Talk:Andrea James/Archive 2

Sources

I would like it explained how a NYT article and a peer reviewed publication by an academic are bad sources for this article (as compared to the subjects own websites, dead links to the TV uide, and so on).Bali ultimate (talk) 12:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

About 4 years ago I took the existing text of this bio and suggested some sources because it was largely unsourced.[1] Since then it has continued to deteriorate in quality. In response to the dead link tags and the neutrality issues, I have prepared a version at User:Jokestress/Biography. This seems to me an accurate and balanced summary, and it fixes the dead links and sourcing issues. Feel free to use it. Jokestress (talk) 17:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I have added Andrea's improvements to the article. I feel that they are more in accord with NPOV/BLP than Bali' ultimate's version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luwat (talk • contribs) 20:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The NYT and a peer reviewed academic journal (which the Times described as the "most respected in its field") have some of the more extensive comments on Ms. James' activist tactics (which involve using the internet to smear opponents). She did not deny the use of these tactics in her email exchange with the Times, and defended them as appropriate (or, perhaps, proportional). Does Ms. James (Jokestress) deny she did these things? Can she see how this is relevant? The piece is pretty much a puff piece for the rest. I found Luwat's editing history interesting, now that he's setting himself up as a "BLP" defender [2]. I suspect there's more to that story.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

My concerns with your content revisions focus on their neutrality and balance, as we are discussing on the NPOV noticeboard. I believe the version I proposed st User:Jokestress/Biography addresses that controversy and gives balance both within the paragraph and within the overall bio. Tsroadmap.com's info on the sexology controversy is a small fraction of the overall content, and the site is a small fraction of my overall activism. If we are going to have that much detail, we need to include that much detail about both sides of the matter. I don't think that's necessary in a bio of this scope.

To summarize the missing background info, that controversy wasn't an academic debate; it's a debate about academia, specifically academic exploitation of transsexual people. The ASB article was a target article, or more accurately IMO a polemic or vendetta after the author failed to stop me from speaking at her school. After failing to suppress students' and my academic freedom, she spun a story about how I am a threat to academic freedom and to her. I can provide the published peer commentaries for your review, or you can look at the stuff I have done on this.

Benedict Carey also had an ax to grind, so he didn't bother to get the full story and never wrote about the many published responses to the target article, the subsequent fucksaw incident, or other related controversies. Carey was mad at me for getting him in trouble with GLAAD and FAIR for promoting the same sexologists in a separate article in 2005 (claims since discredited, as reported by a better NYT journalist). He was also mad at me for getting his 2007 article spiked temporarily, ruining the timing for sexologists who wanted it to hit at the start of their annual conference. Carey's editors forced him to include my response in the piece, so his "interview" consisted of one emailed question.

Should any of this be in this bio? Probably not. It about a bunch of typical academic shenanigans by a conservative rearguard of psychologists and their lackeys. Bailey was mocking transgender children in lectures and claiming they could be cured through reparative therapy in his book. Carey thinks that and claiming male bisexuals don't exist are perfectly acceptable, but any kind of response in kind by those affected is an affront to science and humanity.

Your edits vastly expand this controversy without providing both sides. That raises issues of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, which is why I invited you to join us in the discussion at NPOVN. Your conduct since then has been a good example of the very concern I raise there. Our previous interactions on Wikipedia lead me to believe that you often edit bios while holding negative feelings about the subject or content, which I believe is the case here. That's one issue that leads to this WP:COATRACK matter I am trying to address. Once again, I invite you to come over to NPOVN, but we can work here if you prefer. Jokestress (talk) 20:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Bali ultimate, I made the edit that you refer to above more than a year ago, when I was brand new to Wikipedia. At that time, I had not even heard of BLP, much less read it. It was because of the reaction to edits like that from other editors that I stopped editing. I have read BLP now, carefully, and I understood that what I did so long ago was wrong. My motivation for starting editing Wikipedia again was to make good edits, and to uphold BLP instead of violating it. I am not proud of what I did, but I believe that it is valuable experience. It seems to me that you should not be restoring controversial material to a BLP when it is under dispute. Bringing up wrong things I did long ago doesn't make what you are doing here any more right. You seem to be very angry and agitated about the subject of this article, and that could be clouding your judgment. Luwat (talk) 21:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you'll have to explain why a peer reviewed academic paper and the New York Times are unreliable sources. There is no claim made yet that the reporting in either is in error. If Ms. Adams has sources to explain that she did not, in fact, intact this guys children and former wife in that way, please bring them forth. Is there is some source with a "perspective" on why that was appropriate (or inappropriate, or something) then please bring them forth. This is not a neutral point of view question. The views of all parties are explained -- especially Ms. James. This talk page is the place to discuss the content of the article. That noticeboard conversation, such as it was, seems to have gone nowhere, with just a bunch of assertions (false in my opinion) made by Ms. Adams James. The quality of the sources or an explanation of why they're inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate has not been made. Ms. James seems to be playing wikipedia to control her own biography, is how it looks to me.Bali ultimate (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You ignore the other issues Andrea raises - including WP:UNDUE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luwat (talk • contribs) 22:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC) Also, who is "Ms. Adams" It does not help matters any if you cannot get Andrea's name right.

