about occasionally reading "pregnant people" on Wikipedia is silly, particularly when you are happen with "pregnant teens", that's a discomfort I'd be happy to overrule. Someone else may think complaints that Wikipedia is cisnormative when it comes to health articles is being silly, and object even to being told they are cis. -- Colin°^Talk 11:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to equate "pregnant teens" with "pregnant people". Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Thinx story

• Thinx period underwear was supposed to be ‘non-toxic’. Now customers feel betrayed - The Guardian

I saw this in my paper today, and thought EMsmile and Graham Beards may be interested. The article interviews several women, who are referred to with their gendered pronoun. But when speaking generally, it uses

• "customers"
• "children" (wrt "Thinx Teen")
• "people" (the million users and the 1.8 billion who menstruate)
• "consumers"
• "another" (referring to another customer),
• "many" ("For many, the search...", rather than "many women")
• "menstruators"

It mentions "woman" in a sentence that appears to paraphrase what professor Chris Bobel said to the writer. Chris Bobel, who is female, wrote Menstruators Need More Than Something to Bleed On, They Also Need Information and Support so clearly isn't afraid to use the word "menstruators". The writer of the article is also female and relatively young and American (writing for the US Guardian office). -- Colin°^Talk 11:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The use of "many" reminds me of my experiment with "some", which some (other editors) thought was too vague. "Menstruators" would be a useful (albeit ugly) word: has it made a appearance a dictionary yet I wonder. Sadly though, when writing about physiology and epidemiology, "customers" is of no use. (I am enjoying imagining you reading the article on the train.) Graham Beards (talk) 13:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

No, not on the train. Onelook didn't find any proper dictionaries. -- Colin°^Talk 14:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

There's some earlier discussion about "menstruators" here which I think is worth re-reading. Googling the term also found Why people are mad about the term ‘menstruators’ which is written by a trans woman. It cites a book by Chris Bobel (above) from 2010, and argues that the term isn't a neologism invented by trans or pro-trans activists but one that was adopted by feminists before TERFs came along. The Lancet paper “The weather is not good”: exploring the menstrual health experiences of menstruators with and without disabilities in Vanuatu uses the word nearly 100 times.

As I noted in the earlier discussion, nobody minds at all that we call people who cycle "cyclists", or people who sing, "singers", and nobody complains that's dehumanising. And nobody surely complains in the above article that it mentions "customers" without ensuring the reader fully understands those "customers" are "women". I suspect one problem with the word is stigma, for similar reasons we don't call people with epilepsy "epileptics", and thus feminists were/are using this word to say "menstruating shouldn't be any more shameful than singing in a choir or cycling on the road". But today, it is a word associated with trans concerns end easy to search for, if you want to eliminate it.

The word "consumers" did strike me as odd ("Now, consumers such as Gjesdahl wonder if they’ve unknowingly exposed themselves to toxic chemicals"). Are people eating these underpants? Maybe that's why they are so worried about traces of toxic compounds? -- Colin°^Talk 14:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

People do actually complain that "cyclists" is dehumanizing: New Oregon statewide bicycling manual uses people-first language. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

"Customers" are not always women. Customers include male parents and guardians who buy period panties for their daughters. There are probably around a million girls whose mother has died and who reach menarche each year. Many of them will have a stepmother, aunt, grandmother, or older sister around, but some of them will be primarily cared for by men. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Thinx ‘non-toxic’ period panties settles $5M lawsuit over harmful chemicals - New York Post

A Google News search turned up this. Wikipedia says this paper isn't reliable and has conservative politics (Murdoch owned).

• "You" ("You may want to thinx again..."). Second person is used by NHS but not an option for us. It is conveniently gender neutral.
• "wearers"
• "eco-friendly A-listers"
• "the anti-tampon evangelist"
• "period-havers" ("Thinx promoted their period panties as highly absorbent and safe for period-havers,...")
• "customers"
• "consumers"
• "those" ("For those lacking a valid receipt")
• "menstruators" ("the hot ticket option for all the sustainable menstruators")
• "those with a uterus" ("it’s up to those with a uterus to weigh the risk"
• "everyone" ("Menstrual cups aren’t comfortable for everyone")
• "our" ("Both can drive up our negative waste impact on the planet.") (not an option for Wikipedia either)

No "women". I'm surprised then if this tabloid is conservative to see such a determinedly written article, unless they are making fun of woke consumers or does this echo the thinx company's own ethos? -- Colin°^Talk 15:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

UK Census

The UK Office of National Statistics have published their data Gender identity, England and Wales: Census 2021. We discussed the wording of that census a year ago (see archive and search for Census). The census asked:

a) What is your sex? [Male/Female]

b) Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth? [Yes/No]

c) If you answered "No" to b), please give the term you use to describe your gender [free text]

For the first question, the guidance said "If you are considering how to answer, use the sex recorded on your birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate." though it didn't say which to use if those disagree. This was a mandatory question. The next two were voluntary and only for those over 16. During the earlier discussion with Sweet6970 and others, there was disagreement over "assigned" vs "registered" as the best wording. The former seems to be the preferred one for the trans community, the latter used by this census.

