Jump to content

Talk:Tranny/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1

The term tranny and the porn industry

Tranny is a common term in the porn industry for male-to-female preoperative transexuals (also commonly referred to as shemales or chicks-with dicks). The usage of tranny on porn is common enough I think it deserves a mention. --50.152.139.176 (talk) 10:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

"Trans"

So if "Tranny" is slang, how come "trans" is in the article? What is "The trans community"? I doubt transgender, transsexual, transvestite people etc. all consider themselves part of one group: so it is equally ambivalent and possibly needlessly offensive. WP:NOTCENSORED, but we should say what we mean. Si Trew (talk) 13:09, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The term tranny is not pejorative in the UK

In English from England, and the rest of the UK, tranny is usually not derogatory, as you can finde tranny day parties in many bars and clubs over the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaimitoso (talk • contribs) 13:04, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Jaimitoso: you'll need sources for that. This source [1] suggests it still is. Doug Weller talk 13:15, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


Requested move 11 June 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move. All of the other possible topics are also slang, but this particular slang is the primary topic. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bradv 02:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

– The other articles in the dab page don't even mention tranny. With google scholar and books results being near exclusive for this usage, it is pretty clear that the primary topic for the title "Tranny" is the slang. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support Even if the transmission usage is also prevalent, the slang term for transvestites is the only topic currently notable enough to have an article about it. (The actual term, not what it refers to).ZXCVBNM (TALK) 07:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, move instead to Tranny (personal slang) or similar - Can't find any evidence for this being the primary usage over the transmission, per Google Ngrams. Also, the current title is still ambiguous as this word is also slang for other topics. Tranny (slang) really should point to the disambiguation page per WP:INCDAB. Other option is merge somewhere since the current article is basically a paragraph and unlikely to grow further. Perfect though for a section somewhere else. -- Netoholic @ 07:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Your ngram gives "No valid ngrams to plot!". I agree on moving, since all the other entries are also slang. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm probably inclined to oppose because several dictionaries put the auto transmission usage first[2][3][4][5]. On the other hand, the OED puts trans person usage first, so that's something. I don't have much faith in search engine tests, and I don't see how a search focused on formal writing such as that in Google Books or Google Scholar is likely to tell us much about a slang term. I'd rather trust the expertise of lexicographers than whatever a search engine spits out in a given instance. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
    Hmm, interesting. Merriam-webster says "or less commonly trannie slang, sometimes disparaging" for referring to transgender people vs the transmission. Main thing that I saw was that our articles don't even mention tranny as being slang for transmission, and thus I didn't think it was of much importance relatively, and as zxcvbnm says, this term itself has an entire article vs for the other uses. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:01, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Maybe what needs correction is those other articles. —Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:10, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 26 August 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: speedy close. There is no policy-based reason for this proposal, and a request for more information from the nominator went unanswered. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bradv 22:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Tranny → Tranny (slang) – The problem that seems to flow from this is that there needs to be a disambiguation page for one of the two principle dictionary definitions, otherwise things become intellectually dishonest, largely stemming from political motive to increase visibility of the political issues that cannot be divorced from the vulgarity. It is inappropriate to use Wikipedia as a ground to fuel political motivations and arguments. The reason It is my opinion that this should be the sense that should be disambiguated is because it is the lowest in the list of possible dictionary defintions, and that proper encyclopedic tone suggests that articles concerning impersonal nouns which are not pronouns should take precidence according to the hierarchy of definitions presented in the majority of dictionaries. (Indeed some of the older and more respected dictionaries don't include this usage at all, and encyclopedic tone suggests the use of formal language to the exclusion of the use of causal slang wherever possible.) For these reasons, I propose that the main article should be about the auto definition, the disambiguated article should be about the vulgar slang use of the term. 71.91.178.54 (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Speedy close scroll up slightly and you'll see we just hashed this out and moved it from Tranny (slang) to Tranny on June 20, only two months ago. Let's not move it right back, especially for reasons that were discussed and rejected. No evidence whatsoever that any editors acted in bad faith for political motives. It's a cheap personal attack carrying no weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:08, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


