Talk:Transgender/Archive 1

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Non-operative Transsexuals

The section on non-operative transsexuals doesn't take into consideration non-op transgender people today. Is this section to distinguish between the common use of the word "transexual" or "transsexual" to describe an individual who is undergoing hormonal and/or surgical transition to their body?

Reasons people may choose not to or be forced not to operate might include: the results are undesirable - aesthetically or funcionally, they lack money, they lack pyschiatric approval required in many places, because of spiritual or moral beliefs about changing the body, their body is unable to withstand the risks or side-effects, and other reasons. This section could also be expanded to include non-hormone transgender people. Not having an operation or not taking hormones does not change the fact that a person was designated the wrong gender at birth. It is simply the path that some (many) transexual people take. I haven't updated this part of the article, but wanted to open to discussion before I work at it.

Deletion Log

• Deleted discussion of categories. For removed content see Older Versions. Summaised (badly) by Martin 09:10 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
  • caution: the term transvestite is mildly ambiguous
  • Is transvestic fetishism transgender? Not in general
  • question of whether drag queen needs to seperate the gay subculture from the stage performance, and how

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Korea is undergoing a transgender revolution, with many popular Korean transgender celebrities coming out. The first popular one was Harisu, later others such as Ryu Na In and Lady (four singers). This is the first Yahoo! group specifically dedicated to them http://groups.yahoo.com/group/korean_angels.

Due to the length of the previous debates, I'll put the most recent one now on top.

Somebody changed the bit about the number of gay and lesbian transgenders (after transitioning) from "many" to "probably about equal to that among the population as a whole". The later is a rather stange assumption, since every transgender group that does not discriminiate against gay or lesbian transgenders reports a very high number of gay or lesbian or bi- (or pan-)sexual transgenders. It is almost always at least one third of the group, but often more than half. That is clearly above the rate among the general population! (At least for now ;-)
I am not sure about published statistics (they are far to rare anyway), but counts by doctors who are also known not to discriminate against non-straight transgenders show only slightly lower numbers - and then it has to be taken into account that far too many transgenders would not dare to mention being not straigt to even the most liberal doctors.

Therefore, changed that passage back, and expanded a bit. Also added the bit about homosexuality - the word just does not work when talking about transgenders. – AlexR 22:25 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

That meshes with my experience, certainly. However, I've moved this para here because I'm not hugely happy with it...

"The word homosexuality should not be used in connection with transgendered people, since it can be very difficult to decide what exactly is "equal enough" to qualify as a homosexual (same-sex) relation. For example, a relationsship between a gay cisgender man and a gay transman who has no genital reassignment surgery would, both to the partners and the outside word, be gay - and, technically, heterosexual."

The problem is that this is really a usage guide (which isn't generally appropriate). Worse, it's telling people what should be done and how words should be used, and that's somewhat biased. I think it's reasonable to say that there are problems with the word (one could distinguish between same-sex and same-gender, for example). One could also comment if some transgendered people find the application of the word offensive, preferably with a quote. Martin

If you read it like that, then it definitely needs improvement. I merely tried to point out the problems the word homosexuality can bring when applied to transgendered people. It's not so much a matter of biased, nor are transgendered people (none that I know, anyway) offended when the word is used for gay or lesbian relationships. They tend to be offended, though, if the word is used for straight relationships, where merely the genitals happen to be the same, because "homosexual" implies gay or lesbian relationships, not straight ones.

This is pretty much the destinction between same-sex relationships (homosexual) and same-gender relationships (lesbian or gay) that you mentioned.

But, as I said, if you read it as being a plain usage guide, than the paragraph definitely needs improvement. – AlexR 10:07 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

What may also be interesting to mention here is that doctors and psychologists often use homo- and heterosexual respective to the birth sex of the person, whereas transgendered people themselves use the terms respective to their desired sex. This is important to keep in mind when reading reports from both professionals and their clients.

Kimiko 213.84.243.169 18:27 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)

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• • • Although few studies have been done, transgender groups almost always report a higher incidence of gay, lesbinan or bisexual transgenders than among the population as a whole. In many groups, straight transgenders are actually a minority.

I took this out pending clarification - a physical male who is transgendered might then be considered a female, and thus said female may be attracted to men, but not actually be gay, or said female could be a lesbian and thus appear to be a straight male. Also, is it so hard to start accrediting sources for such material? Susan Mason

A transgendered woman (a person transitioning to a woman) who is attracted primarily to women will typically identify as a lesbian; a transgendered woman primarily attracted to men will typically identify as heterosexual. Some researchers believe that a majority of transgendered people are gay vis-à-vis their target gender. - Montréalais

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It is so hard accrediting sources, because there are few reliable "scientific" sources about transgenders.

Much research is done to confirm a theory, and transgenders which don't fit the criteria of that doctor are simply excluded. To make matters worse, these doctors also are often the only ones available who write letters of recommendation. So to get those, many transgenders have to lie to doctors to get them. The research coming from those doctors therefore is naturally flawed, because the data is flawed. (Most of the time, so are the premises.)

Unfortunately, that has led to a situation where many transgenders routinely lie to any doctor (at least any who might have something to do with their treatment). It's understandable, but unfortunaltely mares almost all scientific research.

And even completely voluntary studies are difficult - since often the questions are unanswerable. For example, many transgender people abort answering a questionary when the question "male or female" turns up - because they are unable to answer it. Are they supposed to put their gender identity in there? In that case, there are far more possible answers than those two. Or their birth gender? Or their current legal gender? Or their current genital appearance? Their overall appearance? And since this question turns up on about 99% of the questionaries, no reliable data is forthcoming from these studies, too. - AlexR 15:08 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

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'Transgender' seems to be used mostly as an umbrella term in the US and internationally. In the Netherlands (possibly in the rest of Europe too, I'm not sure about that) however, 'transgender' is used to refer to people who live as the opposite (to birth-) gender without SRS, by choice (ie. not due to circumstances). I think this is different from what is mentioned on the page already about 'between genders'. Kimiko 213.84.243.169 18:27 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)

I added a para, Kimiko. What do you think? be bold! :) Martin

Sounds good to me. Could someone (dis)confirm whether the term 'transgender' is also used this way in other European countries? ps. what about my other remark about the use of 'homosexual' above? Kimiko 213.84.243.169 08:50 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like a good point. Add it to the article! :) Btw, feel free to create a username - you don't need to provide an email address or anything - it's really a very lightweight procedure :) Martin

How is this? Kimiko 12:25 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)

Excellent :) Nice note on the article too - that should help clear things up :)

This use of "transgender" for non-op transpeople is pretty outdated. Those people now call themselfes and are called transgenderists. If the old use is still current in the Netherlands, it is definitely the exception in Europe (and the rest of the world as far as I know it).
However, sometimes some transsexuals refer to non-op persons of any identification, or even post-op people who differ slightly from the transsexual "standard" as "transgender" or any number of terms, to distance themselfes from anything they see as "not properly transsexual". That is however the use of a small minority, and it is meant to be very offensive.
I'll rephrase this sentence in the article. AlexR 12:38 18 May 2003 (UTC)

looks good - but do note that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, or a usage guide - it's always a narrow line between the two, of course... Martin

I know it isn't - but if a word can mean different things in different places (or contexts) one has to mention it - and a word like transgender is quite difficult. It can mean slightly different things, and the context does not always make it obvious which one is meant. Plus, it can be intendes as anything from a title of honor to a neutral description to a flat-out insult. I hope my edit today was still OK. I prefered to leave out the possible use as "insult" by self-styled "proper transsexuals". But in the German Wikipedia for example they started an edit war. Even more difficult to handle that one without violating the NPOV. It's enough if one side does that *sigh* AlexR 17:03 18 May 2003 (UTC)

"transgender" and "transgenderist" are used interchangeably in the Netherlands, AFAIK. Both refer to non-op transsexuals, distinguished from crossdressers by living full-time in the desired gender, and from "transsexuals" by not seeking SRS. – Kimiko 18:41 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Just a question: How are non-ts transgenders called in the Netherlands, regardles of OP-status? Or is it still bottom surgery = transsexual, no bottom surgery = transgender, and everybody else is cross-dresser or transvestite? And if so, why? It strikes me as odd, after all the Netherlands are ususally regarded as both liberal and, for want of a better term, socially advanced. Just curious ... AlexR 22:55 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Do you need any more words then? There is not really an umbrella term like 'transgender' in Dutch, although some use 'transgender' for that because it's used that way internationally. Online, you often see something like 'T*' (for TV/G/S) or sometimes 'trans'. Maybe this lack of an umbrella term comes from the fact that there is not really a trans-community here. There are support groups for CDs/TVs or TGs/TSs, but rarely both. Or if there are, the two groups don't really mix. – Kimiko 19:18 21 May 2003 (UTC)

For a literature example of the usage of 'transgender' I described above, see [1]. See also appendix A of [2] for a definition of transgender(ist) – Kimiko 12:28 27 May 2003 (UTC)

"cathegories"

From Patsy (tg), Norway. "Cathegorization" of transgender persons is bound to be inaccurate. Trying to cathegorize transgender persons in the context of a dictionary, encyclopedia, etc., one shouldn't use the verb "is", but "may." When you attemt to reclarify the word 'transgender' by adding another, 'transgenderism,' it only makes things more confusing. (I would never understand it, despite a life-time of 'transgenderism.' [Is it a diagnosis, or a political ideology? :-)]) It won't work across cultures, not to speak of languages. An article on transgenderism must rely on good explanations, and some often used slang/terminology, not exact word definitions.

We can say that someone who might be transgendered might fit the definitions of transgenderism. They are not different words, just grammatically correct. To say that "someone is transgender", or that "the definition of transgender", it sounds very clumsy. However I agree that categorization of transgendered people into a strict definition is inaccurate, but I think the article as it stands carries forth this idea, that to say that someone is transgendered means that they generally fit some of these categories, but not that they always fit these categories . Dysprosia 07:31, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Vagueness

I could not tell at a quick glance, or by skimming, whether a "transgendered" person is someone who was born with both male and female sexual organs. So I don't know how to evaluate the picture shown at http://www.bakla.net.

The last 3 pictures look like a woman, who has a penis. Does this mean she was born a woman, and had surgery; or that he was born a man and somehow sprouted breasts; or was born with both sexual characteristics; or is it a trick photograph.

I like articles to be easy to understand, and if I'm in the wrong article to find out what I'm looking for, I'd like to be able to tell that without having to read the whole article.

--Uncle Ed 22:17, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have not seen the images, but that would probably be someone who was born with a penis, and has later taken hormones for breast development. Penis construction surgery is rather crap. Morwen 22:22, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Clarified. Hope it's better. (A short note re your pronouns - you generally use the pronoun of the gender that the person is trying to present: the bakla photos have this woman trying to present as a woman so you would use she - "or that she was born a man and.." Or simply use gender-neutral pronouns or rewording. This is just a niceness thing.) Dysprosia 22:24, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Jill's edits

I am dizzy with the idea of freely editing the fine work previously put in on this article, and hope that I have only added, and not detracted, from the quality of the article. I am a transwoman in the United States, in the process of obtaining my Ph.D. in the field of "Law & Society." I am finishing my dissertation, which is on the adoption of transgender human resources policy in U.S. employers. This is scheduled to be completed next month, and you may see some of my work at http://jillweiss.blogspot.com . Please feel free to comment or to write to me at jtweissny@aol.com

Jill

Your changes look great. Characterising the politics around this term is not an easy task. Morwen 17:27, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, they look fine to me. Nice to see more transfolk here @ Wikipedia.

If you want to stick around and contribute more to Wikipedia, I suggest registering a user name at the login page. See Wikipedia:How to log in. – Kimiko 19:18, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another big edit

69.229.44.225's edits had some good points, especially the issue of medical professionals pathologizing TG folks. However, there were a lot of typos, and the edits removed a lot of good content from the previous version. I hope the current version retains the best of both. Jiawen 08:01, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Usage and LGBT

I have just joined Wikipedia and am a ts woman in the UK.

Here the UK, the word Transgender seems to have a different connotation to that in the US in that it implies "choice" and speaking for the moment on M2F transgenderism embraces transvestites, cross dressers and drag queens.

As a transsexual woman, I find that I have little in common with the latter three categories in that people i those categories all identify as male, but "choose" to spend a proportion of their time, but certainly not exclusively, mainly by dressing in women's clothes. Whilst drag queens are generally gay men parodying women, and cross dressers are generally getting a sexual thrill, transvestites can have these motives as well as gaining genuine emotional comfort from expressing themselves as women. Being a transsexual person however is not a "choice" thing, it is a necessity for survival.

There is more commonality between these 3 groups and historic Re-enactment societies than with transsexual women in that their primary identity is male, whereas transsexual women cannot cope being male and suffer from a genuine medical condition, Gender Dysphoria. It is arguable whether a cross dresser or a drag queen has gender dysphoria and of the majority of transvestites few ever feel the need to "move over" as I like to describe it.

In this page, that distinction is not being made and it means that transsexual people are bundled up into one group that is so disparate that the definition is offensive to women like me.

If generalities are valuable, then why do the homosexual element in LGBT need 3 letters to describe themselves L - lesbian women, G - gay men, B - bisexual everybodies.

My rights as a transsexual woman, or rather a woman-born-transsexual or as I choose to use, a "woman with a past that was not brought up as a girl" is seriously diluted by the word Transgender and at present, not sufficient weight is given to the offence that word has to transsexual men and women.

In basic terms whilst the word "Transgender" had resonance when it was first quoted, and it is popular amongst the gender congruent, it is a terribly sloppy word that is carelessly used by the ignorant to discriminate against transsexual people and used vicariously by drag queens/kings, cross dressers and TVs to play "me to" and medicalise their proclivities to gain advantage at our disadvantage. This is not to say that gender variance deserves fair treatment and freedom of expression and freedom to live without discrimination.

I am new to Wikipedia and hope that the Lead originator of this article can give me some guidance as to how I might contribute to the article-proper so as to help correct some of the present americanisation of the term Transgender. --NikkiW 16:35, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

First of all, the article is not americanised. It might surprise you to hear, but here in Europe too transgender people have a right to exist, no matter how much a small group of uber-transsexual women would like to deny that right. Let's go bit by bit:

"Transgender" does not imply choice any more than "transsexual" does. Just look at the definition, and tell me where the choice is supposed to be. Hint: If somebody does drag or cross-dresses just for the fun of it, without any gender-identity related motivation, it isn't transgender. (Of course, there are also quite a few "proper transsexual women" who did cross-dress for quite a while, trying to convince themselfes that they were just doing it for fun, so the line can in practice be hard to draw.) That also means that transgender people do not identify as plain "male" – oh, and BTW, thank you very much for ignoring transmen here and two times further down completely.

Gender identity dysphoria, BTW, was coined because the line between "transsexual" and "transvestism" could not be drawn so neatly and easily as you try to do now, so you might want an update on the definition of that, too.

This page also already states clearly that there is a group of transsexual people who do object to being classified as a sub-group of transgender, so you already are covered. (Although of course that makes about as much sense as a person stating that they are from London, but of course not from England, and that they are terribly discriminated against by anybody suggesting otherwise.)

You also whine that you are somehow being discriminated against by the mere existance of the word. Which is a triffle odd (and it smells a lot like the complains that heterosexual marriage is somehow invalidated by gay marriages), could you care to explain how that discriminates against you? And please don't say anything about "Transsexual people who are sooooo well accepted and those freaks trying to profit from us" because, well, sorry, but that is just not true. First of all, those people who object to transgender people in general don't like transsexual people any better. Secondly, the pictures of uber-transsexual women has made it pretty difficult for non-transsexual transgender people to get necessary medical treatment, because they were not yet another copy from that mold. Thanks god this is changing, but certainly that's nothing the like of you have to be thanked for. And thirdly, how exactly should transgender people profit from the association of narrow-minded, difference-obsessed uber-woman? Frankly, most transgender people - transwomen as well as transmen - are rather embarassed by the association, but well, just being trans does not mean people have to be nice, or supportive, or anything. It simply means they suffer from gender dysphoria, and nothing else.

Although at this point I have to insert a note for the benefit of potential readers which are not familiar with this particular problem: This group of uber-transsexual women are not representative of transsexual women (and obviously even less repesentative of transsexual men), and it should not be assumed that all transsexual women spend quite so much time discriminating against others and whining about how terribly they are discrimintated against by the existance of transgender people and/or the mere concept of "transgender". In fact, counting those I know, it is a small minority - but a very vocal one.

So, back to you, NikkiW - if there is anything valuable you can contribute to the article, feel free to do so. Inserting however your personal feelings about "them" into this article would be highly inappropriate, and a violation of the neutral point of view. Therefore, you don't want to wast your - and my - time with that. Thank you. – AlexR 08:46, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, 'transgender' is most often used as a category for people who challenge gender boundaries in many way - asking some of my UK crossdressing friends who have no 'gender issues' (ie, identify as their birth physical sex) reveals that they all identify as being in the 'transgender' group. It's become a very inclusive term, at least here (UK). The article worryingly doesn't seem to reflect this whatsoever, and does appear to be what is viewed here as a rather American view, although I must admit to having no idea about usage in the rest of Europe.

Obviously transsexuals are included in the category, though. But you obviously lack a neutral point of view yourself on the subject, and the last two paragraphs of your reply look worryingly as though you're trying to impose that view. Please be nice. - fuzzie 11:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Alex. I am sorry that you felt affronted by my adding in the form of discussion, as opposed to direct editing, some viewd held not only by me but by many other women born transsexual in the UK. We are hardly uber anything, just sane women who are blessed with a modicum of intelligence and a strongly held point of view. Few UK transsexual women outside the clique of Press for Change subscribe to using the term transgender for themselves but as you correctly point out, the general population do group people like us in the same box, sad though it is.

Your inference that I am intolerent of other gender variant people is incorrect and as a lesbian woman neither is the sleight about civil partnerships, but I will set that aside, putting it down to an overzeaousness on both our parts to seek dissent for which I, for my part apologize. I have a few transmen friends and apart from their liking for testosterone (cannot understand it lol), our aetiology is all too familiar. I had no intention of marginalising transmen but in my opening paragraph to this dialogue, i DID say, "and speaking for the moment on M2F transgenderism embraces transvestites, cross dressers and drag queens."

That said, thank you for taking me to task about my discussion point and I took your views in mind as i re-read the article itself and on re-reading it appears to cover the subject fairly and as you rightly say, complies with the neutrality point of view for which Wikipedia is reknowned.--NikkiW 20:21, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear alex in the definition you state "Transgender" does not imply choice any more than "transsexual" does. Just look at the definition, and tell me where the choice is supposed to be. Hint: If somebody does drag or cross-dresses just for the fun of it, without any gender-identity related motivation, it isn't transgender. (Of course, there are also quite a few "proper transsexual women" who did cross-dress for quite a while, trying to convince themselfes that they were just doing it for fun, so the line can in practice be hard to draw.) That also means that transgender people do not identify as plain "male" – oh, and BTW, thank you very much for ignoring transmen here and two times further down completely.

I afraid I consider your viewpoint/definition utterly incorrect. The orinal definition of transgender as used across europe and as the basis of its inclusion within LGBT was "people who challenge 'traditional' assumptions about gender".

It was designed to be a delibertly inclusive term recognising our history as part of the cycle of gender freedom movemnet from feminism to 'gay' back when 'gay' meant what we meant what we know as queer i.e. LGBT etc to the growing transgender movement. It was about recognising teh connection between transvestites, transexuals, drag queens. drag kings etc. It was about avoiding the intercine fights that split us apart. It was also about stopping in my community a bunch of typically white transexuals who had always had gender privalage on their side suddenly when faced with loss of said privaleges to scream victim, victim as they ran for a new set of gender privalages often in the form of hetreosexuality, sadly it appears in their shouting they have won. So as to your definition

Transgender as used since the early nineties has always been about choice and freedom, it includes transexual people simply because as a transexual woman I had no choice but to challenge 'traditional' assumption by transitioning, it also includes people who drag up for a lark. its an INCLUSIVE definition. you might like to look at the groups included in the LJ group transgender (which has over 900 active members!!) and how it defines transgender before assuming your assumtions are correct,

BTW I can cite all that i quote and when I have the time to learn to write and cite correctly I will come back and improve your work, its better than it was before however and I'm pleased abou that, but its still takes a surgical and very transexual viewpoint which is not what transgender is about. X_mass on LJ. btw I have been an out/loud transexual activist for nearly 25 years.

Please note that the division between transsexual and crossdressers has been a round a long time. At the same time there is a continuing division between transsexuals: those that believe that they are transsexual BEFORE their operation, but that their transsexual state is corrected by surgery, leaving them as simply women. The other side of the group identifies as transsexuals even after the GRS (gender reassignment surgery).

Just how inclusive does everyone view the term transgender?

(I am brand new to wikipedia here, so I am looking for how I can help)

I am wondering just how diverse people "define" the transgender continuum.

Let me start off with my brief description of how I see a "person" defined. It is quite common for people talking about this subject address three or more "attributes" people have. Sex is defined as what genitals you have been given at birth. Sex as an attribute is not a binary designation, as evidenced by intersexed and hermaphrodite conditions. Sexual Preference is defined as what sex you favor for intercourse. It too is not a binary designation, and I can think of at least four common orientations: Male, Female, Bi, None. Gender is generally defined (I believe) as whether you believe yourself to be male or female. I personally believe that this definition is wrong, and that gender is a continuum. Then, I also usually add in addition a fourth attribute. Gender Roles are defined by me as roles you like playing. Again, I believe that a continuum here is needed as well. What I mean by Gender Role is what would traditionally be thought of as what men or women would traditionally do. For instance, this could include items like "hunting" or "cleaning" or "raising the family" or whatnot. These, among many other attributes, might make it possible to "define" a person.

Now, looking at traditional history, I will try to make up two People: one Male, and one Female. (Please keep in mind these definitions are for discussion purposes, I am not trying to enforce any stereotypes or such.

The Male would have a male sex, have a sexual preference for females, have a male gender, and prefer the gender roles like hunting. The Female would have a female sex, have a sexual preference for males, have a female gender, and prefer the gender roles like raising the family.

Now, if one were to take those definitions as the de-facto standard, then theoretically anyone who diverges from those definitions could be (again, in theory) considered gender queer, or transgendered. For instance, under this view, then even a gay man or woman would fall under this catagory as transgender. Of course, I believe that the opinion of the gay community would be that this is not the case. (Please correct me if I am wrong there)

So finally, I get to the subject of the topic here. Just how far does everyone out there imagine that the transgender catagory spreads?

(as background, I believe myself to be a transexual woman. I say this even though I do not (cross) dress, have not been to a psychologist yet, and do not take hormones of any type) Srinity 23:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Dr1819 16:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC) I removed references to "cross-dressing" due to the changing understanding and delineation among the medical community. By definition, transgender implies crossing genetic boundaries, and includes either feeling like, desiring to be, or dressing as a member of the opposite sex. Cross-dressers wear between one and a few items of clothing of the opposite sex, but do not appear as members of the opposite sex. By contrast, transvestitic behavior includes desires of either being or appearing as the opposite sex, along with external behavior to that end. Cross-dressers, however, may wear one or more articles of clothing typically relgated to the opposite sex (skirts or heels, for example), but exhibit the same behaviours and characteristics of their birth gender. Thus, there is no "trans"gender issue. Men wearing heels, while different in degree, is no different in substance than men wearing earrings. Furthermore, there's a vast movement with respect to men wearing clothing (including skirts) that have traditionally been worn by men for tens of thousands of years. One need not venture too far back in time to discover that the typical attire of most men included skirts, hosiery, blouses, and even heels (commonly worn for nearly 400 years by European aristocracy between 1500 and the late 1800s).

Equating "cross-dressing" with "transvestism" does a great injustice to both men and women who choose to wear clothing primarily relegated to members of the opposite sex, but who do so simply out of fashion preference, rather than sexual undertones or any desire to appear as, much less become, a member of the opposite sex.

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I dont think the symbol is all the approprate personally. It wreaks of "queerness" , which just wierds out straight people, and that doesnt do anybody any good. I sure wouldnt put that on my car, lest people heft bricks through my windows when i am not around. I think a good symbol would be simple, striaght forward, subtle and not to terribly symbolic. ( it's not so much that people dont get the symbolism, it's that they dont want to, and its often offensive to people )

Cleanup needed

This entire article is really not encyclopedic at all. It's full of exclamation points and insufficient definitions. I cleaned up a lot, but it needs a lot more that I didn't feel like I was up to.