The Scottish census asked similar questions but there were some differences.

a) What is your sex? [Male/Female].

b) Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history? (Trans is a term used to describe people whose gender is not the same as the sex they were registered at birth) Tick one box only.

[ ] No

[ ] Yes, please describe your trans status (for example, non-binary, trans man, trans woman): _________

For the first question, the guidance said "If you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate. You do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). If you are non-binary or you are not sure how to answer, you could use the sex registered on your official documents, such as your passport. A voluntary question about trans status or history will follow if you are aged 16 or over. You can respond as non-binary in that question.". There was a lot of fuss about this including a legal challenge but it remained that those filling in the census could choose whichever sex they wanted to, that they could self-assign. Whereas the E&W census required an official document though with a GRC still meant that one's sex could be different to what was registered at birth.

The second question defines trans in a way that is similar to the E&W question (though just says "gender" rather than "gender identity"). It may be that by asking the question using a definition rather than the word "trans", the E&W question has screwed up. Why does the census say there are more trans people in Newham than Brighton? by Michael Biggs questions the results which appear to show a strong tendencey to identify as trans among those most likely to have problems reading English (for example, without English as a first language, or in areas with a strong immigrant community) rather than where we'd expect to find more trans people (e.g. Brighton). Readers might have been confused if they don't have a birth certificate or official registration documents, it is claimed. They may also be confused about what to put if they have never considered their "gender identity" or believe they don't have one or don't understand the quite modern idea there is a difference between gender and sex.

There is also data by age and sex Gender identity: age and sex, England and Wales: Census 2021. As might be expected, the youngest age group (16-24) has the highest proportion of trans people (1%) and a higher number registered as female at birth (whereas older groups, the male figure is higher).

The flaws with the E&W census stat has got the right-wing press excited with the Daily Mail headline: "Trans population may have been 'significantly overestimated' in 2021 census - raising fears focus on transgender issues is being 'exaggerated'" with absolutely no self-awareness that they are the ones with an exaggerated focus on transgender issues. But it does show the problem with how to word questions and how to self-check statistics like this. Scotland, by asking up front if you are "trans" may well get a more accurate result for that question, but some may argue their sex question is inferior. @Sideswipe9th: as well, who may be interested in thinking about the stats and wordings. -- Colin°^Talk 15:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, Colin, but I’m not sure why I’m here. My comments on this are: The E & W census question’s reference to ‘sex registered at birth’ reinforces my view that this is a better expression to use than ‘assigned at birth’. Presumably it was used because it was expected that this would be better understood than ‘assigned at birth’. And it certainly is implausible that there would be more people identifying as trans in Newham than in Brighton. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems the author of the analysis thinks "registered at birth" is not clear to some groups, particularly those without good English. And the concept of "gender identity" is also not clear to some. I agree with you that "assigned at birth" is likely to fare no better in a census and may well alienate people who get some kind of anti-woke allergic reaction to reading those words. With a census, it isn't legal to corrupt the results as a protest (even if famously some people put Jedi as their religion) but nor does a census want to antagonise participants. This might be E&W last ever census, as it is very expensive.

I guess the point wrt this sandbox is that slightly different questions could lead to different results, and that wording might also affect how we describe results. A census reporting more trans people in Newham than in Brighton is in trouble but also makes it hard for us to compare England with Scotland, who had a different question. I suspect even with the errors in these results, that a figure and 0.5% overall and 1% for under 25 is a good approximation.

I also came across Sex, gender identity, trans status - data collection and publication: guidance. This is similar to the Scottish census, and might affect how population studies ask the sex/gender/trans-status of their participants. If we are expecting population studies to be more specific or more flexible about their male/female categories, then this is the sort of problem we will see, where the choice of question can influence the outcome simply by being hard to understand. As the article says, it seems unlikely that 1:67 Muslims are trans (a rate of 1.5%). This is perhaps also a warning for any kind of population study that you can get unexpected answers if your questions (or answer choices) aren't understood. -- Colin°^Talk 12:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

On the point about different phrasings of the same question leading to different results, that's not a phenomenon unique to this census nor any other census that asks questions on sex versus gender. It's such a common and well understood concept that Yes, Prime Minister had a skit on this back in the 1980s. I'll be damned if I can remember the formal name for this particular type of bias right now though. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

A leading question is the most straightforward way, but I think what that sketch showed was priming. See this web page. And I'm sure it occurred in some of the surveys we looked at earlier about people's attitudes towards trans and other such issues. People are especially vulnerable, I think, when they haven't really thought about the question and are expected to make a hurried choice. The census, though, or a medical researcher asking about drug side effects and asking basic details about participants such as their sex or age, isn't asking about an opinion. You'd hope that a carefully worded question would produce a reliable figure. But if you can discover 1.5% trans people with question A and 0.5% trans people with question B, there's a problem. -- Colin°^Talk 15:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Another

I saw an ad recently that offered a product for "those with vaginal anatomy". I think that's a new one for the list of gender-neutral terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)