Talk:Cisgender/Archive 7

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Archive 7

Lack of focus and violation of LEAD

There is a serious lack of focus and likely violation of policy and/or guidelines in the article currently. This began in March of this year as a result of changes to the lead that did not match the body; prior to that date there was no problem.

What is the issue?

For the last two decades, from its creation in 2002 and throughout the intervening years, this article has always been about the word cisgender itself, not the concept. The lead most often started out '''Cisgender''' is a word... during this interval. (In this way, the article is similar to LGBT, and different from Heterosexuality.) The content of the body matched the lead in being about the word, with each section devoted to some aspect of the word—coinage of the word, reactions to the word, synonyms of the word, criticism of the word, alternatives to the word, and so on. The lead and the body were in sync. But not anymore; now the lead is about the concept, the body is about the word, and it's not clear what the article topic really is anymore. This is a violation of the WP:LEAD guideline, and possibly of article policy.

What happened?

Through a series of good-faith edits beginning 1 March 2023, the lead of the article was changed from one focused clearly on the word cisgender to a confused blend where the lead is now primarily about the concept, while the body still remains largely unchanged and is primarily about the word. The article is no longer about one topic, and in particular, the lead does not describe the topic accurately nor summarize the content of the body, contrary to its primary purpose.

The article was fine from 2002 up through revision 1142242106 of 08:14, 1 March 2023 by LightNightLights. During the intervening years, the article grew and the lead continued to match the body, nearly always reflecting the fact that the topic is the word cisgender (e.g., see 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 (1 March)).

This began to change with good-faith changes to the lead in rev. 1143981396 of 03:09, 11 March 2023 by WikiWikiWayne. After these 5 edits that day, the lead was approximately half about the term (paragraphs two and four) and half about the concept (paragraphs one and three). The lead has wandered about a bit since then, and now (rev. 1161420442) has three paragraphs, with only the middle one clearly about the term. The contrast between the lead and the body is now starkly apparent.

Why did this happen?

We can't know for sure, but this kind of confusion is understandable: by far the vast majority of articles are about a concept, not a word. In fact, WP:NOTDICT explains that this is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary; we have Wiktionary for that. There are exceptions, and they are laid out in paragraph 3 of the policy when a word itself is an encyclopedic topic (e.g., truthiness); another example of a word which merits encyclopedic coverage is our article about the term LGBT which has a long and involved history as a term with many variants, requiring a dedicated article to understand. However, such articles are a tiny minority of all articles, and partly because of that, they are subject to misunderstanding by well-meaning editors who don't read past the lead and decide to change the lead without consideration of what the main topic is. This type of error is due to a failure to understand the use-mention distinction. (This, in fact, has happened at LGBT before, requiring correction.) My hunch is that this explains what happened in this case, but it's only a theory.

What should be done?

The status quo cannot remain; the article must be brought back into compliance with WP:LEAD, with WP:AT regarding the article topic, and with MOS regarding lead sentence and paragraph. In my opinion, the easiest solution would be simply to restore the lead from revision 1142242106 of 08:14, 1 March 2023, which would restore the match between the lead and the body and bring the article back into compliance with all guidelines. That would solve the problems raised above.

What other approaches are available?

There are other approaches. If there is consensus here that this article should be about the concept "cisgender" and not about the word cisgender, that is possible, although it would be more complex to carry out. A model of an article in the gendersphere that could've gone either way (word or concept) is at Heterosexual (word); currently, it is a redirect to the article Heterosexuality (concept). To see what might be involved in a shift of this article to a concept-based one, have a look at the section organization of Heterosexuality: it has sections on demographics, academic studies, biology, hormones, society, symbolism, religion, cisnormativity, and cissexism. It does have a "Terminology" section—one of 18 sections—and represents about 8% of the article. That could be a model for how to reorganize this article as a concept-based article, if desired.