I removed this entire section because I didn't feel like it belonged in the article at all the way it was. It needs to be substantially edited to meet the Wikipedia standards of quality.

Inclusive Categories

The way we included the subcategories of the mutually exclusive and partially exclusive categories, above, covers all inclusive categories.

I disagree with the smallish set sizes for each of these. I realize that the ultimate purpose here is to emphasize the diversity of characteristics possible, but limiting a given category to (for example) four variations actually has the opposite effect. There are not, for example, only four types of sexual characteristics; the truth is that there is a vast range of possibilities for each category.

I'd suggest that, instead of emphasizing concrete numbers of variations, the article should instead give a half-dozen or so possible variations within a category and use a lot of "etc." to emphasize how many variations there truly are.

Gender variation is not a matter of simple arithmetic, unless you consider operations with infinity to be simple. Jiawen 08:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Taking into account the total number of possible combinations listed above, we discover that the total possibilities of sexuality are between 4^4 and 4^5, or between 256 and 1,024, depending upon whether or not one has resolved their outward appearance with their desired sexual identity. Obviously, these categories are usually separate during the youth, of someone with transgender disphoria, but is for more frequently resolved during adulthood than it used to be.

The point is that human sexuality is far-ranging, and multi-modal. There are by no means just two categories, as has been previously believed, nor are there just four, as many still believe. Even psychiatrists and psychologists who've worked with the transgender community ascribe the number as between seven and twenty. Very few would ever consider there to be more than 100, much less 1,000!

When one sits down and does the math, however, it becomes clear that there are far more discrete categories involving human sexuality than the DSM-IV is aware, and this lack of awareness complicates matters endlessly for doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists dealing with the many issues of transgenderism. It behooves all of us to re-examine the resources we use when making decisions affecting the lives of others, whether we're in the role of a judge, a lawyer, a policeman/woman, a spouse, an employer, etc.

Provided people adhere to laws concerning non-gender-related common decency (no bared breasts, genetalia, bad language, etc.), behavior (no assaults, rape, theft, etc.), and safety (no speeding, running red lights, wearing appropriate safety gear on the job), one's genetic sexuality, physical sexuality, sexual preference, desired sexual identity, and ultimate outward appearance should have absolutely nothing to do with employability, retainability, or promotability, much less anything to do with the legal system.

We're all people. Every last one of us, regardless of the factors mentioned above. Human beings, possessing both intellect and emotions.

We have much to contribute, and all attempts to curb our contributions merely hurt society at large. Think about it. While you're at it, please stop trying to pigeonhole us into some "category." You can't even ID a tenth of them, much less keep them straight! And truth be told, a significant number of you would fall into one of the many categories that aren't "standard," if we could peer into your own private lives.

Someone please rewrite this entry to reflect reality, rather than some poor reflection of the "blind leading the blind's" DSM-IV, which reflects what was known about 70 years ago.

Thanks!

Political construct

The concept of "transgender" is a very modern political construct located primarily in the United States, which has a known cultural bias towards extreme individualism. Somebody has to speak truth to power, even when that power self-identifies itself as "liberal."-- Naif 11:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Define "truth". Ambi 12:11, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to see your information on transgender being a "very modern political construct". I find this a bit problematic strictly on the grounds that you are making an assertion with an indefinite burden of proof. --Colin.weatherby 19:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I respect both of your comments, but at this time I have outside responsibilities that prevent me from addressing your intelligent and well thought-out resopnses. --Naif 12:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

More Cleanup

As a scholar and a professor (and a transgender person) I use this page a lot, and the grammar is driving me crazy. I've been resolving to try to help with that for a while, so here goes. Also, I added a section on "genderqueer," since that identity descriptor is used but not explained in the article. There's a lot more I would change if the article were mine, but the idea is to make it more accurate, not perfect. Anyway, --Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss 03:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The symbol

Most transsexual people would not identify with the Symbol on the Article. When I had surgery, I lost the arrow and now only have a circle and a + symbol. Can an alternative please be used or is this a symbol that is in common usage in the USA for transgendered people? I would hate to think that this symbol found its way into common usage. It smacks of the dualgender ideas promulated by the UK Beaumont Society, a largely transvestite based organisation who up until relatively recently discriminated against transsexual people and who still work to another agenda. --NikkiW 16:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, but since you obviously do not identify as transgender, how can you possibly object to the symbol? Also, the symbol has three arms, and nobody forces you to identify with the one on the left. Also, again, do not assume this is US only. And could you please tell me why you object so much to an organisation that – according to you, I've never heard of them, but then, I am not British – discriminates against transsexual people, while you at the same time so obviously discriminate against non-transsexual transgender people? You want to deny them a name, an identity, and a symbol, how can non-physical discriminiation get worse than that? So you are not in a position to complain here. – AlexR 08:46, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, I do not identify with the symbol but can see it has a relevance to those who see themselves as gender queer and also those still in a state of flux. If it is viewed from the basis of Alternatives, then it is perfectly valid. Perhaps last time I read it, the explanation as to why it was so designed was not visible on my reading it.

However, I strongly disagree with you that I discriminate against other people who are gender-variant. On the contrary I give support to all variants in my everyday life and stand up for all people faced with discrimination. Your assessment of me is wrong, sorry. Jumping to conclusions about me and my philosophy on how I treat all people based upon 4 paragraphs thereabouts is unfair and uncalled for. For a person who clearly contributes a great deal to Wikipedia, your agression in the above does you no favours, which is sad, because you could have so easily approached my discussion posting with something more reasoned and well mannered. The same objective would have been achieved without getting people's backs up. Perhaps it is the testosterone in you !(and I mean that jokingly !)Oh, and I never whine lol. --NikkiW 20:21, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I have added to this page a version of the symbol which has been adopted by more trans persons than any other. This is not to say that all trans persons identify with this symbol, but the objections of some does not invalidate the symbol's resonance with many. Everyone is welcome to invent and promote symbology, and those which become most widely used will become associated with their predominant use. I am sorry if some find this objectionable. The symbol does not imply that every trans person has a penis, or any other such implications. It simply seeks to popularize the idea that neither sex nor gender are simple binaries, and we are all in this together, however we may differ. --NancyN 20 March 2006

Transgender Youth

Because there are many unique issues related to transgender youths, should a section on this be included? Most noteably, Hormone replacement theropy before puberty results with mostly the desired secondary sexual charactoristics. LexieM 01:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Be bold. Go for it. Dave 01:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Other transgender symbols

A number of transgender organizations use the butterfly as a symbol (tgsf.org for instance), or a variation on the yin and yang symbol (ifge.org for instance). – Dlloyd 14:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

IFGE's symbol is not a transgender symbol, it is a symbol for IFGE. - Former IFGE director Nancy Nangeroni NancyN 20 March 2006

True (to me), IFGE's symbol doesn't look anything like a transgender symbol.
IMHO a few good “variations on the yin and yang symbol” I know of can be seen at GenderEvolve. – ParaDox 22:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps someone might be interested in
what I've done with transgender symbols.
-- ParaDox 14:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Transgenders in Iran

Is there a source on "In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini instituted state procedures to help pay for sex-change operations in those who identified as transgender.", specifically the part about the state funding part? I see no mention in the Transsexuality in Iran article. Jaytan 10:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Look here. ntennis 12:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I really can't find any evidence to that statement. I'm checking google news and a couple major news sources and Human Rights watch's website, but I'm finding a lot of evidence to the contrary (which I expected, but wasn't entirely sure of). Anyway, a lot of the articles talk about Iran imprisoning and executing gays, transgenders, and transsexuals. If anything, I would bet that any such program would only be in place today to lure out "criminals" or, the program may have been abolished. However, I do not know. I have found no real evidence to either side. (Kiyae 00:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

I found some evidence that Iran does provide for SRS, however, it's basically to encourage homosexuals to become heterosexual. So maybe you shouldn't hold them up as a beacon of hope just yet...(Kiyae 07:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC))

Cleanup

I listed the article yesterday on Wikipedia:Cleanup#April 8,2006 with the following comment: "I tried to bring some order into that article today, and removed lots of BS and whining, but I think I worked too much on it already, this one desperately needs somebody to go through it and turn this mess into a readable article." User:Metamagician3000 already was so kind as to do some improvements, but in my opinion there should be a few cuts as well - this article cannot replace all the other articles in the WP that deal with transgender issues, and it sure looks like it tries at the moment, making it a mess. – AlexR 11:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Sexual orientation of trans-people

I'd to see the source for the following generalization:

"Although few studies have been done, transgender groups almost always report that their members are more likely to be attracted to those with the same gender identity, compared to the population as a whole. I.e., transwomen are more likely to be attracted to other women, and transmen are more likely to be attracted to other men."

My own impression of FTM's is that they're predominately attracted to lesbians. I myself am MTF, and would have to question the claim that "transwomen are more likely to be attracted to other women". In my experience, sexual orientation of MTF's varies a great deal depending on the social milieu. If I had to estimate, I'd call it about equal between heterosexuals and homosexuals, with a large number of bisexuals as well. I think there's reason to doubt the accuracy of this unattributed generalization. --LishLash 00:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right to ask for a source, and the statement is not as clear as it could be. However, my reading of the claim in the above sentence is that there are more gay/bi transmen and lesbian/bi transwomen than there are gay/bi cisgender men or women. Your observation that there are equal numbers of homo and heterosexual transwomen supports this claim — there are certainly not equal numbers of homo and heterosexual cisgender folk. The studies I've seen also tend to support this observation. Here's one suggestion for improving the sentence:

"Although few studies have been done, research and anecdotal evidence suggest that the proportion of transmen and transwomen who are homosexual or bisexual is greater than the proportion of homosexual and bisexual people in the wider population."

Reference:

*Clements-Nolle K., Marx R., Guzman R., and Katz M. (2001). HIV prevalence, risk behaviors, health care use, and mental health status of transgender persons: implications for public health intervention. American Journal of Public Health 91:915-921.
*The Transgender Community Health Project report, San Francisco Department of Public Health, February 18, 1999
*Lewins, Frank (1995). Transsexualism in Society: A Sociology of Male-to-Female Transsexuals. Melbourne: Macmillan. p. 95
*

ntennis 04:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the intended meaning of the original passage with your rewrite. I've edited the article using your wording. --LishLash 21:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Kindly don't use "homosexual" when refering to transpeople here – it is too confusing, see Homosexuality and transgender. Also, what sort of transmen do you know who are predominantly attrected to lesbian women? In my experience this is the absolute minority; less so when one counts Drag Kings and similarly non-traditionals gender variant people, but still, in my experience - confirmed by others - it is about a third, one third gay, one third prefering women (and most prefering straight ones, explicitly not lesbian women) and one third won't quite make up their mind.

Also, it seems (not just) to me that you misread the sentence you are criticising – it does not say that there are more lesbian transwoman than straight transwomen, but that there are relatively more lesbian transwoman than there are lesbian ciswomen, something you yourself state. – AlexR 22:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

By "homosexual" I mean the transperson's partner is gay, lesbian, or queer. That seems to be the preference of the FTM's I know here in San Francisco. I think it's meaningful to distinguish between queer relationships versus straight relationships where the the transperson and/or their partner consider themselves heterosexual. For example, many MTF's who identify as women date straight men who are attracted to transwomen. Other MTF's who identify as men (who like to crossdress) date straight women. I regard both of these cases as heterosexual relationships. MTF's who identify as women and are attracted to lesbian, gay, or queer folks are homosexual. (We are definitely not straight....)

Yes, I did misinterpret the original wording, and I felt ntennis' revision was a clearer way to state it. I do agree with the claim that transfolk are generally more likely to be LGB than non-transfolk. --LishLash 10:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not so sure I understand you – you say, a relationship of a transperson is "homosexual" if the partner is gay, lesbian or queer, but that does not make any sense. One can reasonably claim (well, some claim otherwise, but let's leave those out) that a relationship between a lesbian ciswoman and a lesbian transwoman is homosexual, but one cannot, especially if one declares that kind of relationship as homosexual, claim at the same time that a relation between a lesbian woman and a transman would be equally homosexual. Especially not if a relationship of the same transman and a gay man would equally be called homosexual. If the word is indeed used somewhere like that, then it should be pointed out that this is a special usage in one (or a few) communities, but you can't rewrite parts of the artikle in that utterly nonsensical way. (Well, unless that would some day indeed become the predominant usage – A day I hope will never come!) You can call such relationships gay, lesbian, or queer - but you cannot call them all "homosexual". Especially not here, where we expect readers from all walks of life, not just those versed in what is allegedly the current usage among transpeople in San Francisco, USA. I wonder, did you read homosexuality and transgender?

As you point out yourself, what exactly constitutes same-(=homo) or different-(hetero)-ness is so debatable, that it is hardly possible to use the terms in a meaningfull way. What I don't understand are your references to transmen - first you state "My own impression of FTM's is that they're predominately attracted to lesbians." which is in my experience simply wrong, and then "By "homosexual" I mean the transperson's partner is gay, lesbian, or queer. That seems to be the preference of the FTM's I know here in San Francisco." which is a completely different statement – and also one that might be true in San Francisco, but not necessarily in the rest of the world – especially where the question of lesbian partners are concerned, as I already pointed out yesterday.

Also, I don't think one can distinguish relationships just between "queer" and "straight" – not all gay or lesbian people would call themselfes queer. I think we should stick with people's self-identification here, and that is usually lesbian, gay, queer or straight. Androphiliac and gynophiliac are usefull, too, but homosexual and heterosexual is not, especially not specific uses in one particular community presented as generally accepted usages. – AlexR 17:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's realistic to ask people to avoid using "homosexual" and "heterosexual" to describe tranfolks' relationships. People use these terms because in real life, transpeople do involve themselves in these types of relationships. Unlike heterosexuals and LGB folks, each of whom tend to form self-sufficient social and sexual comumunities, us T's aren't mainly attracted to each other. We tend to integrate ourselves into other peoples' social groups that welcome our presence. That's why the social context of a transperson's relationship is important in understanding its sexual orientation.

Many lesbian women do have relationships with FTM's. (See Craigslist "Women Seeking Women" for details.) FTM's who relate to lesbians may identify as butch dykes, genderqueer, or as men, and this self-identification can evolve over time. What counts is the cultural context in which the relationship develops. When a lesbian is involved with an FTM who doesn't explicitly identify as a man, it's clearly a lesbian or queer relationship. FTM's who socialize in lesbian communities don't go stealth as men - they're out as FTM's. Conversely, an FTM who identifies as a man, socializes in stealth in straight society and dates women, is pursuing a heterosexual relationship, just as other straight men do.

As for the terminology we use in a Wikipedia article, I think it's preferable to clarify words that are in common use rather than resort to esoteric terms that are rarely seen outside academic contexts. Words like "ciswoman", "androphilic", and "gynephilic" are rarely, if ever, heard in real life conversation and I think they raise more questions than they answer. In practice, most people interested in transgender topics know what "queer" and "straight" mean, but unfortunately, these terms aren't completely neutral as they're still regarded as somewhat confrontational. For Wikipedia, the neutrality of "homosexual" (i.e. queer or LGB) and "heterosexual" (i.e. straight) seems appropriate, just as we prefer to write "penis" and "vagina" rather than vernacular terms like "cock" and "pussy".

As we're both well aware, sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct aspects of an individual. Transpeople inherently cross traditional conventions but we don't play completely outside the ballpark. I'll read through the homosexuality and transgender article, and as it's a lengthy digression, I'll put comments under its discussion page. --LishLash 20:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am all for using well-known words, but I, and especially here, in an encyclopedia, I am even more for using correct and unambiguous words, and your use of "homosexual" is everything but. I also did not ask "people" to avoid those words, I asked that those words are not used in the Wikipedia, because they are even in the well-known uses confusing (the well-know uses contradicting each other). They are even more so if somebody starts using them in a third, new, and utterly confusing way. Also, once more, the Wikipedia, even the English one, is not just written for Westcoast US citizens (most of which would not be able to follow your use, either, I dare say). If therefore we need to use less well-known, but more precise words, then so be it - here, the explanation is only one click away. So, if you want to use "homosexual" in that odd way on your webpage, feel free. (Just don't be too surprised if people not from San Francisco don't understand what you mean.) Here however we have to explain a very complex matter to people who are not particularly knowledgeable about that subject, and it hardly seems to serve that purpose if we confuse them instead.

Oh, and please don't be so patronising about transpeople to me - I am not only a transman myself, I have also worked in trans-support and trans-politics for years. – AlexR 23:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if something (?) I said sounded patronizing, as that was certainly not my intent. Again, I think it's unrealistic to exclude words from Wikipedia that are in common use (like "homosexual") and instead promote obscure non-words (like "ciswomen"). Your implication that characterizing gender-based relationships as homosexual is a usage confined to San Francisco is simply unfounded. --LishLash 02:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

We do not exclude that word from the Wikipedia, but we should exclude it where it is ambiguous (or rather, amtriguous), as it is when refering to transpeople. Also, what is a "gender"-based relationship, please? And as for San Francisco, you were the one that claimed this was, as far as you know, the usage there. (" That seems to be the preference of the FTM's I know here in San Francisco.") I sure have not heard it elsewhere. And even if it were used elsewhere, too, it does not belong here (because it is ambigous), unless it becomes so widespread that we don't have to explain that particular usage any more. Which I doubt will ever be the case. I also must say that I don't feel there is anything to be gained by continuing this conversation - we just keep repeating ourselfes here. Should you edit any articles accordingly, I will look for formal outside intervention. Otherwise, unless you come up with new arguments, I think it is EOD for me. – AlexR 07:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Surely we can be clear, accurate and use accessible language. What about "non-trans woman" instead of ciswoman and "attracted to women" instead of "gynephile"? ntennis 01:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

"Attracted to women" is fine, I merely wanted to point out that there are far less problematic words than homosexual – this, after all, is a 3-dimensional concept: You have to define the sex/gender of both partners and decide whether they are same or different. "Attracted to men"/androphiliac has the great advantage of being one-dimensional, refering only to the gender of the persons one is attracted to.

However, non-trans woman is, I'm affraid, problematic. First, it is not particularly polite to refer to people by what they are not, second, there is a school of thought that maintains that after one has 'completely' transitioned, one is also not trans anymore. (I won't comment on that.) This has also already been discussed to death, I think one was on Talk:List of transgendered people. Explanations of less known words in the Wikipedia is just one click away, so why not use them where they make a lot more sense then every alternative? – AlexR 07:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, point taken about people with a trangender "history", although the wikipedia transgender article does define it as "non-identification with ... the gender one was assigned at birth." Personally, I'm OK with cisgender (I voted to keep it when the article was up for deletion), but I recognise that the term is in extremely marginal use. The transgender/cisgender taxonomy also appears to exclude non-trans intersex people, for whom similar definitional problems can arise with terms like homo and heterosexual. I guess the English language needs an overhaul! As for defining a group by what they're not, it seems to be a reasonably common practice when a dominant group realises they are not universal. Here in Australia, for example, the phrase "non-indigenous" (person) is widespread — and, I should add, doesn't come across as rude. ntennis 08:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, the article says so about being (and remaining) trans, but given the way some people see those things, one should be careful. We just had a war over that on de:. You know, "proper transsexuals" against the rest of the world, and that was part of the battlefield.

As for intersex people, no, it does not exclude them - they are either satisfied with the gender they were assigned at birth, then they are cisgender, or not, then they are transgender. This is of course not meant to impose either term on them instead of intersexual, but merely explaining how this particular pair of words applies. And with regard to intersex people, about everything is very complicated, because the experience of a person with Klinefelter's who is female-identified and one that has been butchered as an infant and now fights to live in a female gender role are not exactly very similar.

As for cisgender, well, maybe some people are not offended, but then, we don't define heterosexual people (let's just think cisgender people here) as non-homosexual, either, for example. Of course, we can use non-transgender, but again, you are bound to have transsexual people who consider themselfes not to be transgender (yes, I know how much sense that makes) claiming they are non-transgender, too. More relevant here, though, I think is that we can use precise words, even if they are not yet that widely used, because the explanation is just one click away. After all, we are an encyclopedia, we even have a lot of article titles that you can bet are not exactly widely used, either ;-) – AlexR 09:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the three of us agree about the prevalence of various sexual orientations among transpeople, it's just a bit tricky to find the right way to describe it in the article. I'm happy to leave the word cisgender in the article as you (Alex) seem to feel strongly about it. However, I'll try to clarify what I meant about intersexuality — let's say someone has a mild form of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (the most common form of intersexuality), has XX sex chromosomes and is assigned a female gender at birth. As she grows up, her body goes through "virilization" due to androgen effects, and she comes to identify as neither male nor female but intersex (I've met someone with exactly this history). She doesn't consider herself transgender, but nor is she "the gender assigned at birth". Few of the things we can say about the cisgender population in general are true for such intersexuals — they often have more in common with transpeople.

Well, as I said, intersex people are generally a problem, but your example person would be transgender – not being satisfied with the gender one was assigned at birth does not mean one has to choose the other. (That is one of the two things where transsexual is more narrow than transgender.) So if ey was assigned female gender at birth and now considers eir gender as intersex, that is another gender, hence transgender. Don't forget that not every non-intersex transperson does consider themselfes as plainly man or woman, either, so we don't even have to make an exception here. As for people not self-identifying as transgender, well, we do have the same problem with transsexual people who loath transgender (the concept, the definition, the people - everything). My solution to this problem so far has been (and yes, the article reflects that - or at least should) that when one defines transgender, one includes those (with a carveat), but does not dwell on the matter on the pages describing those terms where some people self-identify with who have a problem with transgender. That is the reason the list is called List of transgender-related topics and not List of transgender topics. And of course one does not insist describing people as "transgender" on pages describing those people specifically. [AR]

Furthermore, how do we refer to transsexuals who do not identify as transgender? They are not cisgender either, so do they just drop off the radar? Where are they in the statement about sexual orientation? They are included in the research I cited above, which we really shouldn't use if we can't agree that the data refers to transgender people. I don't think "cisgender" helps us any more in this regard than "non-transgender". I also believe "non-transgender" will be better understood by more people, and really to me does not sound rude at all.

Same thing as above - sorry, but you cannot claim to be from London, but start juming onto people when they telll you that you are from England, too. So every person who is transsexual is also transgender, but since describing them as transsexuals does include that automatically, there is no particular point in dwelling on that. This is, BTW, a bigger problem with intersexual people – most people with an intersex condition do not feel there was any mistake with the gender they were assigned at birth, hence many of those feel insulted when people claim that intersex is a gender by itself. (And don't even ask about the parents – they are often rabid about it.) [AR]

As for their sexual orientation, yes, yet another reason not to use "homo"- and "heterosexual". If you read about transsexual people in particular, you are bound to stumble over much scientific (well, often enough just "scientific") literature that uses those words consistenly regarding to birth sex. (Compare autogynephilia for an example, and that is a current one!). So people's self-description flatout contradicts the "scientifc" use, or, these days, still most of it, (things might be changing, but the old texts don't disappear, after all.), then, if we would use that the other way, those people who think that WIkipedia is already just a trans-pamphlet or something like that, would have a field day. I am certainly not one to avoid edit wars, but I don't think we need to provoke them – we are getting enough of them already. [AR]

LishLash's comments have also brought up an interesting point for me. I think I can add a 4th to the 3 dimensions of homosexuality listed above: what gender your partner sees you as! ntennis 16:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

*chuckle* Yes, you can get really many-dimensional here - you can take about every of the biological factors, gender role, gender identity, gender presentation, and whatnot. And what you yourself consider relevant. And what your partner considers the partnership. And of course what outsiders say ... there is endless fun to be had here. Or endless edit-wars ... – AlexR 19:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

While I don't want to flog a dead horse here, can I just clarify: your two objections to using "non-trans" instead of "cisgender" were that 1) it's not polite to refer to anyone as "not-something", and 2) "there is a school of thought that maintains that after one has 'completely' transitioned, one is also not trans anymore." Do we agree that this second issue is not solved by the use of the word "cisgender" any better than it is by the word "non-trans"? Are there any other other objections to the word "non-trans"? ntennis 01:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Any reason you are now so hell-bent to remove it? Why use something akward as non-trans when we have a precise word that we can use? One that defines something positively, and not negatively. As I said, if you insist on using non-trans, then kindly also start removing all instances of "heterosexual" and replace it with "non-homosexual". Which also does not make sense. As for your second reason, yes, I said something to that effect, but we do not quite agree - I have seen people claiming that they are "not transsexual any more" but I have yet to see somebody claiming they are "cisgender/sexual". I'm sorry, but regarding "cisgender/sexual" I really don't see your point. The word exists, the word is used (even if not widely yet), the word is more precise and more polite than the alternative, and we are an encyclopedia, we don't have to write on the level of a children's dictionary. And that is not just a dead horse you are beating here, that horse has already been beaten into glue and whang leather months ago. So forgive me if I don't just find this debate pointless, but also tiresome. – 02:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't overreach, I'm hardly hell-bent (though I may be a little bent), nor am I insisting on removing anything! I already stated that I'm happy to leave the cissies alone. I just wanted to make sure that I understand your objections to "non-trans" correctly, because to me they don't hold up, and I thought I might be missing something. The discussion has not been at all pointless to me, so i appreciate your indulging me when it has been tiresome for you. Apologies to you and the horse, and please consider our dialog closed. In case you wish to champion the sensitivities of others labelled non-things, you might want to have a look at non-commissioned officer, nonconformist and non-combatant. Cheers ;) ntennis 03:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I over-reacted, but not only have I seen this horse beaten enough for a lifetime, I also have that habit of editing WP when I can't sleep - which does not always put me in an exactly good mood. Not your fault, the latter ;-) Maybe we just have to agree to disagree, since both of us seem other factors as predomintant - me, basically, precision, you, prefering not to use not that widely used words. I don't think those can be reconciled at the moment. Nevertheless, your examples, I am affraid, don't quite hold up to scrutiny. First, non-combatant and non-commissioned officer are military language; one that in my experience prefers combining existing words to coining new ones, even if those are available. And nonconformism is defined explicitly as something one is not, again, unlike cisgender, which is a definition of what one is. You can' t have nonconformism without some conformism, but you can have cisgender without having transgender. And second, none of those words have a prefix like "trans" which explicitly has an opposite one. The opposite of "non" is "not-non", or, usually, nothing. The opposite of trans, however, is Cis. So, apples and oranges and bananas. Cheers ;) – AlexR 10:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for butting in here, it's hardly my place, but I would recommend that when discussing a topic as sensitive as transgenderism, when the vocabulary to describe the situations is as limited as it is here, one should either a) Use whatever descriptive terms and phrases are available to best describe the entirety of the situation, regardless of grammar, with regard really only to others feelings and such. OR b) Use the same exact words and phrases throughout the discussion so as to clarify.

