Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 4

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Chronological Reorganization

Since nobody objected when I suggested it in Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#Proposals_To_Rework, I've gone ahead and reorganized the page more-or-less chronologically. I ended up going by whether the feminist in question was originally active in the second-wave, third-wave, or fourth-wave since that seemed to make the most sense for the sake of future sub-headers. On that note, while I still think this way of organizing the page makes more sense then the mish-mash of random headers we had before, it does emphasize the listy-ness of the page quite a bit. I think the next step is to put in some subheaders and some summaries of the views at issue, which I'll do assuming some people agree that this organization scheme in general is a good idea. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:49, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Reverted. In the #General Structure section, you made a suggestion to go with chronological order, yes, but it's not like you suggested this exact format, which divides the topics by periods of feminism instead of by specific issues (except for "TERF"). The reason that your setup is not a good setup is because it makes it seems like none of these groups' views intersect/overlap and it aids redundancy. It also deprives readers of learning about the topic by issues. "Differences in socialization and experience," for example, is not just something that radical feminists have weighed in on; we can clearly see that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has also weigh in on it as well. Socialization views should be in one section, and it's the same for other topics. Except for retaining the Adichie comment, I don't see where you put the socialization material in your version. You also cut a lot of other material. I'm not stating that you should not have cut any of it, but you should be clear about what you are cutting and why. Were you simply aiming to put in a version similar to the first version you put in and I reverted? No one stated that the current setup is great. That is why editors are trying to work together on the setup, rather than make unilateral changes. In the #Recent changes to the lead and drafting section above, yes, I reiterated that I am working on a draft. But I was clear that I would post it here for everyone to review first. I also suggested that others with draft ideas post their drafts. It's easy to make a draft in one's sandbox and to then link to it. Given the controversial nature of this topic and that the article has already been full-protected due to edit warring, it would have been best for you to go the "here is my draft" route. Dividing by "periods of feminism" works for a History section. And a History section is one aspect that is in my draft. But I'm careful to not have much of the specific issues in the History section since I feel that those should be their own sections. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I have a few major things to say here:

1. Bold-Revert-Discuss is an explicit policy of Wikipedia. We'd gone through the cycle once, and it seemed like we had consensus for some kind of major reorganization of the page, so it appeared it was time for another bold edit. This particular rewrite was specifically not the same as the one I'd done previously other than being a reorganization of the page, in order to keep with the consensus on this talk page about how to reorganize the article.

2. While I rearranged a lot, I deliberately cut as little as possible. In fact, I cut only pieces which did not fit anywhere on the page.

3. The specific objection to reorganization you have laid out has so far only been expressed by you. Multiple other editors (specifically, both sche and Mathglot) expressed support for reorganizing the page last time I asked about it, and nobody objected despite having several days to, during which conversation on this page was otherwise very active. Because of this, I suspect consensus is against you on this, but I'm gonna toss it to everyone else to make sure: do people support a major reorganization of this page, and if so how? LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:07, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Loki, it's hard to know how to respond to "a major reorg" without more details, or example sections. Trying it on the article page is one way to show what you mean, and you got a revert. Another way, is just copy the section you mean to change, here, and collapse it (with COLLAPSED by default), and ask for comments. Or, you can just describe your plans in more detail. Mathglot (talk) 02:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

That's fair. Gonna take a crack at a draft in a sandbox, then. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:BRD is a supplement page. It is not a policy or a guideline. In 2015, editors (including me) voted against making it a guideline. The reasons why are stated there in that linked discussion.

There was no consensus for the version -- either version -- you implemented.

You stated that "while [you] rearranged a lot, [you] deliberately cut as little as possible. In fact, [you] cut only pieces which did not fit anywhere on the page." The edit history indicates that you cut 3,748 characters. And, as I noted, "Differences in socialization and experience" does fit on the page.

You stated that "the specific objection to reorganization [I] have laid out has so far only been expressed by [me]." Eh? We only very recently got to see the layout you had in mind. I certainly did not picture that layout when you suggested chronological order. In the #General Structure section, where you suggested chronological order, there isn't even any agreement to go that route. Editors agreeing that the article needs a revamp obviously doesn't mean that they are going to agree to any version you suggest. I obviously agree that the article needs a revamp. That is, after all, why I am working on a draft. That, and because I'm tired of people editing the article based on their personal opinions and/or flawed interpretations of the rules. Like Mathglot stated, "it's hard to know how to respond to 'a major reorg' without more details, or example sections." That's pretty much what I stated to you. As for consensus, if I felt like rushing the draft I'm working on, I'm certain that a WP:RfC would see my draft chosen over yours. But, although I might need to go that RfC route in the future, this isn't a competition. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, as seen at Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Undue (my "00:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)" post), I clearly stated that "I would consider having a section titled 'Radical feminism,' 'Contemporary feminism,' etc., but I feel that redundancy would result in that case because different types of feminists will be in agreement on some things or in disagreement on the same things. Titles such as 'Radical feminism' and 'Contemporary feminism' could cover a lot of material. So I think it's better to specifically address issues, such as 'Socialization differences,' like we currently do and include the views from different types of feminists in those sections." It seemed that Aircorn was partly in agreement with me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:38, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to choose to ignore the snippiness in that comment and instead just link everyone to my draft. It's deliberately more similar to my first attempt at rewriting the page since after trying both I feel that version was a lot clearer and less of a list of random feminists, and I still object to any version of the page that doesn't make it clear that Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, and Germaine Greer share an ideological position that Adichie and Steinem do not share. Feel free to edit it with suggested changes even though it's in my sandbox.

The problem with zooming into individual issues is, to quote sche from the previous discussion on reorganizing, "the non-issue-specific sections are needed because so much opposition and support is generic". I have no problem with a structure like the one in Feminist_views_on_pornography, but putting issue positions at the top level makes the most important piece of information in the article (namely, that these are largly two camps within feminism) extremely unclear. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:44, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

There isn't any more snippiness in that comment than you stating that "the specific objection to reorganization [I] have laid out has so far only been expressed by [me]" when we had only very recently got to see the layout you had in mind, and when there has been a discussion on such a setup before and an editor understood what I meant by not going with it (although, yes, you probably overlooked that). As seen in the #Retitle section? Criticism of trans-exclusionary viewpoints & non-neutrality discussion, -sche has also understood what I mean regarding the division and section titling issues. There isn't any more snippiness in my above response to you than you stating "Because of this, [you] suspect consensus is against [me] on this." To me, it seems that you keep trying to turn this into a "Flyer vs. everyone else" thing, even though, just like at the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard, editors are generally interested to see what I have to state and/or present on matters and don't look at me with suspicion. And that is because my reputation speaks for itself. If people state differently about me off Wikipedia, which I'm sure some do, it still generally doesn't translate to feelings about me on Wikipedia.

Anyway, as for your version, it needs work partly for the reasons I stated above in this section. This is regardless of whether or not editors feel that it's better than the current version. Consolidating issues in one section is not about making it seem like "Janice Raymond, Sheila Jeffreys, and Germaine Greer share an ideological position that Adichie and Steinem do not share." For the socialization section currently in the article, for example, those women (including Adichie) were placed in that section because they all have views on socialization. It is easy enough to make it clear in that section what type of feminist Adichie is. But regardless of what type of feminist she is, she was very much criticized for the "trans women are trans women" statement, which is indeed a view that many radical feminists have. Why should socialization material be scattered about instead of covered in one section? The same goes for other specific issues. Why should we make it difficult for readers to locate these specific issues and have material presented without counterpoints in one section? Why should we employ such a setup when it lends to redundancy, addressing the same topic but in different sections? The only section in your draft that has a heading specifically addressing an issue is the "TERF" section, and you included it under the "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" section. But as we know, that section is not just about their views and many or most of them object to the term "TERF." One might argue that the "TERF" topic is more of a trans-inclusive view matter, given that it's that area of feminism that coined the term and sometimes uses it more broadly than it should be used. Deciding which section "TERF" best belongs to is one of the issues with dividing material as "Trans-exclusionary views" and "Trans-inclusive views". These two sides have different views on the same issues (and, at times, similar views on some issues, such as "some degree of male privilege"), and the article should be divided in a way that presents each of those issues with a section specifically devoted to whichever issue and while adhering to WP:Due weight. That these are largely two camps within feminism is something for the lead and a History section to cover. It is simple to make it clear what type of feminist each person being mentioned/quoted is.

One example of splitting material into "Trans-exclusionary views" and "Trans-inclusive views" not being ideal is the socialization material. You moved the following out of the socialization section (getting rid of a socialization section) and into a sectioned tilted "Trans-inclusive views": "Some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." But this is not just a trans-inclusive view argument. In fact, as should be clear from the source, enough people view it as a trans-exclusive argument. But either way, although the source states that "this particular debate began more than 40 years ago, at the height of the second-wave feminist movement," the source does not attribute the view to radical feminists or to trans-inclusive feminists. The sources states, "[Adichie's] comments propelled her to the center of a nuanced, long-running gender identity debate between some feminists and transgender rights activists." It also states, "The dilemma is based on the belief that most trans women were born assigned to the male gender and were raised male until they decided to transition. As a result, some feminists argue, transgender women spent a fraction — or large part — of their early lives experiencing male privilege." Having this material in a socialization section is much better than having it split and making it out as belonging to just one side of feminism. Also, per WP:EDITORIAL, your "However, Adichie later clarified those comments" piece should probably simply be "Adichie later stated." I understand that she was clarifying due to criticism she received, but it's not like she went back on her comment; she, like the source states, stands by it. And there are trans women who disagree with her. The source clearly states, "Adichie's comments sparked outrage over the weekend among transgender people and transgender rights activists, who insisted that 'transgender women ARE women' and disputed the idea that transgender women in general experienced privilege before transitioning." Again, the socialization material belongs in its own section, as separate from being labeled a trans-exclusionary view or a trans-inclusive view. And the same can be stated for some other issues.

The Feminist views on pornography article is a poor article as well, but at least its current split of "Anti-pornography feminism" and "Sex-positive and anti-censorship feminist views" have headings for specific issues within the sections. Still, per my comments above, I don't like that setup for this article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:43, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that socialization material should be scattered about, but the problem with putting these issues in top-level sections is that these are not a bunch of unrelated debates. The primary argument here is between trans-exclusionary radical feminists and trans-inclusive feminists, and the issue positions largely only make sense within that framework. I wouldn't mind separate top-level sections on the difference between a Serano-esque classical transfeminist narrative and Butlerian deconstruction of gender, because those are legitimately different positions, but within them they have specific views on each section of the overall argument.

One thing in particular I want to make clear, since you put so much emphasis on Adichie in particular and on the socialization section in general: Most trans feminists, including Julia Serano, agree that trans women had male privilege at some point in their lives. The debate is not whether or not trans women had male privilege, it's about whether or not that means that they are men. That is why this, like all the other issues, is largely another extension of a greater overall debate about whether or not trans women are women.

Let me offer a compromise position, though: would you be okay with grouping together each overall ideological position as subheaders within the issue sections? I think this is still not the 'natural' way the debate is organized, but it would satisfy my primary concern that Raymond, Jefferys and Greer (who are all consistently hostile to trans people, whose hostility is based on a shared and detailed ideology, and who have all said several things that neutral observers have characterized as bigoted) are not clearly distinguished from Adichie (who, as the source also states, is an LGBTQ activist who said something that sounded transphobic and later clarified her comments) or Steinem (who did legitimately hold some trans-exclusionary views in the 70s but later changed them). LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:31, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I understand what you mean regarding "a bunch of unrelated debates." I've pointed to the need to better summarize views and not have so much blow-for-blow material. I still have an issue with the type of setups I've objected to above, though.