If it were to be a concept-based article, we'd have to ask ourselves if it now passes WP:GNG or not. At the outset, and for much of the first twenty years, basically *all* sources were about the word itself, so plenty of sources for a "word" article, but hardly anything for a "concept" article. Has this now changed? I don't know; perhaps. We'd have to see if there are sources to fill out the content on cisgender demographics, studies, symbolism, and all that. If it passes that bar, then the next threshold would be WP:PAGEDECIDE—i.e., even it passes GNG, should it be a standalone page or part of another article? My hunch is that it possibly passes GNG now, but not PAGEDECIDE, and so could be part of some other page as a major section. For those editors favoring a concept-based article, please address this question.

If consensus favors a concept-based article, the changes would be major. I feel strongly that this should not be attempted gradually, because the in-between stages would be even more of a muddle, and increase the confusion between concept- or word-based. I see two ways to achieve it: either blank the whole article down to one defining sentence, then build it back up (gradually or not) according to the concept idea, or create Draft:Cisgender as a container to develop the new, concept-based article, and leave this one here until it is ready, then swap them. I'm strongly against a gradual approach that would almost certainly lead to even more confusion than we have now. People reading the article need to know what the topic is, and the lead should clearly explain it, reflecting the rest of the article.

Lean keep

At this point, I believe that the cisgender article, which was born out of a word, always did, and still does have sufficient material available to support its existence as an article with encyclopedic coverage. Also remember, that notability, once established, never goes away (although PRIMARYTOPIC may change with time) and clearly cisgender-as-word is notable. So, though I want to keep the content, I don't so much care if the current title remains the primary topic for that content, or if it keeps the name "Cisgender" as the title; if it gets changed to "Cisgender terminology", and some other, concept-based article takes over the current name, I'm just as happy with that as a solution. I just think the current content deserves a home somewhere—either under the current title, or some other with standalone significance. I have nothing against creating a concept-based article under whatever title makes sense.

Conclusion

The current situation where the lead is about a concept and the body is about a word is an untenable confusion based on the use-mention distinction, violates WP:LEAD and other policy, and must change. Due to the now neither-fish-nor-fowl nature of the article, I fear that more well-meaning editors may get confused, and may make further good faith edits which make the confusion worse. To forestall this, what I'd propose is that we restore the lead from the March 1 revision for now, just to keep the article in sync, with no prejudice to remove it again if consensus favors a concept-based article at this title. I would like to do this as soon as possible, if there is no objection, while we discuss the future of this article.

Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 23:05, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Note: If it helps, here is a clickable diff showing the changes since the version being suggested for the revert. Note that this shows the whole diff and the suggestion here is only to revert the lead. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Show side-by-side comparison of the leads from revisions 1142242106 (of 1 March) and 1161473704 (22 June)

1 March 2023 22 June 2023 Cisgender (often shortened to cis; sometimes cissexual) is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. The word cisgender is the antonym of transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has at times been controversial and subject to critique. Related concepts are cisnormativity (the presumption that cisgender identity is preferred or normal) and cissexism (bias or prejudice favoring cisgender people). A cisgender (sometimes shortened to cis; sometimes cissexual) person has a gender identity that matches their sex assigned at birth. A person whose sex was assigned male at birth and identifies as a boy or a man, or someone whose sex was assigned female at birth and identifies as a girl or a woman, is considered cisgender. This is the case for the majority of human beings. The word cisgender is the antonym of transgender (which refers to someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth). The prefix cis- is Latin and means 'on this side of'. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. Cisgender people may or may not conform to gender norms and stereotypes associated with their gender identity. A cisgender man may not necessarily exhibit all stereotypical masculine traits, and a cisgender woman may not necessarily exhibit all stereotypical feminine traits. Cisgender people's identity development is often viewed as normative, in contrast to transgender people's. According to some academic literature, cisgender people are afforded cisgender privilege, defined as "a set of unearned advantages". References References Side by side inspired by DanielRigal's diff above; thanks for that! Mathglot (talk) 03:25, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