Why is it undue? The best sources that deal with her all mention her actions. Her assertions that everyone who has a critical take is out to get her or has an axe to grind are just that -- and she does not, i remind you, dispute the accuracy of the claims (the NYT makes it clear that she concedes that point).Bali ultimate (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

As Andrea said above, "Your edits vastly expand this controversy without providing both sides" That's why it is wp:undue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luwat (talk • contribs) 22:11, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

What are you taking about? My edit includes her comments/defense to the New York Times. Other edits include links to her long self-published defense. What would you liked added in the interest of balance?Bali ultimate (talk) 22:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

In your view you edits address wp:undue, but not in Andrea's view. See her comments above, and stop fucking up the BLPs of people you hate. Neither I nor Andrea agrees with you, so you are editing against consensus. Luwat (talk) 22:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Writing and activism

I have reduced the "writing and activism" section down to a more reasonable level. I appreciate that the controversies James has been involved in do need to be covered, but I believe that that section, as it was written, had many problems. So that we can be clear what is involved, I will put the section's contents here:

"==Writing and activism==

James writes on consumer rights, technology, pop culture, and LGBT rights. She is a contributor to Boing Boing, QuackWatch, eMedicine, and The Advocate. She also created HairFacts, a consumer website on hair removal, and HairTell, a companion discussion forum.

James founded the nonprofit GenderMedia Foundation in 2004. In 2007, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of TransYouth Family Allies, a nonprofit that supports transgender youth and their families. In 2008, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of Outfest, where she was involved in the restoration of the documentary Queens at Heart.

In 1996, James created Transsexual Road Map, a consumer website for transgender people. One section of the site criticizes a transsexualism typology promoted by psychologist Ray Blanchard and others, including psychologist J. Michael Bailey in his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Critics of James' tone and tactics accused her of personal harassment that went beyond the limits of civil discourse, and they said her efforts had a chilling effect on academic freedom. James characterized Bailey's book as a "cure narrative" which harmed transgender children and said the case report which frames the book has never been independently confirmed. Bailey denied James' characterization of his work and has provided his own account of the controversy. In 2008 Alice D. Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine published a paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior discussing the controversy over Bailey's book in detail. Dr. Dreger writes that James "used the Web to publicly harass Bailey’s children, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his friends." Dreger writes that she was contacted by a "surprisingly large number of transgendered women" who, in the main, disagreed with Bailey's conclusions but who "wrote to tell me that they had been harassed and threatened by James for daring to speak anything other than the standard 'I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body' story." A 2007 New York Times article on the criticism of Bailey's work and the disputes surrounding it says that "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided... Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect.""

Luwat (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Now I think it's clear what the problems of that material are. It goes into unreasonable and undue detail, it's repetitive and rather poorly written, and it's confusing. For instance, it talks about "personal harassment that went beyond the limits of civil discourse", as if there were personal harassment that could be civil, which makes no sense. There are also many accusations of misbehavior there that are rather vague in nature, and could only be useful with further detail and explanation (which itself could worsen the problem of undue weight). I therefore believe that I am justified in cutting the section back, and giving a more streamlined and economical presentation of the issue. I would ask editors who might disagree with me to explain properly why they believe that all the details of the extended version of that section should be included. If a we are going to take BLP seriously, a clear, specific explanation would be required in each case: for every detail you want to include, please explain why. Luwat (talk) 22:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no support for the deletion of the material from the only peer-reviewed article dealing with Ms. James (as well as from the NYT, which is a pretty strong source). Perhaps the answer is deletion if the notion is that peer-reviewed academic work and major media mentions are to be excluded? I would support that if the subject prefers.Bali ultimate (talk) 05:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