Personally, I would go with option "a", simply because the vocab for describing this topic is extremely limited. I would take that to mean go with using the prefix "non" until a better option arrives. Really, I would Italic textloveItalic text to see a grand discussion (probably through wikipedia) that would come out with an entire vocabulary to use in this kind of discussion. Of course, that has to come from the transgender/transsexual community-and from nowhere else. Regardless, I hope my advice steps on noone's toes, and that this entry grows to greatness.

(PS-don't beat on the "cissies" too much, I know we're incorrigible, but still, some of us are trying to learn, you have to teach us.) (Kiyae 01:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

Mediation

Hi, I'm your friendly cabal mediator :), just letting you know that LishLash has requested mediation here. If people involved in the dispute could put forward their perspective I hope we can get on with resolving this little dispute and building consensus :) - FrancisTyers 16:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've read through the stuff, and it appears you only have one dispute [3]. That and a bit of assuming bad faith on both sides. User:LishLash, your comment "Is it your view that the purpose of an online encyclopedia is to provide a platform for provoking disputes with other users?" isn't particularly helpful in trying to resolve the dispute. User:AlexR please don't describe another user as "hysterical". Now we've got that out of the way, is there any serious dispute here? I mean, you both seem to be a bit tetchy but I can't for the life of me see why! Help me out here! Why not think about it for a bit while you sit down and have a nice cup of tea :) - FrancisTyers 22:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

To put it in context, my comment quoted above was not made here, but on the Wikipedia:LGBT notice board. It was in response to a provocative dispute alert posted by AlexR, in which he urged other Wikipedia users to pile on me and "explain the purpose of an encyclopedia to em?" That post was soon deleted by AdelaMae who commented: "can we please try to present these disputes neutrally and politely?"

Do you think you could stick to the truth occasionally? First of all, the diff on the notice board can be seen here: [4] AdelaMae replaced (and not deleted) both our edits with a neutral summary and that comment. Which of the edits was less neutral and polite, well, let's leave that to the reader, shall we? Second, I did not ask anybody to "pile" on you, I merely thought that since you did not understand my previous attempts to explain to you that we cannot use this useage you prefer in an encyclopedia, because it is a) rare and b) confusing and c) it is not the purpose of an encyclopedia to promote uses (especially not rare and confusing ones) (see above), maybe somebody else could explain it better to you. [AR]

So to you it's untruthful (i.e. lying) when I state verifiable facts without applying the degree of spin that you'd prefer? I'm quite happy to leave it to the reader to decide who's accusations are more provocative in this dispute.--LishLash 20:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm having trouble qualifying either of your actions as more provocative than the other. - FrancisTyers 20:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If it was me who AlexR described as "hysterical", it escaped my notice. Could you kindly cite the reference for me? --LishLash 05:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

You can't read, can you? Francis never said you had called my hysteical, allegedly I did so. Which I actually did not, what I said was "Eir claim "This sounds like a threat intended to intimidate me, especially as I have expressed no intention of initiating an edit war." is at best hysterical" [5] – and so is the claim that I had asked people to "pile" on eir. I described certain of your actions as hysterical, not your person. Which I still do, BTW. – AlexR 08:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

What fine distinctions you make in targeting your insults. Are you not aware that "hysterical" is a smear that men often hurl at women when we object to being bullied? Please note that I'm not actually calling you a bully, only using the term to characterize certain of your actions.

For ease of reference, here's the threat by AlexR that I found intimidating: "I don't feel there is anything to be gained by continuing this conversation - we just keep repeating ourselfes here. Should you edit any articles accordingly, I will look for formal outside intervention." --LishLash 20:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

That isn't a threat and I wouldn't say it was intimidating... Probably shouldn't have used the word "intervention", but I think you are reading too much into this. If his idea of intervention was asking for an involved party to come and take a look at the dispute then I don't think that it is particularly threatening. - FrancisTyers 20:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Transgender / Transsexual Conflict

I note, once again, that a page asserts that "all transsexuals are, by definition, transgender" despite at least a decade worth of transsexuals, primarily post-operative male-to-female transsexual women, asserting that "transgender" is not a proper umbrella term for "transsexual". I note, also, that while "Conflict" is briefly mentioned in the article, I seen no discussion of the "Conflict", nor any proper analysis of why the conflict exists, the nature of the conflict, or arguments about it. As such, this article has pretty serious POV issues since it glosses the issue "transgender" subsuming "transsexuality". I'd like to introduce some discussion of this conflict into the article, since it is a real part of transgender politics, but have this feeling that it would promptly be edited out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.116.12.83 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 19 May 2006

And if we had hordes of people from London who claim that they are insulted when also being refered to as a subset of people from England, exactly how much room does that need in an encyclopedia? However, if you can make resonably NPOV statements about this matter, make them. If you are unsure, discuss them here. Make also sure, though, that you have references when needed – merely personal statements, which have appeared in this articles a few times, will indeed be edited out. They would be edited out of every WP article, though. You have a much better chance of being taken seriously, though, if you sign your statements, and preferably get yourself a username, too. Unsigned IP-statements are 9 out of 10 times not worth reading. – AlexR 21:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Over at "Monosexuality"

I'm pretty sure this paragraph from the Monosexuality page needs revision from a trans perspective. What do you all think? It's not my text, don't worry!

'The term “monosexuality” has also been used to describe the sexuality of people who only wish to have sex with one specific person, regardless of gender. This becomes important when considering partners that choose to remain in their relationship with a transsexual or transgender person. Note that this meaning is quite contradictory to the usual meaning of the term, since someone who chooses to remain in such a relationship cannot reasonably be considered either homosexual or heterosexual.'

DanB DanD 01:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, among other things, the text assume the transperson's partner is not trans themselves! It also seems unable to imagine that the transperson may be fully accepted in their "chosen" gender by their partner, and relegates them to some third or in-between gender. I'd delete everything from "This becomes important...". ntennis 01:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Definitions

The article starts off with two definitions:

Transgender is an overarching term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society.

Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as male, female, both or neither) not matching one's "assigned gender" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex).

Both of which appear to be valid uses, but it seems a bit odd to just lump them together in two separate paragraphs, with no explanation. It seems to me that these are distinct (though with some overlap) usages of the term: e.g., a man who wears make-up and sometimes cross-dresses but identifies as a man would be transgender by the first definition, but not by the second. On the other hand, someone who identifies as a gender different to their "assigned gender" would be transgender by the second definition, regardless of their gender role. Shouldn't it be noted that there are these two definitions, rather than listing them with no explanation? Mdwh 14:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Global understandings

One of the things that I might point out is that Trangender and Transexual are used differently in different parts of the English speaking world. In the UK, Transgender is purely reserved for pre-operative individuals, whereas Transsexual is post operative. This, of course, bucks against the USA definitions! Fluffball70 01:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm in Australia, and the definitions used here are the same as the USA. Out of curiosity, what is the overarching term applied to crossdressers, drag queens, drag kings, transsexuals, etc if transgender is only used for pre-op TSes? --AliceJMarkham 03:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the UK, and I've heard transgender used in the same way as described in the article... Mdwh 04:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Crossdresser and Drag Kings = Transvestites in the UK.

Ref for Transexual in the UK UK Gender Recognition Act

Transsexual and Transgender definintions as per the UK Trade Union Congress

The subtle definitions are blurred, depending on where the peice of literature you are reading is from. But, most every day British people will switch between the dialects with ease. It's more to do with the legal language.

Fluffball70 14:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the first two links are meant to show? As for the third, it says for transgender: "A term used to include transsexuals, transvestites and crossdressers. A transgenderist can also be a person who, like a transsexual - sometimes with the help of hormone therapy and/or cosmetic surgery - wishes to live in the gender role of choice, but has not undergone, and generally does not intend to undergo, surgery." - isn't this consistent with the article? Mdwh 15:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Transgender as "in between" duplicates original definition in "Origens" section

I removed the "transgender as in between" section as it was a direct mirror of the original definition of transgender, which is already present in the article. Mugaliens 19:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

CD Heterosexuality

I do not believe a "citation needed" should exist for the following: "Contrary to common belief, the vast majority of cross-dressers, which comprises the vast majority of those who wear clothing of the opposite sex, are heterosexual [citation needed]."

This is a commonly known fact throughout the CD community. Countless online polls of CD-specific websites have confirmed that less than 10% of those who identify as crossdressers are other than heterosexual. Furthermore, historically crossdressing and transvestism have been seen as fairly synonomous. However, in recent years, most of those identify as a crossdresser may wear female clothing, such as heels, pants, or a shirt, but they identify and appear as male. They are not trying to "pass." They simply enjoy, for whatever reason, wearing items of clothing intended for females. Contrarily, most of those who identify as a transvestite do try to pass. Finally, some who might be labeled as a crossdresser reject that label entirely, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that heels were worn by men for half of the last five hundred years, the fact that men's fashion has, over the last thousand years, run the gamut of most everything (except for bras) currently found in the female side of the store, and the fact that fashion changes on a fairly continual basis. In the last ten years, fashion shows have seen many men in heels and far more "feminine" outfits than one might find on the street. Some men have taken notice, and when these fashions haven't appeared in the men's side of the store, they've simply shopped on the other side.

Thus, caution is advised before any labels of transvestism or crossdressing are applied in any given situation, as some rather compelling arguments can be presented which counter both labels, unless the behavior is to such an extreme that it's clear (nails, hair, boobs) that the individual is desiring to appear as a member of the opposite sex. Mugaliens 19:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

If that is all true (and yes, it is) why don't you add that to the article? Or, more specifically, to an article on tranvestites or cross dressers? Further, just because the CD community knows that most CDs are heterosexual doesn't mean a citation isn't needed. CDs aren't exactly an all pervasive group, and there are people out there who think all gays and transexuals/transgenders are transvestites, and all transvestites are gay. A citation would be beneficial.(Kiyae 17:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC))

since I got random'ed here...

216.221.96.202 added a strange vandalism [here] and i fixed it. block, anyone?Teh tennisman 21:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Is transgenderism a disorder? A mental illness?

I got into a running debate with someone who insisted that transgenderism was a mental illness, and a disorder. Despite Gender Identity Dysphoria being in the DSM-IV as a "disorder", I am not entirely sure that it should be one. Yeah, those people need advice, but is calling it a "disorder" doing that condition justice? And are transgenderists mentally ill? 204.52.215.107 15:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is a disorder of sorts, but I consider it to be a physical disorder, not a mental. Being transgender, I can say from my own experience that no amount of therapy can fully ease the difficulties that I have on a daily basis with my physical gender. However, throw reassignment surgery in with the therapy, and you've got a solution that allows many transgendered individuals to live (what the majority sees as) normal lives.

My body doesn't match my brain sex wise. You can't change the sex of the brain to match the body, however you can change the body to match the brain. If there was the ability to change the sex of the brain, I still would not want it due to the fact I would be a completely different person then I am today.

Many psych problems trans individuals have are caused by dealing with their gender identity issues, and many times the problems lighten once they start to deal with their identity. Bri 19:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Question - if you are 'transgender', then how many times have you changed your gender as opposed to your sex? - Alison^✍ 19:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I realize I was being inconsistant with my use of 'sex' and 'gender' to describe things. An annoying aspecct of trying to explain to others constantly about the specifics of why I'm like how I am. I try to avoid using 'sex' normally since its a loaded word. 's/sex/gender/'

All too often, when I use transsexual, its interpreted as involving my sexuality, which has nothing to do with my gender. Hence why I consider myself transgendered, and hate using transsexual unless I have to. Bri 19:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Another vi fan - yayyy!!! :) But yes, the term transgender bugs me because it's too ambiguous and fuzzy. The problem with transsexual folks is that they cannot change their gender identity, hence the need for a change of sex. The problem, as you say, with the 's'-word, is that people tend to think of sex acts and not the physical male-female differences - Alison^✍ 21:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think a key issue here is your misuse of transgender to mean transexual. I recognise that many transexual people don't like the term transsexual as they think it implies trans-sexual, an thus use transgendered instead. However this has the effect of excluding the vast range of other groups within transgender who 'challenge' traditional assumptions about gender. I would suggest that you rewrite your statement

"Yes, it is a disorder of sorts,..." to "Yes, the transexual aspect of trandgender is a disorder of sorts, X-mass

This page is still really confusing...

and needs a serious clean up. As someone who knows very little about all this stuff I'm not really much clearer having read it. two suggestions to start with, please clearly define transman and transwoman, it's not immediately obvious which way the transition is taking place in each case (though I think I've worked it out now). Secondly there are whole lot of random sentences throughout that just don't fit. Most probably need more explanation but this needs to be placed properly in the article. It needs a simpler general overview with all the basic definitions at the start assuming the reader knows nothing and may have some of the usual prejudices (if there is such a thing?) becuase this seems to be the general overview and introduction page to a range of issues. this stuff is really important too, good luck. Pugsworth 12:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

IPA incorrect?

[tɝans dʒɛn dɝ] seems like a weird pronunciation -Iopq 11:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Should the “LGBT Click Box” be removed from the transgender article completely?

By positioning the navigational “LGBT Click Box” (Template:LGBT sidebar) at the top right of the article, the association of transgender people with „LGB“ (disambiguation page, where the text “Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals” is linked to LGBT, LGB again “pocketing” transgender) is extremely overemphasized, falsely making the connection appear absolute, predominant and obligatory, where in fact (quote from LGBT#Controversy):

• »The term LGBT is controversial. For example, some transgender and transsexual people do not like the term because they do not believe their cause is the same as that of LGB people; they may also object when an organization adds a T to their acronym when the level of service they actually offer to trans people is questionable. There are also LGB people who don't like the T for the same or similar reasons.

  ---

  Many people also believe that a sharp distinction should be drawn between sexual orientation and gender identity. GLB concerns the former; TTI concerns the latter.«

IMO the Template:LGBT sidebar should be removed from the transgender article completely, but not wanting to initiate an edit-war, I'll be content for the duration of discussion with positioning the template less predominant below the transgender symbol. Transgender is the main-topic of the article, which essentially has nothing to do with any specific form of sexual orientation, because transgender people can for example also be heterosexual or even asexual.
-- ParaDox 15:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My heart tells me to disagree with you, but my head says you're right. Very frequently, transsexuals and transgenders are not fully supported by the LGB community. There is a "trumping" or "poketing" effect when it comes to Homosexual and Transgender relationships. And yes, this article should emphasize transgenderism over the whole LGBT stuff. But again, my heart says to dsagree, quite simply because removing the flag is a very powerful symbolic gesture that shows you're not with us. As a gay cisman, I would hope I can support you, and you can support me. I would hope that even though our stations in life are different, that we can still connect on some level as partners, equals, whatever. Anyway, I just wanted to say that two of my friends came out as transsexuals in the past two years, and quite frankly, I would hate to not be able to stand under one unified banner with them and tell the whole bigoted world to go shove it. The rainbow isn't a symbol of homosexuality, it's a symbol of peace, love, compassion, and diversity. Whether you choose to keep the flag or not is up to you. But I for one will always leave my flag up, and you are always welcome to march under it with me. Whatever you choose, I hope that I can always march with you. (Kiyae 04:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC))

My head and heart both say it should stay. We are stronger together than we are apart. This isn't a new idea.... my grand-dad was an old union carpenter and I heard that from a young age: we all do better when we all do better. So there is a measure of political utility today in fostering that togetherness. That doesn't mean that we are the same. Gay men and lesbians have a lot not in common. Bisexuals sometimes have heterosexual marriages. However that doesn't mean that there are not common grounds between all of the people in the LGBT community. In addition, there are a lot of people who ID as one letter at one time, others at another, or both simultaneously. I am transgender and gay, so I feel that I belong. However I also know people who are transgender and straight who were previously in the LGBT movement because they presented as lesbian or gay. They need a place still as well. And they sure as hell won't get it from the straight/cisgender community. NickGorton 04:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the term "LGBT" is controversial, but I do not think the box should be taken down because of this. While it's true that sexual orientation and gender identity are seperate and transgender people can be "gay," "straight," "lesbian," "bisexual," or whatnot as far as their sexual orientation goes, the T and LGB should not be disconnected from each other because people confuse the two issues. For example, people may hate transgender people because they perceive them as gay. On the flipside, people may hate gay people because they perceive them as not living up to their gender's expectations. Understand what I'm saying? Transgender people may be of any sexual orientation, but the perception that they aren't is I think enough to keep it an issue in the same field. Falsetto 01:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

@Kiyae and NickGorton, please excuse my late response, but I'm in en.Wikipedia very inconsistently (de.Wikipedia gobbles up most of my time and energy already). I very much appreciate both of your contributions to this discussion, and will re“think” it all. In the mean time, quite likely permanently(?), the positioning of the navigational “LGBT Click Box” below the TG-Symbol seems to be a good compromise(?). -- ParaDox 11:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, this is, first and foremost a TG page, not an LGBT page. And I'm very inconsistently on de.wikipedia though I do read it occasionally to check my german. (I'm nowhere near good enough to actually edit in there though.) (Kiyae 07:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC))

the argument about trans inclusion in LGB is actually remarkably clear, both froma historical and current perspective, it is only since the late 1970's that some trans people have been excluded from LG. During the 1980's and early 1990's both B and T were excluded due to internal politics. From the mid 90's both B and T were increasingly brought back into the fold. The reason L and G excluded B and t was often for edsactly the same reason - that it would bring hetrosxual people into a homosexual space, an extension of this was the idea the recasting of history that homosexuals alone had fought for equality and that B and T were usurping the gains that L and G had made. Which was bit like the hollywood representation of the second world war which was apparently won by the americans. The reality is that trans has and remains an intrisic aspect of L and G culture. Whilst some Lesbians and gay men purely act str8, being gay in "bed and bar" or even complketly closeted - a word taken from trans culture btw, most lesbians and gay men use trans behaviour for example as the basis for example of gaydar (whish I could give a an accurate cite of this other than it being from a channel 4 program from the late 90's). Being a butch woman or femme/nellie/drag gay man is intrinsicly trans. The sisters of perpetual indulgence an LGB activist group was intrinsicly trans. I can point to numerous other examples where being visibly 'gay' is intrinsicly visibly 'transgender'. yes transgender people don't get the degree as support as they shoudl do from LGBT organisations, but it does seem to be a scale which starts with gay men getting the lions share and then lesbians getting most of whats left and bisexuals picking up teh crumbs leaving transgender people with none. This is a fault of LGBT organisations that need to rethink ther priorities not that LGBT shoudl exist. (X-mass 01:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC))

Part of the problem is that people in the LGB spectrum identify themselves by stating their orientation wheras the T spectrum (and yes, it is a spectrum) is defined about not meeting gender expectations. It is important to note that the scientific (*cough*) study of LGBT issues was originally from a gender perspective. If you look at it their way (and as many of "the masses" see it), L and G behaviour is an alteration of normal social gender, in terms of "feminine (female gender) is attracted to masculine (male gender)" and "masculine is attracted to feminine".
The confusion between LGBT activities in history is continuously confusing - both lesbians and transgenders point to Joan of ark; Gay males have stolen at times the Berdache and Gallae, who probably fit transgender stereotypes more accurately. As pointed out above Many people identify or have attributes of a variety of definitions through their life journey.
Of course, thanks to people like Janice Raymond^ (who still hasn't said sorry, btw.) our comunities have occasionally bee driven apart.
Although LGB have to fight to say it's about orientation, and T's have to fight to say it's not about orientation (on a personal note I'm sick of people asking me if I was just a really gay guy - at which time i usually point out my same-sex marriage) it's really the same thing - we don't fit "normal" peoples ideas of "normal" men and women.
Sorry for the rant. No, the click-box should not be removed. Cheers! Lauren^♫/∆ 13:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Err. It's long since been upgraded. I created a specific {{Transgender sidebar}} template on 10 December 2006. It was refined over a few days then used to replace the {{LGBT sidebar}} in this article on 16 December 2006. --AliceJMarkham 13:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The T in LGBT is controversial

Placing the statement 'the t in lgbt is controversial' at the beginning of the article without further explanation, when its addresses further in the article makes a definite pov statement. Discussing it later in Contrast with "sexual orientation" places the issue in a better context. NickGorton 18:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, wasn't so good, and so you removed it :-)  I've just added »(compare LGBT, section “Controversy”)« to the first sentence of »Transgender#Contrast with "sexual orientation"«, not assuming that's stylistically perfect. -- ParaDox 11:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been thrust into the T community and not entirely by my choice. Not that I regret it though. At any rate, I've known lots of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transsexuals... From my experience, grouping them is like putting apples in with oranges, lemons, and limes. Apples just aren't citrus. Sure they're fruit, but then so are grapes. Heterosexuals belong grouped with LGB more than T do, because at least heterosexuality is still an orientation. 24.254.189.253 04:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure - complete agreeance with your reasoning. but whether or not they should be there, they are. Cheers! Lauren^♫/∆ 06:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In praise of the current page

as of late january 2006 I can say that the current page is distinctly useful, it covers a range of the debate, seems to be relativly clear and understandable. I know it may move to another state in due course but I just wanted to note to all contributors how much I appreciate your help, to get it to this point (X-mass 01:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC))

As a random passer-by I'd like to echo this congratulation: despite touching on such a wide range of topics this article seems complete, uses clear and precise language, and is both information-rich and coherent. —Greg K Nicholson 15:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

"Coined the term"...

Does anyone have the book

• C.F. Prince, Virginia. 1979. 'Charles to Virginia: Sex Research as a Personal Experience.

Some searching on Google says that Virginia coined the term, but I find no solid references except that she probably claims that in the above book. Can someone provide a citation? – SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

We might want to mention why she came up with the term: "because she needed a term to describe her decision to become a woman without changing her genitals (what she would call her 'sex,') the term 'transsexual' would not do" [6][7] – Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 05:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/ae/fulltext/20.htm says she popularized the term. So, I am going to use that as the source instead and use the word "popularized" instead of "coined". – Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 05:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration peer review

Transgender is currently the LGBT collaboration of the month, and is being peer reviewed to pinpoint possible improvements for editors to implement. You can find it here Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 12:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to emphasise there's some really, really good stuff being brought up in the peer review, and that it would be nice if anyone editing this page could update the reviewers as to what's been implemented and what's not. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 21:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching this article and little has been changed. I've been working up a rewrite (or at least partial) in my user space, but it's slow going at the moment. So far, it has personally been a good exercise for myself - I didn't really understand what the term transgender means and the article doesn't make it very clear (one of my complaints in the PR I believe). – Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 22:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned and referenced much of the transsexual section. Cheers, Lwollert 11:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

External links

http://www.secondtype.com - Worth adding? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.149.16.69 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 11 April 2007

• No. Fails wikipedia's reliable source requirements. --AliceJMarkham 14:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Umm - it's not being suggested as a source, far as I can see. Does it pass WP:EL? - Alison^☺ 14:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Keeping Transgender Pride flag out of “Sexual orientation flags” category in List of Flags

I just put it out of that category. This mistake is really everywhere. I put it into an “Other flags” category - for the moment.