It's not that I'm putting "so much emphasis on Adichie in particular and on the socialization section in general." It's that, like that The Washington Post source states, "Adichie's comments sparked outrage [...] among transgender people and transgender rights activists, who insisted that 'transgender women ARE women' and disputed the idea that transgender women in general experienced privilege before transitioning." Notice how both aspects are mentioned as being disputed by some. I've noted the importance of a socialization section because this next line by Adichie is shared by many feminists: "Gender matters because of socialization. And our socialization shapes how we occupy our space in the world." It's not so much about Adichie; she has one piece in the article thus far. It's about the views and some of those views being debated. You stated that "Most trans feminists [...] agree that trans women had male privilege at some point in their lives." That needs a source...because The Washington Post source shows just the opposite. You stated, "The debate is not whether or not trans women had male privilege, it's about whether or not that means that they are men." But The Washington Post source shows that it's about both. For some, it's simply about debating that trans women had any male privilege at all. Part of the debate is about whether or not the experiences of cisgender women and trans women can really be considered the same or similar enough to not separate cisgender women and trans women into two different groups (regardless of them being two different groups by definition -- one group being cisgender and the other being transgender). Adichie clearly did not state that trans women are not women; she's arguing, like she stated, that she [doesn't] think it's a good thing to talk about women's issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women because [she doesn't] think that's true." Of course, some have taken issue with her stating things like "women's issues" in a way that seems to exclude trans women, but, from what I see, it's likely that she simply isn't in the habit of using the term cisgender.

I'm not clear on your "would you be okay with grouping together each overall ideological position as subheaders within the issue sections?" question. Your "Conflict between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists" heading is fine for now. It might need subheadings at some point. Regarding this, someone added it because it's about a part of the socialization aspect. We should make clear how radical feminists view gender, often or usually not believing in the male or female brain, regardless of what neuroscience of sex differences show, which contributes to them feeling the way that they do about trans women.

As for "not clearly distinguished from Adichie (who, as the source also states, is an LGBTQ activist who said something that sounded transphobic and later clarified her comments) or Steinem (who did legitimately hold some trans-exclusionary views in the 70s but later changed them)".... Again, it's easy to distinguish them via text. It is easy to note in the socialization section what Adichie's political affiliation is, that Adichie is an LGBTQ activist, and that (as noted in your sandbox) she stated, " I see how my saying that we should not conflate the gender experiences of trans women with that of women born female could appear as if I was suggesting that one experience is more important than the other. Or that the experiences of trans women are less valid than those of women born female. I do not think so at all."

Regarding this, I restored it, because, like I stated, "It's obvious conflict since these people feel like their voices are being silenced." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:31, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

By subheaders, I mean having a "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" subheader and a "trans-inclusive feminism" subheader under each of the various issues. So, for example, "trans-exclusionary radical feminist views on socialization" and "trans-inclusive views on socialization".

About your restoration: yes, they feel like their voices are being silenced, but that by itself is not a conflict, it's a complaint. If there was some actual incident they could point to, then I would agree we should add it back in, but IMO a quote from one side or the other is never going to be a conflict by itself. Conflicts require action on both sides. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:31, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd rather we have one socialization section. Yes, that section might need subheadings at some point, but giving it the "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" and "trans-inclusive feminism" subheadings pose the same problems I addressed above about the overlap and redundancy. Plus, per MOS:Paragraphs, "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading." We typically shouldn't add subheadings unless needed. Considering what I noted about clarifying with text and considering that the current socialization material in the article is a little bit of material, subheadings are not needed in this case. Also, repeatedly dividing things in a "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" and "trans-inclusive feminism" way would lead to a lot of unnecessary subheadings. Just about every issue would be divided that way if there is enough material for it, leading to a crowded template of contents. Even if we use Template: TOC limit, it's unnecessary clutter.

Regarding conflict; I'm not grasping the way you are distinguishing "conflict." Those feminists feel that they are being silenced by trans feminists and people who agree with trans feminists (although, as we've discussed before, not all feminists, whether cisgender or transgender, think alike). It's a conflict. And regardless, it's an aspect that belongs in the article. As for "actual incident," one incident is mentioned. And going back to "conflict," it would help to include the other side's view, although Jeffreys mentions "transhate, transphobia, hate speech" and it's easy to deduce from that piece that the other side views comments by these feminists as transhate, transphobia, and hate speech. Either way, we should obviously try to avoid just documenting incidents. Occasionally documenting an incident is fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:08, 22 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the conflict section: I think I sort of see the distinction here. The placement of the Bellos incident in the paragraph makes it look like she's being used as an example to support Sheila Jeffrey's argument that trans women are being silenced. It's not clear that Bellos herself supports that idea. That seems non-neutral to me. More broadly: the last third or so of that section seems to rely heavily on (in essence) re-hashing editorials. It seems like recentism to dedicate 2 paragraphs to Bindel's opinion columns when we only dedicate one to the Michigan Womyn's Festival incident. Couldn't those be condensed? Nblund ^talk 15:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Would the conflict case be clearer if the title was instead "Conflicts between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists"? Every other case in the section is an instance of a conflict, concrete, count noun, between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. Particular incidents of conflict like the Sandy Stone conflict, the Michfest conflict, the Kimberly Nixon incident, the incident between Tara Wolf and Maria MacLachlan, and so on. On the other hand, the Jeffreys and Bellos quotes are not concrete incidents, they are about a general sense of conflict between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists. Well, most of this page is about that vague sense of conflict between those two groups, but we obviously shouldn't shove it all in the same section. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind "conflict" being changed to "conflicts," but I don't see it as needed. Just going with "conflict" is similar to how we go with singular article titles per WP:SINGULAR.

I see that Nblund made this cut. I don't see that the article loses anything by removing that piece. Well, except for mention of the Iran issue...if other feminists also talk about it (since, as mentioned in the LGBT rights in Iran article, it's true that gay men have been pressured to undergo sex reassignment surgery in order to avoid legal and social persecution), and except for losing mention on the transgender protest at the Stonewall Awards. We can cover the Stonewall Awards material in some other way, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Rachel McKinnon YouTube

Is this notable?

Philosopher of language and trans activist Rachel McKinnon also argues that TERF is not a slur, nor even pejorative by itself, because TERF can be used in a purely descriptive way, while slurs and all derogatory terms are necessarily derogatory in all contexts.

Source is self-published (McKinnon's YouTube). A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, for several different reasons: first, "notability" doesn't apply within pages. Second, self-published sources can be used for the speaker's own views. If either of those things wasn't true, most of this article would have to go. Furthermore, in this particular case, McKinnon is a philosopher of language, and therefore a relevant expert on the subject matter according to WP:SPS. And finally, her video is quoted within another source that's also linked on this page, so I think it's self-evidently usable on this page even if all of those other things were not true. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:38, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Loki that ABOUTSELF applies here: we're using McKinnon's self-published video to explain McKinnon's own views. It wouldn't be worthwhile to include the views of every random person posting on YouTube, but McKinnon is well known as a feminist transgender advocate. Cheers, gnu57 17:52, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

This talk page is a mess to follow. I removed two sentences cited to youtube. We rarely cite youtube in articles on non-controversial topics. Why would we cite it here? FWIW I left other primary source in. Anyone can say anything they want on youtube so there is no weight to pulling someone from there, especially ones with no obvious notability. If it is worth saying here then their views will be presented on a more reliable platform. AIRcorn (talk) 18:10, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that we should swap out the McKinnon youtube ref for the Philosophy and Phenomenological Research paper that the other philosophers were objecting to:

• McKinnon, Rachel (March 2018). "The Epistemology of Propaganda". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 96 (2): 483–489. doi:10.1111/phpr.12429.

McKinnon asserts in the paper that TERF isn't a slur and other people who say so are pushing propaganda. I think it would be helpful to give this information immediately before the info about the seven other philosophers, to make it clear what they were responding to here. (They also published a longer and more formal response here.) Cheers, gnu57 18:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

That source is fine. You tube should not be used at all. AIRcorn (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I would be fine with adding that source, but my concern with replacing it entirely is that we'd be replacing a publicly accessible source for a source behind a paywall. (Though, I was able to find a PDF of it or what might be a draft of it on her site, so we might want to add a URL to that citation.) Even with that PDF, I don't want to remove the YouTube citation, because in the paper she says the idea that TERF is a slur is absurd but only cites a paper on the nature of slurs and does not walk the reader through her reasoning like she does in the YouTube video. (Also to Aircorn: McKinnon not having an article doesn't mean she's not notable. AFAICT McKinnon is actually notable for two entirely separate things. She's been covered for her work as a transgender activist, like in some of the sources of this very article, and she was also at the center of a trans women in sports controversy after she won a cycling tournament.)

Also to be clear: the reason we're using so many primary and self-published sources is that the article is largely about the opinions of political activists, and primary and self-published sources are often the only places such activists publish their opinions. All the trans activists currently cited have been recognized as experts on trans feminist topics by mainstream media organizations, so it's not exactly a huge leap to cite them using primary sources given that. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This is completely wrong. We should be using secondary sources as much as possible to determine which opinions are the notable ones. Otherwise we may as well be the secondary source, which we are not. AIRcorn (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

On the nature of transwomen

There are sufficient number of people or organizations who have opined on the nature of transwomen, that I wonder if it might be useful (especially if we go with a thematic structure) to have a subsection about this. We already have a few opinions sprinkled around: Adichie: "trans women are trans women"; Greer: "trans women are not women" (in note 24, sort of, but betterattested in BBC interview, and reported by The Independent); Catharine Mackinnon: "anyone who identifies as a woman..."; Atwood (via double-negative): "[I am] not the kind that thinks that trans women are not women"; Raymond: "a transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist", LOOT: a "sex-change he-creature"; Nancy Burkholder: not "womyn-born-womyn". I'm sure there are more. Sandy Stone, Julia Serano, and Jennifer Finney Boylan are feminists, too, and their opinions, as well as other transfeminists', could go here as well. Mathglot (talk) 05:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

As the nature of this as a topic has as much potential to cause offence as listing historical views that dehumanize Jews, it is of debatable use unless other ways with a more holistic approach are thought ineffective. --Fæ (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Mostly agreed with Fae. I would like to get in some of the differences between the Butlerian perspective and the classical transfeminist perspective somewhere, though. I guess what I'm saying is, I wouldn't mind a section about feminist opinions on the nature of gender, but just a bunch of people saying that trans women are or are not women is not really useful information by itself. LokiTheLiar (talk) 15:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps, but much of the article causes offence to one group or the other; it's the nature of this article. It was an organizational question intended to be an improvement to the article. And I don't see why grouping this information together, would cause more offence than is already caused by having it spread all over the article; pretty much everything quoted above is already present in it. Or, do you think grouping it, somehow is not an improvement, or causes offence when consolidated, where it doesn't when separated? That would seem like a better argument against it, if you are going to argue against it. And it's not about "just a bunch of people saying that trans women are or are not women", as there are different opinions among radical feminists, not to mention transfeminists, about that question. Mathglot (talk) 09:59, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

So, I do think that grouping it is not an improvement. Just listing a bunch of people saying whether or not trans women are women without any additional analysis of that opinion isn't an encyclopedia article, it's a poll. The article already has a problem with being a series of disconnected quotes. To some extent this is unavoidable; it's like that because it's hard to find sources on this topic that are reliable enough to allow us to write in WP's voice. But I definitely don't want to make it even worse, by taking a bunch of quotes out of situations where they actually are in something resembling a proper context (like the LOOT quote, which is a part of the history of the dispute over Sandy Stone and would not otherwise be worth including) and lumping them together without that context.