That is an unacceptable response. Editors on Wikipedia decide what goes into Wikipedia articles, not articles, whether peer reviewed or not. There is no policy which says that, just because something can be sourced, that therefore it must be included in an article. I requested that you provide an explanation of why each specific detail that you want to be included should be included - but instead, you've just tried to change the subject. Your suggestion that the article be deleted appears to be a form of outright disruption, and for me raises questions about whether you take Wikipedia seriously, or are editing this article in good faith. Luwat (talk) 06:42, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I can't believe I have to state the oh-so-obvious: the NYT is reliable. – Lionel ^(talk) 13:32, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

You didn't have to state it. No one said that the NYT is not reliable. What I suggested, rather, is that the material Bali ultimate wants to include does not meet the test of due weight. I asked him to explain exactly why each specific detail that he wants to include is worth including. He avoided answering the question properly and tried to change the subject. I really don't see why I shouldn't revert him, and take the article back to the other version. Luwat (talk) 00:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

First, this 2007 clipping's brief mention of 2003 web content isn't explicitly connected with any source, and so it is PRIMARY, to be used in BLPs only with caution. The article does mention Wikipedia as a "reference site", perhaps overlooking that not even Wikipedia considers Wikipedia a reliable source. Second, this article has already been abused on Wikipedia: It was added by MariontheLibrarian[3] (also here[4]), who was then discovered to be James Cantor, Blanchard's colleague, editing under a undisclosed COI.

Regarding Dreger's article, we should note that the Archives of Sexual Behavior didn't publish it alone: It was published with commentary from others. This may have been an attempt to provide neutrality. Since then, involved editors have been arguing that everything other than Dreger's article in that issue was not peer reviewed (eg[5]). (By the way, if Cantor has ever denied being the peer who reviewed Dreger's article, let me know. The Archives of Sexual Behavior's policies against reviewing with an undisclosed COI might be every bit as effective as Wikipedia's policies against editing under an undisclosed COI.)

We should be extremely critical about basing negative BLP material on sources like these. BitterGrey (talk) 03:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow. The two sources in question are: A peer reviewed academic publication and the New York Times. Both focus on James' behavior. I am aware of no sources that contradict their statements about James behavior -- in fact, James acknowledged the behavior to the NYTs (which is currently in the wikipedia article).Bali ultimate (talk) 03:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

"Focus?" You might wish to reread those sources, and the BLP policy: The living person shouldn't have to support innocence - those seeking to add material have to support guilt. Also, please that while the NY Times mentions a "post" next to a "response", it never states that the two had anything to do with eachother. James wouldn't be the first person quoted out of context by the media, although in this case, she wasn't even quoted. BitterGrey (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to repeat that the material in that section is repetitive and should, at the very least, be cut back. For instance, the article says that 'Dr. Dreger writes that James "used the Web to publicly harass Bailey’s children, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his friends' and then later, after some comments about different matters, it says, '2007 New York Times article on the criticism of Bailey's work and the disputes surrounding it says that "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided.' That's essentially saying twice over that James harassed Bailey. It's gratuitous, and not in accord with the spirit of BLP, to repeat material about the article subject's alleged misbehavior. Luwat (talk) 05:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

True. Even Bailey's claims cited to his school paper get mentioned (#27). This is undeniably excessive and one-sided. BitterGrey (talk) 07:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not see how the NYT bit is derogatory. Regarding Bailey, he is responding to James' criticism of his book. There is a controversy here. There is nothing WP:UNDUE about including content describing this disagreement. The disagreement is notable. The sources are reliable. At this point perhaps you should consider an RFC. – Lionel ^(talk) 09:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

In addition to being strongly negative, the passing mention in NYT is short (89 words relevant to James, 61 of which are quoted in the article) and vague. Were it longer, it might have been more clear. For example, I read it as James responding to Bailey, Lionel read it as Bailey responding to James. BitterGrey (talk) 14:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Full NYT section on James