If the article is to be about the word then that leaves no space for the coverage of the concept/topic itself and I am not sure where else that would properly go. If the article is about the topic itself then covering the associated terminology in the same article is not a problem. So the latter option seems like the better and more flexible approach at least at first glance. The trouble is that the topic itself is woefully under-researched. People wring their hands trying to understand what makes trans people trans, and what it means to be trans, but very few people want to look at the other side of the same coin and ask what makes cis people cis, what it means to be cis, and so on. (It's not that people are deliberately avoiding these questions. We are so deep in cisnormativity that most people don't really realise that there are any questions. It's like the old joke where two fish pass eachother in the sea and one says "Hey, how's the water?" and the other replies "Water? What's water?") So, while I like the current lead better than the old one, and I'd like the article to be primarily about the concept in the way the lead implies, I don't want to argue for a big change that I'm not able to do myself and which might not even be possible to do, or to do well. I guess I'll stay neutral on this one, at least for now. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

There was some prior discussion at Talk:Cisgender/Archive 6#Change Cisgender title to Cisgender. I'll reiterate my comment from then: As of right now, we have a body that is almost exclusively about the term, a lead that is mostly about the topic, and a non-italicized title. The easiest path to a tenable situation is to restore the lead to being mostly about the term and re-italicize the title. I agree that the best path forward is to make the body more about the topic. Is anyone planning to do so soon? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Do you believe there are enough reliable sources to support an article about the concept now? If we go that route, and I don't disagree that ultimately it may be the best goal, do you have thoughts about how it should be done? I think I'm inclined to go with the Draft idea. I'd like to see what kind of section structure we might come up with. Mathglot (talk) 03:15, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I think a draft would be great. I think DR and I are in the same boat: not able at this time to put in the work to make an article about cisgender people. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:52, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with DanielRigal that it makes sense for this article to be about the concept (which otherwise has nowhere to be discussed, if it can't be discussed in the article about itself!), and to discuss terminology as part of that, as is done at present. I don't see a problem with anything that is present in the current lead; the issue seems to be that the body devotes a lot of space to discussing things about the term (at an excessive level of wordiness) and that hasn't been summarized in a correspondingly excessive length in the current lead (i.e. is partially absent) ... but it wasn't summarized in a corresponding length in the old lead, either (indeed, nothing seems to have been removed from the lead between the 1 MArch and 22 June revisions above, things have merely been added to summarize additional parts of the body directly in accordance with WP:LEAD), so AFAICT reverting to the old lead would improve nothing and would only worsen the article and violate WP:LEAD by removing the summary of the parts of the body that deal with the concept / people / etc. I think we could condense a lot of the lengthy, over-wordy discussion of aspects of the word, which would help address concerns that more space in the body is given to the word than to anything else. And yes, ultimately it would be useful for someone to SOFIXIT and put in the time to expand the non-word-related parts of the article. -sche (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for the responses so far. Am following with interest, and there is clearly some initial support for altering the main topic of the article from word to concept. As this would be a fundamental change to the article, and because there's no hurry, I'd like to let the discussion continue for a bit, and hopefully, gain some additional responses to see if this initial support is broad enough for a change of this nature. I'll add a couple of project notifications to attract more attention. Mathglot (talk) 18:07, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Listed at: WT:GENSTUD, WT:LGBT, WT:MOS. Mathglot (talk) 04:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

• May I throw another hat (=idea) in the ring with the rest? Consistently adding "(word)" to articles about words not concepts, might be a good way to indicate the real topic to both readers and editors. It would also make for a quick way to point out misunderstanding: "The article Cisgender (word) discusses that word (e.g. its definition[s], etymology, usage, history) rather than the concept it represents." – repeat elsewhere with only the article named changing.
  Alternatively, make that sentence a banner or hat using {{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}. – .Raven  .talk 17:14, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

  I think that's a great idea. Because this would apply more broadly than this one discussion section or this article, I'd prefer to limit discussion of your proposal here, and stick to the narrower goal of this section, but I'd strongly support raising the issue at a more centralized venue, possibly at WT:Article titles, or even WP:VPP. If you do, please ping me from there. (If you don't, I probably will eventually, but you should get first refusal, and credit.) Mathglot (talk) 17:32, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

  Done, and you're pinged there. Also, re my second paragraph, the more general template is:
  {{about|what it IS about|some other usage|where to find that other usage}}.

  Here, for instance, we might add at top an "about" template reading:

  This page is about the word "Cisgender" itself. For varieties of gender, see List of gender identities.

  ... or fill in some other 2nd and 3rd parms to point elsewhere, e.g. Gender identity, Gender variance, Cisnormativity,...

