Talk:Mermaids (charity)/Archive 3

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Unsuitable source ?

@Newimpartial: If you want to say that Graham Linehan is an anti-trans activist, then you need to find a suitable source. I am deleting your addition, because the source is not only an opinion piece, it is a rant which should never be used as a source on Wikipedia. Using this source brings Wikipedia into disrepute. Please come up with a serious, reliable source, or abandon your amendment. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:58, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Why do you see the reliably sourced journalism in question as a rant which should never be used as a source on Wikipedia? Newimpartial (talk) 12:02, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
My comments:
1) Firstly, this wording has been challenged. The onus is on you to justify the wording – you should not be reverting it, you should discuss the matter on the Talk page so that there can be a consensus as to whether it should be included.
2) The source is not listed as a reliable source according to [[1]]
3) In any event, it is an opinion piece. The source is not a news article –It contains no factual information, only the opinions and emotion of its writer.
4) It is a rant because all it consists of is expressions of hatred. It constantly refers to ‘TERFs’. e.g. ‘However, TERFs are a subculture with a persecution complex…. ‘
It makes unsubstantiated allegations. e.g. ‘Mumsnet, Britain’s hugely popular social media site for parents, is a driving force behind that country’s war on trans women.’ There is no attempt to define, or factually justify, the reference to the UK’s supposed ‘war on trans women’.
5) If Graham Linehan is an ‘anti-trans activist’, then you should not have any trouble providing a reliable source to support this.
6) But even if you do provide a reliable source, the question then becomes whether it is undue to mention this in this article, which is not about Mr Linehan.
7) Newimpartial, I am embarrassed to see this rant being used as a source on Wikipedia. I don’t understand why you want to use it. It supports nothing, and its use will only have the effect of damaging Wikipedia’s reputation.
Sweet6970 (talk) 13:55, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Are we reading the same article? It is a rant because all it consists of is expressions of hatred. Really? I don't see "expressions of hatred" at all. You say that its use will only have the effect of damaging Wikipedia's reputation, but this appears to be purely an expression of POV rather than a policy-based, grounded evaluation. Sources do not have to be listed on "Perennial sources" to be reliable sources, and rabble.ca is a known publisher of good journalism. We do not ask journalists to provide us with the evidence for their reporting when we read and cite their reports, per WP policy: I have seen editors do this when they disagree with the writers cited, but this isn't really what we are supposed to be doing as editors.
The sequence was that another editor added the term "anti-transgender" and pointed out that this was the term used in the lead section of Graham Linehan. Crossroads then removed it, pointing out that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so I re-added a precisely sourced term ("anti-trans") along with a reliable source. I know you believe it is an opinion piece, but as far as I can tell this is simply your (ungrounded) opinion. Newimpartial (talk) 14:27, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Re point 2. See WP:RSPMISSING. Just because a source is not listed on RSP does not mean it is unreliable. It just means that it has not been discussed multiple times. I've done a brief search of the Reliable Sources Noticeboard archives, and couldn't find any discussions on this source. However this too does not mean the source is unreliable, we do not operate under a policy that a source is unreliable until proven otherwise. If you search the website's domain in article space, it appears as a citation in 349 articles.
Re point 3. I disagree that it's an opinion piece. It contains a wealth of factual and well cited information, referring to the works of others when substantiating claims. The article itself also is part of rabble's feature archive, not its separate opinion archive. So at the very least, the source's website does not consider this an opinion piece.
Re point 4. That description of Mumsnet is accurate, so much so that it has been mentioned not just in media but also in numerous research papers:
  • The Politicization of Mumsnet - far too many quotes to select from as Sarah Pedersen quite literally wrote the book on this subject. Sarah also has a number of standalone publications on this, however I'll avoid citing those to avoid biasing results to a single researcher.
  • How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans If such a place sounds benign, consider the words of British writer Edie Miller: “Mumsnet is to British transphobia,” she wrote “what 4Chan is to American fascism.”
  • TERF wars - building a new trans-exclusionary feminist movement that also rapidly expanded online through digital platforms, such as Twitter and the Mumsnet ‘feminist chat’ message board.
  • (Anti-)feminism and cisgenderism in sports media - cites and deconstructs several overtly transphobic comments made on Mumsnet in relation to a documentary titled The Trans Women Athlete Dispute with Martina Navratilova.
  • Empire and Eugenics: Trans Studies in the UK - While ‘gender critical’ academics self-martyr in academic and media publications, the fuel for the UK transphobic movement is comprised of angry and ill-informed online users. Many stem from the online parenting website Mumsnet before mentioning the dispute we're currently discussing on page 4; This online transphobia has been spearheaded by former comedy writer Graham Lineham,
Re point 5. We have numerous sources to justify this on Linehan's own page. The section on anti-transgender activism forms the second largest section on Linehan's article as a whole. If the consensus is that rabble.ca is not the source to use, we have a plethora of others to chose from.
Re point 6. It is not undue in this context. When looking at other Wiki articles that mention Linehan, when those mention his name in connection to his television work with others he is typically referred to as an "Irish comedy writer" or some other variant. However in articles about transphobia, with only two exceptions (Magdalen Berns and Rosie Duffield) Linehan is referred to as either an anti-trans activist or a proponent of anti-trans ideology. While I largely agree with the essay that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, I also believe we can still look at how content is referred to elsewhere on wiki as one of several guidance points, alongside reliable sourcing and editorial judgement, for how to refer to it. While that obviously does not mean that just because it is said somewhere in enwiki it is valid everywhere on enwiki, it is instead more nuanced. If a claim is well sourced elsewhere, and improves understanding here, then including it is allowed. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:13, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Contextually his anti-trans views and activism are more important than his writing in this article. While rabble isn't a great source his anti-trans views are extensively cited in his article including a citation from the times! [2]—blindlynx 17:51, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Re Sideswipe9th’s replies to my points:
(2) That a source is not listed on the Reliable sources does not mean it is unreliable – but presumably you are not saying that because it is unmentioned, that makes it reliable? This source has been claimed to be reliable, without any evidence for this view.
(3) The article does not contain a ‘wealth of factual and well-cited information’. I see that you have not referred to any such, and have not answered my points.
(4) Your original research about mumsnet is not relevant to the point. The article does not provide any factual backup for its claim. And, as important, it uses the sloppy, opinionated expression ‘war on trans women’ which it does not define – and neither have you.