Comment I used there was: /* Sexual orientation flags */ This is definetely wrong. Don't sort this flag under "Sexual orientation". Transgender neither implies any sexual orientation nor is it a phenomenon on that field.)

-- 84.143.136.81 14:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

External links cleanup

The "external links cleanup tag" has been placed on the Transgender article. WP:EL recommends consensus, so I am adding this section on the talk page. My pov on the matter is given below: please share your input before I carry out the changes outlined. Editwikipediausername 03:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The current external links fall into four categories as follows:

• Advocacy groups, i.e. groups formed to achieve legislative change.
  • Proposal: add a sentence to "Transgender and the law" along the lines of "Advocacy groups have been created to advocate legislative change for transgender people in numerous countries including..." and change the relevant external links to references in that sentence.
• Support groups, i.e. groups to support transgender people non-legislatively.
  • Proposal: create a new section called "Transgender and support groups", add the sentence "Support groups exist for transgender people in numerous countries including..." and change the relevant external links to references in that sentence.
  • Second proposal: replaced all links to a support group with a single reference to the relevant DMOZ category, thus: Transgendered at Curlie.
• Further information sources.
  • Proposal: leave them where they are.
• Biographies (e.g the Susanna Valenti article)
  • Proposal: delete it.

- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Editwikipediausername (talk • contribs)

Looks like a good plan. Right now, it's full of non-encyclopedic and 'vanity' links. However, I'd rather see an 'external links' section (per WP:MOS and WP:EL) rather than have them in-linked into the main text. That doesn't look the best and is an open invite to adding more. Could we also put a comment in the text like <!-- Please don't add external links without first proposing them on the talk page --> or something like that? I feel that the biog. links should go, too. Thoughts? - Alison ☺ 04:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(I haven't edited this article before, so this is a bit of an outsider view.) One thing I notice about the links is that many of the links are to local groups (most of them in Melbourne, Australia for some reason?), though Wikipedia is supposed to have a global scope. Rather than risk this becoming a directory of the likely hundreds if not thousands of groups that exist, it may be better to restrict the links to organizations of a broader scope that can help the interested reader find more information on a group near them. Krimpet (talk) 04:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There are too many support group links for an encyclopedia - Alison ☺ 05:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

My responses to the above are as follows:

1) I agree about the comment

2) I agree about the continued existence of the 'External Links' section

3) I agree about the inadvisability of listing *every* support group, and note that Wikipedia:External_links#Links_to_be_considered suggests a solution: they can be replaced in toto by a reference to the relevant DMOZ category, thus: Transgendered at Curlie. I have updated the list above with this second proposal: please unstrike if you consider appropriate.

4) I am unsure about citing advocacy groups inline. Points for this stance are a) NCTE and PFC are already cited that way, b) there are far fewer lobby groups than support groups. Points against this stance are a) the boundary between lobby groups and support groups can be fuzzy. For the avoidance of doubt, I wasn't suggesting putting external links like this [8], but rather like this ^[99]

5) The UrbanTransman link is dead and can be safely removed.

Editwikipediausername 13:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

External links cleanup part 2

I do not know if consensus exists (see above) concerning advocacy/activism sites being linked to, so I will not disturb them for the time being (with one exception: see below). However, I think I can say from the above that a consensus does exist about the support groups and biography sites: namely, delete them and replace with a link to "Transgender" at DMOZ. Similarly, I think I can say that a consensus does exist about information sites: namely, keep them. I will therefore carry out those changes, and insert the comment as stated by Alison above. A site-by-site analysis is given below. Editwikipediausername 02:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Site	Analysis	Action
European transgender network	EU-based advocacy site	Keep
FTM Australia	Australia-based information site	Keep
Hudson's FTM Resource Guide	USA-based information site	Keep
Gender Identity Support Group	Australia-based support site	Delete as per consensus
NCTE National Center for Transgender Equality	USA-based advocacy site. Already linked to under internal links and so can be deleted on grounds of redundancy.	Delete on grounds of redundancy
Seahorse	Australia-based support site	Delete as per consensus
Susanna Valenti: a Transgender Pioneer	Biography	Delete as per consensus
Transgender Law Center	USA-based multiple-purpose site. Already linked to under internal links and so can be deleted on grounds of redundancy.	Delete on grounds of redundancy
Trans Melbourne Gender Project	Australia-based activism site. Unsure about this one. Has a legitimate claim to be on this page but (as others have noted) there is a preponderance of Melbourne sites.	Weak Delete on grounds that a Victoria site is already listed
TransGender Victoria	Australia-based advocacy site.	Keep
The Urban TransMan	Dead link	Delete on grounds of deadness
Second Type Woman	US-based information site	Keep
(Rethinking) Gender	Newsweek (May 21, 2007 issue) transgender article	Keep

Editwikipediausername 02:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

External links cleanup part 3

The external links category has been cleaned up as per part 2 above. More cleanup is possible (for example, all references to advocacy groups can be moved to List of transgender-rights organizations) but I don't know if it is desirable to do so. I therefore propose that the "external links cleanup tag" be removed on the grounds that it has been sufficiently cleaned. If anybody has an alternate plan or feels that there is more cleanup required, please share your input below before I remove the tag. Regards, Editwikipediausername 00:13, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• I'm okay with all that. Thanks for putting in the work here - this looks like a great plan - Alison ☺ 01:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

No objections have been raised, so I shall remove the tag. Editwikipediausername 02:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

New Link

I would like to add a new external link. I am a member of a group based in Cincinnati which focuses on trans stuff and our site has a large amount of information about various topics related to genderqueer issues including information on GID, gender identity, community, and various resources. -thanks

[ http://www.uc.edu/groups/GenderBloc GenderBloc] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jakku Ari (talk • contribs) 02:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I applaud the group's work and activities the inclusion in this article doesn't seem to add anything to the present article. If GenderBloc is notable enough perhaps starting an article of it's very own would be more appropriate. See also the discussion about external links clean-u above as there might be a place to be listed in those options. Benjiboi 06:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Archived

Removed old talk to /Archive_01. Includes all unsigned comments and of course YATVT (Yet another Transgender versus Transsexual) debate AlexR 11:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• I've now moved it to /Archive 1 so that the {{archives}} box will work, and I've set up miszabot to archive further items older than 30 days into the same file. --AliceJMarkham 08:40, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Transgender and Criticism

The very last paragraph under this heading is a bit argumentative. I didn't want to delete it myself bu felt it should be addressed. The part I'm getting at is the whole "biological determinism" and everything after the use of that phrase. It's an obvious bias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kiyae (talk • contribs) 09:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

please post the section you think needs work here and offer any alternatives. Benjiboi 11:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Section: Transvestite

This section is load of random comments which have no references and cannot be verifiable.

A transvestite is someone who cross-dresses, but transvestic fetishism is a medical term for someone with a fetish for cross-dressing. To prevent confusion, the term "transvestite" has been rejected in favor of "cross-dresser.

Transvestic fetishism has been considered a derogatory term, as it implies a hierarchy in which the sexual element of transgender behavior is of low social value.

It is often difficult to distinguish between a fetish for cross-dressing, and transgender behaviour that includes sexual play.''

Who said all this? Please... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MalikaTG (talk • contribs) 00:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This is another Edit by NatalyaAF

I cleaned it up. I deleted the last two lines and re-wrote the first.

Someone should check it to see whether it's okay now or not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NatalyaAF (talk • contribs) 08:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• I read what was there before you changed it, and what you changed it to and wasn't entirely happy with either. In the end, I split Transvestic fetishism into a separate section and rewrote them both. I'm still not entirely convinced that both are satisfactory, and I haven't dug out references for the wording that I've used but I think that it is an improvement on what was here. --AliceJMarkham 09:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I went through it and cited it. NatalyaAF, I believe your concerns were that transvestic fetishism is fetishistic and intermittent and should be differentiated as such from other categories. AliceJMarkham, I believe that you had similar concerns but I need to point out that your proposed solution of putting "Transvestic fetishism" in a separate section resulted in "Transvestic fetishism" appearing as a transgender identity in the contents list, which was probably not what you intended. I have reworded the entry accordingly and placed sufficient citations to justify removal of the "disputed" tag. I believe the reworded and fully cited version addresses your concerns. Kind regards, Anameofmyveryown 06:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC) (I used to be Editwikipediausername but I had to change it: it used the word "wikipedia" and that's not good.)

• Much better. I approve. :) --AliceJMarkham 14:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

just wondering

Does "transgender" mean that a women is born with a penis, and has breasts? Or what? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.251.174.137 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your question(s) are clearly addressed in the article. Benjiboi 22:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why would someone who is friendly to the gay community blandly state that Ayatollah Khomeini gave his approval to transgender surgery with out pointing out the forced gender reassignment surgery imposed on gay men in that country? Are transgenders truly friendly to rest of the LGBT community or are you just biding your time to make us all trannies or be put to death? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Greghist (talk • contribs).

Assume good faith please. Per WP standards any materially likely to be questioned or cause conflict should be properly sourced. If another editor has removed it and you still think it's appropriate for this article then introduce it to these pages for comments. Potentially a less POV version would work to make the article better or the material would be more useful on other articles within the same field but on a different subject. Benjiboi 22:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Why should criticism of transgender rationale, which is clearly designed to put clear blue water between themselves and gay people, be disallowed and removed? OK, lets all just say nice things about hormone treatments and genital surgery then you will all be happy. Is there any other example of pschiatrists and pschologists advocating radical organ removal surgery to deal with a pschological issue? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Greghist (talk • contribs) 21:29, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

Body integrity identity disorder is second on the right, just down the hall - Alison ☺ 22:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Some women who are at high risk for breast cancer get bilateral prophylactic mastectomies to alleviate anxiety. It's not done routinely because there's no good reason to think that it actually reduces cancer incidence sufficiently, but it's apparently done (and covered by most private health insurance) as a treatment for anxiety.WhatamIdoing 02:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Once again, my properly sourced comments were removed because they dared to expose the hypocritical and homophobic rationale that is increasingly to be found in academic transgender theory. Catherine Crouch's film served as timely warning of the current situation in Iran and what could happen here. Only acceptance of transgender rationale is accepted as 'neutral' or 'sourced' material and suitable for the public to read. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by R jay72 (talk • contribs) 22:59, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

I have gone through the changes that you have made recently. Not one of the additions that you have made was accompanied by a reference, and several of the changes that you made included removing referenced information while leaving behind the reference that supported the information that you removed. In particular, there is a reference to a study that shows that the majority of crossdressers are heterosexual, and you seem to be insistent upon attempting to remove this fact from the article. If you want to add a new fact to an article, you must provide a verifiable reference to prove that it is a fact. If you want to provide a reference that contradicts one that is already here, such as a study that shows that the majority of crossdressers are not heterosexual, it and the existing one would both belong in the article, stating the contradiction. That's how wikipedia works. You have stated that your additions were "properly sourced", but you haven't provided the necessary references to show it. Oh, and please sign your posts in talk pages --AliceJMarkham 00:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, Alison or Alice, why would someone writing on this board that was friendly to gay people refer positively to Ayatollah Khomeint approval of the use of gender reassignment surgery without acknowledging its misuse and homophobic aspect? You only want positive aspects of transgenderism mentioned, without any criticism. It is clear that patriarchal society does favor transgenderism over, or as a solution to, homosexuality; this is why transgendered people are allowed to get married whereas gay couples are not. The article on crossdressers you mentioned sugests most crossdresser identified as heterosexual, not that they are heterosexual; there is a big difference. Men, even when crossdressed when having sex with another man, they are in the category of men who have sex with men and therefore are not heterosexual. It is possible they crossdress for purposes other than having sex with other men of course, but in my experience, this is most common aim of doing so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R jay72 (talk • contribs)

Well, since you mentioned me by name, I'd better answer :) Personally, I've no investment in this one way or another; it's just another POV and vandal-magnetic article. Khomeini is mentioned in the article (and cited) to show the exception given in Iran; the clear rationale behind that is that he found 'sex change' to be a correction of homosexuality. Acknowledging that at that point isn't really germane to the article, really. Re. trans people and marriage; if the US for example allows transsexual (whatever about transgender) people to marry, then why are so many people getting caught out on DOMA, like people who have been married for years when one partner changes sex, suddenly they're not married any more! Look at the LOVO-Ciccone case for an example of that. It cuts both ways really and the heart of the problem is down to the federal government's abhorrence of same-sex marriage in any form. And on it goes - Alison ☺ 05:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a kind of good point. Transsexuals are denied opposite sex marriages in at least four states, which have had court rulings that gender/sex is an immutable fact determined at birth, and thus in the states of Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Ohio I think... (it's a discussion page, I can be a bit vague...) a TS person cannot marry the opposite sex, as the state will refuse to accept any alteration of the sex on a birth certificate. Now, they likely couldn't marry the same sex, as the appearance of the individuals will appear to be same-sex. Also, as probably the chief gatekeeper for the MSM (men who have sex with men) article, just because someone is MSM does not mean that they are not heterosexual. The conflation of the two should not be made. --Puellanivis 00:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that transgenderism is broader than transsexualism - it includes people who don't necessarily identify as or fit into the roles of one or the other gender. So the argument is not that society favours transgenderism - on the contrary, it does not, but, supposedly, favours transsexualism as a solution to the broader aspects transgenderism (i.e., people must choose one gender or the other - consider than Iran is not friendly towards cross-dressing, either). I don't disagree with this idea, but anything added needs to be referenced and not personal opinion.

Do you have evidence that cross-dressing people are having sex with members of the same sex, in spite of their heterosexual identification? The article states that they identify as heterosexual, rather than being heterosexual, anyway, so we aren't misinterpretting the source. I also dispute your claim that the main purpose of cross-dressing is for sex with men (this would be hard to answer, due to the problem of defining exactly what counts as cross-dressing, since it depends a lot on whether society considers X to be cross-dressing or not). Mdwh 11:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it is difficult to quantify the extent to which men that crossdress (and I would include in that category all non-full timers, including the currently accepted separate categories of drag queen, female impersonator, transvestite and cd)are having sex with other men or whether the dressing is primarily intended to attract sex partners. Nevertheless as someone with many years personal experience as a man who has identified at different periods as straighht, bi gay and trans I know enough about the subject to make educated and well-informed comment; one problem here is that there is insufficient published critical studies to cite that cast doubt or question the curent edifice of mutually exclusive categories mentioned above that are indeed designed to create a formalized separation og gay people and trans people; a separation which in my opinion is greatly exagerrated and possibly largely fictitious. In my opinion this edifice has been developed to enable mtf trans people to be untainted by homosexuality in order to be more successful at attracting heterosexual identifying male sex partners. At the head of this discussion section is a question from 'just wondering'; read that question and you will see the consequences of the idea that there exists a group of people who are females with functioning male sex organs; there are bi-curious horny young men who are clearly taken in by this nonsense and it is leading to damage to the LGBT movement and our relationship to mainstream society. Let me hear it from you Alice or Alice, if you are serious and socially responsible academics, that no such group of people exists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R jay72 (talk • contribs) 16:25, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

You're addressing this to me again, I guess. Firstly, I'm not a "serious and socially responsible academic", I'm an administrator on Wikipedia who happens to have an interest in LGBT issues. Secondly, what you're proposing here, on first glance, looks a whole lot like original research, unless you actually have something from secondary sources to actually back up what you're positing here - Alison ☺ 18:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"Nevertheless as someone with many years personal experience as a man who has identified at different periods as straighht, bi gay and trans I know enough about the subject to make educated and well-informed comment" I've met numerous people who have many years of personal experience being XY, and are still not qualified to make educated and well-informed comments. When I was on Jury Duty, there were people there that felt that if a defendant didn't take the stand to defend him/herself, that it was a sign of guilt. They've lived their whole life as Americans, yet are not able to give educated or well-informed comment about fundamental American rights.

"one problem here is that there is insufficient published critical studies to cite that cast doubt or question the curent edifice of mutually exclusive categories mentioned above that are indeed designed to create a formalized separation og gay people and trans people" *sigh* all of what I've seen on wikipedia is that they are INDEPENDENT categories, not mutually exclusive. "Cross-dresser" in the transgender community however is a term used specifically, and exclusively to refer to people that dress in the other gender's clothes for erotic stimulation. While drag queens/kings, and male/female impersonators do cross dress, they are not "Cross-dressers", which is a term taken to avoid the negative connotations surrounding "Transvestite". By far the motivations of a person to cross dress for personal erotic stimulation (Transvestite, or "Cross dresser"), are going to be vastly more likely to be attracted to the other sex, otherwise the person would likely find little about the other gender's clothes which would arrouse them.

"a separation which in my opinion is greatly exagerrated and possibly largely fictitious. In my opinion this edifice has been developed to enable mtf trans people to be untainted by homosexuality in order to be more successful at attracting heterosexual identifying male sex partners." Obviously, you don't have enough experience and education in trans to make educated comments. Cultures typically take one of three approaches to what is ok, what is wrong. American Christianity says that homosexuality and transgender are the same thing, and both wrong. America's larger gay-accepting community says that homosexuality is ok, and that trans people are just confused gay people. And other cultures, such as Iran, say that trans people are ok, but that homosexuals are just confused trans people. It is not our position as wikipedia editors to promote any particular one of these viewpoints, in fact, we present a Neutral Point of View, where we present all the ideas that everyone has, including that gay people are just confused trans people. Whether this edges against your personal political beliefs, my personal beliefs, or anyone's personal beliefs is moot. This is because there exist notable people for which this viewpoint is accepted as valid.

"read that question and you will see the consequences of the idea that there exists a group of people who are females with functioning male sex organs; there are bi-curious horny young men who are clearly taken in by this nonsense and it is leading to damage to the LGBT movement and our relationship to mainstream society." I will see what consequences? Just because you think it's nonsense does not mean it is not notable information for Wikipedia. And if you want to know what damages the LGBT movement, I was essentially forced out of my Employee Resource Group for LGBT individuals, because when I presented my issues and problems, they were viewed as "opposed to the greater goal" or something like that... Either way, I butt heads with a Lesbian, with a bunch of transsexual women, and stuff like that... why? Because I'm a transsexual woman who's attracted exclusively to guys. OMG! I'm a straight person in the LGBT community, what has the world come to?!

I'm really getting sick of particular subsets or groups of the LGBT community who insist that they need to encompass everyone, when not everyone will fit. I don't hang out with gays or lesbians, I have no insight into their culture, what I know about the trans culture, I get from Wikipedia, and the communities which I've been able to look into... but you know who I hang out with? Do you know where my "fit" is? It's with other heterosexual women, who are my support group, and have carried me through all of my issues, trials, and tribulations. So frankly, sorry that you think some things on Wikipedia are not LGB-friendly even when they're on T issues. But there exist those of us who do not fit your happy little world where all the LGBT people get along, and help and support each other. I've made extensive edits to the Marriage article regarding ensuring that the article doesn't portray same-sex marriage as simply invalid. I've proved that I'm willing to support the LGB community... but that doesn't mean that I'm part of them at all. Now, please, take your personal political beliefs and philosophies, and keep them off of Wikipedia... we can do it, why can't you? --Puellanivis 19:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Correction. Cross-dressing does not imply erotic stimulation, although some percentage of crossdressers do use it for that and there may well be a subconscious element of that for others, although I don't know if any research has been done on the latter. Other than that, I'd agree with essentially everything you've said. Oh, and I'm also a married heterosexual (and parent) and a member of the LGBT community. According to R jay72 (talk · contribs), I don't exist since I am never attracted to males. Or perhaps, since I am always attracted to females regardless of my own presented gender, I'm bisexual, being heterosexual when presenting as male and lesbian when presenting as female? If I was transexual, I would be a lesbian. :) --AliceJMarkham 06:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Eh... Cross-dressing does imply erotic stimulation, but "imply" does mean "is always a part of". There are a lot of Cross-dressers, for whom it was erotic stimulation before when they were younger, but now it's just kind of stress relief, as they've become more accustomed to wearing the clothes. As for your question, you're a heterosexual male who occasionally presents as a female. Or you can think of it as "I'm gynephilic", and ignore the whole question of what gender you are or are presenting as at the time. And for awhile, I thought I would be a lesbian transsexual, too, but then I met a few boys and it was like "omg, this is like a hojillion times better than being with a girl," and after playing around with my female roommate and getting frisky one night, it was just like "you know what? I don't actually enjoy this..." Plus, for all the girls I dated in College, I've realized that I had more interest in being friends with them, and living vicariously through them... now that I don't need to pretend to like a girl to be her friend, and I no longer need to vicariously live through anyone... well, now they just aren't romantically, or sexually attractive anymore. (NOTE: this was significantly before any operation, which STILL hasn't been done as of this post, and before I even got it through my dumb head that I was a girl, I was hitting on boys and stuff online.) --Puellanivis 19:09, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• For someone who claims to be able to keep your own personal political beliefs and philosophies out of wikipedia, you've made a statement that can only be interpreted as precisely that. Cross-dressing does not imply erotic stimulation, although it is the case for some cross-dresers. Your statement that it does is one of the most insulting things that has ever been said to me in wikipedia. Perhaps if you read a few of the relevant wikipedia articles (particularly Transvestism#Cross-dressers and Transvestic fetishism), you'd be aware that your personal bias is not supported by references and is not verifiable. --AliceJMarkham 14:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Puellanivis; I find it interesting that once you had enjoyed sex with boys while 'dressed' your other self, the male 'hetero' one also realised he was no longer so interested in girls; and yet you continued to need to dress to have sex with boys; why is this? I ask an honest question because it is this aspect that gay men find suspicious, as if you are trying to squeeze homosexuality into a hetero box. Was your possibly objection to sex with boys as a boy yourself a result of homophobia or perhaps that you could get hotter straighter guys when a girl? I have met some transwomen who have admitted to me that the original decisions were influenced by the desire to avoid the stigma of being gay, and that in their culture, the correct response to same-sex attraction was to transform into a girl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R jay72 (talk • contribs) 21:04, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind my saying at this point, this conversation has gone away from being encyclopedic and related to the article in question and has strayed into the personal. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here and draw your attention to WP:TALK - Alison ☺ 23:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

That's right Alison, as soon as we're in danger of getting to the heart of the issue, all discussion must be stopped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R jay72 (talk • contribs) 15:14, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

What's the point? No matter what "heart" you and another WP editor find in "the matter" by discussing your sexual histories, it's not going to be something you can use to improve the article, because it would be Original Research. Now, if you were trading sources and discussing the points they made, which ones were reliable, and where and how to use those sources to make a point in the article, you'd be using this talk page appropriately. Kasreyn 13:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. We're here to build an encyclopedia from reliable sources, not talk about the sexuality of various editors - Alison ☺ 17:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I find it most a most interesting coincidence that R jay72 began posting the day Greghist stopped. By another astonishing coincidence, their edit histories bear some remarkable similarities. Cheers, Kasreyn 03:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Valediction...for now

So that's it: gotta go. I have 2hrs 54mins before my unlimited Internet access expires, and my usefulness to Wikipedia drops dramatically. I have been on Wikipedia for approx 6 months, and in that time I have worked on this article, the 2007 United Kingdom floods, the 2007 South Asian floods, the European Parliament election, 2004 and Template:Location map Scotland - if nothing else, it's an eclectic mix. It hasn't been fun (there are only so many pictures of mothers scrabbling through the mud of their wrecked Bangladeshi village you can see before wanting to throw up), but it has been rewarding. God alone knows how many cites I've added, but it's gotta be in the 100's. I have attempted to do my best by this article, and I have followed a policy of quoting like crazy in the citations so that those who cannot access the sites can at least see I wasn't lying: if nothing else, it deters vandalism. I have 7-10 days of limited Internet access left, but after that it'll take me six-12 months before I can get back to speed and it won't be easy (JSTOR costs!), but I will try. If/when I return, I will try to bring an article up to FA status, or at least GA (FA is hard). I would like to try with this one (it has to have hit B-class by now), if you'll permit me - if nothing else, it has to be better than wading through a table of EU election results which somebody put "this table is derived from official figures" without saying which official figures, and how they are derived (there were 25 countries in the EU in 2004, the archive results are in Spanish, and I no hablas espanol. Ouch!)