  The {{Wiktionary}} (no parms needed) template up top might also be helpful.
  – .Raven  .talk 19:55, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

  The hat note seems like a great idea, and the wiktionary link might help as well. Mathglot (talk) 08:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

This unfortunate edit by a highly respected editor in the gender space is a perfect example of why the current neither-fish-nor-fowl status of the article cannot remain as is. The stated reason in the edit summary is to take "the bit that's [only] in the lead and add it, with ref, also to the body". That is perfectly in line with content guidelines (namely, MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE) and if the topic of the article were the concept, the edit would be an improvement to the article, and I would support it. However, it isn't, and this edit only blurs the focus further and makes it even less clear what the topic is, and was only even possible on LEADNOTUNIQUE grounds because of the edits that are the subject of this discussion altered the lead in a way that changed the topic of the article as expressed by the lead, without changing anything in the body so the two no longer match. This led to an understandable confusion and a desire to make them match again, just ended up confusing matters further and bring them more out of alignment. That is not how to fix the problem: first we have to decide what the topic of the article is, and then the body should match that, and the lead should summarize it. This is precisely why the current mismatch situation cannot stand, as it is attracting good-faith changes which make things worse. In order to forestall further confusion about this, I plan to restore the lead to its stable version for the last twenty years while this is being discussed, to bring the lead and body back into alignment, with no prejudice against reinstating the changes to the lead if consensus determines that the article topic should be the concept. Mathglot (talk) 18:01, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

For the proposed topic change to concept, I don't know if we need an Rfc, or whether we can get enough buy-in just in discussion. I suspect an Rfc will be needed, but let's see. Given some suggestions above, a WP:MOVE might be involved (e.g., if we move this to Cisgender (word)), but it wouldn't be sufficient, as the question of an article about the concept would still remain. But it could be one possible path back to a stable situation: i.e., revert the lead and move the page as suggested, then draft a new Cisgender article about the concept. The other path would be to WP:SPLIT this article, with the entire body moving to Cisgender (word) and requiring a new lead to be written, while keeping the lead here as is, and expanding it to add a body. I'm okay with either one. I can envision a third possibility which would end up with only a single article, with the entirety of the current body included in a #Terminology section of an article about the concept. That is another valid approach, but would still require the "concept" content of the body to be written first, as it would be highly WP:UNDUE to have a concept article where the entire body content is about terminology. The first two approaches can be implemented immediately with brief edits; the third one would have to detour through one of the first two, or via a Draft, but may be the best solution, ultimately. Mathglot (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

An RFC seems like overkill as things stand, given that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of dispute here, or am I badly mistaken/misreading the room...? Do you think this should be only about the term? I took you to just be trying to make sure things weren't being changed accidentally / unnoticedly / without dotting the is and crossing the ts and minding the ps and gs, and then Daniel and Firefangled and I have said the article/body should ideally be about the concept (since that can house info also about the term for the concept, whereas if the article is only about the term, the content about the concept has nowhere to exist)... and the article is now increasingly about the concept, as more content about that is being added, and as the excessive detail devoted to every detail of who's used the term is being reduced — and should be reduced further, as it'd be excessive even in an article exclusively about a term, IMO. (On the topic of issues with the content about the term, btw, I'd also love to get a source that treated the whole history of the term becoming common holistically, as we presently have different sources which each discuss their own milestone and not the others, so it reads that the term was used by medical academics for a long time but then became common in 2006/2007 but then became common in 2015 ... and trying to clarify 'well, the second one means 'even more popular than the first' seems like it might run into SYNTH issues.) -sche (talk) 10:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

No, I think you're basically right, and my read is that there isn't a dispute, either; at least, not visible so far. Maybe we could skip the Rfc (which I wasn't looking forward to). What I was, and am concerned with, is that a topic-change is rare, and major, and ought not to be attempted without a fair airing, which is what I'm trying to do.

I am okay with the article being about the concept, and even think it's probably the best path forward and that it could, some day, house info about the term for the reasons you state. And here comes the "but": But, I am not okay with any solution that loses the 28kb of valid, reliable, content about terminology currently in this article, or that significantly cuts it back.