Sideswipe, I am seriously concerned that you don’t recognise an opinion piece when you see one.
(5) I repeat: If Graham Linehan is an ‘anti-trans activist’, then you should not have any trouble providing a reliable source to support this.. I have not engaged in argument about whether Mr Linehan is, or is not, an anti-trans activist. I said that a reliable source is needed. I see that blindlynx has said there is one at the Times. I don’t have access to the Times. I can only see the beginning of the article, which describes him as ‘an outspoken commentator on transgender issues’. Does it actually say he is an anti-trans activist? What does it actually say about him?
(6) I don’t agree that it is due to include this description of Mr Linehan in this article. This is not the article about Mr Linehan, nor is it an article on transphobia. It is the article on Mermaids. There is a link for him – if anyone wants to know about him, they can read the article on him.
Sweet6970 (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
While i don't think this is necessary—as it is plainly obvious from the overwhelming majority of recent coverage of him that he is an 'anti-trans activist'—here is the guardian explicitly calling him that [3]. The fact he is an anti-trans activist is relevant context regarding his opposition to the charity receiving national lottery funding as he is the one who kicked off the row in the first place—blindlynx 19:59, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
  • The article does not provide any factual backup for its claim. And, as important, it uses the sloppy, opinionated expression ‘war on trans women’ which it does not define. The article is the factual backup for its claim; that's what an WP:RS is for. Insisting that every RS have its own RS is a rabbit-hole that would lead to no sources being reliable at all. I would argue it does provide citations in its links - but it doesn't have to. And the fact that you personally dislike a source's wording is not relevant to whether it is a WP:RS - what matters is their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Otherwise, again, people could remove any source they disagree with by saying that any language that goes against their beliefs is a sign of unreliability; what source could possibly convince you of these things when the very fact that a source says them is, to you, a sign that it cannot be trusted? I myself take issue with the wording used in many sources on this page, but obviously I can't remove them based on that alone. --Aquillion (talk) 20:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
Re 2 - My understanding is that sources are not automatically considered unreliable by virtue of not having been discussed. There is a glass half full philosophical point there as to whether or not this means we automatically consider sources reliable until proven otherwise. Given how strongly you feel on this however, I would suggest that perhaps the strongest course of action would be to open a discussion at WP:RSN, as any decision on the reliability of rabble.ca will affect multiple articles across the wiki.
Re 3 - I didn't feel it necessary at the time. However if you insist that such a thing is necessary, I will do so on a paragraph by paragraph basis. Though I would suggest any such analysis is better reserved for a discussion at WP:RSN, to avoid local consensus issues.
Re 4 - Citing secondary sources, and what they say in context is explicitly not original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. Nor have I done any synthesis of these sources to imply a conclusion that they do not assert. The term war on trans women is largely self explanatory. It refers to the current culture war against trans people and trans rights, vis-a-vis the Anti-gender movement. That being said, that culture war is expanding its targets to encompass all LGBT+ people and rights. While the NY Times piece is relating to the assault on LGBT rights in an American context, these fights do not happen in isolation. To give a pertinent example relevant to the UK, I refer to what has been happening in relation to Stonewall, including abuse on social media, the circumstances surrounding the formation of the LGB Alliance, and the recent controversy of the Diversity Champions and equality guidance, all of which occured subsequent to that charity's shift in policies relating to transgender rights in 2015.
As for The article does not provide any factual backup for its claim, the key sourcing policy on Wikipedia is verifiability. On any given topic, we publish only what reliable sources say on the matter. Accordingly the threshold for including content is verifiability, not truth. When it comes to writing an encyclopaedia, unless we are discussing the reliability of a source at WP:RSN, we generally don't and won't go into a full analysis of how a source reached the conclusions it did. For our purposes, outside of a handful of very specific discussions like medicine, it's neither relevant nor a good use of editorial time. All that is relevant to the vast majority of articles is that the source is reliable, and that we can verify that the source supports the claim it is being used for. Assessing the truthfulness of the source is not our job as editors.
Re 5 - Well that is the matter of this discussion is it not? You feel as though rabble.ca is not a reliable source. Others, including myself disagree and believe that it is a reliable source. As for accessing The Times piece linked by blindlynx, in general I would always recommend checking the more popular archival websites (Wayback Machine, archive.today, etc) for paywalled newspaper articles. With the exception of content that is only a few hours old, you will very often find that paywalled content has been archived in full there. For the link provided by blindlynx, it's archived in full on archive.today.
Re 6 - Fair enough. I disagree, and cannot see a way to convince you otherwise. Lets leave this point at that for now, and see where consensus lies once one starts to emerge shall we? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:40, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Rabble does distinguish between news and opinion (opinion pieces go in their columnists section or their blog section); this is in its news section. If you feel Rabble is generally unreliable you could take it to RSN, but this is an extremely unexceptional statement about Linehan (he is perhaps the most well-known anti-trans activist in the world and it can, today, reasonably be described as a major part of his notability); of course, that also means it is easy to find additional sources. But more generally your objections to Rabble seem more based on your personal opinions about what it's saying than any problem with the source - the fact that it makes you feel bad to have a source use the term TERF doesn't mean anything; it's a term used in numerous high-quality academic sources. Similarly, the fact that you personally dislike the way they describe Mumsnet means nothing - the links in that article are all sources, but even if they weren't, your disagreement would have no significance; after all, if you say "I personally do not believe this, so this source unreliable for disagreeing with me!", you could dismiss any source that disagreed with you on anything; no source would ever convince you that Mumsnet is a driving force behind anti-trans activism, because you would immediately dismiss any source that said these things as wrong. When you want to dismiss a source as unreliable, you need to focus on their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, not on your personal opinions about what they've published. A quick Google Scholar search, at least, suggests that they have significant WP:USEBYOTHERS. --Aquillion (talk) 20:03, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
  • That Linehan is best described by the phrase "anti-trans[gender] activist" has been discussed to death at Talk:Graham Linehan. There is no need to repeat this on a second article. The phrase can be well-sourced and indeed has been by Aquillion with a Guardian piece. — Bilorv (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to Sideswipe9th for providing the readable version of the Times article. It does not refer to Mr Linehan as an ‘anti-trans activist’.