This is the full quote from the NYT. I don't see how it's confusing: "The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect. " This clearly reports as "fact" that she put sexually suggestive captions along with pictures of Bailey's children and that she said her response "echoed his (Bailey's) disrespect" (in her opinion, obviously). What on earth is confusing about this passage. The real problem here is that the best sources that deal with James, ever, deal with her behavior in this episode.Bali ultimate (talk) 14:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Lionel's reading and my own seem to differ, and starting a brand new section will only obscure things further. Per AGF, we have to assume that neither Lionel nor myself is trying to pull some kind of trick, but that the text is unclear. In natural language, ambiguity like this is usually avoided by providing additional material that can be used to confirm an interpretation. This is yet another reason to avoid quoting teeny tiny isolated texts in entirety. This new section is already about three times as long as the relevant passage from the NY Times. Given the brevity and lack of clarity, this source should not be used. BitterGrey (talk) 02:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Speak for youself. I'm very tricky. – Lionel ^(talk) 03:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Bittergrey you can keep saying plain english is "confusing" over and over, but that won't make it so. (Though activists sometimes do have trouble with plain english in my experience). Perhaps I should bring in the stuff from the Dreger article at greater length if you're so confused? Her peer-reviewed article in the premier journal of sex research was quite specific and extensive about James' behavior and its impact on others.Bali ultimate (talk) 12:06, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this confusing? It's from the peer-reviewed Dreger article (and has citations for all the material within it). "At that point, I had not done any serious investigation into the history of the controversy, so I asked Bailey to tell me who James was exactly. He explained that she was the person who was so angry about what he said in his book that she had put up on her Website (http://www.tsroadmap.com) pictures of his children with their eyes blacked out, asking whether his young daughter was “a cock-starved exhibitionist, or a paraphiliac who just gets off on the idea of it?” and saying that “there are two types of children in the Bailey household,” namely those “who have been sodomized by their father [and those] who have not” (James, 2003a). I understood this was meant by James to be a parody of Bailey’s alleged treatment of transsexuals in his book (James, 2003a), but I was disgusted by this intimidation tactic."Bali ultimate (talk) 12:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Re Lionel; :)

Re Bali ultimate; If you need to draw from a second source to interpret a first source, that is WP:SYNTH. Also, thanks for bringing up the parody aspect, which the teeny tiny LA Times blurb neglected. I think the intent might have been more to apply terms that Bailey was applying to a marginalized sexual minority in his book to his own children, to force Bailey to acknowledge how offensive those terms were. This aspect was completely neglected in the NY Times. There was also some mention of an apology somewhere, and the replacement of those pictures with pictures of James herself. This context, neglected in Bailey's treatment (upon which Dreger's and probably NY Times was based) might be the reason why these events weren't added to the article when they were recent. That was 2003, and this is 2012.

Also, Bali ultimate, your reading doesn't match Lionel's either, so the "activist" who has "trouble with plain [E]nglish" wouldn't be me. Can we please skip the personal insults? BitterGrey (talk) 14:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

If you need to draw from a second source to interpret a first source, that is WP:SYNTH. What on earth are you talking about? Again, the two sources are in complete agreement with each other. To summarize them, they both say James used pictures of Bailey's children, and placed sexualized captions with them. Do you disagree that's what they say? (Lionel doesn't appear to have said anything about this at all, though he can speak for himself). One source is simply more specific, in depth, and academic. If there are further sources that shed light on James' historical activist behavior (which the dreger article says extends far beyond the treatment of Bailey) then please bring them forward. Finally, pointing out that you're an activist in a related area to James isn't a "personal insult."Bali ultimate (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Sexualized? Sexualized by whom? This discussion (which Bali ultimate explicitly forked to be about NYT) is spiraling further and further away from what can be supported by the NYT blurb. Bali ultimate, engaging in original research (that the captions were sexualized by James' ) is actually a step down from the previous SYNTH.

Bali ultimate, you seem to have been confused by the above discussion. On the topic of the "response" vaguely mentioned in NYT, you argued that "[James'] response 'echoed his (Bailey's) disrespect'" while Lionel had commented "Regarding Bailey, he is responding to James' criticism of his book". If this disagreement due to someone's "trouble with plain [E]nglish", then it would be you or Lionel who had the trouble. Given the [E]nglish error in the insult, I'd have to write that it was you who has the poor English, but that alone wouldn't explain the difference in interpretations.BitterGrey (talk) 15:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Bittergrey. The NYT's writes: "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided." Yes, my interepretation was "sexualized" here on the talk page. Whatever. Do you disagree that the NYT wrote that she placed sexually explicit captions on pics of his kids? As for Lionel, he hasn't indicated any trouble. Perhaps he will at some point. I believe Lionel was referring to Bailey's response to James' criticism in Bailey's piece Academic McCarthyism (here http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=1248). That is a separate matter than the NYT article or the peer-reviewed Dreger article. If Lionel has something more to add, I'm sure he will. I suggest you explain why, in your opinion, all this is so confusing? Your position doesn't make much sense so far.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:13, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