There are different approaches to keeping the content: we have the standalone Terminology of homosexuality as one model, and we have the non-standalone section Transgender § Terminology (36kb, in an article of 200kb) as another. The cisgender (terminology) topic exists, and is notable, and deserves a home somewhere. I don't care which solution we pick, or how many articles result from this discussion, or where the current content lives, but it is good, reliable, sourced content, and should live somewhere. Imho, policy forbids a single, concept article with two paragraphs about the concept, and 28kb of terminology as vastly UNDUE, so I don't see that as a short-term solution. (There would also be a strong temptation among new editors at the article to say, "This article is about the concept, this terminology section is too long, cut it down to two sentences," and per WP:DUE, they wouldn't be wrong.) That's a deal-breaker for me. Everything in this article currently (minus the lead) is perfectly in line with all policies about article title and sourced content, and should be WP:PRESERVEd.

So, given that, I see various solutions, as I've enumerated, and I'm trying to get a handle on what works for everyone. I think that *probably* the concept article should live under the title "Cisgender", (no italics, and no parenthetical disambiguation), as you said, and Firefangledfeathers too, if I understand you correctly. Given that, I see two issues to address to :

• I want to turn my "probably" into "definitely" to go ahead with this, and to do that, I want to be persuaded that there is, indeed, enough significant coverage (beyond trivial mentions) about the cisgender *concept* topic to support a stand-alone article. So, is there? While I think "probably" yes, I don't think I'm the right person to demonstrate it, and someone who believes more strongly than I do that the article should be about the concept should take the lead on that. I'm hoping that that burden will be a trivial one, and resolved in five minutes, and then we can move on to the next step. But I feel like we're stuck at this point, so it just needs one volunteer to step up and deal with it.
• Assuming that goes well, how do we get from here to the desired goal? Given the DUE issues, the switchover to a concept article cannot happen gradually; it's not an evolution of an article, it's essentially creation of a new topic.

Here's what I propose—if we get agreement on the proposed path, I volunteer to do the following:

1. move all of the body content of this article into a new one, to be called Cisgender (word)—or even, "Cisgender terminology", but that implies alternate expressions, as we have at Terminology of homosexuality, and I don't believe we have enough to support the latter title—topped with the lead from 1 March. Mechanically, to preserve history, that should take place via a simple page move of this article to the new title.
2. create a new page after the move, to be called "Cisgender" (no italics or PARENDIS), and move the current lead of this article there, and add scaffolding (Refs, See also, etc).
3. add a one- or two-sentence #Terminology summary section to the new "Cisgender" concept article, topped with a {{Main}} pointing to the "word" article as child article in summary style.

I am not against having an end result down the road which envisions having a single article, in which the #Terminology is a single section of the combined article, as we see at Transgender. But getting there won't happen overnight. Once the "Cisgender" (concept) article gets to, say, 120kb, then I'd be okay with merging the "word" article back into the "concept" article as a single section, where a 28kb section perhaps won't be considered undue. (I suspect that there is far more reliable content about the word, than about the concept, so I don't see that happening any time soon, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.) But that merge would have to wait for a moment when the concept article is large enough to assuage concerns about an UNDUE merge.

Finally, coming back to the Rfc issue, I agree with you and I'm willing to dispense with it, and make the few edits I've proposed above if we can get a consensus among those contributing here to buy in on it. Maybe this is the time for WP:BOLD action to get us unstuck, so if there's no objection after a few days, I'll probably just go ahead and do it, but I would very much prefer to get feedback on this plan first. Mathglot (talk) 18:44, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, you have one Support from me. – .Raven  .talk 22:15, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