@Aquillion: Your comment is full of assumptions about what I like or dislike, which are unfounded. It is inappropriate to make comments about what you imagine that I think/like/dislike. My reaction to the piece is that I am appalled at the low standard of the writing in the source. It almost reads like a parody. My point about the supposed ‘war on trans women’ is that this expression doesn’t mean anything. Instead of making comments about what you imagine I like/dislike, it would be helpful if you would provide a suitable source to support the description of Mr Linehan which you want to be in the article. Bilorv has said The phrase can be well-sourced and indeed has been by Aquillion with a Guardian piece. I have looked at all the refs to the Guardian in the Graham Linehan article, and I can’t find one referring to him as an anti-trans or anti-transgender activist. Please direct me to the relevant source.

I saw that he is described as an anti-transgender activist on his ‘own’ article – but, as we all know, Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

I am surprised at the volume and the tone of the responses to my point – which is that the source is unsuitable. It seems that I apply higher standards for journalism than others participating in this discussion. It would be simpler just to answer my point, and provide a suitable source for the description of Mr Linehan. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Rabble.ca is quite suitable as a source; using the volume and the tone of the responses in objection to your ungrounded criticism as evidence that you are actually "right" seems very Alice in Wonderland to me.
But if you don't like that source, the Guardian piece that has been added to this article might WP:SATISFY you. Newimpartial (talk) 22:37, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Your comment is full of assumptions about what I like or dislike, which are unfounded. No, I am summarizing your position as I see it. You have indicated that you personally dislike the fact that the source uses the word TERF and disagree with the way they describe Mumsnet; you are entitled to those opinions. I, too, often disagree with the language and conclusions of sources. But without something to back that disagreement up, it is merely your personal opinion and has no relevance to RS discussions or to article content - you cannot dismiss a source simply by disagreeing with its language or conclusions; if you could, no source could ever convince anyone of anything at all. If you feel that the source is so severely wrong to make those statements that it impacts its reliability - or that they are so far out of the mainstream as to be WP:FRINGE, which by my reading is the real thrust of what you're trying to say - you must present sources backing that feeling up; and even with another source that disagrees, we would have to consider their relative weight. Right now, though, you are just stating your personal feelings and opinions. You can feel as appalled as you like, but reliability is judged based on a source's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, not based on what you personally find appalling, or on what language you personally find disagreeable, or on which statements in sources that you personally have decided to doubt. --Aquillion (talk) 00:26, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Here are two more sources that explicitly use the term 'anti trans activist' Pinknews [4] and the daily mail [5]. I want to reiterate that neither of these are needed For us to describe him as an 'anti trans activist' there are plenty of RS that make it plainly clear that he is one—blindlynx 01:50, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Aquillion: It appears there is nothing I can do to make you read what I actually wrote – you will still insist on reading something I haven’t written. There is no point in continuing this conversation with you.
@Newimpartial: I am not using the volume and the tone of the responses in objection to [my] ungrounded criticism as evidence that [I am] actually "right". I don’t even understand what you mean by this. I was gently pointing out that there has been a pile-on of people here, and there seems to be more interest in arguing about the subject than in providing a suitable source. Now, that does make me feel like I am Alice in Wonderland – but I think that’s not what you meant. But thank you for providing the source! (Now, if you had done that in the first place, we would all have been saved a lot of trouble.) Of course, there is still the problem that the rabble source is an embarrassment to Wikipedia, and that it is probably undue to refer to Mr Linehan in this way in this article, but the White Rabbit tells me that unless I leave now, it will be too late……Sweet6970 (talk) 10:51, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
If you feel that strongly about rabble as a source, and that it shouldn't be used on Wiki then the appropriate venue is WP:RSN.
there seems to be more interest in arguing about the subject than in providing a suitable source. That seems like a rather inaccurate reading of the discussion. There was, as far as I can see, a consensus that it was already a suitable source to use. You disagreed, as is your right. But unilaterally requiring a different source to be used is not how consensus works. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