But also, I'm sympathetic to Fae's concern. The article already has multiple NPOV templates for giving undue weight to TERF views. I don't think that most of those quotes really should be in the article, frankly, and they certainly shouldn't all be together. We wouldn't have a section titled 'slurs for trans women' in this article, but as you've described it that's basically what this section is going to be: by taking stuff like the LOOT quote out of the context of the dispute over Sandy Stone and putting it in its own section, you've turned what was originally a piece of trans and feminist history and turned it into a context-free slur against trans women. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The socialization aspect, which includes dicussion of gender, should definitely be covered in the aricle per WP:Due weight, and it's currently somewhat covered in the article.

As for consolidatation, I spoke of that in the #Chronological Reorganization section above. I wasn't speaking of doing it in a problematic way. I don't see a need for a title such as "On the nature of transwomen" (not that I'm stating that Mathglot was suggesting that). "The nature of transwomen" should be discussed in respective sections, such as the socialization section. Sex reassignment surgery is another topic, and currently has its own section. I don't think that Mathglot was suggesting anything like "slurs for trans women" or something that would essentially amount to that or similar. And, anyway, we already have a List of LGBT-related slurs article.

As for the tags, the POV and undue weight tags shouldn't be there...for reasons I've already explained and Mathglot echoed in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. And that is even more so the case now because of how the how article has changed since they were placed. The "relies too much on references to primary sources" tag is questionable because this article currently mainly relies on media sources instead of academic sources and so many or most of those sources are opinion pieces or similar. So, of course, the article is going to mainly consist of primary sources. A source being a media source obviously doesn't automatically make it a seconary source. For example, like WP:RSBREAKING states, "All breaking-news stories, without exception, are primary sources, and must be treated with caution." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm okay with removing the primary sources tag (because I agree that is sort of the nature of the article), but I still object to removing either of the NPOV tags. The reasoning is that the article still IMO gives undue weight to trans-exclusionary feminists. Currently, although trans-exclusionary views are no longer presented as the majority, they're still presented as, for one, speaking independently instead of as a cohesive unit, and two, their opinions take up a little under half the article when even a TERF-sympathetic source we already have in the article says "Such views are shared by few feminists now". (More completely, my personal intuition would say that trans-exclusionary radical feminists are basically WP:FRINGE in most English-speaking countries including the US, but a fairly influential minority in the UK. But I don't have a source ready for that other than simply comparing Guardian editorials to similar editorials in an American paper with a similar slight left lean.)

The state of the article as it is now is, IMO, a little like writing an article on the Democratic Party in America in such a way that it quotes three communists, scattered across the article, against three mainstream Democrats. It's certainly not like there are zero communists in the Democratic Party, but presenting them like that implies that communism and capitalism are equally prevalent within the party, and that's certainly not the case.

(Also: I anticipate the objection that it's prevalence within reliable sources and not true prevalence that matters. However, most reliable sources are, again, trans-inclusive. While I agree TERFs are more influential on the internet than they are in real life, it's still the case that the heavy majority of feminist sources are trans-inclusive.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't give undue weight to the trans-exclusionary feminist view. As seen in the #Rewrite and Template Removal section, I've been over this. So has Mathglot, in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. So, for now, I'm not repeating myself on that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I also disagree with the article's tags. I disagree that undue weight is given to the terf/gc viewpoint, and I disagree that the viewpoint is fringe. For clarity of all editors, should a new section on this talk page be created specifically to address the tags? A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes (and I'm going to create that section in this edit), but the fact that we appear to be at an impass (me and Fae vs. you, Flyer, and maybe Mathglot with nobody else having commented on this topic so far) means I really think we ought to get some kind of third opinion on this topic. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This makes sense. The whole debate revolves around this issue so it should probably be the first section. AIRcorn (talk) 07:26, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Media 'terf' usage

Are all three of these new sentences notable and accurate?

Many feminist media organizations (such as Feministing[1], Jezebel[2], Bitch Media[3], and Autostraddle[4]) use the term "TERF" in the organization's voice. Some mainstream media organizations (such as The New York Times[5] and the Huffington Post[6]) have used the term in editorials. The Telegraph[7] and NBC News[8] have used the term in news articles.

Their inclusion seem defensive. The last sentence seems especially unnecessary, since it's referring to quotation of the word in reporting, not usage in the publishers' voices. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:41, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I think it would be better to find sources which fall on the "mention" side of the use-mention distinction—ones which discuss TERF as a word, rather than just using it. I went looking for the term in news style guides but didn't turn up anything.

I've been thinking—how about spinning off the bulk of the TERF section into a stand-alone article covering the origin, usage, and discussion/evaluation of the term itself? I mean something like the articles for feminazi, Bernie Bro, cracker (term), and RINO. I think there's enough coverage by reliable sources to do so. Cheers, gnu57 17:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

A145: Eh, I admit the NBC source is a bit marginal, since it only uses the acronym once, but the Telegraph source does use it in the publisher's voice several times. My response to the allegation of defensiveness is that the rest of the section is also quite defensive but in the opposite direction, so I was attempting to inject some balance.

gnu: I think it would be pretty reasonable to create a page for trans-exclusionary radical feminists and put a lot of the stuff in this article in there. I don't think the term itself is big enough for an article, though. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

It comes off as a bit weird just to list a ton of times media organizations used the term without context, or without quoting what they said about the term specifically. ShimonChai (talk) 22:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the addition, I tweaked and trimmed it. Like I stated when trimming it, "This is not how we do things. When discussing debate over a term, we don't then list organization after organization or news outlet after news outlet that may have used or refused to use the term." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

As for the term "TERF," I don't see that it yet needs its own Wikipedia article. It's best to follow WP:No page in this case. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

The main advantage I see to creating a standalone page, is that the bulk of the content could all be moved there, and following summary style recommendations, the Terf sections in all the other articles that talk about it, could be reduced to a few sentences, topped by a {{Main}} link pointing to the new article. Also, that would localize discussions about the term to the new talk page. The way it seems now, is that discussions about TERF suck up all the oxygen in several different articles' Talk pages, that are primarily about something else. I'd love to contain and localize that, and move most of that strife elsewhwere.

That said, Flyer's probably right that WP:NOPAGE applies, and probably trumps everything I've just said. But if people want to create a new article, I'm not going to argue very much against that; it might be that promoting civility and just generally getting these other articles moving forward without Terf wars as a stumbling block, balances out the contrary conclusion recommended at NOPAGE. Mathglot (talk) 08:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd support creation of an article for the word "terf" (and not its spelled version, which isn't as notable, common, and controversial, and which would more be about a perspective already covered by this existing page). The word has a history, it has differing interpretations, and it's entered the mainstream. We've many other slangs and slurs with their own articles that are mere stubs: En homme, Daddy (slang), Stone butch, Gabacho, Batty boy, Chicken (gay slang), Boi (slang)… A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:58, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Returning to the topic of this section (the media list), thanks for trimming the NBC and Telegraph mentions in reporting, which were misleading as if endorsements. I'm still concerned (but not outright opposing) the remaining list, for the reasons stated by two other editors above in this thread. If the publishers released statements in support or opposition of the word, that'd be notable. But a list of pubs that use the word in their own voice seems tedious to ascertain and maintain. It's unclear presently if they've done so consistently or just once. And this could similarly lead to a tedious list of pubs that object to the word in their own voice. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

• This needs secondary sources. Simply searching for the term TERF in newspapers and on organisations web pages is original research. We don't know what has been cherry picked or not. AIRcorn (talk) 18:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, upon thinking about it more, that line definitely is original research. (It's not cherry-picked, but the reader would have no way of knowing that.) I'm gonna comment that line out except for the USA Today article I just added for the sake of possibly using the citations later. The reason I'm excepting the USA Today article is that it's the only one where the news organization talks about the term directly instead of just using it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Its just part of a glossary of terms and doesn't really add anything. AIRcorn (talk) 23:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

The thing it adds is that it's one of the very few instances of a mainstream news source taking an explicit side on this controversy (not just by defining the word but also by calling TERFs "transphobic"). And not even in an opinion section either; that's a glossary in their news section written by a journalist. (I would like to integrate it more naturally into the page, though; currently it sticks out quite a bit.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

If anything it supports the TERF as a slur paragraph. But we really should be trimming this section not adding to it. AIRcorn (talk) 07:13, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I've now removed the commented content. It's just two sentences, but its six refs make it look like a large paragraph. The comment also has no date or note for future editors to explain its presence. The content can easily be found in the edit log (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics&diff=894103230&oldid=894102322) if needed later. And consensus here seems to be against its inclusion regardless of rewording or resourcing. A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

TERF trim

I trimmed some of the quotes and consolidated the section somewhat. It was reverted half way through and other changes made, so I it was lost in a n edit conflict. Here is what I had. Don't really care if we start a new article or not, but it is no reason for this one to bloat out like it is at the moment. AIRcorn (talk) 18:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea of trimming the section down, but the problem is that the trimmed section is further from NPOV. My biggest single concern is that it leaves in a self-published source arguing against the term "TERF" from Deborah Cameron, a sociolinguist, but removes a similarly self-published source arguing for it by Rachel McKinnon, a philosopher of language. IMO, McKinnon really ought to be cited an additional time for her article on the topic, not only because it's involved in a controversy mentioned on the page, but also because it's one of the few academic sources that deals with the controversy either way (though, I found and will add this mention of the controversy in an academic paper while searching). LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:47, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

How about we add McKinnon back in with her paper mentioned above as the source instead of You tube. AIRcorn (talk) 23:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm still reluctant to do only that if we're gonna let Cameron's blog stay in. Her video is even mentioned in another source on the page; by any measure it's a more notable source than a blog, even a blog by an expert. LokiTheLiar (talk) 04:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing notable about hosting a video on you tube. I can find ones laying claim to flat earth, the evils of vaccines, chemtrails and god knows what other conspiracy theories. Why not just use this source?[9]. As an aside it is a real nuisance to verify video sources. You are effectively forcing someone to watch 20 minutes to find verify a single sentence. AIRcorn (talk) 06:52, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Certainly it is true that any wingnut can make a Youtube video, but that's also true for blogs. The thing that makes this particular one reliable is the credentials of the author, and the fact that she's a well-known figure on one side of the political debate at issue here. Even WP:SPS goes into how it is sometimes appropriate to cite a self-published "when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". McKinnon is an established expert in philosophy of language (see here), and her work on the subject even defined very narrowly has not only been published, it is even separately mentioned in this article. Also, FWIW, while the flat earth page doesn't cite any Youtube videos, it lists several in its external links section, and the page on anti-vaxxers actually does cite a Youtube video.

The reason not to rely on the Inside Higher Ed source is that it contains no information about McKinnon's actual argument that TERF is not a slur, which is both relevant to the controversy and notable because she is an expert on the topic. It even says that she directed them to her YouTube video when asked to explain. I suspect there are very few self-published sources anywhere on Wikipedia that are as appropriate to cite as this one, since it is by a published expert and then separately mentioned in a reliable source.

As for the nuisance argument, it's also a nuisance to verify books or academic sources behind a paywall, which does not stop either of those from being used as citations when they're appropriate. Not that we shouldn't consider nuisance at all, but the ease of verifying a source is definitely secondary to the informativeness of the article. LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I would take a blog over youtube as long as we establish they are an expert on the matter. Youtube just sets a bad precedent. Ideally, we would have neither. There is a whole BLP issue to consider with regards to self published sources which should probably be applied here anyway. And yes a reliable source behind a paywall should always trump youtube. AIRcorn (talk) 17:37, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Following ongoing concerns for content length throughout this talk page, and the moderately supported suggestion earlier in this thread and in the Media 'terf' usage section above that the "terf"-word content would belong better in its own article, I've now perhaps boldly migrated the majority of this article's The term "TERF" section to the article TERF. Please feel free to re-add content if I cut too much. Thank you, A145GI15I95 (talk) 00:44, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I know we've disagreed a lot in the past, but honestly good job. Somehow the new article you've split off is way better than this article is. It's honestly to the point where I'm wondering again if an article on "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" in general might be a good idea. The clear purpose of the article on "TERF" suggests a natural kind of organization and makes it much easier to balance properly than this article which has a much more nebulous purpose, and I suspect such an article on trans-exclusionary radical feminism in general would be similar.

