Talk:Enriqueta Favez

Image

Correct Image? I don't think so...

I already saw this image "half-man and half-woman" atributed to Chevalier d'Eon, please see [[1]]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.196.20.87 (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a modern image, and presumably protected by copyright. --Wetman (talk) 07:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The image was used by Swissinfo and/or the historian to identify Favez. ([2]) If it's clearly false, we should remove it. As to copyright, modern reproductions of historical (out-of-copyright) images are not covered by copyright. Sandstein (talk) 07:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no recorded image of Enrique or Enriqueta Favez. There is only a contemporary (speculative) reconstruction based on average facial characteristics for people form her time/region. see [[3]]. The use of this image is both incorrect and improper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.254.166.195 (talk) 02:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Pronoun

It's clear, from the direct quote attributed to Enrique, that he self-identified as male. For the sake of respecting his own gender identity, male pronouns should be used, and the page title should reflect his male name. We can have the female name redirect to the male name. This disrespctful and anti-transgender language should be fixed. EmilyGrrl (talk) 01:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)—

Gender identity and transsexualism are modern concepts. As far as I am aware, all sources refer to this person as a woman, and I see no reason to deviate from the sources for the sake of modern sensibilities. Sandstein (talk) 07:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

They most certainly are NOT 'modern concepts.' While the terminology is modern, the issues of gender identity have existed at least as long as recorded history. Transgender people have been documented as far back as Babylonia. Using female pronouns to describe someone who clearly identified as male (whether or not 'the sources' referring to this person use proper pronouns), is highly offensive, and should be unacceptable by Wikipedia's standards of professionalism. Just because other sources use offensive pronouns, does not mean that Wikipedia needs to be offensive as well. 24.85.58.224 (talk) 08:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That's what I meant: we should not use anachronistic terminology that has no basis in the sources. The fundamental standards of Wikipedia include verifiability and the obligation to use a neutral point of view. In this case, this means that we should use the pronoun used by the sources covering her life. The only thing that we know for sure is that she was a biological woman; attributing a male gender identity to her would be a matter of conjecture and thus of original research, which Wikipedia does not allow. Sandstein (talk) 08:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

See, e.g. [4], where the historian covering her life, Julio Cesar Gonzáles Pagés, uses the female pronoun. I'm certain he means no disrespect to this fascinating person - and neither, of course, do I. Sandstein (talk) 08:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

How are pronouns supposed to be anachonistic, please tell me? Gendered pronouns in the English language trace right back to Proto-Indo-European. Meanwhile, you claim that using female pronouns presents a 'neutral' point of view. The only way you could truly present a NPOV here is by using gender neutral pronouns, which introduces offensive (in the case of 'it') or unfamiliar (in the case of 'zie/zer/zers') language, or bad grammar (in the case of 'they'). By using female pronouns you are only presenting the point of view that this person did not identify as a man. I propose a compromise, that will alleviate the NPOV problem: use male pronouns only when the person in question presented as a man, changing 'sexual identity' (which is actually incorrect terminology) to 'physical sex,' and adding sentence added that reads "Favez claimed to identify as male, indicating that he may have been a transman." Irregardless of the intent, the current version of the article is offensive. EmilyGrrl (talk) 08:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, pronouns are old, but the application of male pronouns to crossdressing women is anachronistic and implies a value judgement on the part of the editor. I understand that this is a sensitive topic among contemporary LGBT people (is that the correct term?), but this encyclopedia is not concerned with what modern people perceive as offensive (see WP:CENSOR). Instead, we generally follow our sources, who in this case label Favez a woman. See, for comparison, Category:Female wartime crossdressers, which lists several similar articles, and in particular Nadezhda Durova, another Napoleonic Wars case. In all these cases, female terminology is used.

For these reasons, I agree with your proposed change in respect of "physical sex", but not with your other proposals. The terms "identify as" and "transman" appear to be contemporary jargon that do not appear in our available sources. Sandstein (talk) 09:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Referring to a person that identifies as male as a 'female cross dresser' also implies a value judgement. I could accept that it was possible this person was a female crossdressing to get by in society with male privelege, were it not for the statement he made about having 'the spirit of a man caught in a woman's body.' This is about as clear and unambiguous as you can get. This person most definitely identified as a male. That's not conjecture or 'original research,' it's common sense. This person deserves to be recognized for who he was, and so far that has been denied to him through bias that exists in previous research. If this isn't changed here, then Wikipedia isn't presenting a NPOV; it's presenting the same non-neutral POV that the original sources on which this article was based contain. As for other articles, if there's clear evidence like in this article that the person in question identified as a gender different from their biological sex, then these pages should be changed too. Nevertheless, we are discussing *this page* and not the others. EmilyGrrl (talk) 09:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, while we're on the topic of following the precedent of other articles, take a look at some other notable transgender people with Wikipedia entries, such as Andrea James, Pat Califa and Calpernia Addams. All refer to the persons in question by pronouns that reflect their gender identity, and not their physical sex. The article for Nadezhda Durova is not relevant to this discussion, as the status of the person's gender identity is far more ambiguous than Enrique's. EmilyGrrl (talk) 09:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Favez probably identified as male, but it is not this encyclopedia's place to correct bias in previous research or to determine what our subjects "deserve". This would mean to engage in original research and to depart from what is verifiable through reliable sources, both of which is prohibited by our policies. I submit that, as an encyclopedia bound to follow our sources, we show respect to this person simply by choosing to include his or her biography, strictly based on the existing research, and allow the reader to come to his or her own conclusions.