  • According to its About Us page, Rabble.ca has been at the forefront of reporting on national politics with a progressive lens that centres issues of social movements, of labour, and of grassroots activism. "With a progressive lens" is an admission of being a WP:BIASEDSOURCE, as is obvious from their site and the specific article anyway. As such, using it to support such a contentious label in Wikivoice is not appropriate. Its use on other Wikipedia pages is irrelevant. Crossroads -talk- 00:13, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
    @Crossroads: you may wish to review the text at BIASEDSOURCE because Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. As such, it is completely inaccurate to say using it to support such a contentious label in Wikivoice is not appropriate. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:51, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah, Crossroads. I don't think you're reading WP:BIASEDSOURCES correctly. By your reading, all The Times and The Telegraph content on gender identity issues should be taken out of wikivoice because of the bias of these sources, but somehow I remember you arguing exactly the opposite. Newimpartial (talk) 00:53, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
    It supports information about viewpoints, yes, but all the same BIASEDSOURCES notes: Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate, as in "The feminist Betty Friedan wrote that..."; "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff..."; or "The conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...". Of course in-text attribution doesn't apply to uncontroversial banal facts that any source would support, but stuff that is BLP and politically charged is another matter. I would never support citing a conservative-leaning source to decribe someone as a "women's sex-based rights activist" or somesuch in Wikivoice, and I expect other editors to likewise follow the NPOV standard. Crossroads -talk- 02:08, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
    Fortunately the article text now has multiple sources on this, representing vastly different viewpoints, all supporting the language used. Newimpartial (talk) 02:13, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
    That's again a misunderstanding/misreading of BIASEDSOURCE. When the majority of sources state a fact, as they do when they describe Linehan as anti-trans (in this context), then we do not need to attribute According to rabble.ca, anti-trans activist.... To do otherwise would imply false balance, and that said description is still under dispute. Which in this case, it is not. And per WP:CITEOVERKILL we should not overcite a fact, regardless of how controversial it may be to some readers.
    Also I feel strangely like we've had this discussion, multiple times in the past. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:40, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
  • That was why I added other sources before commenting here, yeah. I don't think that it's a non-WP:RS but I would not want to rely on it alone, unattributed, for a BLP-sensitive statement. Fortunately we don't have to! If you're going to argue that the Guardian is biased, though, then I'm going to have to insist that we treat the Telegraph the same way - this is a fair connection to make, since WP:DUE weight is relative and giving more weight to sources that are biased in one respect (by eg. removing / objecting to the Guardian and not the Telegraph) would be a violation. Of course, right now we're giving the Telegraph dozens of times more focus than the Guardian already, so it's a problem as-is, but certainly we can't remove the Guardian as biased while citing the Telegraph for massive blocks of text. --Aquillion (talk) 05:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

What are we actually arguing about here? Is it the quality of the sourcing, as the section title suggests, or whether we should use that description at all, as suggested in the first comment? If the former, then the description is more than adequately referenced now. (Maybe it wasn't before. I'm neutral on that.) If the latter, then the question is one of relevance. Given that the content refers directly to his anti-trans activism, and not to his comedy writing, the description "anti-trans activist" seems highly relevant to explaining the nature of his involvement and is in no way excessive given that he has devoted the last few years of his life pretty much exclusively to anti-trans activism at the expense of his career. Is there anything more to discuss here? Can we draw this to a close now? --DanielRigal (talk) 09:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

it really looks like WP:CITEOVERKILL we don't need there sources saying hes an anti trans activist, one is more than enough. The guardian is the highest quality of the three currently included can we agree to just include that one and get rid of the other two? Also is him being an 'Irish comedy writer' really relevant here? (ping @Aquillion:)—blindlynx 15:58, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Susie Green and WPATH 8 SoC

I've removed the sentence on the changes between the 7th and 8th edition of the WPATH SoC, citing WP:COATRACK. This is an article on a UK charity, it's not the article on the SoC. Presenting the changes between the SoC versions is best handled at the primary article for it, as there we can go into sufficient depth for why those changes occurred. We do a disservice to our readers by presenting the changes in the form that was present in this article, as the reasoning for each change is significantly more nuanced than can be conveyed in a single sentence.