...OK, I have to admit, reading your comment is the first time I've seriously considered the idea of there being two separate articles about this, since I have up to now been operating under the assumption (and am still operating under the assumption) that if we fork off part of the content, either moving the terminology stuff to something like "Cisgender (word)" or moving the concept / people stuff to something like "Cisgender people", everyone at AfD will be like "why did y'all split this, it is clearly better covered in one article?". If you think people would really support two separated articles, then I don't actually have strong feelings about whether to leave the term stuff here and create "Cisgender people", or make this article about the whole concept including terminology and cleave off 'excess' terminology stuff to a separate article, although I suppose the latter (as you suggested above) is better (especially as some things, like normativity, are not about the term, but also not exactly about the people per se, so would be a bit off in an article titled "Cisgender people"). (But I am going to be ?amused? if we split off part of the article and folks at AfD tell us it would be better handled right back together in a single article like most of the people who've commented here seem to have been thinking from the start would be the ultimate ideal.) I mean, Wikipedia does have a few articles where the sum total of what can be said about the topic is two sentences yet the article has been successfully defended at AfD as notable, so an article with two or three whole sections on the concept alone (prevalence, normativity, privilege, not to mention a short summary of terminology), or an article with one or two or more long sections on the terminology, is perhaps perfectly reasonable, perhaps I am a pessimist to think it will get remerged at AfD. I suppose the only thing to do is to test the hypothesis and see. -sche (talk) 19:49, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Likewise, I have to admit I hadn't considered the Afd issue, which is a real one, as you sketch out. And if the putative split is overturned by Afd, say, and we're back to one article again, but this time about the concept, then the only way that is tenable is by reducing the terminology content to a sentence or two, or a paragraph at most. And I'm revolted by the idea of scrapping perfectly good and incontrovertibly well-sourced and notable content, because of that possibility; the way we're supposed to handle that is by a child article in summary style, but if Afd won't have it, then what?

The *best* outcome, I agree, would be a greatly expanded, single article about the concept, with a large #Terminology section as at Transgender (as I alluded to, in my down-the-road comment). There is still a way to get there, without going through the split-and-risk-Afd scenario, which I've mentioned above somewhere, and it's to leave this article alone, and develop the new, concept article in Draft space. The problem with that, is, we need to get people to actually develop it, or we'll eventually be right back where we are now, again. So, what's the best path? Mathglot (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: I do have one quibble with your wording, as "forking the content" sounds like we're doing something wrong, but in fact, spawning off detailed articles via WP:Summary style is an accepted practice thoroughly embedded in how we do things here on almost any topic with some complexity. Mathglot (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't see why we'd have to scrap any terminology content; I don't see a problem with an article about all facets of the topic (including prevalence, terminology, etc) where the facets that are covered more often or in more detail in sources get more space. I.e., I would just do this. If you think there should not be one article where terminology has more space than the other facets, then I think having two articles is a fine solution, and if someone AfDs it, and if AfD says to cover them both back in one article like it was in the aforelinked diff, I don't see why that would be a problem...? -sche (talk) 22:16, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the old lead. Now we can settle whether to change the scope of the article. If yes then people can work on the body and then the new lead. starship.paint (exalt) 11:50, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I would certainly Support there being two articles, Cisgender (word) and Cisgender [concept], at least while developing text on the latter topic. If after we've said all we should say on both, either is left too short, by all means merge them as separate sections of one article. Until then, I recommend {{About}} and {{Wiktionary}} templates on both, each pointing to the other in the {{About}}.

Or we could name the cisgender-concept page something more explicit of that meaning, and create a "Cisgender" disambiguation page listing pages for the word, the concept, and closely related topics like Cisnormativity which might be the searcher's actual interest? – .Raven  .talk 17:01, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Raven, we may have a possible model of how to do that. We have the article LGBT—about a word—and others, like LGBT community, LGBT culture, and others, about their respective topics. Have a look at how this is handled at LGBT (disambiguation). Mathglot (talk) 23:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure. Whatever works best for the reader, and searcher. – .Raven  .talk 00:03, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Following the restitution of the stable lead, I've created a new draft for the concept article. See the discussion below. Mathglot (talk) 01:34, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, I think this direction will be confusing for readers. I would argue that it's much more long-term sensible to have an article at Cisgender that is basically about the concept, and have a section in that article about the word-as-a-word, with Cisgender (term) and Cisgender (word) redirecting to it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, Perhaps you didn't read in depth, which is understandable, given the length. But your conclusion is pretty much what everybody here already wants (including me) as can be seen by a thorough read. At the risk of repeating myself for the Nth time, it is indeed more long-term sensible to have one article about the subject with a section about the word, which now has a long and detailed history. What doesn't work at all, however, is to jump in to an article with twenty years of stable history of being about the word, and suddenly change the lead to being about the concept followed by a detailed article body exclusively about the word—that is a no-go. So the question is, what is the navigation path from word-article to concept article?