"my inte[rp]retation" ... "I believe"... Since we are dealing with highly negative material in a WP:BLP, a high degree of certainty is required. If that certainty isn't there, the negative material shouldn't be there either. Bali ultimate's fork of the discussion has degraded into SYNTH, OR, and accusations of "trouble with plain [E]nglish". To distract from this conclusion, Bali ultimate has forked it yet again. We should delete the paragraph and be done with it. BitterGrey (talk) 14:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Having read with care the whole talk page, I can state unequivocally that Lionel was in fact referring to the "Academic McCarthyism" piece. How can I do this? First, Bittergrey complained: Even Bailey's claims cited to his school paper get mentioned (#27). This is undeniably excessive and one-sided. Reference 27 in the article is indeed the "Academic McCarthyrism" paper (the text in the article merely says something like "Bailey wrote his own defense" and ends with the citation). Lionel responded to this comment of Bittergrey's by saying: I do not see how the NYT bit is derogatory. Regarding Bailey, he is responding to James' criticism of his book. Glad we've cleared that up.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Then why would Lionel have boldfaced response, when his 2005 posting mentions Andrea James but _doesn't_ mention any response to her? I think the only thing unequivocal here is that you tend to read too much into sources. BitterGrey (talk) 03:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

My guess as to why he bolded the word responding in the sentence "Regarding Bailey, he is responding to James' criticism of his book," is because you have a pretty clear habit of highly selective interpretation of others' words. It's unquestionably the case that, right here on this talk page, Lionel was referring to Bailey's response to James criticism of his book and was not, as you would have it, expressing confusion as to the contents of Dreger's academic, peer-reviewed paper, or to the contents of a NYT article. To be very clear, the citation referred to is currently number 27 in the article.Bali ultimate (talk) 10:58, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed edit

In response to Bittergrey's confusion/questions, I propose this as a rewording of the current section under consideration:

Dr. Dreger writes that James "used the Web to publicly harass Bailey’s children, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his friends." In her paper, Dreger writes that James placed on her personal website "pictures of (Bailey's) children with their eyes blacked out, asking whether his young daughter was “a cock-starved exhibitionist, or a paraphiliac who just gets off on the idea of it?” and saying that “there are two types of children in the Bailey household,” namely those “who have been sodomized by their father [and those] who have not." Dreger continues "I understood this was meant by James to be a parody of Bailey’s alleged treatment of transsexuals in his book (James, 2003a), but I was disgusted by this intimidation tactic." Dreger also found that James' had similarly harassed fellow activists for disagreeing with her theories, and writes that she was contacted by a "surprisingly large number of transgendered women" who, in the main, disagreed with Bailey's conclusions but who "wrote to tell me that they had been harassed and threatened by James for daring to speak anything other than the standard 'I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body' story." A 2007 New York Times article on the criticism of Bailey's work and the disputes surrounding it says that James explained her placement of sexually explicit captions with pictures of Bailey's children as a response to Bailey's scholarship. "Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect."

Clearer?Bali ultimate (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Bali ultimate, is the tactic of repetitive forking and requoting effective elsewhere? Here it just looks like you are opting to loose multiple arguments instead of just one. Once we leave behind your synth and and OR, the truth of the matter is that the NYT blurb is teeny-tiny. It might be correctly used to show that some reporter didn't find fault with a few bits of Dreger's report, but it isn't clear how hard that reporter looked.

Perhaps we could compromise, using the material from Dreger that the NYT thought repeatable, moderated by context. The NYT thought this matter was only worthy of 91 words: The article currently gives it 263. For example, this wouldn't include the sexualized WP:OR or language that would imply it. (I suspect that is what Bailey wanted implied, but it is not what the published sources said.) It also wouldn't include the apology, but might include James' using pictures of herself with the same captions to make the same point. For some reason, neither of these are mentioned in the sources based on Bailey's input. (Again, to avoid wrong implications, any mention of the latter pictures of James herself as a child would require explanation, since they would show a boy. Similarly, any mention of the captions would need to include their basis from Bailey's book.)BitterGrey (talk) 14:24, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The Dreger article (the peer reviewed, academic, better source) goes on at much greater length about James. In fact, both sources only address James in light of her behavior. That is, her behavior is the bit they find noteworthy about her. You assert that the above suggested edit (and the section as it currently stands) are examples of "OR" and "SYNTH." But you don't explain how. I've quoted directly from the sources, and named the sources, so that precisely those allegations can't be made. Also you seem confused. The NYT article which says James placed "sexually explicit captions" with pictures of Bailey's children, and includes James' emailed explanation as to why, was written in 2007 (You, Bittergrey, wrote just above that the NYT piecemight be correctly used to show that some reporter didn't find fault with a few bits of Dreger's report.) Dreger's article, which goes on at greater length and in greater detail (fed by her own research) was published in 2008. Could you explain, precisely, what you see the problem as?Bali ultimate (talk) 16:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