I am going to move the line about being a minority within feminism back up to the intro, since it's not about the term TERF, it's about trans-exclusionary radical feminists as a movement. I would really like to have a section about the movement, because I do agree it should go in there and not really the intro, but we don't, so the intro is currently the best place for it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:07, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate your saying so, thank you. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Per what I stated in the #Article split and in the #Media 'terf' usage sections above, I don't think it was a good idea to create a TERF article. In addition to my reasons given above, it's just another article for editors to fight over and worry about WP:NPOV issues. But I'm not going to go contest its creation. I have too many other articles to worry about. If an "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" article was created in addition to the existence of the TERF article, I would seek to have it deleted. It would truly be a WP:Content fork issue. Like WP:POV fork states, "In contrast, POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a 'POV fork' of the first, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion." Having both a "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism" article and a TERF article would be completely unnecessary content forking, especially since so many sources about trans-exclusionary radical feminism are specifically about that term (as a simple Google search shows). And then there is the redundancy issue, which would not be a simple redundancy issue that is expected. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism is mainly attributed to radical feminism. Common sense and WP:Content forking tells us that trans-exclusionary radical feminist content that is not redundant to radical feminism content should be covered in the Radical feminism article. It is the term "TERF" that is WP:Notable, not the concept. Again, a simple Google search shows this.

The "they are a minority" aspect is now both in the lead and lower. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Removal of page templates

Currently this page has several templates: a "too many quotations" template, a "too many primary sources" template, an NPOV template and an "undue weight" template. Flyer recently brought up the prospect of removing them. As said above, I have no problem with removing the primary sources template. The "too many quotations" template seems like it probably should stay but I could be convinced otherwise. However, it's still my strong contention that this article breaks NPOV and gives undue weight to trans-exclusionary radical feminist views, even when accounting for the fact that NPOV is based on prevalence in reliable sources.

Here is my reasoning:

1. The page is currently balanced about 50/50 between trans-exclusionary perspectives and trans-inclusive perspectives.
2. However, the trans-exclusionary perspective is represented in much less than 50% of reliable sources on this topic. If you look for stuff mainstream news organizations say in news voice, you get very little, but what you do get looks like this or this. There are also some articles like this or this which imply that mainstream feminism is overall trans-inclusive without actually mentioning trans-exclusionary radical feminists per se (in a similar way to how an article about climate scientists caring about climate change would be evidence that climate change denial is FRINGE even if it didn't actually mention denial). If you expand beyond just mainstream news organizations using news voice to reliable but biased sources, you do get significantly more trans-exclusionary sources in the form of trans-exclusionary pieces in mainstream news sources, true, but you also get even more trans-inclusive opinion pieces in mainstream news sources, as well as everything Jezebel, Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, and several other large feminist media organizations have ever published on trans issues, as well as basically everything written on this topic in left-leaning news sources like Vox, Slate, and Salon.
3. It's also very clear from reliable sources that even given that, trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources. Large feminist organizations like NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation are all officially trans-inclusive (sources for that are already in the article), and even TERF-sympathetic sources admit that "few feminists" are trans-exclusionary. LokiTheLiar (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Your reasoning seems sound to me. Mooeena ● 💌 ● ✒️ ● ❓ 01:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The Primary Sources tag needs to stay. That is the underlying issue with the article and fixing that will help solve some of the other tags. There is no magic point where something reaches NPOV. It is really somewhere within an acceptable spectrum. The best we can hope for is for it not to be obviously non-neutral. Trans-exclusionary views need to get aired here, and then responded to and so on. There is only so much that can be said on inclusionism, which may be why a lot of the focus in the media is on the conflict. Even the NBC source you cite mostly covers this conflict. AIRcorn (talk) 07:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

You wrote above we appear to be at an impass (me [Loki] and Fae vs. you [A145], Flyer, and maybe Mathglot with nobody else having commented on this topic so far) (Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics#On_the_nature_of_transwomen); should we RfC? A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That's basically what I was suggesting, yes. LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:13, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Alright, RfC made. LokiTheLiar (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, I would think that an article on feminist views quoting feminists is probably to be expected, and to the extent that it might be better to cite summaries of feminists' views, that seems to be covered by the "primary sources" template whereas the "too many quotations" template could go... no? (We could still trim a few of the quotations, like those discussed in the section below, without needing the template as permission.) In turn, is the dispute over neutrality separate from the dispute over how much weight is being given to certain views (and if so, does it [the dispute over neutrality as opposed to weight] pertain to the whole article or only the "disputes"/"conflict" and/or "TERF" sections?), or could we at least halve the number of templates? -sche (talk) 21:53, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm tentatively okay with consolidating the first two and the last two templates into a primary sources template and an undue weight template. I think the NPOV issues, while real, are mostly a symptom of the undue weight given to trans-exclusionary radical feminists at this point, and I agree that the "primary sources" and "too many quotations" templates are the same issue (but I would prefer to consolidate under the quotation template, because I think that's a more solvable issue in this particular article.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 08:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

LokiTheLiar, you stated, "the trans-exclusionary perspective is represented in much less than 50% of reliable sources on this topic." Eh? I was clear to you in the #On the nature of transwomen section that "It doesn't give undue weight to the trans-exclusionary feminist view. As seen in the #Rewrite and Template Removal section, I've been over this. So has Mathglot, in the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section. So, for now, I'm not repeating myself on that." You started another discussion on this topic, but what we need on this matter is for you to understand WP:Due weight or for a WP:RfC to be started. And I see that you started an RfC below. The RfC might go your way or result in "no consensus" if editors who are not familiar with this topic are persuaded by your arguments, or if editors simply vote on a WP:DON'TLIKEIT basis. But I really can't see what it is that you do not understand about what Mathglot stated. WP:Due weight is about how much weight is given to a matter in the literature. As has been stated to you beore, the conflict (or dispute, or whatever you want to call it) between feminists and trans women (who may or may not be feminists) is what "feminist views on transgender topics" is primarily about. And this is clear from reliable media sources and academic sources. That the exclusionary view might be the minority view does not negate the weight that view has been given in reliable sources. You even stated that "trans-exclusionary feminists really are overrepresented in reliable sources." Well, that reliable sources give so much weight to them is why Wikipedia is supposed to follow. I again refer you to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. For a comparison, the domestic violence literature gives the vast majority of its weight to feminists than to men's rights views. That is why we -- Wikipedia -- do not give nearly as much weight to men's rights views on that topic. The domestic violence literature is also primarily about women; that is why Wikipedia follows. Look at how I presented my case in that link -- that RfC -- and the sole opposing viewpoint (that is also currently being expressed on that article's talk page because the topic will always have such editors weighing in). It is draining when an editor, especially a newbie or one who is essentally a newbie, does not understand WP:Due weight and keeps insising that they are right. And, of course, I'm not stating that trans-inclusive feminists are like men's rights people or that their views are a minority or significant minority. It's just a comparison of the weight given to topics. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure why you keep repeating this as if the problem is that I do not understand the policy. I do understand the policy. The dispute is not over whether "due weight is about how much weight is given to a matter in the literature". We all, including me, agree that this is true, so please stop repeating it as if attempting to convince me of a thing that I already believe will help you.

The problem here is that you appear to be assuming a fact not in evidence: namely, that the reliable sources give both trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary positions equal weight. I assert that this is not only not true, it is incredibly easy to disprove. Yes, mainstream news sources do tend to cover conflicts, including this one, without explicitly picking a side, but they are not the only reliable sources. If they were, every article about every topic would be primarily about conflicts, and not about expert opinion on that topic. There are many explicitly feminist sources which are reliable as to the opinions of feminists on trans issues, and these sources are overwhelmingly trans-inclusive and rarely mention trans-exclusionary feminists at all. We currently are citing very few of these kinds of sources, and we should be citing more of them. (And not even just the media organizations I've been repeatedly mentioning; there's also NOW press releases and similar position statements of feminist organizations, plus countless books by feminists and about feminists and feminism.)

Do you disagree with any of this, and if so what? Hopefully if we identify our real point of disagreement we can get a more productive conversation going than just repeating the same things at each other over and over. LokiTheLiar (talk) 08:33, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I keep repeating it because you don't understand. Like I noted in the RfC below, you either don't understand it or you are willfully ignoring it. Debating this matter with you feels exactly how it feels when I'm debating the men's rights editors and simlar who complain about the Domestic violence article giving so much weight to women. Same goes for the Sexism article. I should not have to keep repeating to you what Mathglot and I have tried to explain to you. I'm assuming a fact not in evidence, you say? Um, no. Nowhere did I state or imply that "reliable sources give both trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary positions equal weight." What I have stated to you, and which is evident to anyone actually looking at the sources (including academic sources) specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, is that what is mostly discussed is trans women and the disputes regarding trans women. That there are a number of feminist-inclusive sources or a lot more feminist-inclusive views than feminist-exclusive views is not the same thing as "the feminist views on transgender topic is mainly about trans-inclusive views." To quote Mathglot in the #False balance in individual statements section, "it's not about what position is more widely held, but rather, which one is attested more in reliable sources." This is why, although WP:Due weight states "giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects," it also states "neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Our real point of disagreement? That is our real point of disagreement. I suppose that, given what I quoted from the WP:Due weight policy, one could state that it supports both giving more weight to the majority view and going by "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." But when one considers "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources," it's clear that the trans-exclusive aspect is not WP:Fringe. It may be a minority view, but it is not WP:Fringe with regard to the coverage in the published literature. And as I noted to you when speaking of the draft I am working on, I actually have access to academic sources. Rarely do I go looking to media sources for an academic topic. And this is indeed an academic topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

What I have stated to you, and which is evident to anyone actually looking at the sources (including academic sources) specifically about feminist views on transgender topics, is that what is mostly discussed is trans women and the disputes regarding trans women. I am actually looking at the sources and this is the opposite of evident to me. This is why I say this is our real dispute. If you look at all the sources on feminist views on transgender topics, they mention TERFs or dispute with TERFs very rarely. This actually includes feminist academic sources; most of them are also not about the dispute. You can only reach the conclusion you have reached, IMO, if you limit yourself to news sources and ignore basically everything feminists say directly, including the positions of every large feminist organization I'm aware of.

If you did the thing you are currently doing on an article about creationism, you would be forced to "cover the controversy", because that's what the news does. However, we are fortunately not limited to news sources and their biases towards incidents of conflict, and can instead sample from the vast majority of sources that are by experts about the expert consensus. When you do that, you find that NOW and the FMF and Emily's List and on and on explicitly support trans people, and the vast majority of their press releases about trans issues are about some specific issue (like the Trump military ban) and not about conflict with trans-exclusionary feminists. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I feel like I should give some more concrete evidence of my claim or else we're going to go back and forth about whether a fact is true. So, here is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on this same topic. This article cites loads of reliable academic sources, but only one section out of eleven is about trans-exclusionary radical feminism directly. Responses to Raymond are peppered throughout as well, but even those are mostly concentrated in the directly next section, and sections 5-11 are mostly about other topics with few mentions of Raymond or other trans-exclusionary radical feminists. If we were to cite this same list of academic sources, which covers most of the academic perspectives on the issue, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we would give each of these positions a similar amount of weight. Which is to say, the conflict over trans-exclusionary radical feminism would be more like a fifth of the page, rather than half. LokiTheLiar (talk) 20:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

You stated that you "are actually looking at the sources and this is the opposite of evident to [you]." As seen in the #Parking some refs here section above, you are looking at media sources, incuding a number of opinion pieces, and ones that are not specifically about the topic. As seen in the RfC below, another editor made the point I did about sticking to sources specifically about the topic. You are seeking sources that agree with your viewpoints. The sources you presented are mostly in stark contrast to the sources that Genericusername57 (gnu57), who actually appears to be trying to keep their personal opinions out of their editing, presented. Some of the academic sources that Genericusername57 listed (and I don't mean sources like the "Manifesto" source) show exactly what I've stated on this topic and what the coverage on it is mainly about. You keep using the word "TERF." Most of the sources on this topic don't call exclusionary feminists by the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERF." And I fail to see how you can state that "this actually includes feminist academic sources; most of them are also not about the dispute" when it's clear that you do not have access to academic sources, which is something you have indicated before and is clear anyway by your reliance on media sources. Your comment about how I have reached the conclusion I have reached is false, as (I've stated before) is clear to anyone looking at the literature specifically about this topic.