2hrs 29 mins left, so better cut this short. I was working on a fine valediction (you'd have liked it: it had puns!), but nahhh, short is good. So I'll leave you with this.

Benjiboi, if you switch between the plural ("drag artists") and the singular ("is") in the same sentenceone more time, I will go back in time and prevent your grandparents from meeting.

See ya in 2008, Anameofmyveryown 06:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

I notice that a lot of images have added to this article recently – all of them photographs from LGBT pride parades. While this was certainly in good intentions, I think it would be better to have a more diverse selection of images, and also in positions where each image is relevant to the adjacent text. --krimpet⟲ 05:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Go for it! Benjiboi 05:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I note we also have the problem that all of the photos depicting individuals are of transgender women. - Montréalais 05:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

And, feminine or otherwise somewhat sexualized, at that. How typical a view of women - trans or not. Maybe a historical or notable person would be more appropriate? Karenmny 09:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Identities

I noticed that in 'Identities', the listing of the categories is uncited. This leaves me wondering: Is this a scientifical statement at all? Who else, besides the transgender organisations, which are hardly unbiased sources, supports the view that all these categories belong to transgender? 89.182.72.73 21:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I now checked cross-dressing, and found this (sourced!) definition: "Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothing commonly associated with another gender within a particular society." Now, this definition fits everybody who once, for what reason at all, wore clothings of the other gender, for instance many actors or totally average guys who, for instance, dressed as a witch at carnival. And per 'Identities' here, those people are transgenders. Don't you have to agree that this broad definition is total nonsense? And since I now am supposed to be, to my huge surprise, a member of the transgender community, I urgently demand to know who is responsible for this idiocy! Where is the source for this 'definition'???89.182.72.73 21:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Obviously not all cross-dressing implies transgenderism, but in some cases it may, and there is an overlap. It does say "Cross-dressers may not identify with, or want to be the opposite gender, nor adopt the behaviors or practices of the opposite gender, and generally do not want to change their bodies medically.", which seems to make this clear. As for scientific definitions, of course they should be included if they exist, but I presume "transgender" is a word used in more contexts than just scientific ones (but as you say, sources would be good). Mdwh 10:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there is a "scientific" article to show that all cross-dressers are transgender and to prove the umbrella-ness of the term transgender. That is a literary or linguistic argument that has yet to be resolved. Essentially the definitions of words need to evolve significantly and be generally accepted by people. From this, it is important that the trans community not only define themselves well, but explain their definitions well and propogate the ideas. Therefore if a majority of trans groups agree to the definition we should list it as the definition to encourage assimilation in society which will result in wide-spread acceptance. Did everyone get that? (Kiyae 00:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC))

Yes, and good luck getting the meeting going on all that! Benjiboi 03:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

"Therefore if a majority of trans groups agree to the definition we should list it as the definition to encourage assimilation in society which will result in wide-spread acceptance." Firstly, what definition? That everybody is a "cross-dresser" who once dressed like a member of the other gender, for whatever reason, even if it was a single incident? Sry, but by this definition, hundreds of millions would be 'cross-dressers', without their approval. Even if you could show a majority of transgender groups supporting this view (this would be difficult, is there a comprehensive list of those groups, and how do you weigh them? By counting their members?), they would still not be representative of this large group of 'single-instance cross-dressing' heterosexuals. And, don't forget, T groups are hardly an unbiased source regarding this issue. They have an interest in boosting the number of people they allegedly represent in order to increase their standing. This raises questions about NPOV. That's why I spend a lot of time looking for a good definition by an expert, and Gilbert,as a professor of Philosophy who specialized on gender and transgender issues, publishing in 'The Journal of Transgenderism', was the best I could find. If you don't like his definition, look for another one by someone with a similar qualification, and let's discuss this here. 89.182.93.50 10:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The quote in question was referring to cross-dressing, not what does or doesn't make someone a cross-dresser. Even if it was, what does it matter if the person in question doesn't identify with the label? You don't have to identify with "golfer," but if you habitually golf, it still applies to you. Of course, whether a single instance of cross-dressing is enough to make someone a cross-dresser is debatable. I would say no, the same way I wouldn't refer to someone as a golfer for having randomly golfed at one point in their life. Greta (talk) 22:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Another point: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tool "to encourage assimilation in society" and to support "wide-spread acceptance"! These are important issues, but WP can't take a stand. 89.182.93.50 10:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Cross-Dressing vs. Cross-Dresser

Having cross-dressed once, for whatever reason, doesn't make a person a cross dresser. This should be self-evident, and an article in "The International Journal of Transgenderism" supports this view: "Another group that may be excluded by the BVD test can be those female impersonators who look upon dressing as solely connected to their livelihood, actors undertaking roles, individual males and females enjoying a masquerade, and so on. These individuals are cross dressing but are not cross dressers." http://www.symposion.com/ijt/gilbert/gilbert.htm What's needed here is a new article on Cross-Dressers that gives a clear and scientific definition, mirroring the predominant scientific view. Also, the overly broad definition that is now given under 'Identities' here obfuscates thew issue and should be revised. 89.182.0.102 10:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Reading further in The Journal of Transgenderism, which features numerous articles by renowned experts in the field, I have found not a single instance so far where the overly broad definition is supported. Here's just one of the countless statements on the definition of Transgenderism: "Transgenderism as it is now defined includes a significant part of the population, including many who can also be classed as gay or lesbian, as well as transsexuals, individuals who have gone public in their transgender persona, others who belong to the various clubs and organizations, and thousands who have not yet admitted to anyone other than their spouse or significant other that they have some transgender characteristics." http://www.symposion.com/ijt/gilbert/bullough.htm Professor Bullough clearly states here that transgenderism copes with perons having "transgender characteristics". Nothing in this definition can be interpreted as supporting the view that a single instance of cross dressing necessarily is evidence for the presence of such a characteristic. Actors, for instance, are obviously not transgender perons under this definition. 89.182.0.102 10:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

We already cover this distinction well, I think, in the article cross-dressing which you removed the link to:

The term cross-dressing denotes an action or a behaviour without attributing or proposing causes for that behaviour. Some people automatically connect cross-dressing behaviour to transgender identity or sexual, fetishist, and homosexual behaviour, but the term cross-dressing itself does not imply any motives. (See "Equal clothing rights" below.) However, referring to a person as a cross-dresser suggests that their cross-dressing behaviour is habitual and may be taken to mean that the person identifies as transgendered. The term cross-dresser should therefore be used with care to avoid causing misunderstanding or offence.

Yes, I agree the section here needs improving. Mdwh 10:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I see you (or someone else?) restored the link, but designated it as "see also". This is a much better solution, sry that I didn't have that idea. I'm checking the discussion on "cross-dressing" now again, I already did that before, but didn't find the relevant part. Thx for quoting it here, this clears up the picture. I support the view that the motives (including the unconscious ones) and the habit is important. This should be included in the explanation in an appropriate form. Maybe there is a good quote somewhere by a renowned source. 89.182.0.102 11:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I found the quote in the article. And, yes, imho it's appropriate to keep readers from confusing Cross-Dressing and Cross-Dressers. But the definition here still needs a revision. Sadly, I haven't found a good definition in a short form anywhere yet. Even the Experts seem to shy away from giving a clear description of the main points. :-( 89.182.0.102 13:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, added the definition of Gilbert, even though not fully satisfactory it is still the best one I found so far. I tried my best, had some difficulties with formating the source, so there is still plenty room for improvements by other editors. A nice side-effect: Since Gilbert makes it clear that artists who are cross dressing for professional purposes only are not cross-dressers, the definition of Drag Queens now makes some sense. Before, it was questionable why they were not included in cross-dressers. Again, I tried my vcery best, pls correct if I made mistakes. 89.182.0.102 14:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

While I appreciate your input, and your desire to improve this article, I would like to note to you something of a bit of ettiquette, it is generally considered bad form to edit a post beyond a strikethrough, and that each separate instance of a comment should be separated in the talk pages. This allows one to see the entire history of the talk, and unless the meaning is so absolutely impaired by a grammatical error, we get your point, and this page need not be of publisher quality. So, if you would not mind, simply live with typos, and grammar mistakes in your own and other's works, as this is an informal argument about improving the main article. Thanks so much for your understanding. --Puellanivis 21:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, sry, but my understanding was that postings shouldn't be altered anymore AFTER someone else answered. As you can see from the timestamps, there hasn't been much of a discussion here :-( As you also can see here and in history, the instances are separated, with two exceptions: The first came from an edit conflict, when I was still amending the posting, and the second one I totally deleted because it was only based on a dumb misunderstanding by me. Sry if those two mess ups confused history a bit. I try to stick to the rules, but, the point is, I don't know the rules very well. OH, and I NEVER edit the talk postings of others. Or did I, by accident? 89.182.0.102 21:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if it came across as condescending, I didn't mean it to be, I was simply attempting to address a point of etiquette that you didn't seem to be aware of.  :( Sorry if it sounded like I bit your head off, and I take my medicine :( --Puellanivis 07:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem! It was just that I was a bit surprised, because I really tried to do a good job here. But you were right, my back-and-forth posting on this talkpage must have been somewhat confusing. Maybe you know how it is, when enthusiasm gets you, you don't care as much about details. So, no damage done, and thx for weighing in. Oh, and looking at your userpage, it seems to me weboth share the same two main languages, but you seem to do better with English than me. Is my edit at 'Cross-dresser' ok? I make quite a lot of mistakes at grammar... 89.182.77.205 10:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Historical examples

This article claims there are countless historical examples of transgendered people yet provides no reference, should the claim be removed without proof or else provide a reference? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.218.228.176 (talk • contribs) 21:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Lede image

When I came upon this article, the following image was at the very top right of the page:

File:Transgender at NYC Gay Pride Parade by David Shankbone.jpg

A transgender woman at New York City's gay pride parade

Another option

Is this really the best place for this particular image? Is a photo of a person in a miniskirt appropriately representative of all aspects of Transgender? I don't think so. I have moved it down, to the section about transgender and sexual orientation, since this person is at a Pride parade. I can't think of what image would be best, if any, for the lede. Suggestions? Thoughts? Photouploaded (talk) 14:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the pride picture, and agree it belongs in the article, but I actually prefer Image:TransgenreatParis2005.JPG as the lede, just because it's a less sexualized picture, and seems to present a more ordinary (but still pretty) image of a transgendered person. One person's opinion. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Transgender, the article, encompasses the historic, medical, legal, interpersonal, sexual, identity... is a photo of one person really appropriate for the lede? She's not the Empress of Transgender. I bet we could come up with something more... broad-spectrum, I guess. Photouploaded (talk) 14:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: I have the same feelings about the photo of breasts at the top of Breast. Sure, they just happen to be the perky, pink-nippled breasts of a white person. There's no cultural bias there. Ugh. Photouploaded (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Image:TransgenreatParis2005.JPG would make a good lead picture - the "XY"-on-hand statement is more topical to the concept of transgendered sexuality more than a picture of a woman who happens to be transgendered, and is interesting enough to keep the reader interested without being overly sensational or sexualized. krimpet⟲ 16:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• No matter what we put at the top, someone is going to say it doesn't represent someone. The idea is to graphically illustrate the concept. In that vein, either of these two photos work as the lead image. Let's not over-intellectualize something so pedestrian. --David Shankbone 16:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not think that "either" image would work. The tendency to exoticize transwomen and to sexualize their very existence is not something that we should perpetuate by putting a picture of a provocatively-posed trans*woman in skimpy clothing at the top of the article. I assume that since you took the picture, you probably would like to see it used, but please try to understand our position: the picture of a fully clothed transwoman in a non-sexual pose is a vast improvement. I will make the same replacement at Transwoman for the same reason. Photouploaded (talk) 16:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A lot of people don't find transexuals exotic and sexy at all. You are coming from a POV and you also are not the decider on this issue. We make decisions based upon consensus. Regardless, I think either picture works so whatever is in the lead makes no difference to me. --David Shankbone 16:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Did I say that I found transwomen "exotic", or anything else? No, I didn't! I said that there is a cultural tendency to sexualize transwomen, i.e. to put forth the view that transwomen are sex objects, not people.

Everyone comes from a POV. I am not the only person who expressed the opinion that the photo of the woman holding the banner is more appropriate for the lede than the photo of the woman in a miniskirt. If it really "makes no difference" to you, I would appreciate it if you would stop reverting (1, 2) the placement of the photos at Transwoman. Thank you. Photouploaded (talk)

Girls, girls, you're both pretty. Photouploaded, does it really hurt to finish the discussion and be confident of consensus before we make the changes? There's no need to start an edit-war when a nice friendly conversation would work just as well. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I was confident of consensus, at least as far as DavidShankbone was concerned. He plainly said, "...I think either picture works so whatever is in the lead makes no difference to me".]. I took him at his word, and as there was no other objection, I swapped the images over at Transwoman. Then DavidShankbone swapped them back, twice. Indeed, it is important to make sure we have consensus, but that is impeded when people say one thing and do another. Photouploaded (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You are taking one discussion at one article and applying it to another article, when there was no consensus to do so. So, that was your mistaken impression. --David Shankbone 17:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

What? DavidShankbone, before I made the change to Transwoman, I announced my plan to do so, on this page. You replied, "I think either picture works so whatever is in the lead makes no difference to me." If that wasn't how you felt about the proposed change, the only "mistaken impression" is the one you created. Photouploaded (talk) 17:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Indent reset. I agree with the change to the less sexualized photo as the lede. Although David Shankbone's photo is great it does show a societal tendency to youthfulness and sexualize which is certainly not universal and not universal to trans people. For anyone else looking to contribute images please consider our international audiences and see if we can find images that reach beyond our current imaged demographics. I also concur that having one discussion here is preferable when the issues are pretty much the same to both articles in question. Benjiboi 20:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I added an image of a famous Kathoey to the "Transgender people in non-Western cultures" - on a related note, this section could probably use a lot of expansion to cover and link to the many subjects in Category:Transgender in non-western cultures. --krimpet⟲ 21:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

THANK YOU for changing the leading image! I don't know if I ever said anything, but I've always hated it. As a trans person who has had (at least) one friend come to this page to learn more about me, it's nice to be more positively represented. --Ephilei (talk) 23:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Love the new image, the old one always bothered me. – random trans user, jan 20, 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.64.176.53 (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I feel a need to comment on this matter. I can feel where the editors of this page are comming from. I too have spent allot of time on a page along with many other people. Now I have taken it upon myself to find a proper picture to represent it. These categories are so broad as to be impossible to represent by just one picture. For example I for one felt better represented by the former lead image. I actually do at times wear clothes like that young ladies. She is also a non-white person living in the USA. Lord knows I know how that feels. Last said image is closer to me in age. You cannot please all of the people all of the time (I personally feel that a good photomontage can work in this kind of case. Some people have a problem with them no matter what. Some people seem to want any and all pictures excised from this site.) There has to be some happy medium. An image that is non "sexualized" while at the same time not the image of a frowning stone faced protester in a cardigan sweater. Good luck. --Hfarmer (talk) 02:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have thought about this a little more and I notice another disconcerting things about the choice and placement of photos in the article. For one thing the former supposedly sexualized lead image was moved to the section regarding sexual orientation. :-? I also note another problem with either or both images as a lead Image. They are all of transwomen. An article on "transgender" should also cover and represent transmen. The text is also written from the perspective and concerns of many transwomen and not really those of transmen. Like so many articles on TS TG topics this one would benefit from at least a restructuring if not a total re write. For now what I will do is find a WP acceptable image of a transman and add it to this article. Then I will contemplate such a rewriting of the article so as to incorporate transmen in a more natural way. --Hfarmer (talk) 18:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Considering that particular image is of a transwoman in a gay pride parade, I would think it is fairly appropriate for a section on "Transgender in contrast with sexual orientation," as it does a good job at illustrating the often complicated relationship between the two concepts. An image of a transman would certainly be appropriate for balance, though the key is that any images shouldn't be of a random transgendered person, but should somehow illustrate and enhance the text they accompany. krimpet✽ 18:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that at all. In fact I don't see anything particularly sexual about that picture. I see a young transwoman dressed like many other young women would on a summer day. I just hope that many of the people editing this article understand that not every transwoman will see that the same way. Furthermore I don't see the problem with the picture I had before. So I will try another fair use image. The cover of a book by and about a transman.--Hfarmer (talk) 22:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-free images are strictly limited to certain extremely limited situations where obtaining a replacement is impossible - see WP:NFC. Non-replaceable does not simply mean "not easily available on the Internet" - there are plenty of opportunities to take a free-content picture of a transman for the article. krimpet✽ 22:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV - Criticism section

This article is very much written without a neutral point of view. First example, the section headed as "Criticism" implies physical attacks (i.e. similar to "gay bashing"), lack of understanding, and bias. It goes on to attack mental health professionals, stating that people who identify themselves as transgendered are often educating mental health professionals. The bias indicates that the medical and health care community "has it wrong" and that the only accepted point of view is that "transgendered" is natural and has only natural cause. If anything, the situation is far more complex, with there being multiple causes and the descriptions of the health care profession being absolutely clueless is biased, wrong, and harmful in that it will dissuade people from counseling and professional assistance in favor of community. This article packs a lot of information, but needs to be taken back a step and have the issue analyzed from an neutral point of view, point out the current state of (varying) opinion of the scientific community profession, and what the theorized causes are in total. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.144.99 (talk) 12:18, February 8, 2008

I think you raise some valid issues regarding the "Criticism" section. I personally disagree with criticism sections, but I will move the NPOV tag from the top of the article to that section until some more involved editors can address your concerns. --David Shankbone 18:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you at least for letting it stand for another 2 minutes. I see the editor has come by to join the discussion. His total contribution to the discussion was to say "I think it is neutral" and to tell me to get an account. I won't get an account because it's basically a waste of time to contribute, as the way this was handled indicates. I was given no more than 2 minutes to justify my NPOV tag before it was reverted, and this revert was done while I was attempting to discuss it as per Wikipedia rules. My rolling back of the NPOV tag was then undone by an editor moments after I put it back on. Instead of discussing the challenge, or addressing my points, the editor said "I think it is neutral." To me the above just further illustrates the bias. One cannot actually even discuss it, let alone challenge the neutrality. There is no way that an editor fully read this article in light of my criticisms within the short time before my NPOV tag was reverted. Given that, future discussion on the points is a waste of time. You have my point of view, you will ignore it, end of discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.144.99 (talk) 18:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the section is biased. I've made some adjustments - check them out! --Ephilei (talk) 18:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I worked on the Characterization as a Lifestyle section for a long time, but in the end I just deleted it. Can someone find a source that criticizes and defines what "trans lifestyle" is? I find myself unable to articulate and defend this idea when I can't comprehend it. Certainly a trans lifestyle exists, but are there really people saying that trans people should repress their gender by repressing how they want to live? I'm not sure this criticism is separable from the criticism that transness is a disorder, in which case they should be explained together. --Ephilei (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've rewritten the whole section. --Ephilei (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

"The medical establishment and trans community thoroughly rejects these ideas." What "medical establishment"? No ref? Removed. The statement then becomes "The trans community thoroughly rejects these ideas." Well no shit, Sherlock. Following the mental illness hypothesis, how often do you think people with delusions admit that they are such? — NRen2k5^(TALK), 16:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, somebody went and messd it up again. Instead of fixing it this time I'll just tag it. Look, if you're going to defend the POV in a section then fucking defend it. Don't just blindly revert without so much as an edit summary. — NRen2k5^(TALK), 14:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• I've added {{criticism-section}}. I share David's above position on "criticism sections". In fact so does the project. This section a) needs rewriting b) sourcing, and c) needs to moved to appropriate places within teh article. A criticism of Transgender is probably the worst usage of criticism sections for POV forking that I have ever seen - what's next a criticism section in Boy?--Cailil ^talk 20:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Some hints at NPOV

Specifically, from the NPOV page:

"Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth doesn't mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority."

Now I recognize that a site specifically about a minority will have more focus on that minorities viewpoints, my specific problem is with the criticisms section of this page. Significantly more text is deveoted to rebuttals to the criticisms than to the criticisms themselves, exposing the undercurrent of bias from the author.

Something needs done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.86.139 (talk) 05:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If an encyclopedia in the days of the Bible were to be printed and say that Leprosy is caused by a disease that is not the person's fault, it would get censured and likely burned. The prevailing knowledge at the time (and still in many undercivilized countries) is that Leprosy is an affliction given divinely to someone who has committed a serious and grave sin/wrong. The criticism available against transgender at this time represents the exact same view of Leprosy as a divine punishment. The majority view of the medical community is that transgenderism, and transsexualism are quite rare, but normal, and not caused by an individual's personal choice. If you're talking about a condition that purports to have a medical basis, then the medical opinion matters, not the uninformed opinion. I really don't think there is creditability at all in presenting any argument from an opinion based on uninformed prejudgement, which is the majority of transgender criticism today. --Puellanivis (talk) 06:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually that entire section, to me, seems rather well-written and exceeding my expectations for articles. Is there a particular criticism that needs a fuller explanation? Benjiboi 11:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

"The majority view of the medical community is that transgenderism, and transsexualism are quite rare, but normal, and not caused by an individual's personal choice." I would like to see this sourced. In the meantime, the propnouns are very confusing. Can we agree for the article to use the pronoun appropriate for the person's chromosomal gender. I was so lost trying to figure out who was male and who was female while perusing the article that I gave up. For the sake of an encyclopedia article the objective reality of the person's gender should dictate the gender specific pronouns rather than the individuals subjective, and scientifically innacurate, though most likely constitutionally protected view. Basejumper2 (talk) 22:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It goes against the manual of styles for wiki, and it's not the trans community's role to make things less confusing to you. Snapdragonfly (talk) 13:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Unexplained change

The site in question is registered to one Anne McLoughlin in Dublin, IE. (Proof) — NRen2k5^(TALK), 04:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Trans time-line or time-map

There is a need to present an over-view of the transition process. People who live or work with someone who is transitioning should be able to see what the process comprises, where the transperson is in the process and what is still to come.

Various aspects would need to be represented in more than one time-map. Aspects aimed at a particular audience or for a particular purpose could be grouped on one time-map. Topics for time-maps could be: Self-discovery and self-acceptance, Coming-out at work, Transitioning with family, etc. Aspects would include: Emotional issues, relationships, hormonal issues, physical and surgical issues, medical issues, legal issues, etc.

Please comment and suggest. TranWen (talk) 06:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be interested to read such an overview. The Transitioning article is quite brief and vague at the moment, and might be a good place to start. If you can get objective ranges for timescales that'd be really good. Pseudomonas_(talk) 12:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Transgender vs. Transsexual

I am not an expert in this field and came to the article seeking only a clear explanation of the difference between 'transgender' and 'transsexual.' With all due respect, I did not find it here.

In fact, this is perhaps one of the most opaque pieces of writing I've yet encountered in the Wikipedia (blessed be its name); it would appear that the authors are furthering some argument the general reader would be unfamiliar with. No doubt there is a place for this subtle & nuanced discussion, but I would suggest that this is not it. Could someone knowledgeable in the field of transgender please distinguish the two terms in plain English? It would be greatly appreciated. --OldCommentator (talk) 02:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Transsexual is the more precisely defined term that researchers and clinicians use to describe people who undergo or want to undergo sex reassignment. Transgender has not precise definition; it is used by people who are persuing social and civil rights to refer broadly to people who do not conform to simple-male and simple-female. In some circumstances, these purposes align with each other, in some circumstances they do not, causing friction between researchers (who use precise terms) and activists (who sometimes find medical terms pathologizing). I hope that is a help.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 02:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I substantially rewrote the section based on a lot of personal knowledge about the subject. I transitioned many years ago and mentor young transsexuals. I'm not sure if the citations or my attempts at NPOV are adequate, but I tried to accurately recapitulate some of the issues I've seen crop up over and over again. (I think make some of those links could be reformatted to be proper citations?) I re-used some phrasing and citations from the (confusing) text that was originally there and MarionTheLibrarian's summary. Hopefully someone with more knowledge of wikipedia's standards can edit this into something that retains some of the facts and gist but is more consistent with wikipedia's general tone and "encyclopedic bias" (like cutting out text for ultra-minority positions).