OR pointed out here[6], and conceded here[7]. Synth pointed out here[8]. Please stop misrepresenting my comments. BitterGrey (talk) 03:22, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

You really aren't making much sense. For instance, you say that "OR" was "conceded" and then link to a comment of mine conceding that i'd... written something interpretive on the talk page. That is, the comment has nothing to do with article text. The other links you provide likewise are no more clear as to why you keep making this assertion than they were the first time you wrote them. To me, an edit that says James placed captions on pictures of Bailey's children suggesting he had sodomized one of them and that one of them was a "cock-starved exhibitionist" is a non-novel interpretation of Dreger's article. An edit sourced to the NYT's that shows her emailed explanation as to why she did this, likewise is non-novel.Bali ultimate (talk) 10:52, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggested rewrite

Luwat asked me a couple of weeks ago to look at this. I agree that the Bailey issue should be included, but I think as currently written it seems to focus on Bailey's perspective and may lack context. So I did a copy edit of the article as a whole, and a rewrite of the two key paragraphs.

The new version is at User:SlimVirgin/AJ. I'd like to insert this if there's consensus.

The new paragraphs about the Bailey dispute read:

The website was involved in controversy in 2003, when James used it to criticize a controversial book about transsexualism, The Man Who Would Be Queen by psychologist J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University. Bailey argues in the book that there are two forms of transsexualism: one a variant of male homosexuality, and the other a male sexual interest in having a female body, a taxonomy critics see as inaccurate and damaging. Bailey's position was strongly criticized by several transgender activists, including electrical engineer Lynn Conway and James, who wrote that the book was an example of academic exploitation of transgender people, and a "cure narrative" framed by one case report about a six-year-old child. Bailey was also criticized in April that year, shortly after the book's publication, for having lectured about transsexualism using images of gender-variant children that provoked laughter from the students.

The dispute became heated. When James posted a satirical page on her website the following month containing photographs of Bailey's teenage children when they were younger, alongside sexually provocative captions that quoted or parodied material in Bailey's book, Bailey accused her of harassment. James said that juxtaposing images of children with Bailey's material was intended to echo what she saw as his disrespect toward gender-variant children. Historian Alice Dreger, a colleague of Bailey's at Northwestern, wrote a paper accusing James of harassment and of stifling academic freedom, and tried to stop her from speaking at the campus about the controversy. Gender studies professor Kim Surkan said the protests by James and others against Bailey "represented one of the most organized and unified examples of transgender activism seen to date."

References

It may still be a little long, but it's hard to convey the dispute fairly in fewer words. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:38, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the stuff about the "cock-starved sluts" and accusing him of sodomizing his kids probably belongs in the article at this point. Seems like a lot of sugar-coating to avoid saying, precisely and in plain language, what James actually did.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem with doing that is twofold. First, we would in fairness have to show which parts of Bailey's book and lectures about (other people's) children were being quoted or parodied, i.e. we would have to explain why James used those particular phrases. Secondly, we might also, in fairness, have to include some of the phrases used by Bailey and Dreger to describe James -- for example, comparing her speaking at campus to inviting a neo-Nazi, or Bailey's opinion that his typology had caused her a "narcissistic injury" (i.e. he tried to "diagnose" her from a distance).

The bottom line is that the players were throwing out insults -- Bailey at gender-variant children (in the opinion of some) and then, in response, at each other. But we can't write that up without appearing to engage in the dispute ourselves. And so my view is that it's best described in a disinterested tone, minus the choice quotes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:08, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

If Bailey did something that's notable about him, put it in the bailey article. If you'd like to expand on things bailey said about her (calling her a narcissist), i'd vote against it. That's simply his opinion. But accounts of her actions in the NYT and a peer-reviewed journal are matters of fact.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

SlimVirgin's proposed version goes into rather more detail than I would like, but it is definitely better than what is there now. Bali ultimate's objections do not seem reasonable. He seems to want to keep as much detail about James' alleged misbehavior in the article as possible, without balance and without context. What Bailey said about James is quite definitely relevant, and "If Bailey did something that's notable about him, put it in the bailey article" is not really an argument. What policy, what guideline says that that is how things should be done? To me, Bali's comments just look like making up reasons for keeping negative material about James and excluding anything even potentially negative about Bailey. Luwat (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

You're actually asking for a "policy" that explains why detail on Joe Smith should go in the Joe Smith article, and detail on Ann Michaels should go in the Ann Michaels article? Oh, dear.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:58, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The Dreger article [9] is part of the dispute. She acknowledges involvement, so that this was published in a peer-reviewed journal is a bit of a red herring. I don't know what academic referees could have said about an article that is just a very long personal account. But regardless of the status of the source, we can't allow one person's account to determine the content or flavour of that section.