As for "If [I] did the thing [I am] currently doing on an article about creationism, [I] would be forced to 'cover the controversy', because that's what the news does"...don't patronize me. I'm not only looking to news articles; you are. Well, that and other media sources. I was very clear that "Rarely do I go looking to media sources for an academic topic. And this is indeed an academic topic." And many at this site know that to be true. Many at this site know that I always follow WP:Due weight appropriately. It's also interesting that you pretty much assert that the news mainly covers the controversy between feminists and trans women...and yet you focus on the news sources that align with your viewpoint and ones meant to challenge the weight the news gives to the controversy between feminists and trans women. It's not just news sources focusing on that aspect either. Other media sources clearly do as well. And yet we see the media sources you keep focusing on. You stated, "However, we are fortunately not limited to news sources and their biases towards incidents of conflict." That is exactly how I feel regarding you and your selection of news and other media sources. Once again, that there exists a lot of trans-positive sources or more trans-positive sources (feminist or otherwise) than sources (feminist or otherwise) that have negative or otherwise opposing views on trans people (trans women in particular) or their ideology does not equate to "the literature on feminist views on transgender topics mainly deals with positvity." It does not. And even pointing to a media source like The Economist, which I brought up before, although it states that "anti-trans viewpoints are a minority position within feminism," it also states, "What is a woman? Who can be a feminist? These questions have been central to feminist theory and activism since the 1970s, proving to be particularly controversial in the relationship between feminist and transgender activism.' In recent years, these questions have returned to haunt feminism. [...]. Anti-transgender feminists [...] have a high level of social, cultural and economic capital."

You pointing to the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" source that I pointed you to when making it clear to you that the source points out that there has generally been an over-emphasis on MTFs in particular proves nothing. That the source decided to present its content the way it did dosen't negate the fact that the literature, like it notes, generally has focused on trans women. And that literature is not mostly positive talk about trans women. It's mostly about disputes between trans women and non-trans women. And that source devotes a significant material to that aspect. Your argument about the sources in that article and how that article has decided to present the content is flawed. That is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It is not Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. The latter has numerous rules, including WP:Due weight, which determine how we present material. That article presents content in ways that Wikipedia would not, such as its WP:Tone issues. For example, never would we state "while Serano may be right." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

This argument is spiraling in a lot of different directions, so lemme cover a few points:

1. I am trying to keep my personal opinion out of my editing. I've so far been on reasonably good terms with the only editor here (A145) who disagrees with me on the actual topic of the page. What I'm not trying to keep out of my editing is my awareness that there exists a huge variety of sources that you appear to be completely unwilling to consider. Like, before I got here, it appears that nobody even considered going to NOW's web page and seeing what they thought about the topic. I think this sort of blind spot is positively bizarre. I think that sort of thing is equivalent to editing an article about conservative opinions on free trade and never once thinking to look at the Republican Party platform.

2. What do you think the topic of the page is? You're talking about "sticking to sources specifically about the topic", but the topic is "feminist views on transgender topics". Trump's ban on trans people in the military (for instance) is a transgender topic, and feminists have opinions on it.

3. Most of the sources on this topic do call trans-exclusionary feminists either "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERFs", even by your conception of what counts as a source. Like, you literally can count. Even gnu's sources do. We already established this on this talk page a while ago; this is the issue that we have so far achieved the most consensus on out of everything.

4. The thing that unites all my sources is not that they have a certain bias; if that was the case I'd be looking in Thinkprogress. I've actually specifically avoided linking PinkNews even though it comes up in searches often, because it's primarily an LGBT site and doesn't appear to be explicitly feminist as an organization. The unifying factor between the sources I've brought up is they are all written by feminist organizations. It's of course true that all these organizations agree on certain things, because feminism is a political position with content. These organizations also all agree that women should have a right to an abortion, for instance, but I'm not linking sources because they are pro-choice just like I'm not linking sites because they're trans-positive. I'm linking sources that are feminist and pointing out that they are almost all trans-positive in order to support my point that the majority of feminist sources are trans-positive.

5. I don't know why you keep bringing up the trans women thing when I have consistently said I agree with you on that point. I really feel like you are trying to rehash some past argument that I was not involved in.

6. I disagree that the literature is mostly disputes between trans women and non-trans women. A lot of the academic feminist literature is disputes between Judith Butler (and allies) and her critics, most of which are cis, but a lot of it is just new analyses of the topic within some particular perspective, like the Stanford Encyclopedia article makes quite clear.

7. The Stanford Encyclopedia article is of course not a Wikipedia article and is not written in a Wikipedia style, but I challenge you to write an article with all the sources it used and not conclude that WP:DUE requires you to cover trans-exclusionary feminism about as much as the Stanford Encyclopedia article covered it. If it can fill 5/6ths of a long, detailed, and well-sourced article with academic feminist discussion about trans women that is not disputes with trans-exclusionary feminists over the basic validity of trans people, Wikipedia can too.

8. On the point that "trans-exclusionary radical feminists have a high amount of social, cultural, and economic capital": I agree that they have a disproportionate amount of social and cultural capital, which is what I believe the author meant. I don't think any reasonable person could conclude that their position is anything other than marginal within feminism. The reason they have a disproportionate amount of social and cultural capital is that even though by numbers they are a tiny fraction of feminists, that number includes some big names among second wave feminists like Mary Daly and Germaine Greer. I've compared them to a lot of things, but I think the most accurate analogy would be to advocates of a dying scientific theory, something like pro-protectionist views within economics. Very few third wave feminists and virtually no fourth wave feminists are trans-exclusionary, although some second wave feminists definitely are, and some of them are big names. But outside of a handful of big names and a few followers of those big names they don't have anyone, and generally the big names who hold this opinion are not seen positively within feminism outside their tiny circle of followers. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:33, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not debating you any further on this. You do not understand and apparently never will. I've made my points clear. Repeating ourselves does not help, and it is frustrating to keep debating someone who is essentially a newbie -- or at least someone who argues and edits like a newbie -- trying to teach me (a Wikipedia editor with many years under my belt) the rules. I follow the rules well, and I help craft the rules at a number of Wikipedia guidelines and policies. I know what I am talking about (both on the literature and the rules). And my draft will show exactly how a Wikipedia article should be written. I'm right about not following what Stanford Encyclopedia has done, just like many Wikipedia discussions have made it clear that Wikipedia is right to not follow whatever Encyclopædia Britannica has done or does. To repeat, Wikipedia has its own rules; WP:Due weight is one of them. We do not falsely balance. At least others understand what I mean about the literature, about not relying so heavily on primary sources, media sources (which are often primary sources), and so on. It is telling that NickCT stated, "There's an impressive list of references, but if you examine them critically, only a handful seem to grant the topic direct coverage." It echoes what I stated about the sources you are presenting. You stated that you are trying to keep your personal opinion out of your editing. We'll have to disagree on that. To me, you argue and edit exactly like a WP:Activist. I keep bringing up trans women to reiterate that not only is the literature mainly about them, it is mainly about disputes regarding them. You stated, "Most of the sources on this topic do call trans-exclusionary feminists either 'trans-exclusionary radical feminists' or 'TERFs'." Nope. Most of the sources use the words "radical feminists," "anti trans" or something else (like "trans-exclusive"). Most do not state the full wording of "trans-exclusionary radical feminists." The vast majority of sources that use that phrasing are about the term "TERF." After all, it's what the term "TERF," which was recently coined, means. And, yes, 2008 is relatively recent with regard to the feminist literature. Besides that, it is only very recently that "TERF" has gained the traction it now has. And, for the record, I never stated that Trump's ban on trans people in the military should not be mentioned in this article; in the RfC below, I clearly stated that "it should first be a topic in the article, not just included randomly." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:38, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

"Conflict between..."

The heading "Conflict between trans women and trans-exclusionary feminists" is poor for several reasons. One was mentioned above: many of the things in the section are not "conflict" but just trans-exclusionary people attacking the presence of trans women. Another problem is the false binary: in most cases listed, "trans-exclusionary feminists" are one party but the other is not just "trans women" but (often more numerously) other inclusive people.
The students/faculty who supported Padman and the media figures who covered Greer, leading to her mentioned resignation, were mostly cis people; Camp Trans was held by trans women and allies; the Pride in London that was disrupted and the organizers who gave the mentioned apology included many cis people; etc.
Ultimately, some problems are caused by the section containing disparate things. For example, the Speaker's Corner and 2012 Jeffries bits might be regardable as some kind of back-and-forth "conflict", though perhaps better titled "Conflict between trans-inclusive and trans-exclusionary feminists" or (taking "trans" to be implied by the article title) "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists". Meanwhile, Stone, Padman, and (if we're willing to treat volunteer/unpaid jobs as jobs) Nixon seem better suited to a section on "Feminist exclusion of trans women from employment", and MichFest (and maybe Nixon) are "Feminist exclusion of trans women from women's spaces". The London bit also seems like it might be a different kind of thing, "disruption of trans-inclusive events" or something, though maybe that could be a subsection of (or just, left without a header under) a "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section. -sche (talk) 08:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The prose of the section was also rather hard to follow. I've tried to make it less convoluted and redundant. -sche (talk) 09:09, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Of what's left, the Jeffries and Bellos bits have a theme of "No-platforming exclusionary feminists" or "Exclusion of trans-exclusive feminists from platforms" if we wanted to spin out a section on that, though I suppose they also share with the Bindel and Speaker's Corner bits a thread of push-and-pull between exclusive and inclusive people (in ways not more related to other sections), even if calling it "conflict" is overdramatic. Only the Speaker's Corner bit really fits the section's current title; I'm not sure the other paragraphs, e.g. pushback at Bindel, are much more "conflict"-y than other pushbacks which are in other sections. (As a separate matter, the Bindel bit amounts to a paragraph-long puff-up of "Bindel demeans trans people; other people complain": I wonder if it could be condensed; I doubt it's given as much weight by sources overall as e.g. the line by Dworkin that we cover in two sentences.) -sche (talk) 19:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I still feel like the Jeffreys and Bellos quotes shouldn't really be here? I don't think that, in an article about climate denial, we would have multiple quotes from climate deniers complaining that nobody lets them speak. The Bellos one is probably more justifiable, since she was actually disinvited, but IMO in her case it ought to focus on the actual disinvitation more, since that and not her quote is the notable bit of that story. The Jeffreys quote, IMO, really just doesn't belong here at all. It's not a conflict, it's a complaint. LokiTheLiar (talk) 21:23, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

(Interesting; if I were going to remove one of the three paragraphs, I'd remove or trim the Bindel one first. I agree the Jeffries bit also seems kinda peripheral/low-importance.) I gather all three paragraphs (Bindel, Jeffries, and Bellos) are intended to represent the argument that trans-exclusive feminists feel they are being "silenced" by not being given the use of other people's, papers', or schools' platforms. The thing that may distinguish this from climate change deniers' complaints of silencing and may make it more inclusible is that trans-exclusive feminists are given platforms in major media to make their complaint about how they're not given platforms. -sche (talk) 22:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I think everything you've said is fair and I don't have any further comment on it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Or that there are multiple scientific organisations from different backgrounds and fields that over a period of time and using a diverse range of experiments that cover a wide time period have come to the same conclusion to form a virtually unanimous consensus. I am not even sure how you apply the scientific method to this issue. The fact that we are arguing on the inclusion of youtube clips and the serious lack of academic papers presented here suggest that we have not reached that point yet. AIRcorn (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Having a "Feminist exclusion of trans women" section and then a "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section beneath that is a disjointed format that is not ideal. Feminist exclusion of trans women is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. That is why I placed the "feminist exclusion of trans women" material under the "conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" section. If one wants to argue that the article now gives undue weight to feminist exclusion (which is not the case, and I remind you that the material existed in the article regardless of rearrangement), it's actually the case that the vast majority of the literature is indeed about the conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists with regard to trans women. It just is. There is no changing that fact. It's also why the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading is problematic -- because just about all of the topic is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. Almost all of the material in the article could be placed under that heading. It's best to just remove the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading and have the subsections be their own sections. Furthermore, views from inclusive feminists can obviously be added to these sections. As for this, I don't see any difference between "conflict" and "dispute." In fact, "dispute" is given as a synonym for "conflict". Conflict means "a serious disagreement or argument," or "to differ," or "to clash," or a "competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action (as of divergent ideas, interests, or persons)." So, again, I saw no issue with the word "conflict." But "disputes" work as well, obviously.