Yes, but the particular and specific issues of policy addressed in this move request weren't adequately addressed there. Therefore, a new request is appropriate to address these specific issues head on- specifically in this context is the issue of the inappropriate use of Wikipedia as a political platform.
It has nothing to do whether there is eveidence of good vs. bad faith- the fact is that it isn't to be allowed by policy, for whatever the reason.
71.91.178.54 (talk) 21:59, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm the one who closed the previous discussion, and the arguments presented were entirely based on policy. There was no other meaning of the term that was more common than this one, so this article became the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term Tranny. Can you please be more specific about what you think was missed? Bradv 22:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I would remind everyone, especially JFG and Galobtter that this move request highlights issues of Wikipedia policy that weren't adequately addressed in the prior move request. It would be quite beneficial if you would address those specific points in your responses. What I note here is that you are alleging nothing more than that there was a "strong consensus" to explicitly violate Wikipedia policy with regards to the clearly political undertones. Since violation of policy with strong consensus still violation of policy - This would seem make the original move improper to begin with, regardless of consensus. 71.91.178.54 (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This is the third time you said that. Repeating it doesn't make it more persuasive than the first two times. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Recentism?

This kind of looks like drive-by tagging to me. No doubt, we would all like an article that covers the subject decades, even centuries, ago. But the claim that the content is "slanted" is that the article devotes too much space to recent events, while ignoring events in the past. It's saying there are good sources we could use to expand the article, but those sources have been ignored. I don't think anyone should add a tag like this to an article unless they're prepared to demonstrate that such sources exist. It's like complaining that the fossil record has too much recentism. It's not bias that slants the information we have to greater detail in recent times. It's that we simply don't know because we have nothing to base the content on.

I don't see any point in keeping the tag her much longer unless someone can indicate where we would find sources for these earlier ages. Maybe you don't have full citations, but if you have any evidence at all that we could hope to find source material, then please share it. Otherwise, we have to be content to describe what we have from the sources we have, and say nothing more. What I don't want is to encourage original research because editors feel pressured to come up with something to say about the subject in spite of having no sources. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:36, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

"Cuntboy" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Cuntboy. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Marcocapelle (talk) 15:19, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

How to craft the lead sentence?

See this, this and this.

Given that the term has been reclaimed by some trans people and is used without its slur intention by them, how should the first sentence be worded? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Will contact WP:LGBT to weigh in. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Edited before I saw this talk page but: I think that given we have tons of reliable sources saying that the term is a slur, or derogatory, or offensive, we should emphasize that aspect. There are some sources that mention attempts to reclaim it, but most of them only mention a handful of specific individuals who use it that way, and some of those individuals (Ru Paul) are not trans. Kate Bornstein using the word for herself doesn't make it not a slur any more than Dan Savage calling himself a f----t makes that word not a slur, or countless rap artists using the n-word makes that word not a slur. Loki (talk) 03:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) RuPaul falls under the transgender umbrella. The term may be defined broadly (as it often is these days), and some sources explicitly include cross-dressers and drag queens in the definition.
Anyway, just like I did with the term transvestite, I'll look over what reliable academic sources state. And I did suggest "usually a slur" for tranny. At the Faggot (slang) article, we currently state "usually pejorative." And as for nigger? We have a Nigga article, which addresses a reclamation of sorts. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
And on a personal level, I do consider tranny derogatory. I'm called that just about every day by a pair of trolls. One of them might actually believe that I'm trans. I personally don't think that the term is close to being reclaimed. But as many know, I don't go by my personal feelings when relaying Wikipedia information. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:04, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Derogatory means a statement criticizes something. Derogatory statements can be justified if the criticism is valid. A slur is as statement that damages the subject's reputation, causes them harm. A slur could only be justified if is good and desirable to want to cause harm to the subject. They're not the same thing. If the subject has a flaw that is universally known, then mentioning that flaw is derogatory, but is not a slur, because the subject's reputation and well being aren't affected by stating what is already known.

There is a broad consensus that tranny is a put-down, it's intended to express disrespect, i.e. derogatory. There is another consensus, not quite as broad because there are significant dissenters, who say that to even use the term at all inflicts harm, so it's not only derogatory but is a slur.