I agree that adding what Bailey and Dreger called James would be inappropriate, because it would mire the article in the dispute (he said, she said). But the first point I made is an important one. If we were to include James's captions, we would have to explain where those phrases came from -- what she was parodying exactly, and that would make the section very long. To include the phrases without explaining the background would make it look as though she had just flung around randomly provocative phrases at children.

As for the New York Times, the reporter also didn't include the phrases, perhaps for the same reason, and most of his article is not about James. He wrote of her:

The site also included a link to the Web page of another critic of Dr. Bailey’s book, Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender advocate and consultant. Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect. [10]

The difficulty is that we have to describe the dispute without appearing to engage it in, and without labouring it, which is not easy. I think the version I'm proposing comes close to achieving that. I agree with Luwat that it's on the long side, but I think cutting it further would make it harder to understand. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:59, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

What's the objection to quoting the new york times? The paper accurately summarized what she did, and gave her space to respond, which is included. I'm all for that (it's currently in the article). If there's a reliable source that explains at greater length James' attempts at justifying her behavior, then those can be included. But i have yet to come across such a source (and no, peer-review is never a red-herring.)Bali ultimate (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying there's no indication that the Dreger article was peer-reviewed, in the sense of being sent to anonymous referees. It's not an academic paper; it's a personal account, and a very long one (my computer says 50,000 words, and that's not including the commentary -- can this be right?).

Which part of the New York Times would you like the article to quote? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

On peer review: Dreger, a bioethicist at Northwestern's med school, was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. All articles are peer-reviewed in such publications. To suggest they cheated/lied in this instance is a serious charge of academic misconduct that requires evidence. (the length? It took up pages 366–421 in the published edition of the journal. What's that, 55 pages? 50,000 words seems about right for an academic paper of that length).

I'd like to quote the NYT thusly: "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided. (Dr. Bailey is a divorced father of two.) Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect."Bali ultimate (talk) 22:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

No one has said anyone is cheating or lying. Similarly, no one has said the Dreger article was actually peer-reviewed, at least not that I have seen.

As for the NYT, there's no need to add such a long quote and to call her "Ms James," when we can paraphrase. Are there any words in the NYT account that you regard as particularly important that my draft has not paraphrased? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:36, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I find your paraphrase a bowdlerization and curiously unspecific. I'd cut it down as it is in the current version of the article. As for peer-review, everything in a publication like that (except for letters and errata) is peer-reviewed. The Dreger article is quite explicitly peer-reviewed. If you don't understand this, there are a lot of online resources that explain the academic publication process that you could review to improve your knowledge.Bali ultimate (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

The NYY said sexually explicit; I paraphrased as sexually provocative. I don't see a significant difference. What I'd like to avoid is quoting other people for no reason, rather than writing ourselves. But I don't mind quoting some words from the NYT article, if you would say which words you see as distinctive enough to quote.

I do know what peer review involves, which is why I'd be surprised to learn that this article had gone through such a process. It's highly personal (just pulling out a sentence at random: "In November 2004, four years into trying to balance motherhood with full-time university work and near-full-time volunteer intersex activism, I gave up my tenured position at Michigan State University so that I could devote more time to my activism, writing, and speaking, and to my family’s domestic life.") Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a scholarly treatment.

But regardless, peer-reviewed or not, I have no problem using it as a source. My only concern is that we shouldn't rely on it to the point where Drager's personal perspective overwhelms anyone else's. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes explicit is a more specific and direct word than provocative. As for Dreger -- I have not found any claim, anywhere, that the facts as she's reported them are false. Have you?Bali ultimate (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Then I'll change my proposal to "explicit." If you read the commentary after the Dreger article, you'll see some objections to it there. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Break

Just to recap, the problems with including the sexually explicit phrases (the captions) are:

1. to include them without context (without explaining that they were parodying Bailey's descriptions of other people, including children) would be unfair to James;

2. to include them -- even with the background -- might be unfair to Bailey's children, in that it would repeat the inappropriateness James was accused of (I know that Bailey and Dreger repeated them, but that doesn't mean we have to);

3. it might lead in future to a demand that we include the perceived insults that Bailey and Dreger made against James.