The view from radical feminists or similar that they are not allowed to speak due to being silenced by trans activists or those supporting trans activists should be there. The direct quotes may not be needed, but a summary of the matter should be there. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

And by "be their own sections," I mean something like having an "Exclusion of trans women" section and the subsections being "From women's spaces and organizations," and so on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

And I know that LokiTheLiar likes to demonize trans-exclusionary feminists (for example, comparing them to Holocaust deniers), but the "climate change deniers" comparison (like the Holocaust deniers comparison) is a bust. It's invalid partly because of what -sche stated, and because, although climate change (which often concerns the global warming aspect) has been used for political debates, climate change is mainly a scientific topic. Unless one wants to argue that it's a social science, feminist views on transgender topics is not a scientific topic (although it at times touches on biology, including the "male and female brains" discussion). I noted before that science still is not definitive on the causes of transsexuality. The literature on that matter favors biological research. But the biological research is limited and inconclusive. For example, some research has pointed to cisgender women and trans women having somewhat similar brains and cisgender men and trans men having somewhat similar brains. But that same brain research or other brain research has also pointed to cisgender lesbian women having brains more similar in shape to cisgender heterosexual men and cisgender gay men have brains more similar in shape to cisgender heterosexual women. But we obviously are not going to say that lesbian women are men and that gay men are women. That's not to state that there is no biological basis for some trans women identifying as women. There seems to be a biological basis -- as in their brains are more similar to women's brains than to men's brains -- for that in some cases. But scientists simply don't know (and enough of them have stated this) if this means that trans women, at least in general, are genetically female in the brain. Scientists debate this (causes of transsexuality) just like feminists do, and it's not inherently transphobic to debate it, especially since researching the matter from a scientific perspective relates to gender dysphoria and can help scientists and the general public better understand it. Of course, one doesn't need science to validate their gender identity. But a biological basis of gender identity is studied by scientists. When it comes to global warming, as the Global warming article makes clear, that it "is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century" is something that has been "recognized by the national science academies of the major industrialized nations and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing." It's not similar when it comes to the causes of transsexuality; again, scientists are still debating that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I support the breaking up of this category into top level headings, and am not sure why you put them back under a single heading rather than getting rid of the conflict section. As you point out, as it currently stands the majority of the article ought to be under that section, which is a bit absurd. Since we all appear to agree that the subsections should be their own sections on this talk page, I'm going to go do that.

As for the brain stuff: I have zero interest in debating that on this page. On a page where it was relevant I'd love to talk about it (and I should say, my personal positions on this are much different than you seem to assume they are), but the science of trans people is not a feminist view, so it's not relevant to the article. My point with that analogy was simply to make an analogy with other situations where one side is the heavy majority and the other is fringe or near-fringe. I think you made the perfect analogy elsewhere with MRA positions on domestic violence, though, so I think I'm going to be sticking to that one. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Now that that's done, I feel like it might actually be worthwhile to put a significant portion of this page under one section, in the hopes that we can add some content to this page which is not about conflict between trans people and trans-exclusionary feminists. The majority of reliable sources on feminist views on trans issues, which is to say feminists having those views in reliable feminist sources, aren't actually about TERFs. So I think it probably is a good idea to put the conflict between those two groups under a single giant section, absurd though it may be to have the majority of the article as it currently stands under it. LokiTheLiar (talk) 05:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I put them under one section per what I stated above. Regarding this, I'm not onboard with "complaints." Doesn't seem neutral. Surely, they don't view their opinions as complaints. And, really, something like "trans women shouldn't use women's bathrooms" can be considered a complaint as well. The content in that section (except for the Sheila Jeffreys material) concerns incidents. So "Incidents between trans activists and trans exclusionary feminists" makes more sense. But we really shouldn't be including incident material (unless very notable), and the mention can grow and grow since there are a number of incidents that received attention in the news. It's better to summarize. And note that I am not endorsing removing the Jeffreys piece.

As for brain stuff, it should be clear why I brought it up. You made a climate change denier comparison. That does not compute for me. Climate change deniers are denying science. To compare trans-exclusionary feminists to them because they don't consider trans women to be women is like stating that trans-exclusionary feminists are denying reality/science. Stating that trans women are women is an opinion, no matter how strongly people agree with that opinion. As for my "men's rights vs. feminists" comparison in the RfC, it is clearly about the literature, and not in the direction you want to go with it. You clearly want to liken trans-exclusionary feminist viewpoints to men's rights' viewpoints being a minority. Per reasons given by Mathglot and I, it's not the same thing. Like I told you in the RfC, "the conflict between feminists and trans women (who may or may not be feminists) is what 'feminist views on transgender topics' is primarily about. And this is clear from reliable media sources and academic sources. That the exclusionary view might be the minority view does not negate the weight that view has been given in reliable sources." I noted that "I'm not stating that trans-inclusive feminists are like men's rights people or that their views are a minority or significant minority. It's just a comparison of the weight given to topics." You and I are clearly using my comparison differently. And as for "science of trans people is not a feminist view"? It is when it comes to views on male and female brains and discussion of sex verification in sports and transgender people in sports. As I'm sure you know, these are other topics that feminists debate.

As for "might actually be worthwhile to put a significant portion of this page under one section," propose it in your sandbox. And I'm not going over your "the majority" view again. I'm clear on it in the RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:13, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Clarification: And regarding "trans women are women is an opinion," I meant the views on that topic (which extend beyond feminist views; it's a general public topic as well). And this topic is about views; not facts. It's usually not about facts anyway. I personally wouldn't approach the matter as "Well, that person's gender identity is an opinion." As seen in this and this discussion, I wouldn't support Wikipedia stating that "some people consider trans women to be women" or something similar in the lead of the Woman or Trans woman article. Well, "something similar" would need to be appropriately worded and summarizing content lower in the article for me to support it. After all, Wikipedia should be clear that transgender issues are highly debated and that some people (not just exclusionary feminists) don't consider trans women to be women or trans men to be men, but it's a matter of weight...and stating "some people consider trans women to be women" is different than stating "some people don't consider trans women to be women." The first line makes viewing trans women as women seem like a minority view, while the second line makes not viewing trans women as women seem like the minority view. Even if one were to state that going with the former line represents the majority viewpoint among the general public, we'd need to adhere to sources with due weight and figure out how we are going to present the matter. And like I noted in the latter discussion, "there is no getting around the fact that 'woman' is in the term 'trans woman.'" Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:31, 28 April 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:04, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Belated thanks to Gnu btw for figuring out some of the missing details of, and hence a relevant place for, the above-mentioned Bindel paragraph. -sche (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Parking some refs here

historical primary sources

• Kessler, Suzanne J.; McKenna, Wendy (1985). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226432069. OCLC 615720621.
• Stone, Sandy (1 May 1992). "The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto". Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies. 10 (2): 150–176. doi:10.1215/02705346-10-2_29-150.—Essay by Sandy Stone
• Ruby, Jennie; Mantilla, Karla (2000). "Men in Ewes' Clothing: The Stealth Politics of the Transgender Movement". off our backs. 30 (4): 5–12. JSTOR 20836589.—widely-cited radfem article
• Stryker, Susan (2007). "Transgender Feminism: Queering the Woman Question" (PDF). In Gillis, Stacey; Howie, Gillian; Munford, Rebecca (eds.). Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration (Expanded second ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 59–70. doi:10.1057/9780230593664_5.

contemporary viewpoints

• Allen, Charlotte (March 4, 2019). "Trans Men Erase Women". First Things.—neocon who says "TERF" is used to stigmatize lesbians who don't want to date trans women.
• Chu, Andrea Long (Winter 2018). "On Liking Women". n+1. No. 30, Motherland. Retrieved April 25, 2019.—transgender feminist who says that transitioning from male to female can be a radical political act of rejecting/excluding men, like lesbian separatism: "It is a supreme irony of feminist history that there is no woman more woman-identified than a gay trans girl like me."
• Yardley, Miranda (December 5, 2018). "Girl Dick, the Cotton Ceiling and the Cultural War on Lesbians, Girls and Women". AfterEllen. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
• Williams, Cristian; Butler, Judith (1 May 2014). "Gender Performance: The TransAdvocate interviews Judith Butler". TransAdvocate (Interview).—says "Gender Trouble was written about 24 years ago, and at that time I did not think well enough about trans issues."
• Chappell, Sophie-Grace; Lawford-Smith, Holly (November 15, 2018). "Transgender identities: a conversation between two philosophers". Aeon. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
• Serano, Julia (2013). Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. ISBN 9781580055048.—looks like there's material on past issues as well in ch. 11: "The issue of transsexuality has come up time and time again in cissexual feminist theory...."

non-academic discussion of particular disputes from people who weren't directly involved

• Jacques, Juliet (August 16, 2014). "On the "dispute" between radical feminism and trans people". The New Statesman. Retrieved April 16, 2019.—A (very long) essay by a transfeminist author
• Morris, Bonnie J. (2016). The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture. SUNY Press. ISBN 9781438461786. OCLC 969377660.—Talks about MichFest and Camp Trans
• Hay, Carol (April 1, 2019). "Opinion | Who Counts as a Woman?". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2019.—NYT op-ed
• McCann, Hannah; Nichols, Lucy (February 18, 2019). "Gender troubles". Inside Story. Retrieved April 26, 2019.—Mainly about responses to Judith Butler

academic sources

• Hines, Sally (2015). "Feminist Theories". In Robinson, Victoria; Richardson, Diane (eds.). Introducing Gender and Women's Studies. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 9781137310699.—A basic academic overview of feminist theories, queer theory, transfeminism, and trans-exclusionary feminism.
• Caldwell, Sue (November 19, 2017). "Marxism, feminism and transgender politics". International Socialism Journal (157).—Marxist perspective
• Bettcher, Talia; Garry, Ann (2009). "Introduction to Hypatia Special Issue: Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities" (PDF). Hypatia. 24 (3): 1–10.
• Wallace, Adrienne; Hanlon, Stephanie (1 February 2019). "Socialism and the fight against Transphobia". Irish Marxist Review. 8 (23): 15–23.—Another socialist journal

gnu57 12:49, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for not formatting these; as stated below, I'm not necessarily advocating adding these to the page but merely using them to demonstrate the balance of feminist sources.