The other people you refer to are contemporary people, and have presumably been referred to by the sources of their articles by pronouns reflecting their gender identity. This is generally not the case with historical persons, as here, who are mostly referred to by historians by their physical sex.

It's precisely because gender identities can be ambiguous or very difficult to determine (at least with respect to historical persons) that we should follow the pronoun usage of our sources. Sandstein (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

None of what I am trying to point out is 'original research.' Enrique himself stated that he identified as male. That this was ignored by your sources that insisted on using female pronouns is irrelevant. You have the quote, straight from the same sources. This contradiction needs to be addressed properly. As for the sources for the contemporary subjects, there are sources that disregard their stated gender identity and choose instead to refer to them as the pronoun reflecting their birth sex as well, yet Wikipedia still recognizes their gender identity and uses proper pronouns, because the statements from the persons in question are primary sources, while the books and articles sourced are not. This reasoning applies also to Enrique; his direct statement regarding his personal gender identity is a primary source, while the books and articles used to generate the information put into the article are only tertiary sources. The direct statement takes priority. EmilyGrrl (talk) 10:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Actually, both the statement and the use of pronouns are from secondary sources (the historical works written about Favez), because we don't have the primary sources (the court records). We, the encyclopedia, are the tertiary source. It may be useful to entertain the opinion of others on this subject, and I have requested a third opinion on WP:3O. Sandstein (talk) 10:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Update: we do have a record of Favez's correspondence, and trial letters. For a reproduction of the originals, see [[5]].

Favez uses both gender pronouns. In private letters to Juana (the "ex-wife"), Favez sometimes uses both genders interchangeably. Indeed, sometimes two genders appear in the same sentence. She'll start female, and end the sentence by describing himself with male adjectives. This is interesting, and may either be force of habit, or political, or both, or neither. Favez wrote these letters after 20 years of living as a woman (so female genders might have slipped in unintentionally, despite her identification as a male) to Juana, after the latter decided to re-marry (thus possibly encouraging Favez to use male pronouns in her love letters to give the impression of a hetero-normative affair, despite identifying as a woman herself).

My point is, even with the original sources, we just don't know how Favez identified privately throughout the full extent of her/his life.

However, it should be noted that Favez spent the fast majority of her life living (and describing herself) as female. Indeed, Favez spent about 4 years living as a man in Cuba, two years as a man in France, and the rest of her life (approximately 20 years) was lived as a woman in New Orleans, and Mexico. Throughout that time, we see her correspondence uses primarily female pronouns, in an effort to eliminate all references to her life as a man in Cuba.

Please read the original sources. This article should, most likely, use female pronouns (by the sheer length of her time identifying as a woman), or at least make note of this very interesting duplicity--where he uses both female and male names and pronouns interchangeably with Juana.

It's blatantly anachronistic (at best) or historically revisionist (at worst) to rely on modern gendertheory to ascribe pronouns to an individual in the 1800s--particularly when it differs from their own organic use. The use of male pronouns here also does not follow Wiki's policy of verifiability. I should also note that the Spanish version of this article uses female pronouns.

Can't we just use "Favez" or a third party pronoun for everything? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.254.166.195 (talk) 03:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Third opinion

Hey. I did a look around for other transgendered people, and found that the articles use the pronoun of the identity of which the person identified. For example, Sara Davis Buechner was born David Buechner, but the article uses the pronoun 'she.' A similar case exists at Lady Bunny. Based on this, I would say that the article should be renamed Enrique Favez, and the pronouns should be changed to male. What do you think? — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 17:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I've since found WP:ID, which says about the same thing. I guess this means using "he" is OK, but since we don't really know a lot about Favez's motivations and preferences, we should limit the pronoun change to the period she assumed a male identity, as suggested by Emily above. I'm not sure about the article title: our practice (WP:NCP) is to use the name the subject is most commonly referred to, which would be Enriqueta. (She probably used different female and/or male names in Switzerland, France and the US, which we don't know about.) Sandstein (talk) 19:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I've made the pronoun fixes; feel free to tweak them if the changes in pronouns appear awkward. Sandstein (talk) 19:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

This consensus was ignored in this edit. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC).

Enriqueta

Per the overwhelming view of sources, I've moved this back to "Enriqueta"/"she". Even the source cited for the claim that she's a trans man refers to her repeatedly and thoughtfully as a woman. I've added the supposition that she was a trans man, and we could consider adding those categories back in addition to the cross-dressing categories if we think it's something that people interested in the former topic might want to find, but something thrown out as a defense to a criminal charge of fraud isn't exactly the strongest statement of self-identification, and Pagés evidently doesn't think that precludes anyone from discussing Favez as a woman or her life as a woman's life. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:58, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Gender identity, again

The Wikipedia guidelines on gender identity state that we should "Use gendered words only if they reflect the person's latest self-identification as reported in recent sources". Seeing as Enrique reportedly went on trial and under oath declared himself to be a man trapped in a woman's body, that seems like enough of a recorded self-identification to be worth respecting. The fact that other people of the era (and later) kept misgendering him, and the fact that he was compelled to live out the last portion of his life in a nunnery are irrelevant to how he viewed himself and his gender. I am of the opinion that we should just use the male pronoun for him, but if we can't reach a consensus on that, can we at least rewrite the article to avoid pronouns entirely? ShinySquirrel42 (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree with this. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the gender of people like this in the far past; but declaring under oath that you are a man trapped in a woman's body is as decisive as it's going to get. --Aquillion (talk) 17:56, 2 June 2023 (UTC)