It's probably too long, but I was hoping to help clarify what I know is a really complicated issue... The edit I left behind is here. --03:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Question Concerning Third Genders and Transgender

This may be a question that's best posted elsewhere, but here goes.

Is it really appropriate to describe third genders that exist in non-Western cultures as instances of transgender? If, for example, Indian culture contains three genders (male, female, and hjira), then a hjira is living in her culturally ascribed gender, one which doesn't map cleanly onto Western conceptions of "male" or "female". It would seem that, logically, to live in a culturally established third gender is basically the antithesis of transgender, as the behaviour is no transgression of gender roles within the relevant cultural context, but rather a full enactment of them.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether labelling non-Western cultures' third genders as "transgender" represents an inappropriate imposition of Western frames of reference on a cultural phenomenon that can only be correctly understood within a frame of reference derived from the relevant cultural context. If so, then to describe third genders as expressions of transgender may darken understanding of both the third gender under consideration and third genders in general, and may be as much a gross and simplistic distortion as to describe third genders (or for that matter transgender) as expressions of homosexuality. And it would seem to me that darkening and distortion of understanding would be something an encyclopedia would like to avoid.

Don't want no OR here; I'm certain that there is good, sourceable writing out there around this subject. It just seems to me a question worth raising. --7Kim (talk) 16:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Anne Lawrence

"Anne Lawrence, a physician and sexologist who is openly transsexual...".

Why is this relevant? Any relevance is not explained, only implied. forestPIG 20:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, this isn't something I'd go down to the mat for, but it's pretty typical to give basic identifying information about a person that is relevant to a topic. There exist people who say some hateful things about transgendered folks, and the statement that Lawrence makes can be mistaken as one when it's reduced to a single-sentence summary. Indicating that Lawrence is openly trans (in my mind, anyway) keeps the reader from getting the wrong idea.

As I said, I wouldn't go to the mat for this, so if you revert it, I'll leave it alone, but I do think that the page is better when it includes her trans status as part of her ID.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 20:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Criticism Section

Is it appropriate to have a criticism section included in an article about an identity category? I've just visited a number of other pages that concern themselves with various identity categories and found no criticism sections on those. The closest I found was a section on homophobia in the homosexuality article--which I feel has entirely different implications than a criticism section. Likewise, a section on transphobia seems appropriate to me. As it stands, my opinion is that the criticism section actually constitutes transphobia...

I apologize if this issue has already been discussed--I tried perusing the archives on the talk page and did not find anything about this. Schn0529 (talk) 18:18, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I would think I think the section is appropriate. There's a substantial amount of thinking in the popular consciousness and even in academia that's considered unfair and biased by transgendered people. Look at the "Anne Lawrence" thing for a trivially accessible example. Anne Lawrence is a published sexologist and transsexual who draws a substantial amount of antipathy from nearly all the transsexuals I know who are aware of her. She's widely shunned for her "research". If there wasn't a criticism section then where would this content go? Perhaps the section could be prefaced by an NPOV comment along the lines of "The framing of the following criticisms is itself subject to controversy, some contending that these are factually relevant problems with the concept or the people the concept applies to. An alternative view is that these criticisms are largely based in Transphobia." -07:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.217.176 (talk)

I think that the criticism section needs to go, but not because it's inappropriate. Wikipedia aims to accomplish a neutral point of view and I think that can best be accomplished by separating an article into major conceptual components, and then describing the spectrum of views for each component. I think that there are some things that are worth separating out, such as "Religious views of Transgender" but there's already an entire article for that. I really agree with the criticism flag:

Right now, much of the article reflects the various views held by the transgender community, some excellent biological and cultural explanations, and then has all of the material that's, well, non-trans-sanctioned pushed to the end. I think that the information in 7.3 "As a mental disorder" should be combined with 4.1 "Mental healthcare", the religious view of transgender should just be a "See Also" unless we have more to say about it here, since there's an entire article on it. 7.4 "As driven by libido" is frankly a really confusing section, and I'm pretty well-versed in the social and scientific jargon and theory of transgender. I have no idea how to incorporate that, it seems like it might go in with discussion of androsexuality and gynosexuality as focusing on sexual preference versus specific sex pairings (Transgender vs. Sexual Orientation?). I think 7.1 "Gender tied to sex" should definitely be covered in the earlier sections that discuss sex and gender. I actually think that discussing conservative views of the relationship between sex and gender alongside the various modern views of this relationship would really strengthen the explanation, conceptually. Though perhaps they don't represent the bulk of the people who read this article, a significant percentage of the people reading this article may have no knowledge of transgender or queer culture, and will hold the "traditional" views, not out of any biggotry, but simply in ignorance. I think that it's important to explain the background of where we came from and why we've arrived where we are today (by we I mean the queer/trans community) rather than simply giving the rundown of the current PC views. --Hurtstotouchfire (talk) 22:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much everything you just said. --Alynna (talk) 00:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

As a friendly suggestion please try one piece at a time and see how it goes. I generally support what you've stated but it's a touchy enough subject that just doing everything at once might be "too" much. If everything but one sticking point is successfully merged we can do an RfC to get input on how to handle it if needed. Banjeboi 08:16, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Body Integrity Identity Disorder

This similarity between transsexuality and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (or apotemnophilia as BIID might also be understood as) has been inserted into the main text of transexuality twice now [9][10] without an edit comment. The second time it was given a citation... exactly the same citation it already had in the criticism section. I understand that BIID people might see the similarity but most people don't even know that BIID even exists, even aside from some people thinking it's related to transsexuality. It's controversial. Hence, if it's even in the article it should be covered in the criticism secion and be treated with an eye towards NPOV. It shouldn't be the first thing mentioned in the transsexuality section about surgical issues, without even mentioning the controversial nature of claim that BIID is relevant. -SemiAnonymous 02:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• I am one of the two editors who felt that the Lawrence reference is relevant. I still believe it is relevant, although I certainly acknowledge that it will be disliked by many people who feel that such comparisons might delay the recognition of their civil rights.
• It's inaccurate to imply that only "BIID people might see the similarity..."; Lawrence is herself openly transsexual, and is an expert on the psychology of transsexualism. Moreover, what who might say about what is not relevant to whether to include the idea in WP.
• I do not believe that it is appropriate to relegate the statement to the controvery section. (I don't think it's even appropriate for that section to have 'sexual obsession' in the title: No RS has ever used such a term.) It's merely an opinion of a qualified professional author, and it should be conveyed to readers just like any other opinion from a qualified professional author, despite that some (or you or I) don't like its implications.
• Finally, a note about usage: apotemnophilia is to autogynephilia as BIID is to GID. These terms are often used improperly.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 02:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You're pushing your point of view on this Marion. Most, and by most, I mean the vast vast majority of sexologists dealing with transsexualism do not see a relation to BIID. Specifically, while Lawrence is noted to be an open transsexual, she is also an open "autogynephile", and as such, her representation of transsexualism does not have enough coverage to be considered "mainstream", and she herself has placed herself in the "fringe" portion of transsexual sexology by her own comments, and her insistence upon pushing "autogynephilia" onto other transwomen. Her references in the area of transsexual sexology are by nature controversial. There is also much to point out that Lawrence didn't pursue this sort of BIID-connection until she was essentially shut out of mainstream trans sexology. Her position is that BIID want something removed from their body, or something amputated, and so do transsexuals, completely disregarding the matter of why this action wants to be taken. Transsexuals tend to either be primarily interested in being socially accepted as a female, or being visually acceptable as a female. The members of the first don't have anything close to BIID, except that they want surgery to correct various facets of their physical form... do women who want breast augmentation have BIID? Does my friend have BIID because her large breasts cause her enormous pain, and inconvenience, and thus she wants to get a breast reduction? No, neither is the case. Conflating GID and BIID incorrect, because just even linking them together is a stretch. Take an arbitrary MTF, stop her natural puberty, then let her experience the puberty that she anticipates... she'll be invariably indistinguishable from a natal female. If she gets surgery, yeah, she'll be amputating something, but typically that is the lesser important part. There is notably and understandably grave concern among trans sexologists when someone expresses the idea that surgery will correct all their problems, meanwhile, that's almost the definition of what would be the most effective treatment for BIID. This isn't a case (usually) where someone simply wants to remove their penis and get a vagina, and not change anything else about their life. This contrasts with BIID, where that is the focus of all of their concern... removing that body part, and not changing anything else in their life. --Puellanivis (talk) 01:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, "(I don't think it's even appropriate for that section to have 'sexual obsession' in the title: No RS has ever used such a term.)" Lawrence herself defines autogynephilia as a sexual obsession of a man to obtain a female body... so, um... I don't know where you're getting your support for this... Lawrence, I think herself, would openly state that she believes that autogynephilia is a "sexual obsession". --Puellanivis (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• The funny thing about perceiving a POV is that one can never tell if the POV perceived is actually the reflection of one's own. It seems to me that you have no way of breaking free of that than I do. Nonetheless:
• Regarding what is believed by the "vast vast majority of sexologists..." How exactly can you know what they believe? There has never been a survey, and I don't recall seeing you at any sexology meetings. Personally, I have been a professinal sexologist for over a decade, I am a member of several sexology associations, and I serve on the editorial boards of the three largest journals in the field...and I still would never presume to say I know what the majority thinks. So, unless I have missed running into you all these years at all these conferences, it seems to me that you have no way of knowing this either. I am not saying you are not entitled to your opinions on this matter, I am pointing out that you have little basis for making claims about other people's beliefs.
• Next, I am surprised to hear a scientist ask me for references to show what Lawrence did not say. It is a basic tenet of science that one does not prove the null hypothesis. The onus is instead on you to show that Lawrence did refer to autogynephilia as a sexual obsession. (Moreover, it makes no sense to call any specific sexual interest as a sexual obsession. All sexual interest is an obsession.) I note that neither you nor the article here contains a reference supporting that Lawrence used such language. If she did, then it would, of course, be easy for you to show me wrong just by producing the location of where she did. (I am perfectly willing to admit when I make an error, as you have seen me do previously.)
• Your description of Lawrence' comparison between the GID and BIID entities does not (to me) at all resemble what she says in her article. Your description does, however, closely resemble what other people have said that Lawrence says. If you have trouble locating a copy of the original article, I would be happy to email it to you.
• I don't know at all to whom you are referring by "mainstream trans sexology." Exactly how many transsexual sexologists other than Lawrence and Maxine Petersen (who also supports autogynephilia) are there who published more than, say, two or three papers on transsexuality in peer-reviewed journals? Moreover, Lawrence also serves on the American Psychological Association's task force for making recommendations on trans-relevant policies, having been invited to do so by the President of the APA. So, although she may certainly be in the minority relative to rank-and-file psychologists/physicians or the transsexual population, when compared to the professional sexologists who actually conduct and publish research on the topic, she is at the epicenter.
• As I said, you have every right to disagree with Lawrence. However, your statements above are not actually disagreeing with Lawrence, they are instead disagreeing with a caricature of her statements, none of which she has ever made or believed.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 02:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I started this section on the discussion page with the first paragraph above. I the bit with the two links to edit comparisons that I'll repeat again: [11] [12]

My objection to these edits not that BIID was mentioned. It was that it practically defined transsexuality as "BIID but for penises". Which is just rediculous on a number of levels. I know that there are academics who care for neither the political consequences of their theories (so long as they are nominally true under the games of peer review and grant funding) nor the self defined well being of groups of emotionally fragile and incredibly stigmatized women they're studying. And those academics seem to find theoretical similarities between BIID and GID and it gets past peer review so obviously it's got some place somewhere... like I said its "nominally scientifically true".

But the edits I was complaining about were anonymous "IP signed" edits (as, full disclosure, are mine) that turned this (which was not in the controversy section but in with the basic facts at the top):

Many transsexual people also want to change their bodies. These physical changes are collectively known as sex reassignment therapy and often include hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery.

Into this:

Many transsexual people have a wish to alter their bodies and parallels can be drawn to those those with body integrity identity disorder These physical changes are collectively known as sex reassignment therapy and often include hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery.

I mean, "transsexuality" isn't even fully out of the gate and already some framing or another of an "amputation fetish" is being introduced as basically the same thing. It happened twice and I moved it down to the controversy section twice and the second time I did so I started this discussion to say "I noticed this and made these changes and if anyone honestly thinks the raw initial definition of transsexuality should include a nod to BIID they should say so and explain why". And I don't see a defense happening of the placement in the basic explanation of what transsexuality even is. Leave it in the controversy section - cool, fine by me - just don't make it an essential part of the definition.

My basic problem here is that with those edits transsexuality hasn't even been defined in the article before things that it may or may not be similar to are being tossed in. The apotemnophilia thing maybe belongs as it's own section in the transsexuality article where you can actually maybe play "compare and contrast" if you want. But the purpose of that section is to vaguely sketch the major points about "one of the identities under the transgender umbrella" and not to leap into gross minutia about that identity.

Fer crissakes, if "the operation" isn't like the sine qua non of transexuality in the public mind, what is? But then BIID jumps in and gets a blue link before sex reassignment surgery? Like, seriously, the edit seems "blind to context and tone" as near as I can tell.

-SemiAnonymous 14:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Marion... you don't even know who I am. And need I remind you that a prominent member of Wikipedia was publicly sanctioned for claiming that he had a Ph.D.? Like seriously, that you are a "sexologist" has all of shit to do with credibility here. Credibility here is based on sources.

Now, Anne Lawrence self-identifies as an autogynephile, this is well known, and her own site's Autogynephilia FAQs] contains the text: "One set of symptoms, the rarer of the two, involves pervasive feminine attitudes and behaviors, which are present from early childhood, and which are so strong that they are nearly impossible to conceal. Males with these symptoms are almost always sexually attracted exclusively to males. The other set of symptoms, the more common of the two, involves sexual arousal to cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy. Men with these symptoms are almost never sexually attracted exclusively to men: they may be attracted to women, to women and men, or to neither sex." Note, that Anne Lawrence openly admits that she is not the prior, but the former. Thus, she self-identifies as an autogynephile. THIS IS NOT A SECRET.

You don't have to email me a copy of her document concerning the relation between BIID and GID]. I said, "Her position is that BIID want something removed from their body, or something amputated, and so do transsexuals, completely disregarding the matter of why this action wants to be taken. Transsexuals tend to either be primarily interested in being socially accepted as a female, or being visually acceptable as a female. The members of the first don't have anything close to BIID, except that they want surgery to correct various facets of their physical form..." to quote from her article, "Desire for amputation of a healthy limb has usually been regarded as a paraphilia (apotemnophilia), but some researchers propose that it may be a disorder of identity, similar to Gender Identity Disorder or transsexualism. Similarities between the desire for limb amputation and nonhomosexual male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism include profound dissatisfaction with embodiment, related paraphilias from which the conditions plausibly derive (apotemnophilia and autogynephilia), sexual arousal from simulation of the sought-after status (pretending to be an amputee and transvestism), attraction to persons with the same body type one wants to acquire, and an elevated prevalence of other paraphilic interests." (emphasis mine) Please, please, PLEASE tell me, how I'm misrepresenting her information?

When I say "mainstream trans sexology" I'm referring to the individuals, even lay persons who consider and discuss trans sexology... Note, I didn't say "mainstream trans sexologists" I said, "sexology". And, whoop-dee-do other sexologists think she isn't full of bullshit... sexologists believed that homosexuality was wrong for a very long time, and some of them still feel that it's an "abnormal" condition. (plesphmagraph anyone? (yeah, I probably misspelled it, I don't care to even look for the correct spelling right now.))

"As I said, you have every right to disagree with Lawrence. However, your statements above are not actually disagreeing with Lawrence, they are instead disagreeing with a caricature of her statements, none of which she has ever made or believed." <--- wtf? Ok, do I need to go over my sources again? She says she's an autogynephile, she openly and honestly calls autogynephilia (and other paraphilias) an "erotic target location error". IN THE VERY DOCUMENT that you tell me that I'm "misrepresenting". Do you actually learn anything when you read papers, documents, and material? or do you just use it to confirm your already pre-established conception? (Note: nothing wrong with the later, because 95% of the population does so. It's not an "error" or a "mistake" it's normal human variation.) --Puellanivis (talk) 23:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

If you remove from your above comments its incivility, I would be happy to respond to the remainder. My credentials are genuine. If you are so moved, you can read about my work on my University website at http://individual.utoronto.ca/james_cantor.

— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 10:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the discussion between you two could be better focused if you each suggested specific content or edits for the article? This is ranging rather widely maybe it would be more productive if the only facts to be argued were those that were being proposed for inclusion in the article itself? -SemiAnonymous 11:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

From my point of view, there are two content issues here: One is whether the Anne Lawrence article belongs appropriately in the controversy section, and the other is whether "sexual obsession" is an appropriate title to the section. I believe that "sexual obsession" instead should be "paraphilia." Neither Lawrence nor anyone else has referred to autogynephilia as a sexual obsession ("sexual obsession" is used only by opponents of autogynephilia to try to reduce it to a characature of what it actually says). Second, I do not believe that Lawrence' article belongs in the controversy section. For whatever reason, the controversy section is yet another re-hash of the same Bailey-bashing as on so many other trans-related article on WP, and the Lawrence article has nothing to do with Bailey's book. Including it there is not good editing, it's merely a tarring of all unpopular ideas into a single bin without further reflection.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 18:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I did an edit on the entire criticism section just now, including changing "sexual obsession" to "driven by libido". Partly this is simple accuracy - the BBL theory actually has two prongs, one of which is based on paraphilia (that being AG) and the other based on "really extreme effeminate gayness including the desire to hook up with less complication with guys". So... "libido" covers both cases and removes the "sexual obsession" framing that critics would use.

In the meantime, I really oppose moving the BBL stuff up into the main text. You can see how controversial it is by looking at the crazy number of citations in that section. Also, the fact that Anne Lawrence's "coming out as AG" essay now notes that it's a second version re-written in response to huge controvery. Also, the fact that there is organized activism with thousands of people opposing the academic framing. And so on. It seems to me like this actually is controversial and should be "off on the side" where the controversy can be contained... rather than mixed into the main text.

My goals are to clean up the criticism section a bit more (upping the scholarship and getting rid of the "citation needed" tags) and then removing both the merge suggestion and the request for more citations in that area.

-SemiAnonymous 13:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Transgender vs. Transsexual

This entire section needs to be focused and rewritten.

For a while this section was actually pretty coherent but that was because it was basically all written by me you can see what it used to look like here. Roughly, I was trying to document the stress on the terms by documenting the way they are used by different speech communities with different beliefs and goals (rather than asserting that there was a single coherent meaning to each term such that a clear and authoritative contrast could be described).

Then Hfarmer made these edits which substantially reduced the content (though the opening paragraph did gain a lot of citations). I'm hoping that this objection (by some third party who didn't sign?) has been addressed by the twiddle. I'll go add something to Hfarmer's talk page to see if some sort of coherent editorial aim can be figured out for this section after finishing this comment.

-SemiAnonymous 22:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I was the one who wrote that objection. The way the article was before talked about HBS and had no scholarly citations. What I wrote cited Harry Benjamins work where he actually defines who is a transsexual. Thereby defining who is transgender (gender variant people who re NOT transsexual). Understand?--Hfarmer (talk) 01:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I see where you are comming from. You want to emphasize the centrality of sex reassignment surgery as definieng who is and is not a transsexual. The fact is that clinicians, i.e. Harry benjamin, the ones at the clinic I go to. Do not define transsexuals that way. Is it not true that there are people who want SRS but do not want to live as women. Consider the strange saga of Gregory Hemmingway. As a matter of fact I think this serves as a refutation of your POV along with Dr. Benjamin's primary reference (his scale where "true transsexuals" can indeed be non-op). I am going to revert to the last version. Do not change this again unless you have a concrete and more autoritative reference than Harry Benjamin's book (which does not exist he is the Newton of transsexual science).--Hfarmer (talk) 01:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I have made my changes let me now explain them. To the claim that "Clinicians define a transsexual as someone who want's SRS". I have found a couple of references that show that is bunk. Gregory Hemmingway who had SRS but did not live as a woman at all. A clinicians website which talks about Female to male transsexuals but does not define them by wanting SRS. In contrast to Hemingway I have found on youtube a compliation of comments by Miriam, a well known non-op, about how she sees herself, transsexualism, etc. A person who lives as a woman yet does not desire SRS. Last but not least the Benjamin scale which explicitly says twice that there are non-surgical transsexuals as well as "true transsexuals" for whom body modifications other than genital surgery exist and are transsexuals. Enough of this nonsense about the OP being the defining quality of a transsexual already. --Hfarmer??

Can you not throw citations at me? For all that I'm a published scientist I pretty much hate the way citations are deployed in wikipedia to win arguments. It's particularly bad with they are wrapped in <ref> tags rather than simple [links] because then you can't even follow them easily to see the original context. Also, I hope you don't mind that I edited text above your quotes, but some of your references were so broken that they prevented the rest of this page from rendering properly.... If I have a POV here it's that I hate wikipedians obsession with other people's writing :-P

And just to clarify, I think you might be assuming that I have an pro-HBS point of view and really I don't. Creating neologisms for gender variance seems pretty silly to me. I just quoted from those activists because they provided a relatively concise explanation of the general thesis that "operative transsexuals" are generally seen with a great deal more sympathy in isolation from other forms of gender variance and that the less sympathetic people are parasitizing public good will by seeking to be lumped with them.

As to the content you're providing citations for, I totally understand that there are people who get genital surgery but don't present in the gender role their new genital configuration would imply. Also, there are "non-op" transsexuals who present according to their internal sense of self but would refuse SRS even if offered for free. I really didn't need citations to "prove" such people exist. I already know they do and generally feel that everybody should pretty much do what they can to be happy without hurting anyone else. To me, it's pretty much all good until injury of third parties comes into it.

The trick is, the "operative non-transsexuals" aren't salient as no one that I'm aware of really claims that they are really transsexual, people just think they're weird guys. And the "non-operative transsexuals" who present as a gender that accords with their internal sense of self rather than their genitals generally still use hormones and sometimes other treatments like nose jobs or injections in their hips or whatever... those people still seek out medical care of some sort and still deal with medical practitioners who think of them as transsexuals (of some sort). So we agree on that point: that non-ops are a variant of the category "transsexual" (though not the prototype of the category).

The thing I source of our disagreement is whether any of the conservative objections to a "wide scope" definition of transsexuality should even be mentioned. I had them in and you keep cutting them. But you haven't really justified the cut. I think what I'm going to try to do is rework the article a little bit to include some of the conservative position but to highlight non-ops as a matter of controversy, where some conservatives insist that they are not transsexual but that this isn't really consistent with it's long term historical use since Benjamin days. Does that sound like better balance? -SemiAnonymous 04:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all you say one thing about non-operative transsexuals here and wrote something totally differnt in the article. Second of all wikipedia is all about citations. Our own personal thoughts or analysis are by WP policies irrelevant therefore citations are king. Learn this fact and you will prosper at wikipedia. Thrid of all the references I cited are the most autoratative sources possible. As I wrote Harry Benjamin is the Newton of transsexual science, Harry benjamin defined who is and is not a transsexual by way of his scale on which transsexuals can be level 5 "true transsexuals" and not desire the operation. Instead using hormones (and I suppose other non genital cosmetic surgeries,) as a substitute for genital surgery. Since what I have wrote is based on autoratative sources it is by definition neutral "just the facts". The source you cite is not nearly as authoratative, nor as accessible and cross checkable. Basically you cited one source then produced a bunch of original research (see WP:OR and WP:RS) For those reasons I would bet 9/10 experienced wikipedians would see this my way.

The policies here seem strange but after a long time here you see the wisdom in them. It is those policies that compell me to cite a source for virtually every sentence in an article. --Hfarmer (talk) 05:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

please someone clarify this

...trans <L, combination form meaning across, beyond, through] and [gender <ME <MF gendre, genre <L gener- meaning kind or sort]

it is totally confusing. Thanks. NPOV-V-NOR 22:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The etymology is correct, but I can see your point. In English, "gender" has come to mean self-conceptualization as male or female and is used to make a distinction from biological sex. Historically, though, the word means "kind or sort" and it is in this sense that linguists speak of grammatical gender. As the article is written, however, I think the modern English meaning is made pretty clear. TechBear (talk) 01:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If it was clear, I wouldn't ask for clarification! ;-) NPOV-V-NOR 18:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Dropped citation?