I happen to think the history and dynamics of this topic are what's most important, and we should really try to convince readers to care about the process of how thinking about this word has changed over time. It's important to say what the word is considered to be now, for sure, but the how and why of it is illuminating. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:39, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Loki's logic, and I'll add that since we're talking about the first sentence here, it seems to me that it should be described as derogatory/offensive/a slur, etc. without "usually" or other qualifiers. Reclamation can be discussed in the article (and the end of the lead, prob), but it doesn't definitionally weaken its status/use as a slur.--MattMauler (talk) 04:12, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
FWIW I think “usually derogatory”, and “reclaimed by some” would be good to use with due weight. Tranny porn was even an awards category so I think the porn industry just saw it as a category for years. So maybe it could be stated that its meaning has evolved to be almost exclusively derogatory. Gleeanon409 (talk) 04:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

This is one of those things, that it all depends who is saying it, and with what intent. The modern classic example is Nigger (and yes, Wikipedia has an article about the word; because WP:NOTCENSORED). There will be some aspects of Tranny which could benefit from a comparison with that article. More similar both in timing and reappropriation is Queer, which has gone a lot further, imho, on the path of normalization via reappropriation than Tranny has.

I do not buy the argument about "Tranny porn" as having anything relevant to say here, however, because the topic here is tranny, not tranny porn. Once you change the original term, whether you subtract, or add something to make a new word or expression, all the cultural baggage (if any) of the one, is out the window and exchanged for the other. Comments about whether tranny porn is or isn't a slur is relevant to discussions about tranny porn, and are irrelevant here. I don't have time for a more detailed analysis, but it's interesting to look at the top ten bigrams consisting of "tranny + <noun>" since 1970, here. Some of these two-word expressions are much gentler than others, and again, it depends who's saying it. Remember the classic line from Owen Wister's The Virginian: "When you call me that, smile!" Mathglot (talk) 11:20, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  • I broadly agree with MattMauler here, the first sentence should describe that it is derogatory, since that is how sources typically describe it; the body can subsequently mention attempts at reclamation (or continued use by non-transgender people like Ru Paul). -sche (talk) 22:13, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
In case it needed to be said (doesn't seem to need it) — stating upfront that it's a derog. term is appropriate. The opening sentence as it currently stands does quite the job I think. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 01:45, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
I'll only mention that if you look at the citations, they all date up to 2017, the last time this was expanded and revised. I put in all that stuff about what Ru Paul and the rest of them have said, and how various people thought the word was OK then found out it wasn't. All events from roughly 2010 up to 2017. I would expect if it was updated with more recent sources, we'd have more solid sourcing to verify that it's pretty much become a word one does not use.

From an encyclopedic point of view, the process of how a word like this changes, in accordance with changing public attitudes, is really what we should be digging into. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary; we should be writing about broader questions than "What type of word is this? What does it mean?" Any good dictionary will tell you that right up front. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Crossdressers should be included in the opening sentence. Every major dictionary defines tranny as a derogatory term that refers to both transgender people and crossdressers/transvestites. Thus omitting them is factually incorrect. Sources: Oxford Languages, Dictionary.com (Random House), Merriam Webster, Cambridge Dictionary, and Collins Dictionary.

Whether to italicize the term in the lead

Dennis Bratland, regarding this? There have been significant disagreements over cases like these. See Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 57#Gay or Gay?. Mathglot, for example, believes we should italicize in these cases, meaning both the title and lead.

Please don't ping me if you reply. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 22:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Fine by me. But if consensus supports that why haven’t they added it to MOS:WORDSASWORDS and WP:ARTICLETITLES? My only issue was that it’s not in the guidelines, and I’m a little unclear which article titles wouldn’t be italicized. —Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi, Dennis. Thanks for your good faith contribution at the article. The lead sentence of the article should read:
Tranny (or trannie) is a derogatory term for a transgender, transsexual, transvestite, or cross-dressing person, and often considered to be a slur.[1][2]
Long explanation of words-as-words with numerous examples.
You raise the right point in alluding to the Use–mention distinction, but you have misinterpreted that concept, as well as MOS:WAW. In the summary of this edit, you wrote:

... WP:WAW is about mentioning a word in a sentence, to clarify that the word is not grammatically part of the sentence. It doesn't apply to titles. There are examples of this in the Usage section here, where tranny is mentioned but not used.