One might think at first blush, "No problem, how hard can it be to scrabble up a bunch of sources about the concept, and create a goodly-sized article about it?" Well, if you actually try that, it turns out that it is not easy at all. There just isn't that much to say about cisgender (the concept) yet.

I'd love to be proved wrong. So, what the draft is doing there, is basically trying to make it as easy as possible for anyone who wants to make the article into one about the concept to do so, by just expanding the draft to a significant enough critical mass so that the current "word" article can be subsumed within it. It's also a challenge, because I seem to be hearing, "Oh, let's just make it about the concept", and I'm saying, "Fine: here ya go, on a silver platter: go for it!" Everybody is saying it's easy, and nobody is stepping up. So, rather than just repeat what everyone has already said would be a good goal, someone needs to step up and just do it. If it's doable that is, which is not at all clear to me. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 04:50, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I misunderstood; I got the impression that the goal was to WP:SPLIT this into two articles and maintain them that way. PS: Are you aware of m:The Wikipedia Library? It can provide a lot of access to otherwise-paywalled academic material; might be helpful (though it's not perfect; e.g., access to Academic.OUP.com right now through TWL is very spotty at best; lots of stuff shows up as "You do not currently have access to this article.").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

No worries; probably my fault, I tend to write long, and brevity is the soul, and all that. Speaking of lots of access, TWL is wonderful, use it all the time. So is the internet archive (38M books, many can be borrowed an hour at a time), my local public library has 500 databases available at a click (people ignore their local library, and they shouldn't), and finally there's also the Unpaywall extension, which if you don't have, you need to run right out and get. Saw your comment at Phab that OUP is back, thanks for that tip. Mathglot (talk) 05:12, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Critiques

I'm fine with not including Elon's every tweet, but I do find it misleading that this article acts like all criticism of the term [e.g. from people who prefer non-trans] and critique of the concept [as inapplicable to e.g. intersex people] is from feminists or intersex people. A big chunk of criticism comes from (anti-feminist, anti-intersex,) anti-trans people. I'll see if I can find time to add at least a sentence about that later, with refs; IIRC SAGE mentions it, if anyone wants to beat me to it. -sche (talk) 19:02, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Maybe we could put it all in a big section and call it "Kvetching". ;-) But seriously, yes, this is a good suggestion. We don't want to over-amplify the loud-mouths but we also don't want to give a false impression of where the majority of the criticism is coming from. It is mostly from the conservative right and we should not help them to lob their brickbats while hiding behind feminists and intersex people so that somebody else gets the blame when there is pushback. Good faith criticism is the minority and we should try to cover that in a way that separates it from the kvetching. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Discuss content, not other editors.

I don't think you, or anyone else for that matter, should be editing wikipedia when your head is more worried about ideological battlegrounds than relating the relevant information to the topic of an article. I agree with good faith criticism being what is needed, however I doubt your ability to define it in an accurate way after reading this comment. 2607:FB91:168F:DA28:AC39:5F77:4E34:49D3 (talk) 19:43, 23 June 2023 (UTC) Collapsed for violation of WP:TALK, and possibly of WP:NPA. Discuss article content here, not other editors. This double assault on the good faith of another editor does not belong here, and is sanctionable if there is an ongoing pattern of it. Mathglot (talk) 17:25, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

We are not here to criticise. We are here to cover notable criticism that already exists. I was agreeing with -sche that we were over-covering some minor but notable criticism while under-covering the most pervasive and most notable type, which is that from the conservative right. I have no idea what you thought I was saying but I hope that is clearer now. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense. There surely should be some focus on criticism from the conservative right, as you put in your previous comment, and ensure we aren't helping them lob their brickbats. Historyday01 (talk) 22:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. My impression is that the majority of it lately is not feminist-based and not even remotely intersex-based, but is now kind of adjunct to a catch-all sense of anti-wokism with diffuse and ill-defined targets which simply targets with suspicion anything related to the concept of gender; and a term which contains the string 'gender' as part of the word, as do cisgender and transgender are easy targets, and are like big, flashing, neon signs to those of that turn of mind. I don't expect more than a small minority of the critics could even give a creditable definition of the article topic. This is a hunch, and would have to be backed up with sourcing to examine WP:DUE WEIGHT, but that's what I suspect we'll find. I'm talking about the most recent sources, as I believe this represents a change from earlier attitudes. Mathglot (talk) 05:08, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