I'm wondering about this edit where a citation was just cut out dropped without discussion. Well, the edit comment said that there was a discussion on Talk:Homosexual transsexual that justified the edit but (1) the wikipedia jargon there was opaque to me and (2) it seems like individual pages shouldn't be setting policy for all the other pages without even talking about it where a different set of editors are operating. Like that article is about a theoretical construct from a controversial academic theory rather than like actual people... so maybe the standards of acceptability should be different there? Like that discussion worked under the assumption that if it wasn't peer reviewed then it wasn't "allowed in". Which makes sense for a write-up of academic stuff... but like... not really for a polical term designed to capture a variety of personal identities and bind them into a functioning political community. If something was published somewhere that the public can access and you're claiming "this was publicly stated" how is it not valid to say that it was publicly stated and then cite the statement as evidence? Am I missing something? Basically... whuuh?? My inclination is to put it back because it's appropriate for this article, but I'll hold off if the concensus goes against me.

-SemiAnonymous 10:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The discussion on homosexual transsexual pertained to whether Wyndzen's comments met WP:RS and could therefore be used as a reference in WP. Except for one person (user:Jokestress), the consensus was that Wyndzen's comments did not. SemiAnonymous is entirely correct that different pages can come to different conclusions, but because the people who follow the transgender page are largely the same people as those who edit the homosexual transsexual page, there didn't (to me) seem to be a reason to repeat the discussion. Nonetheless, if you'd like to re-visit the decision specifically for this page, you certainly have that right.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 14:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

So after looking up "WP:RS" I'm wondering how the claim that someone claims the theory is unfalsifiable isn't backed up by text like this (which was being cited - bold added for this context):

In most other areas of psychology, including my own, there are long standing debates between psychological scientists. We advocate very different views about how children develop. Consequently we conduct studies designed from very different perspectives, yielding an often perplexing set of difficult-to-reconcile results. It is through the debate between these many perspectives that Developmental Psychology has advanced over the years. Yet without debate to push research into transsexuality, Blanchard's theory sits stagnant. Worse still, in the absence of progress, I have noticed some researchers' tendency to turn Blanchard's theory into an unfalsifiable unscientific dogma. For example, even though Blanchard's results are based on self-report from transsexuals, there are actually researchers who dismiss as lies any accounts given by transsexuals that are inconsistent with Blanchard's model.

As a scientist, I do not like seeing this happen to my field. But as a transsexual, I feel uncomfortable turning my personal experiences into a significant part of my career. Transsexuality is only a small part of who I am; it is not my life. I have other research questions that I am far more passionate about. Instead of building my own research program, I would like to offer the following critique of Blanchard's model in hopes that pushing the scientific debate will foster progress in our theoretical understanding of gender incongruence. Perhaps this essay can help inspire current students of psychology who would find pursuing these research questions as fascinating as I find the questions I study.[13]

Like, this text contains a coherent position that comes up around trans stuff all the time, and the single word with the citation to this text captured that position and documented it "being live" by pointing to someone who is both a "head shrinker" (kinda medical) and "in the transgender community" so.... err.... How does it violate WP:RS to say "people say X" and then cite an example of someone saying X? That citation does offer support for the statement "Characterizations related to libido like these have been criticized by many in the medical and transgender communities alike as being potentially unfalsifiable" right? Am I missing something obvious here?

I guess part of the issue here is that the article is about a really tiny and stigmatized group of people who are being studied by an even smaller group of scientists in well... in a way that's either (1) haphazard and hurtful (according to people who feel the the sociopolitical survival of their life and self is at stake) or (2) abstractly beneficial and scientific (according to people who feel their chosen academic reputation/career is at stake). So you just explain that there is some controversy and say: "this is what was said in sexology journals [cite to journals]" and "this is what was said by the pissed off 'objects of study' [cite their speech]". Then (assuming you've done NPOV well) the reader is aware that reasonable people can disagree and falls too deeply under the spell of neither side. Hopefully truth wins in the end :-) - SemiAnonymous 00:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem is not what Wyndzen said, but where she said it. At least, WP policy is neutral regarding the content of Wyndzen's claims, but requires us to limit inclusion to claims made in outlets that undergo fact-checking, such as peer-reviewed journals in the case of science. Wynzden chose (for whatever reasons) not to use such an outlet.

Wyndzen's comments are largely an expression of her opinion, which is perfectly legitimate for her to do. An opinion that is notable enough to be encyclopedic, however, must at least have been made by someone with some demonstrable expertise in the area. There is no evidence that Wyndzen is such a someone...in fact, she essentially says in her quote that she is not an expert on the research topic.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 01:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

So then... I would say that if we need "only experts" then the right expert on a claim about what's falsifiable or not would be a philosopher of science or someone who studies epistemology. Not a sexologist. But given that this is an article about a term ("transgender") that's used primarily in cultural and political contexts (IE it's a non-scientific term about a tiny but controversial group of people) I would never expect to find someone like Ian Hacking to have time bother studying things to say something one way or the other. They have better things to do with their time than pronounce on the application of obscure theories of a handful of scientists to tiny groups of unusual people. I guess it just seems like this is one of those cases where requiring all citations to be to peer reviewed work involves a "foolish consistency" and "small minds" to me. It's a trade-off of a local optimization instead of a global simplification where good heuristics (like preference for peer review) can be misapplied. Well made rules and policies make sense in most contexts but can break on corner cases, and how is atypical gender not a really striking example of precisely a corner case?

The whole reason for the section where the citation was is that there's a group being studied and members of that group disagree sharply with the scientists who study them about the quality of the peer review, the rigor of the science, and the validity of the claims and the way they are applied in scientific, social, therapeutic, and political contexts. The quote was attributed as a statement by certain kinds of people. The citation supported the fact of the assertion. Isn't that the end of the story?

There are no experts on this like there are experts on evolution. The controversy around sexological theories of transsexuality is not itself an object of scientific study. There's no peer reviewed analysis of the rhetoric or the citation networks. However, the general cultural response to "complicated gender stuff" it's pretty definitely something the world is interested in and will be interested in 100 years from now... so it deserves to be in wikipedia even as it's difficult to exactly apply all the citation standards for lack of much strictly academic "peer reviewed" writing on the subject (that is, peer reviewed study of the epistemology behind the studies that are being so seriously questioned). As I said just above, if you're writing an article about a theoretical construct and it's use in a scientific field, stick to peer reviewed work in the main. That is what the homosexual transsexual article is about and that's where people decided to cut the citation in question. And then out of the blue you cut it here... without addressing the issue of the right way to apply certain standards here in this article rather than over in that one.

I mean, don't you see something facile about pointing to a wikipedia policy that says "stick to the science" when a large reason for there being terms like transgender "out in the world" (instead of just the more scientific terms like transsexual and transvestite and so on) is that the scientific terms are stigmatizing and the science behind the terms plays into the wider cultural blindnesses? The people it's attempting to study object to the science - and they're not just saying "no!!" they're saying "but you're throwing out evidence and doing funky stuff with your statistics!!". The objections here aren't like creationist objections where they say "no you have to look to the bible not the physical evidence", here the issue is precisely the claim that science is going awry and is not trustworthy for the same reasons good science is trustworthy. This particular science is being questioned precisely as not being scientific enough. Like it's accused of using things like "statistics" and "journals with peer review" the way a cargo cult uses radar towers made of wood but lacking actual radar equipment. Someone can even hide under a desk and make pinging noises, but that doesn't tell you where any planes actually are. The accusation in this context is that the sexological literature has pinging noises but doesn't say anything deeply true about trans people. Maybe wikipedia is getting ossified enough that it only cares about "radar tower shapes" and I just lose? But that seems to me like the wrong way to go here. An accusation like "unfalsifiability" is precisely an accusation that the science is broken... which is why it's truly relevant here, right next to the peer reviewed citations. - SemiAnonymous 22:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Objectivity questioned

This article is very one sided. It does not reflect the diversity of opinions, and when it presents any criticism of modern gender philosophy it immediately discounts it and dismisses it. I think it is comprimising the integrity of Wikipedia and needs an overhaul. The criticism section should be integrated into the main body of the article and the blatant negations of opinions contrary to those popular in the GLBT community should be deleted. Let the criticisms stand on their own and let the public decide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.217.119.160 (talk) 12:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have specific proposals? Like, you kind of need to explain how it's an umbrella term because that's kind of what it is. What would be the plan? Like, weave criticisms of each sub-identity into each of their descriptions without doing NPOV attribution of the stuff as a oppositional perspective to be contrasted with a non-stigmatizing perspective? Or, yeah, can you give an example instead of a general complaint? -SemiAnonymous 14:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.217.176 (talk)

One thing I might suggest regarding the article's objectivity is it's somewhat glib explanation of the various religious responses to this matter. The only example it gives of the diversity of thought within Christianity, for example, is to cite a single reference from the Bible for an interpretation contrary to transgender identity while "citing" four separate possible references supporting the identity. But in reality, the single reference made in contradiction is the only specific verse given, while the four references in support only offer hyperlinks to entire books of the Bible, three of which are very long. Hence, it seems to me the references "cited" in support of transgender identity are far too ambiguous to provide the reader with any tangible notion of how religious groups use these books to sympathize with the GLBT movement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.64.3.30 (talk) 17:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this is pretty biased. There are lots of references to "the sex assigned at birth" (is someone just handing these assignments out randomly?), as opposed to some neutral term like "birth sex" or "inherent sex." "Sex" and "gender" are used interchangably throughout most of the article, despite their precise use being rather important to the topic, and this is handwaved with something about "pragmatic English" not distinguishing the terms well. The only reference to the immutability of chromosomes is labelled a "conservative view," although it's just a biological fact. It'll take a great deal of cleanup to make this article passable. Perhaps I'll take a stab at it later this week, although it's a daunting task. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.246.169.98 (talk) 01:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Tipton portrait.jpg

The image Image:Tipton portrait.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --14:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Cross-dresser, Transvestite, Drag kings and queens

I'd like to recommend that these three sections (Cross-dresser, Transvestite, Drag kings and queens, all under the "Transgender identities" section) might be out of place, and/or might need some clarification. The APA (among others) state that being transgender includes some element of gender identity, and most definitions of those three words specifically do not include gender identity. Here's the APA answer on their website to "What does transgender mean?":

Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe people whose gender identity (sense of themselves as male or female) or gender expression differs from that usually associated with their birth sex. Many transgender people live part-time or full-time as members of the other gender. Broadly speaking, anyone whose identity, appearance, or behavior falls outside of conventional gender norms can be described as transgender. However, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-atypical will identify as a transgender person.

They do include a "broadly speaking" definition that *might* include a transvestite, but doesn't necessarily. Since those three labels are not necessarily transgender (though a person who uses one of the labels might identify as transgender), I believe they need to be combined, placed at the end of the "Transgender identities" section, and they need to be clarified with a ref. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 01:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be interpreting the word transgender in a way I haven't seen it interpreted in a long time. A long time ago, in the early to mid 90's it was in vogue for transsexuals to refer to ourselves as transgender. Because it emphasized the gender instead of the sex. (i.e. use yahoo to find transsexual back then all one would get is porn, use transgender and one could find useful information for transition. It is not that way anymore.) Basically you are holding that transgender is another word for transsexual.

The common understanding of the word now is that it is an umbrella for any and all non standard gender presentations. Where "standard" is that males act as typical men, and females act as typical women. Whatever that means for a given society and culture. This takes in many many self expressions which would not have anything to do with the notion of "gender identity" as it is philosophized by most current western transacademics.

i.e. The term drag queen. Has been used to refer to males, usually gay, who would perform onstage dressed as women and dress as women no where else. It has also been used by some full time transwomen to refer to themselves though this is a dated usage the term "full time drag queen" has been used and is still used by some. (In many ways this and simmilar terms has been superseded by "non-op transsexual".) Basically I don't think that there is any reason to erase from this article those who embrace their gender while accepting their biological sex. --Hfarmer (talk) 10:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

We agree with the foregoing author. The majority of our customers are heterosexual males who identify with their feminine side. They are not interested in changing their biological sex, but like to dress like women. Who has the right to say what is "normal". What works for one may not for another. It's our differences that make the world a spectacular place to live and we are proud helping those celebrate their true beauty within.Crossdresser Closet

Help me out here - the definition I'm referring to comes from the APA website. They may be out of date, too, and I was unaware that the definition has changed so much. Could you provide refs for this and/or some reading to help me out, because this isn't matching my understanding.

The other definition I'm working with is Cromwell, Jason (1999), Transmen and FTMs, University of Illinois Press, p. 23, ISBN 0252068254:

First, it designates individuals who do not fit into the categories of transvestite and transsexual. ... Transgender is viewed as a "viable option between crossdresser [transvestite] and transsexual". (Holly, 1991:31)

Second, "transgender is used as an encompassing term for transvestites and transsexuals as well as for those who do not fit neatly into either category.

So I see that the second definition is the one you are referring to, whereas the first is the one I'm more familiar with. The one I'm familiar with includes gender identity, and I totally don't understand how the definition can include gender presentation without taking into account gender identity? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 16:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd argue not for clarification -- although that would be good, I think the confusion over terminology derives from the subject, not the article -- but combination. According to any sensible system, these are one subsection, and should be combined. The subsection on transvestite, for example, clearly states it is a synonym for the previous subsection, then adds 6 citations!

I would combine myself, but other comments have convinced me that the sensitivity to the use of certain terms is a sensitive matter, and the rules are not often clear to newcomers.JakartaDean (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Difference between ⚥ and ⚧

In my studies I have come across these two characters. Out of my curiosity, does anyone know the difference (in terms of meaning, not obvious looks)? -PatPeter 04:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I found it, the first one refers to transgender individuals, the other hermaphrodites. -PatPeter 23:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

i just gotta say, i don't think there really is any sort of formal definition/distinction between the two. ⚧ seems far more common among the trans community (to denote transgender, intersexed, and all other individuals that might not fit the standard gender binary). I rarely see ⚥ used much of anywhere, frankly.Rootneg2 (talk) 06:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

While agreeing with Rootneg2, I would add that the latter image, ⚧, includes a "leg" that encompasses both the male and female symbol, i.e. including a third gender, bigender, genderqueer, or other trans identity that actively incorporates/presents elements of both genders, whereas many transmen would only actively identify/present as men, or transwomen as women. This distinction (or rather additional inclusion) is important as it challenges the now-defunct notion that transgender people are always and simply a man in a woman's body or vice versa. -Sean, a bigender wiki user without an account! 03 November 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.216.226 (talk) 03:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen ⚥, but I frequently see ⚧ used for transgender people. The latter symbol currently redirects to hermaphrodite - should it go to transgender instead? Or perhaps to LGBT symbols#Transgender symbols? Ideally, there should be an article on the symbol itself... --Alynna (talk) 14:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section

Per WP:STRUCTURE and all the other pages mentioned in the tag at the top of the section, I think the Criticism section should be eliminated, and its content distributed to the appopriate portions of the article. Specifically:

• The unsourced initial portion of the Criticism section can just be deleted.
• "Gender tied to sex" is mostly a criticism of the medical aspects of transitioning. That content can be moved to the "Physical healthcare" section. The opinion that "chromosomes exclusively determine gender and anything else is wrong" should be sourced, and then - not sure. Any ideas? If it's religiously based, it obviously goes in the religion section. If some notable anti-trans feminist said it, it could go in the currently-nonexistent section on feminism and trans people...
• "Autogynephilia" can go in the "mental healthcare" section since it's about the opinions of some psychologists.

If there are no objections in the next day or so, I'm going to be bold and start on this. --Alynna (talk) 14:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, done. Here's where it all went in the end:

• The unsourced initial portion was deleted.
• The criticism of medically transitioning was tagged 'citation needed' and moved to the "Physical healthcare" section.
• The "conservative view" that sex determines gender and so on was attributed to Janice Raymond (per the ref at the end of the paragraph) and placed in a new "Transgender people and feminism" section.
• The quote at the end of "Gender tied to sex" was attributed to Jerry Leach (per the ref), replaced with a description of his views, and moved to the "Transgender people and religion" section.
• The first half of the "autogynephilia" section, which was about that theory, was moved to the "Transgender people and science" section.
• The second half of the "autogynephilia" section, which was about Zucker and the DSM, was moved to the "Mental healthcare" section next to the GID discussion.

Some cleanup will be necessary now, and it's possible it will be determined that some of this stuff is actually too specific (or undue weight) for this article. --Alynna (talk) 14:10, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Photo

I noticed that the transgender article uses the same main photo as the transexual article. I suggest using a different one, maybe the one of Billy Tipton or the Civil War soldier photo. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Red link are created based on the following...

• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=transgender+psychology&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_allsubj=all&hl=en

--222.64.29.80 (talk) 14:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+transgender+policy&btnG=Search

--222.64.29.80 (talk) 14:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3Atransgender+biology&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

--222.64.29.80 (talk) 14:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

My gut feeling has been that the topic is closely associated with religious practices, feudalism and personal metaphysical karma--222.64.18.207 (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=transgender+religious&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_allsubj=all&hl=en --222.64.29.80 (talk) 14:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much by definition, links in "See Also" should lead to articles that can be read. Links to non-existent articles is pointless, so I've removed what you added. When those wiki articles are written, then you can readd the links. TechBear (talk) 14:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I have managerial reasons to create those links and see the endnotes with my editing--222.64.18.207 (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The proper procedure is to register as an editor, create the links on your own page, use those red-links to write the articles, then link to the articles from elsewhere. Red links should be avoided in an active article, and should not be added at all to a "See Also" section. TechBear (talk) 16:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I also wanted to add that the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and has policies of using verifiable, reliable sources, excluding original research and mimizing emphasis on fringe theories. Please keep these policies in mind when you edit the Wikipedia and write new articles. TechBear (talk) 16:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Status in France

This edit claims that transgender identity got removed from the list of mental disorder only recently. This contradicts Gender identity disorder#Controversy. The way I read it, Le Mondé just repeated some older news yesterday (compare [14] vs. [15]). However, I am not sure, could somebody who actually knows French help?--87.183.241.220 (talk) 13:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

See the discussion in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_LGBT_studies#Transgender_sexuality_article. A.A.Graff (talk) 15:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Wrong terminology

Hi, According to Wikipedea, Virgina Prince coined the name transgender, as a term for cross dressers,Please re check your references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.93.0.144 (talk) 19:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Section on religious views

The Bible verses cited are unclear on a number of levels. First, practically speaking, the links each lead to the first chapter of the cited book in the King James Version. That makes them effectively useless. When I went to edit the section, I saw the verse numbers are included in the source code, but apparently either the wrong Bible-citation template is being used, or it is being used incorrectly. I am not up-to-date on the current discussion on Bible citation templates but perhaps (for now at least) {{bibleverse}} should replace {{bibleref}}.

Second, the verses listed as potentially supportive of transgender need explanation. To those unfamiliar with whatever scholarship may have been done on this issue, they may seem vague at best to irrelevant at worst. It would be better to cite a secondary source from a theologian drawing support from those verses. I know there is a secondary article specifically for religion and transgender, but the summary present in this article should nevertheless be clear, if not detailed.

--Ginkgo100^talk 14:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

POV in mental health section

This section starts by preaching treatment, then switches to lambasting those that aim to 'cure' the transgendered. Neither POV is properly attributed, and the statements about Zucker's motives only come from activist sites. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Christianity

The section on religion needs to reflect that Christianity as a faith generally condemns lady men and the like. There are some Protestant denominations that have probably decided to tolerate such behavior but they're not of comparable following with more traditional denominations. K. the Surveyor (talk) 05:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Published evidence showed, demonstrated, or what?

On the mainpage, there is discussion of how best describe scientific findings. The page, thus far, uses words such as "show" to describe findings, such as:

In 1997, J.N. Zhou, M.A. Hofman, L.J. Gooren and D.F. Swaab conducted tests on the brains of transgender individuals. Their tests showed that...

Their study was the first to show a female brain structure...

Their study shows male to female transsexuals are...

I am of the opinion that to maintain NPOV, one would also described Blanchard's original taxonomic finding as:

Blanchard showed that there were...

or similar.
I am sure that other acceptible phrases can be found for describing research findings accurately, but describing a desired finding as "shown" but undesired findings as dubious is pretty much the definition of failing NPOV. What other NPOV options for phrasing can folks suggest?
— James Cantor (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

James, as an academic, you should know the difference between observed phenomenon (such as the size of a brain structure) and the result of a correlation between self-reported factors that are used as a proxy for the operationalization of a concept. So, what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation. Hence, he has NOT demonstrated that there are two types, but only shown that it is possible to subdivide the group in two subgroups using his criteria suggesting that maybe his idea is correct. Furthermore, in line with your pledge not to edit autogynephilia and related articles, I am surprised to see you popping up here. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Kim, 1. You appear to be addressing the wrong debate. Blanchard was making a taxonomic statement (i.e., what goes with what); he did not make and his data did not show either a correlation or a causation. He merely showed that the homosexual group was very distinct from all the other groups. As a postdoc, you should be able to recognize both correlations and their absence.

2. Blanchard did not take a group and divide it. Either you didn't read his papers or you are willfully ignoring their contents. Blanchard did the very opposite of dividing. He took what was then believed to be a multiplicity of phenomena and showed that they were reduceable to two. The lay literature usually gets this wrong, but the professional literature does a better job.

So, to get back to the mainpage: The discussion relevant here is how to describe Blanchard's (and any other) findings for readers in a way unpolluted from the views of the editor providing them. So, what exactly are you suggesting to use as text?

— James Cantor (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised you're surprised...Actually, I'm not surprised at all. Throughout our interactions, I have had the consistent impression that you react to what you think I am saying because I am a researcher, for example, rather than react to what I am actually writing. In fact, I have found myself wondering at your hostile tone towards me when your next edit was to express (to someone else) the very same idea I had just pointed out.

The pages I pledged not to edit were specifically to end a long series of edit wars with specific other editors (and my invitation that they join me in that self-imposed ban stands). This page was never wrapped up in the problem my pledge was meant to help solve. No mystery.

— James Cantor (talk) 21:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"In order to prevent whatever COI I might be perceived to have from affecting Wikipedia, I pledge not to edit article space of the pages listed below, and I invite both Dicklyon, Jokestress to do the same.... Autogynephilia ... " User:James_Cantor#A_pledge

Your phrasing here appears to acknowledge the (arguable) existence of a COI which may lead to an appearance of impropriety, rather than a temporary truce in edit wars on certain topics... which you will resume on another front.

Do you believe that editing a section on Autogynephilia in the Transgender article is somehow not (by analogy) a part of the "article space" on Autogynephilia?

Also, with respect to my earlier edit which you reverted: when I stated "Autogynephilia - deleted ULTRA-controversial minority claim by Anne Lawrence of relationship to aptemnophilia - THIS DOESN'T BELONG AT THE TOP!" in my edit summary, I meant to imply: Transgender is at a higher level conceptually than Transsexualism, and again that is at a higher level than Autogynephilia or the subject of "Similarities postulated between transsexualism and apotemnophilia". I don't see why such (admittedly interesting, yet recondite) arguments have found their way to the "top level" relating to "transgenderism" in general.

Just to note: I find that the organization of gender-related topics in Wikipedia is a wretched mess, and the articles themselves foci of partisan contention, so this topic creep isn't really surprising to me.

— bonze blayk (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes.

1. I gave my pledge in response to a series of edit wars on the pages I listed. Of the three of editors involved, only I made such a pledge. It was to specific pages, not a topic. To insinuate that I am somehow at fault for not going farther, when no other editor would go as far as I, is a bit silly.

2. We are now going back years since I gave that pledge, and have held to it, without exception. To call that temporary in wikipedia time is, again, a bit silly.

3. I'm not the one who put "autogynephilia" here, nor am I the one who put the neurological data here. I merely updated it with more recent RS's.

4. I agree entirely with the poor state of this family of topics and that the articles themselves are a series of scars from edit wars with community activists who do not like the picture emerging from the research, and so scapegoat and discount the researchers. Indeed, the extent of the activists' war against science has itself become a notable topic.

— James Cantor (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

No. I address the right debate. No, Blanchard first made an artificial grouping using two continuous variables (degree of attraction to men and women) in a cluster analysis dividing them in four groups by using the four corners of the square as reference points. The data are quite uneven positioned across the square. Anyway, he then uses this artificial grouping to see how they scored on certain factors:

Fisher Exact tests were used to compare the frequency with which subjects in the four clusters reported a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. As predicted, there were no differences among the asexual, bisexual, and heterosexual transsexuals, and all three groups included a much higher proportion of fetishistic cases than the homosexual group (p .0001, two-tailed).