For example, the removal of the lower age limit for prescribing of puberty blockers coincided with a recommendation that such treatment should only commence at Tanner stage 2. Despite fear mongering by certain elements within the press and on social media, this change is not controversial, and brings the WPATH guidance in line with the 2017 Endocrine Society guidelines. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:40, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed the inclusion is a misreading of the source—blindlynx 15:58, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
My reason for my edit (as explained in my edit summary) was that it seemed that the previous revert was based on a mistake about the content of the source. It seems to me that, bearing in mind Sideswipe’s comment here, the inclusion of this text is borderline, and I not intend to dispute Sideswipe’s revert of me. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Is The Telegraph's coverage of its Mermaids investigation Independent?

According to WP:IND:

An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and therefore is commonly expected to cover the topic from a disinterested perspective. Independent sources have editorial independence (advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (there is no potential for personal, financial, or political gain to be made from the existence of the publication).

It appears that The Telegraphs coverage of its recent investigation, and ensuing developments, fails that test rather dramatically. Multiple scholarly sources have depicted The Telegraphs "gender critical" editorial position and activism, and the investigation and its aftermath clearly seem intended as a pursuit of political gain in the sense of policy and/or regulatory action. Now this doesn't mean that we are forbidden to use non-independent sources, but it would be desirable to agree on the nature of The Telegraph's coverage of Mermaids so we do not see brush fires on the issue every time an editor adds content to the article using this broadsheet as a source. Newimpartial (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how The Telegraph's coverage of its own investigation could be considered anything but primary. Madeline (part of me) 18:08, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Because The Telegraph are the original source for the investigation, that inherently makes them both a primary and non-independent source per WP:IDPRIMARY and the relevant policies it cites. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
While we're at it, can we discuss WP:IND in relation to PinkNews? Surely it can't be argued that they have editorial independence, there are more ads on their articles than on the Daily Mail website. If they were to public something their readers didn't agree with, this could easily result in huge losses of revenue. Arguments of conflict of interest are surely relevant, in both personal, financial, and political gain. Samcowie (talk) 18:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Just to clarify, are you alleging that PinkNews is beholden to their advertisers when it comes to editorial control? And that their editors and/or journalists are writing articles for political or financial gain? Such extraordinary claims would require extraordinary evidence. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:44, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
But if PinkNews cannot be made to appear less reliable on this topic than The Telegraph, "there is no hope". It's a good thing Wikipedia is not an inspirational quote farm. Newimpartial (talk) 19:09, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Daily Telegraph Investigation

Someone was looking for an additional source before this section could be included. Here's one https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/37b9fc6e-3d8b-11ed-b24d-96120f17513d?shareToken=e2335236b951493b086a56833cf3413e 37.228.200.172 (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Also: Mermaids responds to The Telegraph amid row over breast binders (pinknews.co.uk) AndyGordon (talk) 17:41, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
That's good balancing coverage. Unless the Telegraph "investigation" grows into a scandal in its own right (like "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women" became a journalistic scandal) I don't think that we want to bloat this coverage out too much. In fact, I think it having its own section is overkill, at least at the for the time being. Nonetheless, I think we should find a place to use that Pink News article to balance what we have. DanielRigal (talk) 17:58, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if the recent event that have brought additions to the Mermaids page needs this to be added https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-charity-worker-posed-as-schoolgirl-in-explicit-pictures-fd6s37f96  ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.228.200.45 (talk) 15:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Excessive reliance on the Daily Telegraph as a source