A couple of mid-2010s articles give different viewpoints: where KJ Rawson "never heard the word cis used in a derogatory way" (The Advocate, 2015), Bryan Tannehill early saw negative connotations even from within the LGBT community (Huffpost). Writing in 2014, Tannehill said:

Even inside the LGBT community the words have a very negative connotation. When someone is referred to as a "cisgender lesbian" or "cis gay man" by a transgender person, it is often in a negative way. The addition of "cis" or "cisgender" is used to imply a certain level of contempt and a desire that they leave discussions on transgender issues. It also implies that they don't, can't, or won't ever understand transgender issues.

In some cases it is appropriate to call someone on their unexamined privilege. However, using the word "cis" or "cisgender" is not necessary to do so. Just as no one ever called me "tranny" and meant it in a nice or affectionate way, many LGB people have never been called "cis" or "cisgender" in a way that wasn't accusatory. Therefore we find common ground in disliking a word because its context has always been nasty and demeaning when applied to us personally.

At that time, use of the term was still limited to academia plus a niche of bloggers and activists in the LGBT community, with no greater public awareness yet. Recall that Caitlyn Jenner only came out in mid-2015, and for much of the public, that was the first time they really had to confront "What is transgender?" (and that took a while to sink in), let alone the question "What is cisgender?" which was not yet on the horizon for the public and still confined very much to the community. The transition to most of the "kvetching" coming from the conservative right is more recent, probably not till the late 2010s or early 2020s. Mathglot (talk) 09:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Neither Rawson's nor Tannehill's opinion is included in the article currently. Do people think they should be? Mathglot (talk) 05:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

twitter slur

again i dont thing its relevant to mention that cisgender or cis is treated a slur on twitter. it was added in again on july 29th 152.117.114.248 (talk) 00:46, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@152.117.114.248 agreed. there hasn't been anything near a consensus toward adding it, and the overall discussion has largely been against adding it. commie (talk) 01:37, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, discussed just above; consensus so far has been against including this. Removed. Mathglot (talk) 06:19, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Should we add a section titled "Controversy"?

Since the whole Elon Musk thing calling cisgender a slur blew up, people have been vandalizing this page nonstop, so maybe we should add some context to why there was all of this commotion over the term cisgender recently. AT1738 (talk) 03:07, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

I went over to History, expecting to see heavy, recent edit-warring, but it's just not there; maybe the EC protection helps. The issue about Musk has been dealt with in previous discussions above, and anyway, it seems like section § Critiques already covers the same ground you're proposing. Mathglot (talk) 05:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Usenet origin

The Usenet boards mentioned in footnote 11 are from 1994 not 1944 Matt2h (talk) 01:11, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Where on the page do you see it say 1944? Funcrunch (talk) 02:14, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 November 2023

I request the opportunity to edit the page on ‘Cisgender’. The page as it stands presents one perspective on the topic, which is not validated scientifically. At the very least, an opposing perspective should be permitted. GrannyAnnieB (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you. Liu1126 (talk) 14:17, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello GrannyAnnieB, welcome to Wikipedia! To add to this, also note that any proposed changes will need to avoid giving false balance or undue weight to viewpoints which are less represented among reliable sources, or they are unlikely to gain consensus.

This article previously included "opposing perspectives" (i.e. reactionary grumblings) from non-transgender men such as Elon Musk, William Shatner, and John Boyne who reject being described as cis or cis men. Editorial consensus was to remove this text as not notable.

Your previous comment here mostly takes issue with the term assigned sex at birth (as opposed to "observed" or similar). This is the language preferred by most reliable sources discussing this subject, and is unlikely to change. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 18:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)