This is a correlation between sexual orientation group and whether or not they have a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. So, now that we have that issue out of the way, we can find proper words for the correlation he found on which he based his topology. Words like suggest. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You're still not understanding your own point. You said "what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation", meaning that Blanchard was not able to make any causal statements. You are entirely correct that one cannot draw a causal conclusion from correlational data, but what I seem to be having trouble getting across is that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!

More to the point (that you are arguing from WP:IDONTLIKEIT): The specific paper you are talking about above is Blanchard (1985), an RS which does not even appear on the mainpage. Rather, statements about it are in the secondary sources that are on the mainpage (specifically, Bailey, 2003 and Smith et al., 2005). That you happen todisagree with Blanchard (1985)'s typology doesn't mean you get to change what the RS's say.

Next, you expressed in the above that you take neurological evidence over self-report evidence. For the record (and as a person who has published both neurological and behavioral/self-report research), I believe it is a grave intellectual error to hold neurological evidence to be automatically superior. Nonetheless, the typological question has been answered neurologically as well as on the basis of self-report. (Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded.) I have added to the mainpage two recent neurological studies (entirely independent of Blanchard) that show exactly the typology Blanchard predicted.

Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, Á, & Guillamon, A. (2011). The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45, 199-204. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006

Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032

Next, we have two neurological articles showing that the Zhou finding, for which you express favor, was in error. (One demonstrated that the BNST difference doesn't emerge until adulthood, and the other showed that the BNST changes in response to the hormone therapy that transsexuals take, thus indicating that the BNST difference prevously reported was due to hormonal therapy, no due to being the cause transsexualism.

Chung. W., De Vries, G., & Swaab, D. (2002). Sexual differentiation of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in humans may extend into adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 1027–1033.

Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Van Haren, N. E., Peper, J. S., Brans, R. G., Cahn, W., et al. (2006). Changing your sex changes your brain: Influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure. European Journal of Endocrinology, 155(Suppl. 1), S107-S114.

So, whether you use neurological vs. self-report as your criterion or independent replicability as your criterion (or anything else other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT) the same conclusion emerges. It is a pretty clear violation of WP:NPOV (and probably WP:OR) to say Blanchard's (repeatedly verified) finding suggests but Zhou's (repeatedly disproven) finding shows.

Perhaps you might bring this issue up at the neuroscience project for input?

— James Cantor (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry James, but your flood of words does not change things as they are. If someone finds a difference in the size of a specific part of the brain, that is a direct observation and the word show is appropriate. The interpretation of that is correlative, and show is not appropriate.

I am glad we agree that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!. I agree. Hence, he has not shown that autogynephilia explains gynephilic transwomen. Therefore, the word is inappropriate. It is his inference of the data.

Contrary to your impression, I do not hold neuroanatomical evidence to a higher standard, to the contrary, I believe that they both have their value in the appropriate study. I find you statement Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded. curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy. But I guess I should read that as that you disagree with disregarding those self-reports.

Now for the suggested demolition of the Zhou et al papers. The Hulshoff Pol et al paper does not address the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST or BSTc) part at all, just general brain volume and hypothalamus volume. The latter, where the BSTc is located, incidentally changes in the same way between MtF subjects and female controls. ZHpou et al also looked at one MtF who had not yet started hormone theray, and that person was square in the middle of the other MtF's. If you hypothesis would be correct, that person whould have been an outlier among the MtF's. So, the Hulshoff Pol et al paper does NOT invalidate Zhou et al.

The Chung et al paper essentially demonstrates that the differentiation of the BSTc occurs in late puberty, but that does not invalidate Zhou et al, it just pinpoints when the differentiation occurs.

So, now that we have dismantled your 'evidence' that you molded in what was obvious original research, we can go back to fixing the unwarranted strong support that you want to give your boss' hypothesis. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

(Outdenting)
1. It was never clear to me how or why you are so angry. Regardless of your emotions, I recommend replacing phrases such as "your flood of words" etc. with more AGF language.

2. It is still not clear why you are fighting against the idea that Blanchard said (or believes) that autogynephilia explains anything. He never provided it as an explanation. All Blanchard showed was that the multiple phenomena that were being described in those days could actually be described accurately as only two phenomena. There has not been an article in the many years since showing otherwise.

3. I never said you held neuro data to a higher standard.

4. There is nothing relevant to the mainpage about "curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy" and I have no need to join a war of sneers and to call it a discussion. I merely point out the danger, and what you "read" into what I say is not under my control. Your mind is clearly well made up.

5. I cannot describe Hulshoff Pol better than Hulshoff Pol, who directly addressed the Zhou data:

"The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis of the hypothalamus, larger in males than in females, was found to be of female size in six MFs and of male size in one FM. All these transsexuals had received cross-sex hormone treatment before their brains were studied. Therefore, the altered size of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis could have been due to the exposure of cross-sex hormones in adult life" (p. S108).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

6. Your interpretation of Chung is also incorrect. Zhou et al. wrote that "the small size of the BSTc in male-to-female transsexuals...is established during development by an organzing action of sex hormones" (p. 70). Because Chung found that the BSTc difference does not exist during development, it cannot be the cause. As Chung wrote:

"Late sexual differentiation of the human BSTc volume also affects our perception about the relationship between BSTs [sic] volume and transsexuality....Epidemiological studies show that the awareness of gender problems is generally present much earlier. Indeed, [about] 67-78% of transsexuals in adulthood report having strong feelings of being born in the wrong body from childhood onward" (p. 1032).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

Clearly, we are not going to see eye-to-eye on this any time soon. So, I repeat my earlier suggestion that input be sought from folks, such as at the neuroscience project, who can readily read the neurological data but have no stake in the topic itself.

(7. Blanchard is not my boss. In fact, he's retired.)
— James Cantor (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

arbitrary break

About [16] and [17], perhaps a solution would be to include the material in that paragraph, but to move it to another part of the page (not in the scientific studies section) and/or to rewrite it to include sources that disagree with it. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

A possibility, of course. But could you flesh out your thinking for me a bit? We have the best known scientist on the topic, writing in the best known scientific journal in the relelvant field, providing an hypothesis for what the scientific studies would show. What's the logic for moving that outside the science section?...especially when it can be followed by what the scientific studies do show?— James Cantor (talk) 17:15, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I may not have that much thinking to flesh out! As you know, I came to this page as someone who knows little about the subject matter here, but who is comfortable with neuroscience and who can look at the page with fresh eyes. What I see here is discussion about Blanchard being indeed well known but apparently, um, controversial, and the editor who wanted to remove the paragraph saying that it was a prediction, rather than a research finding. What I'm suggesting really does not come from any particular insight into the source material (I don't have such an insight), but from my sense of what is good editing practice on Wikipedia, and how the consensus process works. Based on what you say here, is there a way to present this in a single paragraph (so as to make the relationship clearer to the non-specialist reader) as (1) here is Blanchard's prediction, and (2, same paragraph) here is what the science actually found? Or, would it be better to delete the "predictions" paragraph, keep the description of the scientific findings, and instead put a summary sentence at the end of the scientific findings paragraph that points out how the results fit with the prediction that had been made by Blanchard? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

LOL Humility is a rare find on WP. (I think that makes me a Trypofan?)

Yes, Blanchard is well-known, and any discussion from WP would indeed suggest he is controversial. It's more accurate to say that his research led to a conclusion about the nature of transsexualism that some (prolifically vocal) transsexuals found un-flattering and attempt to discredit. (The big explosions started in 2003 when The Man Who Would Be Queen was published by J. Michael Bailey, bringing Blanchard's ideas to wider attention.) That's why I often seek external input rather than to repeat the same arguments with the same WP editors.

So, although our explicit conversation here is about good editing, the implicit conversation is the expectable one: Everything that agrees with Blanchard must be shot down, and everything that criticizes Blanchard must be included and emphasized, no matter how low the WP:RS bar must go. You'll notice, for example, that the Zhou finding is based on the smallest dataset ever reported, each aspect of that study failed to replicate, but it still receives the greatest mainpage attention even though the data repeatedly agree with Blanchard's prediction instead of Zhou's n of 6.

My personal opinion is that the Blanchard quote gives obvious context for the rest of the neuroanatomy section, but rather than take another ride on the edit war wagon, I'd likely follow your thus far uninvolved opinion.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:56, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! OK, then, what are the data that "repeatedly agree with Blanchard's prediction instead of Zhou's n of 6"? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, again. Sorry for the delay.

For reference, these are Blanchard's prediction(s): "The brains of both homosexual [androphilic] and heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals probably differ from the brains of typical heterosexual men, but in different ways. In homosexual male-to-female transsexuals, the difference does involve sex-dimorphic structures, and the nature of the difference is a shift in the female-typical direction. If there is any neuroanatomic intersexuality, it is in the homosexual [androphilic] group. In heterosexual [gynephilic] male-to-female transsexuals, the difference may not involve sex-dimorphic structures at all, and the nature of the structural difference is not necessarily along the male–female dimension."

The data for the first part of the prediction are in Gizewski et al. (Gizewski, E. R., Krause, E., Schlamann, M., Happich, F., Ladd, M. E., Forsting, M., & Senf, W. (2009). Specific cerebral activation due to visual erotic stimuli in male-to-female transsexuals compared with male and female controls: An fMRI study. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6, 440–448.] and in Rametti et al. [Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, Á. & Guillamon, A., (2010). The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment: A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007.]. Both studies scanned homosexual male-to-females and found that they were shifted towards the female direction in sexually dimorphic brain areas (only). The data for the second part of the prediction are in Savic & Arver [Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032.] They scanned heterosexual male-to-females and found that they were not different from controls in any sexually dimorphic region, but were different from the controls in several non- sexually dimorphic resions. Other neurological studies of transsexuality have been conducted (and are on the mainpage), but did not record or report whether the samples were homosexual or heterosexual, so they are not informative on this aspect.

Each of studies I cite above were several times the size of the Zhou study. Although Blanchard's idea is unpopular in some quarters, that is neither here nor there for WP purposes. I think Blanchard's prediction is more than germaine to any discussion of the neurological discussion of transsexuality. Input?

— James Cantor (talk) 16:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. What I'm going to do by way of response is to adopt the position of someone who is neutral and non-expert in the editing dispute, and to try to mediate the issue according to my understanding of the consensus process.

1. Anyone: My reading, on face value, of what James said immediately above is that there are three published studies—Gizewski et al., 2009; Rametti et al., 2010; and Savic & Arver, 2011—that, taken together, provide experimental support for Blanchard's predictions, and are peer-reviewed reliable sources per WP:MEDRS. There is also the Zhou study, which provides evidence that contradicts Blanchard's predictions. Zhou is, similarly, a reliable source per WP:MEDRS, but was a smaller study than any of the other three. Those four papers constitute the principal scientific literature that experimentally tests Blanchard's hypothesis. Is that correct, or is that incorrect?
2. James: Why not simply cite those three studies, and note briefly that they support Blanchard's predictions, instead of devoting a paragraph to an extensive quote of the prediction? In other words, focus on the empirical data (since it's a section about science), instead of the theorizing?
3. Anyone: Why not present the information as: Blanchard predicted such-and-such, and there is not yet a clear scientific answer as to whether the hypothesis is correct. Three studies, constituting the bulk of the literature, seem to support the predictions, whereas one study calls them into question.

--Tryptofish (talk) 17:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Tryptofish; I think that's a very productive suggestion.

Re 1: Yes, those three articles are the most direct neurological tests of Blanchard's prediction. (There have long been indirect studies suggesting those findings, but these three articles are the most directly neurological.)

Re 2: I have no problem at all summarizing instead of quoting Blanchard's prediction. (If I can trouble you to do so, my experience is that anything I write quickly gets diverted into OR or COI debates, so a summary from you instead of me would be of great help.

Re 3: Although that summary would indeed capture those four studies, I would not put Zhou on the same footing as the other three: In addition to the sample size issue, Zhou's test that transsexuality per se shows sex reversal in sex dimorphic brain anatomy has failed to replicate multiple times. Already on the mainpage: Emery et al (1991); Haraldsen et al. (2003); Wisniewski et al. (2005); and Luders et al. (2009). All failed to find the sex reversal the Zhou hypothesis would predict. So, the overall picture is not only 3:1 in favor of Blanchard's prediction. It is also that the alternative has repeatedly failed. I am not saying that Zhou should be ignored, but as you can see from the mainpage, it's getting quite the WP:UNDUE treatment despite being the very clear outlier of the relevant literature. The finding is very popular in some circles, not because it is a reliable finding, but because the finding has a political implication that many people espouse. (Hence the difficulty achieving consensus.)

— James Cantor (talk) 14:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you James. Now, the ball is in the other editors' court. Editors who see things differently than James does, please indicate what you think about his answers to questions 1 and 3. Please weigh in: what do you think? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

"Now, the ball is in the other editors' court." Tryptofish, I don't think you're going to find many editors eager to engage with User:James Cantor and his abusive tactics in an effort to try to reign in his WP:COI and POV/Truth™ -driven crusade to cleanse Wikipedia of all references to viewpoints on trans* issues which do not agree with his own through WikiLawyering, badgering, and just plain persistence. (Here he's trying to enlist you to certify his WP:OR/WP:SYNTH interpretation of primary sources! WOW!)

His recent activities on the Transgender article here are just another instance; you would need to go over his history on these issues, beginning with his anonymous exploits as User:MarionTheLibrarian beginning in July 2008, to get it. Read his own characterizations of others just on this Talk page; go over the history on his Talk page; perhaps you'll see what I mean.

I would go over this in detail... including my assessments of his interpretations, made in his recent edit spree here, of the details related in the source articles cited; but I think it's a waste of my time... see YouTube: Professor Wikipedia... I will suggest that a good secondary source on this subject, appropriate for citation in Wikipedia, is Deborah Rudacille's excellent "The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights". [18].

... and hey, do I have a COI myself? SURE DO! - Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 11:01, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Bonze, thank you for your comments here. I'd like to assure you that I've had a lot experience with content disputes, agendas, and COIs, and it isn't easy to fool me. I haven't taken anyone's "side" here. I'm aware of James' recent block and the issues on both sides of it. I'm asking questions, to which there should be reasonably objective answers, in the hopes of reaching a good, encyclopedic outcome for the content of this page. I find that it's usually a good idea to approach these kinds of discussions thinking about how one's comments would appear to an objective reader unfamiliar with the case, and your response to me sounds, on the face of it, an awful lot like WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment, and perhaps you speak out of genuine frustration, but that's how it comes across. I asked about some specifics of the scientific literature. Telling me instead to look at Professor Wikipedia insults my intelligence. Instead of focusing on COIs, whether James' or your own, let's focus on the sources. You draw attention to Rudacille's book, which is a good start. Please point me to specific passages or chapters in that book, that speak directly to my questions 1 and 3. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear User:Tryptofish, I'll take what's behind Door Number Three! — I.e., "It's not proven." (In my scans from The Riddle of Gender, I can find no directly relevant citations.)

... but please note: when you ask editors to decide how they'd like to see James Cantor's WP:SYNTH presented here, you're asking the wrong question. To begin with, this material on brain research relevant to issues of the classification and etiology of transsexualism does not belong in this particular article, and the editors who would take an interest in summarizing these findings would most likely be observing posts in Causes of transsexualism.

Transgender deals with a MUCH higher level of generalization about variations in gender identity and/or presentation than Transsexualism, and in turn that subject has a broader scope than Causes of transsexualism. ALL THESE POSTS by James Cantor are... miscategorized. A naive reader interested in finding out more about the "transgender spectrum" is going to find this article VERY misleading! E.g.: "I found my husband crossdressing... he says he's just a bit transgendered, it's OK, he's not... one of those... OH NO! OMG! In Wikipedia, "Transgender" is mostly about transsexualism!" (Which is kind of amusing, since Victoria Prince coined the term "transgender" to distinguish HER class of feminine but non-surgery-seeking males from "transsexuals" ... language is not just a virus; it's a rapidly-mutating one ... *sigh*)

To address the claim I'm making that James Cantor's edits here comprise WP:SYNTH, here's a relevant citation from a WP:RS :

Luders et al, Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism (2009)

"Moreover, a highly controversial line of research has suggested that homosexual and non-homosexual MTF transsexualism are etiologically heterogeneous (Blanchard, 1989a; Blanchard, 1989b), which may be associated with differences in neuroanatomy."

Blanchard's transsexualism typology is described here as highly controversial. OK? If James Cantor could cite an article linking all this research together and describing it as sufficient proof that the BAT is correct, I'd have no problem.

WP:SYNTH might well be correct, but is inherently problematic; I'll give one further example why: James Cantor cites Rametti et al. 2010 "The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment" as supporting the BAT with respect to HSTS subjects...

"Studies have consistently shown that specifically homosexual male-to-female transsexuals, like gay men, show a shift towards the female direction in brain anatomy." - James Cantor, similar text first appearing at [19] ... (first, note that as of yet there has been no response to the Citation Needed I posted on the "like gay men" claim...)

However, that study states "The etiology of transsexualism is unknown but biological variables could play a role in its development (Cohen-Kettenis and Gooren, 1999; Gooren, 2006; Swaab, 2004)." ... and "Sexual orientation of transsexual subjects was determined by asking what partner (a man, a woman, both or neither) the subjects would prefer or feel sexual attraction to if their body did not interfere."

Please note that this is not Blanchardian "homosexual transsexualism": I qualify, even though I'm a once-married fashion-mad trans-geek with offspring. (And here I am, active on the Internet, to boot! Lawrence & Bailey ("Transsexual Groups in Veale et al. (2008) are 'Autogynephilic' and 'Even More Autogynephilic'"): "MtF transsexuals who are active on the Internet appear overwhelmingly to be autogynephilic.") (NB: prudence forbids more than this remark: this self-knowledge is not based on fantasy, OK?)

And in closing: Tryptofish, you note that an "objective reader" might not be impressed with the tone of my Talk post... since I'm a comedienne, and not a scholar, I tend to avoid striking poses of "objectivity" in Talk, which suit my temperament and style of expression... not. The "Professor Wikipedia" YouTube video I linked was not intended as an insult to you or any other editors here: I myself started patrolling various articles in order to delete vandalism, well, just because I happen to rely on Wikipedia for initial impressions and relevant external links on many subjects, and like to see it kept free of the worst detritus. The video is outrageously funny; there's a KILLER punch line: wait for it!

It may even make you feel happy about becoming involved with the trans* edit wars... if you think about it ;-) -- "Am I WP:N yet?" - b.a.r.blayk —— bonze blayk (talk) 20:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

A neuroscientist and a comedienne walk into a bar... I, in turn, got interested in Wikipedia because I enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people. I'm impressed that there seems to be a lack of edit warring at Causes of transsexualism, but I think that it's reasonable to have some sort of section about science here, at Transgender. And I think that it is abundantly clear that, however this page presents Blanchard, it is essential to do so in a way that makes clear that his hypotheses are controversial, and not to imply that they are generally accepted in the scientific literature. Anyway, please allow me to continue to focus rather narrowly on the scientific questions here.

1. With regard to my question number one, I asked whether there is further scientific literature calling Blanchard into question. James basically said that there are not other studies that directly test the hypothesis. Bonze points to Luders et al., who, I'm guessing, James will say does not directly test the hypothesis, but which I think can be considered to be a reliable source examining the anatomical issues and finding something, but something different than what Blanchard predicted, and who seem to express the opinion that Blanchard was "controversial". James: is that fair? Bonze also points out that the Rametti paper, cited by James, has issues about how the subjects of the study were categorized, and makes the statement that the etiology is unknown. James: do Rametti et al. actually state that their results support Blanchard's hypothesis—I'm looking for a verbatim quote here, saying something like "we conclude that our results are consistent with Blanchard's hypothesis" or words to that effect!—or is it your own interpretation of their results that the results support the hypothesis? Or is Bonze doing WP:SYNTH about how the subjects in that study were defined?
2. With regard to my question number two, James' agreement means we have consensus against a lengthy quote.
3. With regard to my question number three, I think we are going to agree that, as Bonze says, it is not proven, but, beyond that, I think we need to settle what we think about my question number one.

--Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Re: Yes, just about. To emphasize a minor point that is hard to communicate via typing: It is not it that no one else has directly tested Blanchard's model (which several others successfully have), it is that no one other than these three teams have tested Blanchard's model using directly neurological techniques.

Regarding the exact terms in each text; I'd need to go back and re-read how which one phrased what. However, I have no problem telling you up front that not all three said that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and that calling that set of papers an explicit confirmation of Blanchard could indeed be a WP:SYNTH problem. My goal in coming to this page was simply to add all the other neuro-relevant findings pertinant to that section. (It contained only the exceptional finding rather than the predominant finding.)

— James Cantor (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, James. I think that answer is very helpful, and it suggests to me a way forward. First, let me say to James that I can readily understand how you feel about the issue. As an academic scientist, I too would sometimes like to see my own best judgment about issues that are currently unresolved in my own areas of expertise more clearly reflected in Wikipedia content. But Wikipedia simply isn't the place to work those issues out. That has to happen in the primary literature, and Wikipedia, as tertiary literature, can only follow. And my editing experience is that SYNTH can be interpreted strictly or loosely, but on pages where editors have strong opinions, as is clearly the case here, it is best to apply it strictly.

So I want to propose the following way forward, and I'd like to know what all editors here think about it.

• Transgender#Brain-based studies should be sourced to, and discuss, only sources that are looking at biological aspects of brain structure, using neurological or neuroscientific techniques, and should generally refrain from discussing these findings in terms of Blanchard's typology. As for how you write the section of the page just above it, about that typology, I leave that to the rest of you, since it is above my pay grade!
• The brain-based studies should be discussed in terms of what the authors of those studies say, explicitly, that they concluded, and not include anything that Wikipedia editors might infer from those studies. It will be a lot of "this part of the brain was larger", "that part of the brain was smaller", and "this other part of the brain was the same". There may be three studies that said a particular part of the brain was larger, and two studies that said the same brain part was smaller; they should all be cited, and no attempt by Wikipedia editors should be made to say which was wrong and which was right (unless there was subsequent consensus in the scientific literature).
• The only time that Blanchard's typology should be mentioned is when the authors of the cited study said, explicitly, that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and concluded that it was either true or false. Commenting parenthetically that it is controversial does not count; rather, the authors must say themselves that their evidence has direct bearing on it.
• This probably means that the section will not have any sweeping conclusions, instead treating the subject as one that is currently unresolved. That's OK.
• It is unacceptable for editors to refuse to allow some reliable sources to be included, and doing so may give the appearance of POV-pushing. If there are various studies, some pointing one way, and others pointing the opposite way, they should all be included, at least briefly, so long as they are presented as above.

Would that be acceptable to everyone? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Although I am happy to write a sentence summarizing instead of quoting Blanchard's idea, I would first like to invite any of the other folks who previously expressed an interest here to propose one/some.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

If, and I'm just saying "if", we agree on what I suggested, do we really still need that sentence (at least in this part of the article) at all? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

To my eye, it's rather bizarre without it. That is, there are a string of studies all testing the same prediction, but the prediction itself would be missing.

— James Cantor (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Please carefully re-read what I proposed. Do those sources actually say that they were testing it? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've misread you (wouldn't be my first time).

The original articles vary in their explicitness. Some articles seem to have accidentally tripped upon the androphilic/gynephilic distinction just by luck whereas others cite Blanchard explicitly as the reason for the research design they chose. I don't think that either Blanchard (or anyone else) has said or used the neurological data as an explicit test of the Blanchard typology. Rather, there have been predictions made on the basis of the Blanchard typology (and those predictions have, thus far, been correct). Thus, I believe the predictions are very relevant here, but should be cast either as proof or disproof.

— James Cantor (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Then, to repeat what I suggested: "The only time that Blanchard's typology should be mentioned is when the authors of the cited study said, explicitly, that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and concluded that it was either true or false." In this case, I don't necessarily see a need for a summary sentence; instead, I would just state what the authors concluded. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

To close the loop then, you're saying you think the current mainpage should stay as is?

— James Cantor (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with further edits. I made a suggestion with five bullet points just above, and those five points are what I suggest. I would advise against writing the section as though it were a literature in which various investigators have tested Blanchard's predictions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Christianity

The section on religion needs to reflect that Christianity as a faith generally condemns lady men and the like. There are some Protestant denominations that have probably decided to tolerate such behavior but they're not of comparable following with more traditional denominations. K. the Surveyor (talk) 05:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Christianity

The section on religion needs to reflect that Christianity as a faith generally condemns lady men and the like. There are some Protestant denominations that have probably decided to tolerate such behavior but they're not of comparable following with more traditional denominations. K. the Surveyor (talk) 05:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)