Despite the discussion above regarding the WP:BIASED nature of the telegraph as a source and the fact that we already have two sections largely devoted to citing it for controversies that originated there, a third section entirely about Daily Telegraph coverage has been added. We cannot rely solely on a single source, especially one whose coverage of British politics has a clear point-of-view. I'm going to kill the most recent addition unless secondary coverage can be produced. --Aquillion (talk) 06:23, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, a section just called "Controversy" is unacceptable. WP:CRITS discourages them and this one is particularly bad. The previous title "The Daily Telegraph investigation" was also bad. The fact that people can't find a good title to say what this alleged "controversy" is actually about shows how insubstantial it is. This was a sting operation that set out to find evidence of wrongdoing and, finding little to nothing, decided to list uncontroversial activities as if they were sinister and run it on the front page anyway. The scare quotes around "harm reduction" are also completely unacceptable POV. Either this needs to be worked into the existing coverage, in a much more balanced way, or we need independent coverage of the "investigation" itself as a sting operation. I'd favour the former as I doubt we will ever find non-partisan coverage of the latter. We can say that Mermaids offers binders, and mention that some people think that this is controversial, when describing their charitable activities. We can do this without participating in pearl clutching and innuendo ourselves. DanielRigal (talk) 14:01, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Unsurprisingly, I completely agree with both Aquillion and DanielRigal. Both The Telegraph and The Times have put out a lot of, what could best be described as attack journalism, into Mermaids. With only a few exceptions both publications have a pretty strong ideological bias anti-trans bias that is reflected in both the nature of the stories that they publish, and the frequency at which they publish them (CNN on anti-trans rhetoric in British media). While we could base our entire article off of such publications, we would almost immediately run into NPOV issues by uncritically covering only the anti-trans publications.
I do like Daniel's suggestion of saying that Mermaids offer binders as a charitable activity, potentially including a sentence or quotation for why they provide the service, and a brief neutral mention that some find this controversial. That is I think a much fairer way to describe it than the section removed by Aquillion, regardless of how it is titled.
One concern I have that hasn't been talked about, but is illuded to by Daniel, is the sting operation into the Mermaid's discussion forum. Were I a journalist, or an opinion columnist I would likely describe it as a fishing expedition based purely on ideological culture war lines. Of course it should go without saying that we can't say that in an article without very strong sources who state that. Accordingly, I think excluding that sentence is probably our wisest approach, as while everything on Wikipedia must be verifiable, verifiability alone does not guarantee inclusion. Including that sentence, even as a quotation, is I think giving undue prominence to the culture war derived bias inherent in much of British media at present.
I'm also somewhat opposed to the quotation from Miriam Cates for similar reasons. Her own article details some of her opposition to trans rights, in particular self-identification and gender fluidity, as well as statements against both Stonewall and Mermaids, however as an MP she doesn't appear to have any experience at any level with a relevant ministerial brief. It seems like cherry picking on the part of The Telegraph to go to her for a quotation over other MPs that they allude to, and it seems like cherry picking for us to uncritically include it. If there was a related quotation from Joanna Cherry, the only other MP mentioned by name by the Telegraph, you could at least argue that she has some relevant experience through her two party spokesperson roles for inclusion, even if she too is biased. Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:56, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Secondary coverage from The Times added. Void if removed (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
The title is not the only problem. The current title is not as bad but still not good. I see two possible approaches:
  1. Reduce the overage and work it into the existing coverage. (No need for a title at all.)
  2. Find a better title and expand the coverage to balance it out. A sentence half-heartedly tacked on the end doesn't cover it. The use of "a harm reduction position" in quotes needs to change. It reads as scare quotes.
DanielRigal (talk) 14:33, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
If something along the lines of 'they offer chest binders for X reason and others find this controversial because Y' is added, that would be good and better than nothing at all. However, I don't endorse the argument above that a CNN article can be used to dismiss large chunks of the British mainstream media. Generally, we consider news outlets to be WP:Secondary sources in their own right (the primary sources in this case would be the Mermaids forums and policies themselves). The Times is also a secondary sources, adding more WP:WEIGHT. One could just as easily argue that the US media is biased towards a freewheeling approach toward child gender transition (whereby they frame any other approach as "anti-trans"). Also, WP:BIASEDSOURCES can still be reliable for facts, and in fact many sources that are biased in favor of the freewheeling approach are routinely cited in articles like this and defended. I agree we don't need the Cates quote, but revealing what goes on on their forums seems like standard investigative journalism to me (cf. the many, many examples of journalists writing up forums for far-right activity). Crossroads -talk- 16:32, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Let's be clear, though. The Telegraph's article lead was A transgender children’s charity is giving potentially dangerous chest-flattening devices to 14-year-olds against their parents’ wishes, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. This is POV, advocacy journalism, the kind where the publication's known "gender critical" POV has to be taken into account in interpreting their selection and presentation of facts. Newimpartial (talk) 17:15, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
This is another case of the same perpetrators ganging up and bullying others into taking things out of the page. It's utterly shameful as several of you here argued the exact opposite regarding another page. Have some decency. If articles from the Times and the Telegraph are considered less reliable than Pink News, then there's no hope. The sources are sound. If this was a page that some of you didn't like, you'd have paragraphs by now. It's really disappointing and is a complete disservice to those who use Wikipedia. Please put your own bias to one side and add details of an investigation that has been reported in the mainstream press. Samcowie (talk) 19:20, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Re: If articles from the Times and the Telegraph are considered less reliable than Pink News, then there's no hope - The Times and The Telegraph are less reliable on these issues than PinkNews. PinkNews doesn't engage in ethically dubious infiltration of safe spaces for young people in the service of "gotcha" journalism. You can see The Telegraph's POV in their sidelong references to Susie Green's trans "child" (actually a daughter) - some well-executed dog-whistle fanservice for the audience The Telegraph is targeting on this issue. There isn't anything about being a mainstream UK broadsheet that guarantees coverage of a quality worth following uncritically on WP, at least not for topics when RS have commented on the paper's biases. Newimpartial (talk) 19:33, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
And you think you have the authority to judge that? I think it is reliable, considering The Times and The Telegraph have been used as sources for other articles similar in nature to this one. The bias shown on the page is shocking and does an huge disservice to Wikipedia. Samcowie (talk) 19:36, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Your bias is clearly shown in your talk page. You shouldn't be editing articles if you can't do it effectively and with a neutral POV Samcowie (talk) 19:37, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Please discuss editors' contributions on article Talk pages, not your opinions of editors themselves. As far as The Telegraph and The Times are concerned, their objectives and tactics have been discussed in high-quality academic sources (e.g., [6]). This is scarcely some random thing I happen to believe. Newimpartial (talk) 19:44, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