• https://theslot.jezebel.com/supreme-court-allows-trumps-ban-on-trans-people-serving-1831952191 -- Jezebel on Trump's trans military ban, calls it a "piece of shit ban"
• https://jezebel.com/tag/transgender -- Jezebel's trans tag; overwhelmingly Jezebel articles on trans issues are trans-positive
• https://bust.com/general/195868-trump-transgender-military-ban-republican.html -- Bust article on Trump's trans military ban, advocates donating to several trans rights groups at the end.
• https://bust.com/search/newest-first.html?searchphrase=all&searchword=transgender -- Search for "transgender" on Bust.com
• https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/the-fall-of-weimar-nazis-trump -- Bitch Media article on Trump's policies on trans people, calls them "horrifying" and compares Trump to the Nazis.
• https://www.bitchmedia.org/topic/trans-issues -- Bitch Media's tag about trans issues
• https://www.autostraddle.com/fcking-hell-trump-just-signed-a-memo-enacting-trans-military-ban-391772/ -- Autostraddle's article on Trump's trans military ban; title is "F*cking Hell, Trump Just Signed a Memo Enacting Trans Military Ban" and links to another piece about perspectives of trans soldiers.
• https://www.autostraddle.com/tag/trans/ -- Autostraddle's trans tag
• https://msmagazine.com/2017/11/01/judge-rules-trumps-transgender-ban-is-a-violation-of-5th-amendment-rights/ -- Ms Magazine's article on Trump's trans military ban. This one is more news-y and less clearly trans-positive, but it does go out of its way to refute some of the claims made by the Trump administration, and quotes opponents but not supporters.
• https://msmagazine.com/tag/trans-rights/ -- Ms Magazine's "trans rights" tag.
• https://now.org/media-center/press-release/trumps-policy-reversal-will-lead-to-more-violence-against-transgender-americans/ -- NOW press release on Trump's trans military ban. Quote: "NOW stands with trans people"
• https://now.org/?s=trans -- search of NOW archives for "trans"

Just to be perfectly fair, the only trans-exclusionary feminist source I'm aware of is Feminist Current, which doesn't appear to have an article on Trump's trans military ban but which typically writes about trans issues like this. But Feminist Current is the only such trans-exclusionary feminist source, and is significantly smaller than any of these other sources. LokiTheLiar (talk) 02:54, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Not to accuse you of doing this, but it is something I have seen people do before so just to make sure, tags shouldn't be cited, an actual article from the site should be. ShimonChai (talk) 03:09, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, just to be abundantly clear, you should not cite the tags directly and I was not advocating that. The point was to cut off the potential argument that I had cherrypicked a single trans-positive article, and to point out that there exist at least five or six other trans-positive articles and no trans-exclusionary ones from each of these feminist sites without actually linking every single article directly. LokiTheLiar (talk) 03:36, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that if you're trying to characterise the overall landscape of women's media, it's better to use meta sources like this one which outright says that popular lesbian women's sites are trans-supportive. It might be good to mention that alongside the "exclusion of trans women from LGBT spaces" material. But really we can't just heap up a number of sources articulating particular viewpoints—to determine due weight we need ones giving an academic overview of the different schools of thought, like "groups a and b think this, groups c and d think that (and no one cares what that fringy group e thinks, so we're barely mentioning them)". Cheers, gnu57 11:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Restructuring the outline

I support views that this article is messy. I like the idea of seeing sandboxes of rewrites. I also appreciate that the content seems to change greatly each day, possibly making sandboxes quickly out of date. Perhaps we could suggest drafts of outlines, to see ideas on how to re-organize content? For example, I've just made this bold change (which I absolutely accept revert if desired), which resulted in this new outline:

1. On differences in socialization and experience
2. On sex reassignment surgery
3. Exclusion of trans women from women's spaces and organizations
4. Exclusion of trans women from LGBT spaces
5. The term "TERF"
6. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists
7. Feminist support of transgender topics
8. Transfeminism

Could this be taken further, to something such as:

1. Exclusion of trans women
   1. From the definition of "woman"
   2. From women's spaces and organizations
   3. From LGBT spaces
2. Inclusion of trans women
   1. Transfeminism
3. Disputes and altercations
   1. The term "TERF"
   2. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists

Or as:

1. Views on specific topics
   1. On differences in socialization and experience
   2. On sex reassignment surgery
   3. On access to women's spaces and organizations
   4. On access to LGBT spaces
2. Views in general
   1. The term "TERF"
   2. Incidents between trans activists and trans-exclusionary feminists
   3. Transfeminism

A145GI15I95 (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The current outline I think is only marginally better than it was previously (but it is marginally better, so I don't support reverting). I think either of your two suggested outlines would be better than the current page, but I feel that either is currently awkward because as currently presented, every "issue" presented is actually better described as a "dispute", except for maybe one exception which makes shoving every issue under "disputes" seem awkward. I think the best solution is to structure the page in parallel to the pages Feminist views on prostitution and Feminist views on pornography, which both split themselves out into "pro", "anti", and some stuff to cover miscellaneous bits that don't fall into either major category. So, for example:

1. Trans-exclusionary views
   1. On sex reassignment surgery
   2. On access to women's spaces
   3. On differences in socialization and experience
   4. On the word "TERF"
2. Trans-inclusive and transfeminist views
   1. On trans rights
   2. On the nature of gender
   3. On the word "TERF"
   4. [Whatever else; these are kinda sparse in the article right now, which is a different issue]
3. Incidents of conflict

I also like the thing those articles do of naming a bunch of examples of the category and then summarizing their arguments instead of trying to quote them every time. LokiTheLiar (talk) 23:41, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Per what I argued in the #Chronological Reorganization section above, there are issues with your suggested outline. Now that we see your outline, it's just as problematic as I thought it would be. There is no good reason that we should have two sections or similar for the same topic. The material should be consolidated in one section per topic; that is the way Wikipedia's articles are designed. Usually. A145GI15I95's second suggestion in this section is better. As for A145GI15I95's first suggestion, as you know, I included something like that when I put the exclusion sections under the "Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists" heading. In the #"Conflict between..." section, I stated, "Having a 'Feminist exclusion of trans women' section and then a 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' section beneath that is a disjointed format that is not ideal. Feminist exclusion of trans women is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. That is why I placed the 'feminist exclusion of trans women' material under the 'conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' section. [...] The 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' heading is problematic because just about all of the topic is conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists. Almost all of the material in the article could be placed under that heading. It's best to just remove the 'Conflict between inclusive and exclusionary feminists' heading and have the subsections be their own sections. [...] And by 'be their own sections,' I mean something like having an 'Exclusion of trans women' section and the subsections being 'From women's spaces and organizations,' and so on." You then made this edit. I think that A145GI15I95's first suggestion is okay, but that specific topics like "Differences in socialization and experience" should be their own sections, and we obviously shouldn't have two just to address both inclusive and exclusive views. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

(Missed this earlier.) I'm willing to compromise on A145's first suggestion, but only if the majority of the issues are under the broader topic headers. The biggest single problem with the page as it currently stands is that is incredibly disorganized and essentially every person who has commented on this talk page appears to agree that the article needs a restructure. Obviously there's me and A145, sche and Mathglot agreed in #General Structure above, and Fae and Aircorn appear to agree that the article is at least very bad in its current form.

Obviously that doesn't say a lot about how we should restructure it, and we've gotten unfortunately less consensus about the exact nature of the restructure, though. So far we have more opinions on what the structure of the page should be than editors who have offered an opinion. If this wasn't the case I'd support another RfC, but as is I think we need to hash out broadly which options people are okay with before doing anything. Maybe we should make a section asking for opinions on broad category of restructure (issue-based vs. ideology-based vs. chronological)? Don't think we need a real RfC necessarily but I wouldn't be opposed to that either. LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:53, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Essentially, I like the idea of tightening structure generally toward either "Group: Issue, issue, issue; Group: Issue, issue, issue" or "Issue: Group, group; Issue: Group, group" (with little opinion as to which, and with whatever section retitling and content shifting). A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:49, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

The lede is large, it repeats content from the "terf" and "transfeminism" sections, and those section are small. Could we add an introduction/history/summary/context section before all issues, to remove repeat content from the lede, and to absorb the full content of those two tiny sections? A145GI15I95 (talk) 04:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

[QUICK DRAFT OF CONCEPT – "Terf" & "Transfeminism" sections would no longer exist separately.]

=Feminist views on transgender topics=

Feminist views on transgender topics vary wildly. Early feminist views on trans people were often hostile, but more modern feminists view the struggle for trans rights as an important part of feminism. The National Organization for Women (the largest feminist group in the United States) and the Feminist Majority Foundation both support trans rights.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

==Background==

Some feminists, such as Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys, believe that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary. Feminists who exclude trans women from women's spaces or do not consider trans women to be women have been referred to as "TERFs" (short for "trans-exclusionary radical feminists"), though they generally reject the term. Feminist Viv Smythe, who is credited with coining the term, has stated its intention as a "technically neutral description ... to distinguish TERFs from other RadFems ... who were trans*-positive/neutral." Those who do not support trans inclusion refer to themselves as "gender critical", and they object to the word "TERF", calling it inaccurate and a slur. These feminists are a minority within feminism and are often considered transphobic. Sally Hines of The Economist stated that although these feminists are a minority within feminism, they have a "high level of social, cultural and economic capital."

Additionally, some transgender and transsexual people, such as Emi Koyama, Julia Serano, and Jacob Anderson-Minshall, have formed a movement within feminism called transfeminism, which views the rights of trans people and trans women in particular as an integral part of the feminist struggle for all women's rights. Transfeminism, also written trans feminism, is a category of feminism that synthesizes feminist and transgender discourse. Transfeminists argue that there are multiple forms of oppression and sexism, and that trans women and cisgender women have shared interests in combating sexism. Influential transfeminists include Julia Serano, Diana Courvant, and Emi Koyama.

==On differences in socialization and experience==…

A145GI15I95 (talk) 05:07, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

A145GI15I95, I'm not sure what you mean by "The lede is large." It's not big. And either way, per WP:Lead, it's supposed to summarize the article's most important points. The "TERF" aspect is an important point, which is why it has its own section. It's currently small because you broke out the material into its own article. But per WP:Summary style, there should be a little more in that section if we are retain a seprate section on it.

As for a History section, I suggested one and noted that I'm working on one. So I support that.

As for the rest of your latest suggested outline/format, it's a good direction for the article...except or that small lead that doesn't adequately summarize the topic...if that is your suggestion for the lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I also do not think the lede is that large. Compare it to the lead of Feminism, or the lead of Feminist views on prostitution.

I'm also for either Issue: group, group or Group: issue, issue, with a slight preference for the latter.

I agree that the article ought to have a History section, since the history of this dispute is pretty important. I also think it's likely to subsume some of the uglier sections right now (so, for example, the conflict over Sandy Stone and the Mitchfest conflict should probably go under a history section rather than lumped into a somewhat arbitrary section designed to contain them.) LokiTheLiar (talk) 07:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of "large", "overly detailed" would better describe my opinion of the lede. Perhaps also my quick draft above shifts too much out of the lede and into the proposed new "background" section. Thanks for your consideration. A145GI15I95 (talk) 16:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't really think a "Background" section is significantly different from including this info in the lede. While I can sorta see your objection to the way some of the parts of the lede are written right now, I think this is by far the smallest present problem with the page and I don't really see a solution to it that is actually better without fixing several of the bigger problems. LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Hines paragraph: new addition?