By the time we had done 2 and 3, we would give the impression that we were part of the dispute, and it would definitely violate UNDUE given how short this bio is. I therefore followed the lead of the New York Times and simply referred to "sexually provocative captions". Readers who want to know what the captions said exactly can read the sources.

Here are the versions side by side:

Current [11]

Proposed [12]

In 1996, James created Transsexual Road Map, a consumer website for transgender people. One section of the site criticizes a transsexualism typology promoted by psychologist Ray Blanchard and others, including psychologist J. Michael Bailey in his 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen. James characterized Bailey's book as a "cure narrative" which harmed transgender children and said the case report which frames the book has never been independently confirmed. Bailey denied James' characterization of his work and has written his own account of the controversy. Critics of James' effort to discredit Bailey accused her of personal harassment that had a chilling effect on academic freedom. In 2008 Alice D. Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine published a paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior reviewing the controversy over Bailey's book and Jame's role in it in detail. Dr. Dreger writes that James "used the Web to publicly harass Bailey’s children, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, and his friends" and also wrote that James' had similarly harassed fellow activists for disagreeing with James' own theories. Dreger writes that she was contacted by a "surprisingly large number of transgendered women" who, in the main, disagreed with Bailey's conclusions but who "wrote to tell me that they had been harassed and threatened by James for daring to speak anything other than the standard 'I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body' story." A 2007 New York Times article on the criticism of Bailey's work and the disputes surrounding it says that "Ms. James downloaded images from Dr. Bailey’s Web site of his children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, and posted them on her own site, with sexually explicit captions that she provided... Ms. James said in an e-mail message that Dr. Bailey’s work exploited vulnerable people, especially children, and that her response echoed his disrespect."

The website was involved in controversy in 2003, when James used it to criticize a controversial book about transsexualism, The Man Who Would Be Queen by psychologist J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University. Bailey argues in the book that there are two forms of transsexualism: one a variant of male homosexuality, and the other a male sexual interest in having a female body, a taxonomy critics see as inaccurate and damaging. Bailey's position was strongly criticized by several transgender activists, including electrical engineer Lynn Conway and James, who wrote that the book was an example of academic exploitation of transgender people, and a "cure narrative" framed by one case report about a six-year-old child. Bailey was also criticized in April that year, shortly after the book's publication, for having lectured about transsexualism using images of gender-variant children that provoked laughter from the students. The dispute became heated. When James posted a satirical page on her website the following month containing photographs of Bailey's teenage children when they were younger, alongside sexually provocative captions that quoted or parodied material in Bailey's book, Bailey accused her of harassment. James said that juxtaposing images of children with Bailey's material was intended to echo what she saw as his disrespect toward gender-variant children. Historian Alice Dreger, a colleague of Bailey's at Northwestern, wrote a paper accusing James of harassment and of stifling academic freedom, and tried to stop her from speaking at the campus about the controversy. Gender studies professor Kim Surkan said the protests by James and others against Bailey "represented one of the most organized and unified examples of transgender activism seen to date."

References

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

The proposal isn't perfect, but is greatly improved over the current version (which is little more than an attempt to quote the most negative parts of one side of the conflict as verbosely as possible, but only where it can hurt the other side). Given that this is a BLP in a source that readers and reporters expect to be neutral, I believe we should implement this proposal immediately. BitterGrey (talk) 14:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'll go ahead and do that. Bali suggested that "provocative" be changed to "explicit," so I'll make that change. Anything else that needs to be edited can be done on the page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:55, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request 16 November 2012

Please add {{pp-protected}} to the article. --89.0.200.169 (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

 Not done. That doesn't need to be on the article. gwickwire | Leave a message 00:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Reinstated. This protected article is currently not included in Category:Wikipedia protected pages. The template serves exactly that purpose. --89.0.200.169 (talk) 01:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

This is almost correct: the category concerned is Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages, but the page won't appear in that without {{pp-protected|small=yes|reason=WP:BLP}}, so Done I added that. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request 8 June 2015

Please add (Redacted). Was previously in the article, I assume was removed as part of vandalism and not restored. 124.148.222.41 (talk) 12:39, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

 Not done That is a blog, not a reliable source - Arjayay (talk) 13:04, 8 June 2015 (UTC)