This is completely ridiculous. There is nothing unreliable or factually incorrect about the coverage from The Telegraph or The Times, both of which are considered RS by WP:RSP. As for the articles being POV and advocacy, so are articles from PinkNews, but you would never advocate for removing those. Secondly, we should judge sources based on accuracy, not bias. If you cannot prove that the articles are inaccurate, then there is no reason for them to be removed. Remember, Wikipedia isn't here to right great wrongs. I could not agree more with Samcowie. X-Editor (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm appalled at the unprecedented level of bias on this page. Thank you for speaking up. Samcowie (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
We also have a policy linked as WP:NOTNEWS, while Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. These policies apply even if there were nothing questionable about The Telegraph's reporting on the topic, and we have had high-quality sources commenting on The Telegraph's promotion of "gender critical" positions. There is every reason to believe that, until we had coverage outside of the bubble jointly constituted by The Times and The Telegraph concerning this "investigation", we did not have the diversity of sourcing required to achieve NPOV (and WP:BALANCE) concerning the emerging controversy. Now that we have some corroborating but contrasting coverage from PinkNews, we probably do. Newimpartial (talk) 19:40, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
The problem is that there is nothing in WP:RSP that suggests articles from The Telegraph, The Times, and other British media that are "gender critical" should not be used, which will only continue to create confusion. I also doubt that you would apply the same standard of removing content and diversity of sourcing requirement per WP:NOTNEWS if PinkNews and other pro-LGBT outlets were the only ones that offered coverage on a specific issue without anything from "gender critical" outlets. X-Editor (talk) 19:53, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
I see a false parallel here that seems to imply that "gender critical" and "pro-LGBT" sources sit as some kind of parallel outriders to a "mainstream" position. I don't actually believe this to be the case. In most contexts there is a broad consensus (e.g. that gender identity is a real thing, that trans people should have rights, etc.), which is reflected by mainstream scholarship, professional medical sources, and most media, and then there is a dissident position expressed mostly by WP:FRINGE practitioners (like SEGM) and also by, e.g., The Times and The Telegraph. There are certainly issues - like the appropriate age for young trans people to have access to Puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgery - where most mainstream opinion falls into a middle range, a fair distance away from the positions set out by partisans on either side. But the existence of these issues should not lead to a FALSEBALANCE that proposes The Times as being the same distance as PinkNews from the consensus view on such basic questions as, "is gender identity real, or is it ideology?" Newimpartial (talk) 20:06, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
And by the way, I am not suggesting that The Times and The Telegraph should not be used, here or in any other article but, rather, that WP:BIASEDSOURCES applies, notably the linked passage at NPOV: A neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the editor's point of view. This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether. Newimpartial (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
It's not that simple. A gender-critical person might say that gender identity doesn't exist or is meaningless, but a PinkNews-style activist might argue that gender identity supersedes all else, with the result that there should be no limitations whatsoever on hormones for children because their gender identity is more important. These are both activist positions. And I don't see The Times or The Telegraph being as biased for a gender-critical position as PinkNews is biased for a "gender identity only" POV; you don't see the former tarring opponents as "anti-woman" in their own voice while this does occur with PinkNews and "anti-trans". At the very least PinkNews is very much a BIASEDSOURCE itself. Crossroads -talk- 22:26, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
If you disagree with the CNN report I linked earlier, I have a multitude of other reliable sources I can provide that asserts an anti-trans bias from mainstream British media sources, particular so in articles published by both The Times and The Telegraph. This includes other international news organisations, research by charities (including Mermaids), articles from subject matter-experts, and scholarly research. I'd be happy to share some, just say what you'd like to see, though I am collating it for a much larger discussion at an appropriate noticeboard at some point in the future. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:43, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Dude, you haven't even established that PinkNews advocates a "gender identity only" POV; this appears to be yet another of the things of which you are so deeply convinced that evidence is not required. Newimpartial (talk) 22:50, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
The editing of the section on an investigation by The Daily Telegraph to put a citation to Pink News' spin on the investigation first, and to change all the embedded references to direct readers to the Pink News article instead of the actual, primary article, is pure POV and bias. There is no good reason to have done this. All of the existing references already supported the text. Void if removed (talk) 08:45, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
We are supposed to prefer primary sources over secondary sources now? I'm afraid I didn't get that memo, Void... Newimpartial (talk) 10:44, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
PinkNews and The Telegraph are both secondary sources. Crossroads -talk- 17:28, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
The Telegraph is not a secondary source about its own investigation. Newimpartial (talk) 17:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
You're right, it is completely ridiculous that a "newspaper" can claim that binders hurt 97% of people that wear them, and use this "fact" to attack a charity. The reality is explored very well on this thread, which points out that under the same criteria used for this study (where "harm" can equal some soreness, itchiness or skin irritation!), high heels and bras would be available on prescription only! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bastun (talk • contribs) 23:02, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
That Twitter thread is discussing this study published back in 2017. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:18, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Which is the best candidate I've seen for being the basis of Cass's comments that are quoted (out of any meaningful context) in The Telegraph. Newimpartial (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a pretty fringe position from the paper and should lead us to being cautious about inducing it in this article—blindlynx 01:43, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