This paragraph is from TERF, (see that page's history for attribution,) but I think it ought to be fitted into this article instead. Cheers, gnu57 11:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Extended content

Sally Hines, University of Leeds professor of sociology and gender identities, wrote in The Economist that feminism and trans rights have been falsely portrayed as being in opposition by a minority of anti-transgender feminists, who often "reinforce the extremely offensive trope of the trans woman as a man in drag who is a danger to women". Sally criticized these feminists for fueling "rhetoric of paranoia and hyperbole" against trans people, stating that while spreading anti-trans narrative, anti-trans feminists abandon principles of feminism, such as bodily autonomy and self-determination of gender, and they employ "reductive models of biology and restrictive understandings of the distinction between sex and gender" in defense of such narrative. Sally concluded with a call for explicit recognization of anti-transgender feminism as being in violation of equality and dignity, and that it must be "held up as a doctrine that runs counter to the ability to fulfill a liveable life or, often, a life at all." References

Just added it to the feminist support section. LokiTheLiar (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Loki. A145GI15I95 (talk) 18:55, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes to the lead and drafting

Regarding this, "the largest feminist group in the United States" needs a WP:Secondary source. We are not supposed to just take their word for it that they are the largest feminist group in the United States. See WP:YESPOV and WP:REDFLAG. One might also argue that it is WP:Undue to prioritize a group from the United States or another country in the lead. But then again, the vast majority of the sourcing on this topic has a United States origin (second-wave feminism) or is centered on the United States. So maybe it's fitting, but, per WP:Lead, the lead is meant to summarize the article and should generally not include anything not covered lower. And that piece still needs a secondary source.

Feminists who have argued that transgender and transsexual people uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary are not all radical feminists or are all called TERFs. In other words, the "reinforcing gender roles" argument has been questioned or argued to some degree by feminists who are not radical and by some trans people as well. Some trans women and trans men have made it a point to challenge the gender binary because they are expected to behave in a manner, and wear clothing, that is stereotypically feminine or masculine. In other words, they are expected to "behave like a woman"/"behave like a man" and "dress like a woman"/"dress like a man." So I made this edit.

As for having included "Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam believe that transgender and transsexual people challenge repressive gender norms and that transgender politics are fully compatible with feminism" in the lead, it wasn't really a false balance matter to have that alongside the "uphold and reinforce sexist gender roles and the gender binary" piece. This is because these are central points of the debate (well, the "fully compatible with feminism" piece more than the "challenge repressive gender norms" piece), covered quite thoroughly in the literature. In the #Under-citation of trans feminists, trans-inclusive feminists, and modern feminists in general section above, Mathglot understood what I was stating about WP:Due weight.

Lastly, as noted at the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard, I am still working on a draft for this article. I have access to sources that others do not. This means more academic-based sourcing, and not just relying on media sources, which are mainly opinion pieces. I'm not going to rush the draft. And since it appears that LokiTheLiar does not want to wait for the draft and is "a bit" skeptical of it, I will likely need to incorporate changes made to this article in the interim into the draft I'm working on. That's more work on my part, but I understand that editors shouldn't feel like they can't work on an article in the meantime. I can't promise that I'm going to keep everything that is seen in the current state of the article. But if something is removed from the current version, I might re-add it or retain it unless there is WP:Consensus to exclude it. For anyone wondering why I don't work on the draft out in the open, which also allows others to work on the draft with me, I typically work on drafts alone, and I don't like being on Wikipedia as much as I used to in years past. This is because of the number of contentious topics I work on or mainly just watch. So being on Wikipedia more often than I would like just to work on this draft means that I will be involved with other articles at the same time, consistently being pulled away from the draft. It will also mean WP:Notifications for whatever. So I prefer to work on the draft alone without distractions. But, like I noted, I will post it to my sandbox when I am done and then here on the talk page for review. So others can state what what they like or don't like about it, or what about it they feel can be improved. Before I post what I've done, it might also be best for some here to work on a public draft of the article, which will better help editors work out things before they are implemented. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Can we drop "transgender and transsexual" and consistently use "transgender"? I am aware that people writing in the late 20th century were using "transsexual", but I do not think there is any logical reason for the article itself to emphasize "transsexual" when transgender is the modern and most widely accepted term for all types of transgender people. Emphasising the two words comes over as if some slightly offensive point is being made about surgery, which is a distraction as the sources are not explicitly making the distinction (especially the pre-1990s sources). --Fæ (talk) 09:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

It looks glaringly poor practice to start the first section with "Some feminists argue", just because a journalist in the Washington Post used those exact words two years ago; we are not obliged to cut and paste from other publications. It would at least be more encyclopaedic to start with "Feminist authors such as X and Y have argued". --Fæ (talk) 09:25, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

One footnote that sources a long quote, just says "Hill et al. 2002". Without a link to the actual book (and preferably a page number), this is meaningless. Hill et al. is not explained in another section. --Fæ (talk) 09:27, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

There are a lot of highly selective quotes. This is worrying as it is a back door to including radical or offensive statements with hardly any context. I suggest the number of quotes is trimmed down to quotes that have been widely cited or at least requoted by journalists as part of the public discourse. We should be avoiding extremist bloggers or extremist pundits who are simply known for being controversialists on the topic of transgender rights, and preferably stick to notable people with Wikipedia articles to link to. For example although Germaine Greer had a lively career as a radical feminist pundit on TV shows ten years ago, this was mainly because she would be deliberately provocative in her language, such as her "d**k chopped off" comment, not because she moved discussion forward or wrote intelligently about the topic of transgender rights. So, let's be choosy rather than sensationalist about who is worth quoting and which quote illuminates the encyclopaedic article rather than taking it on tangents. --Fæ (talk) 10:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Fae, I would be fine with sticking with "transgender" consistently. That stated, as noted in both the Transgender and Transsexual articles, the latter term is more commonly associated with sex reassignment therapy, and some transgender people prefer to be called transsexual. Also, some of the older text on this topic emphasizes "transsexual." If we are going to mention The Transsexual Empire, like we currently do, mentioning and linking "transsexual" somewhere in the article (as early on as we mention The Transsexual Empire) is useful to readers.

Regarding "some," see Talk:Feminist views on transgender topics/Archive 2#Hidden text vs template. We've stuck with "some" for that piece in that section because the source specifically uses that wording. In this case, stating something like "feminist authors such as X and Y have argued" would be misleading WP:In-text attribution because it would make it seem like only that author -- Samantha Schmidt -- has stated this or as though it's just an argument from her. We shouldn't state "Samantha Schmidt has argued that some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." It's not just an argument. It's a fact that "some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." Notice that she doesn't even state "some radical feminists." We could change it to "Samantha Schmidt stated that some feminists argue that trans women cannot fully be women because they were assigned male at birth and experienced some degree of male privilege." But that still makes it seem like something only Schmidt stated, when, in actuality, she's reporting on a fact. WP:In-text attribution advises not to use in-text attribution in a misleading way.

Regarding "extremist bloggers or extremist pundits who are simply known for being controversialists on the topic of transgender rights," if they are notable on the topic, they should be mentioned no matter how extremist they are. Germaine Greer should undoubtedly be mentioned on this topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:25, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay, let's default to "transgender" as the general term. I am aware that "transsexual" is used in many biographies and articles, however even when used as a self descriptor, writers have gradually swapped over to 'transgender' in the last decade. Although we are personally aware of this shift in language both medically and socially, this is true for authors, for example Julia Serano wrote "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" in 2007 but in 2016 published "Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism". There is no special need for the Wikipedia article to repeat out of date terminology, when this was not the point being made by the original author. For example in the 1940s gay fiction authors were still writing about uranians, but by the 1980s all of those books and articles were classed as "gay" fiction rather than making an artificial distinction about a ideal of a 'third sex' when the reality was that this was code for 'homosexuals'.

I disagree with use of "some feminists", just because Schmidt wrote it. If it is really needed in the article then it does need to become a quote. Use of "some" is just a glaring hole in the logic, it's like saying "some" homosexuals object to same sex marriage, it may be true, it's just not an encyclopaedic way of sticking to facts and risks giving the appearance of false equivalency.

I get your point about notability, let's park this for the moment with the general agreement that quotes must be used selectively. I think the "d**ks" quote by Greer is a good counter-example, it is sensationalist, tangential, out of date, and would not help make the article more encyclopaedic. That same way of analysing relevance and notability needs to be applied throughout. If an 'extremist' writer has no Wikipedia article, then I see no special reason to start quoting them. If anyone thinks a writer is especially important in the topic of feminism or trans-exclusive radical feminism, then they should start by creating a Wikipedia biography for them, not start by inserting quotes in this article. --Fæ (talk) 10:42, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm just stating that it is useful for readers if we include "transsexual" somewhere in the article, not just when The Transsexual Empire is mentioned (as in only because we state "The Transsexual Empire"), and that "transsexual" has a specific meaning...which is why some transgender people and enough medical sources (which might alternatively state "transsexualism") still use it. Transgender can be a broad term, after all. Transvestite is also considered an outdated term, but some transgender people still use it. And tranny? Well, we see what the Tranny article currently states. The transgender community keeps trying to get transgender people (not just society as a whole) to stop using that term. But, yeah, feel free to do the consistency thing with "transgender" (except for maybe the cases where "transsexual" is emphasized; of course any quotes using "transsexual" shouldn't be changed).

In most cases, I avoid stuff like "some people." This is per WP:Weasel words. But WP:Weasel words is clear that it's okay to use the "some" wording in a case like this. And, again, the Schmidt piece is not simply an opinion. If it was a WP:YESPOV matter, I would agree with using in-text attribution in this case. That stated, until another reliable source is added to support it (which is something I will look to do in my draft), I guess it's not too bad to go with "Samantha Schmidt stated." Regarding the "some homosexuals object to same-sex marriage" aspect? I would state that in Wikipedia's voice (replacing "homosexuals" with "gay men and lesbians") because it's a fact. I would not attribute it via text to one writer or a few writers as though it's according to them; that is misleading in-text attribution. I always avoid misleading in-text attribution. WP:Weasel words and Template:Who are both clear that words like "some" and "most" are not automatically weasel words or unencylopedic. They are used all the time in perfectly fine text, including on Wikipedia.

As for trimming the quotes, it's not just a WP:Notable matter or a "widely cited or at least requoted by journalists as part of the public discourse" matter. Wikipedia quotes people who don't have Wikipedia articles all the time. Above, you are arguing to quote Schmidt. We should also stick to quotes by WP:Reliable sources (not what we personally consider reliable) that improve the text by relaying an important fact, point or countering another point. After all, we are dealing with people's opinions in additions to facts. If it's a fact, we should be cautious of countering that with an opinion. And, of course, we need to be mindful of WP:Due. We also can't go by our opinion on who is an "extremist" writer. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Glad to see that an Encyclopædia Britannica source was added to cover "the largest feminist group in the United States." As for preferring a secondary source, WP:PSTS states, "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." And WP:TERTIARY states, "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources."

Regarding this, although "gender critical feminists" doesn't need to be in the lead, the "although they object to that term" piece should be there since we have a "TERF" section in the article and the objection aspect is a significant aspect of the topic.

Regarding this, it's not needed, but it is a The Guardian piece and she's specically critcizing the incident. That she's a radical feminist blogger who likely agrees with Bellos's statement doesn't mean that her view should be excluded.

Regarding this, that Adichie received criticism for her comment and she responded to it should be mentioned. When it comes to the entire Adichie piece, it's not specifically about feminism. But she is a feminist, and this article is titled "Feminist views on transgender topics." So that is why her view on trans women was included by someone. She stated that the American Left was "creating its own decline" and was "very cannibalistic". Politics obviously partly concern feminism. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

As stated at Talk:TERF, I'm taking this article and the TERF article off my watchlist, which I know will relieve certain editors. There are too many contentious topics that I need to worry about, and just being involved with the Feminist views on transgender topics article and then the TERF one...I can see that both will take too much of my time. I don't like being on Wikipedia debating day in and day out. I do not want to substantially contribute to either and become very attached. I know that my draft of the Feminist views on transgender topics article would be a substantial improvement to that article, but I don't have the time nor patience to deal with POV issues that would continue to happen at that article even if my draft was implemented. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)