You've misinterpreted MOS:WAW; it is a change of style that clues the reader in to a change of meaning. But before I explain why, let me point out a flaw in your description of the sentence. When you said "the word is not grammatically part of the sentence", that's incorrect; clearly it is. The word Tranny is a noun that occupies the grammatical function of subject of the sentence. Here is a complete, grammatical, English sentence:

Tranny is a derogatory term.

Grammatically, this four-word sentence consists of a subject (Tranny), a copula (the verb is), and a subject complement (the noun phrase derogatory term, which describes the subject). The lead sentence in the article, is just a longer version of this, and the word Tranny is also the grammatical subject of that sentence, and very much part of it.
But I know what you meant; or at least, I think I do. What you meant by "not part of the sentence" was that Tranny was being *mentioned*, not *used* in the lead, in the sense of the use–mention distinction. But here's the thing: *regardless* whether Tranny (or any word) is being mentioned, or used, its grammatical function is still the same (at least, if it's in the same slot in the sentence; here, its the subject). So, whether you use Tranny or mention it, it is still the grammatical subject, it just means something different in each case. The "cheese" example illustrates this:

• Use: Cheese is derived from milk.
• Mention: 'Cheese' is derived from the Old English word ċēse.

In both cases, cheese is the subject of the sentence, it just means something different in each one. In the lead of this article, Tranny is being mentioned, not used. Here are some examples that illustrate the difference:

• Use: He likes trannies. Trannies are discriminated against. A tranny can be non-binary.
• Mention: 'Tranny' is a derogatory term. Some reclaim the word 'tranny'. 'Tranny' is an abbreviation of 'transgender'.
• Both: Some trannies dislike 'tranny'.

(Note that because these are illustrative examples, they follow the style at Use–mention distinction, and not the Manual of Style.)
Here's a trick, that you can use to figure out if a word is being used, or mentioned: if you can stick the expression the word or the term or the expression before the word in a sentence without changing the meaning, then it's being *mentioned*, otherwise, it's being used. Example:
  • "Some trannies dislike 'tranny'."
Can you stick the word in there? Try: "Some trannies dislike the word 'tranny'." Yes, you can; this is a *mention*. Another example:
  • "He's a chaser; he likes trannies."
Can you stick the term in there? Try: "He's a chaser; he likes the term trannies." No, you can't this is a change of meaning. Therefore, this is a *use* of the term trannies.
So now, we come to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, which avoids the use of use and mention (at least at the top level) and uses the expression Words as words, because it's easier to remember; but WAW is just another way of saying "mention", in the Use–mention sense. If you're mentioning a term, you're using a word as a word. In Wikipedia style, we italicize that.
Hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, October 20, 2020 (UTC)
Collapsed long explanation for ease of readability. Mathglot (talk) 08:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Post-ec postscript: regarding italicization of titles: that's very poorly described in the MOS, which has links to about five different sections of pages that discuss it, and you have to thread your way around to find it. I may come back and link it for you if I find it, but basically, the rule is that words in the title are italicized, if the same term would be italicized in running text, following the MOS. This meaning-change signaling helps the reader, in the sense that it tells someone looking at the article Gay that it is not about the Gay community, it's about the word Gay, where it came from, its origins, and so forth. Same thing for the article LGBT, which is about a word. Wikipedia doesn't have too many articles about words, because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but some words rise to the level of topic notability, because there is a lot of coverage about the word itself in news articles, journal articles, and even books. There are not a lot of words that rise to that level of interest in reliable sources, but there are some, and in those cases, as for gay or lgbt, there may be an entire Wikipedia article about a word. Mathglot (talk) 03:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
Please do not ask me to read another wall of text (because I won't). You need to go to Wikipedia talk:Article titles and seek consensus to add "All articles about words have italicized titles." The reason it doesn't say that now is not that it was written by stupid people, just like I'm not so stupid that I need you to instruct me on what I can read, and have read, over at use-mention distinction. I think you need to come up with a convincing reason why this wouldn't require italicizing Cat and France while we're at it, but that's best left to the discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Article titles. For now we can say that the guidelines do not say what you wish they said, and calling the guidelines badly written doesn't cut it. "Italicize titles of articles about words" is not hard to say, and it's certain nobody was attempting to say that, because there is not yet consensus for it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:16, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I was only trying to help. Next time I'll give you the short version. The whole issue of MOS:WAW is tricky,so I tried to lay it all out, but you're probably right; maybe it's easier to just give the quick version. Wrt to your question, you don't have to italicize the title of the article Cat, because it is about cats as animals. It talks about it being a mammal, a feline, the difference between house cats and feral cats, breeds of cats, communication among cats, litter sizes, domestication history, and so on. it's definitely not about the word. You could have an article about the word Cat if there were enough to say about the word that was longer and more involved than just a dictionary entry; you could start out saying it's a one-syllable word, comes from Old Germanic, but you'd start to run out of things to say about the word pretty fast. Someone would object on the Talk page that it wasn't a notable topic, and either prod it, or nominate it for deletion.
That portion of the manual is poorly written because it's dispersed, and it's hard to find stuff, and you have to piece it all together. If you start at WP:ITALIC, there are six different links right at the top to other locations. If you click the 3rd one, with 'Italics' in the link, it goes to another page, with another six links at the top. Words as words is on two of those pages. The Article title page has a section on italics also, and starts off, "Use italics when italics would be necessary in running text," (which is what I was looking for earlier). Since there are lots and lots of reasons to use italics in running text (a dozen? plus, the list can change). The reason the article title page doesn't say "All articles about words have italicized titles" now, is because that's only one of a dozen reasons you might have to italicize a title; if you added that one there, then you'd also have to list the other eleven (or however many) reasons there, too, and then you'd have to keep the title page in sync with all those other pages in the MOS where it explains about the multiple reasons to italicize. *Much* better to just say on the title page, "Use italics when italics would be necessary in running text," and then figure out if italics are needed in running text or not, and match the article title to that. In the article Tranny is about the word, it is italicized where it appears in the article body when mentioned as a word, in the use-mention sense. Since the article itself is about *the word tranny* and not *Tranny* (the concept), the title must follow the statement in the first sentence of WP:ITALICTITLE, and therefore be italicized. I hope that explains why it's currently worded the way it is.
I'm sorry the first response was too long, and I'm sorry if this one is longer than you wished to read. It *is* a thorny and complex issue, and the project pages about it could be much improved, and then perhaps it wouldn't seem so complex anymore. But it's a volunteer project, and rewriting the policy and Manual of style pages is not where I usually contribute (although I've contributed to policy Talk pages, now and again). But I agree with you, someone should spend some effort there; it is definitely needlessly abstruse the way things stand now. If you can think of a way to improve the readability of it, by all means, be WP:BOLD: jump in and give it a try; lord knows it's needed. I hope this response feels more helpful to you, than the last one did. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:27, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Mentioning the 2008 short film