That thread is, bluntly, partisan nonsense. The pdf of the study is here and you can see that while 97% is "any" outcome, which will include some low-impact issues, high-impact problems are all very high and participants experienced multiple, overlapping issues, eg. 74% "any pain outcome", 50.7% "any respiratory outcome", "Any skin issue" is 76.3%. You can't look at the 97% and dismiss it as padded by people being itchy or uncomfortable, its a complete misreading of the paper. You're trying to refute a finding in a peer-reviewed source, assessed by experts as part of the Cass Review, reported in a reliable national newspaper, with a random tweet that doesn't bear 30 seconds of scrutiny. Void if removed (talk) 15:22, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
It's interesting to bring up the Cass Review. So far we only have an interim report published by the review, and the only mention of binders or anything chest binding related is a single sentence on page 45 which reads We have also heard about the distress experienced by birth-registered females as they reach puberty, including the use of painful, and potentially harmful, binding processes to conceal their breasts. We have no more context or information than that, no information as to how the panel determined that brief sentence, or what the actual risks are in "potentially harmful".
A poorly fitted bra will cause pain, respiratory problems, and skin issues. High heels will cause pain and skin issues. Skinny jeans that are too small will cause pain and skin issues. Tights (or pantyhose for any American editors) can cause skin issues and bacterial or yeast infections. Yet we don't require parental permission or a prescription for those common items of clothing. It is pure fear mongering on the part of The Telegraph and those quoted within to combine the 2017 study, with the brief sentence from the Cass interim report, to suddenly decry binders as a "safeguarding issue". Not to mention the complete misuse of the term safeguarding issue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:28, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
WP:RS and WP:BIASED are different things. The Telegraph is reliable, but clearly biased, in the sense that it has a well-known point of view within British politics, especially (though not exclusively) when it comes to trans issues; and it is WP:UNDUE to source extensive parts of an article to one biased source. This has been discussed extensively above - we never even reached a consensus to include the current extensive sections cited to the Telegraph. Obviously we shouldn't go adding a third one. It would be undesirable to have three sections devoted almost entirely to a single source under any circumstances (even if it were not biased), but it is certainly inappropriate to do so with one that has a clear bias. --Aquillion (talk) 01:40, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
We have The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC and likely others. What's the issue? - LilySophie (talk) 18:22, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
it is WP:UNDUE to source extensive parts of an article to one biased source - good thing we're not doing that then. The first section you re-tagged again cites only one of its three sentences to The Telegraph, and the other relies on it for none of its material (it cites it once for one sentence alongside other sources, basically as a convenience link). That latter section instead is based on PinkNews, BBC, The Times, and The Guardian - a diverse collection of indisputably secondary sources. As for consensus, WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS applies, as many editors have helped make those what they are. You have not laid out any route to remove the tag except by removing the material, which is itself clearly UNDUE because it ignores all the non-Telegraph sources. Crossroads -talk- 05:03, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
That is not how WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS or WP:ONUS works; once someone has objected to something in a timely manner, the objection remains until it is resolved with a clear consensus, which has certainly never been the case for that section. Both sections are fundamentally about controversies related to the Telegraph which received no WP:SUSTAINED coverage; citing it to just that continues to give undue weight to the Telegraph's positions. Demonstrating that sort of sustained coverage from neutral sources would be one way to address due weight concerns (comparing it to other things in the article is another way; there are several ways to approach due weight issues.) But yes, of course my position is still that at a bare minimum the first section ought to be removed and that you've repeatedly failed, in continuous discussions, to demonstrate the consensus for inclusion that WP:ONUS requires, and have repeatedly failed to produce the level of sustained coverage that would make it due to have multiple sections devoted to covering what the Telegraph feels about the article's subject. --Aquillion (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
WP:SUSTAINED is part of the notability guideline, governing if an article on a topic should exist; it has nothing to do with material within articles. The Telegraph is a reliable source, and is a news outlet, so whatever "positions" you think they have are not relevant. The differing standard between groups like this and groups with opposing positions is quite obvious at this point. If we can't cite The Telegraph for one attributed sentence without the 'undue' tag constantly getting re-added, then why doesn't that apply to coverage by PinkNews of some other group? Crossroads -talk- 23:00, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, The Telegraph is actively involved in campaigning on these issues, while PinkNews is carrying out journalism. That is one relevant difference. Newimpartial (talk) 00:06, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the laugh, Newimpartial. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:31, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Your WP:POV is noted, but I was simply describing the actual situation over the last couple of years. Newimpartial (talk) 11:56, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
That's a strange thing to say, considering your initial WP:POV statement that goes against the editor consensus on Pink News and The Telegraph. Your personal opinion aside, The Telegraph is considered reliable and WP:FRINGE considerations do not play into how these sources are treated. - LilySophie (talk) 13:24, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
The editor consensus about PinkNews is that it is a reliable source per RSN. The most charitable interpretation of the discussions on-wiki about the approach The Telegraph takes to covering gender identity issues is that there is no consensus - I dare say that more editors follow the many reliable (including scholarly) sources who are scathing about the quality of that coverage than are sympathetic to The Telegraph as some kind of bastion of broadsheet respectability. For The Telegraph, reliable sources have found severe fault with its treatment of transgender issues, and the same simply isn't true of PinkNews.
But what do you mean by WP:FRINGE considerations? I'm afraid I don't follow. Newimpartial (talk) 17:42, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
  • WP:SUSTAINED is normally used as one measurement of due weight; when I pointed this out on talk there was unanimous agreement that this is standard practice. Surely you're aware of this. One article from the Telegraph and a response from affected organizations is not by any reasonable standard WP:DUE for an entire section; demonstrating sustained coverage would be one way for you to answer those objections, and the fact that you refuse to even attempt to do so shows that you lack any arguments for conclusion beyond the bare existence of (brief) coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 17:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
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