I disagree with the addition of material about a 2008 short film. This article is specifically about the word Tranny as a word (its origin, register, etc.), not an indiscriminate chronicle of every time it's been used or mentioned. (I don't know whether the film even includes the word; I started watching it but gave up when I realised it was full of nudity and violent threats.) Cheers, gnu57 18:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Who is Jamrat Mason?

We're publicizing potentially controversial direct quotes of an activist Jamrat Mason, and a couple obscure websites seem to confirm he exists and gave a speech in 2010.[6][7]. What we don't have is a third party wp:reliable source. That is a problem because this is a living person and we need to be extremely certain this is accurate and fair, as explained in the WP:BLP policy. If a widely known, reputable source had published these quotes, we would be able to say that we aren't giving undue weight to an obscure and possibly private, low-profile individual. Yes, they gave a speech in 2010, but it's 2021. Are they really a public figure? Do they represent a significant point of view? If so, why aren't there significant sources we can cite that mention Jamrat Mason?

It's definitely helpful to expand this article with a broader spectrum of significant points of view, but we need to make sure we have high-quality sources that verify that they are significant. And that we're not misrepresenting a living person, or publicizing information about them that's questionable. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:07, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I concur, he just seems to have been some guy who got up to speak. As no-one has replied to your suggestion and since the section about him seemed so random to me when I read the article, I'm going to remove that section.
I'm also minded to remove the section on RuPaul, because, despite being a famous drag queen, RuPaul is neither transgender nor a historian, and so has no particular authority to say that it is acceptable. RuPaul has also been critisised on many occasions for using other transphobic language such as she-male, and for creating a transphobic atmosphere on the "RuPaul's Drag Race" show. 49.183.24.37 (talk) 23:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Tranny/Archive_1&oldid=1245234660"