Talk:Transgender/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Transgender. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Please use Androphilic/Gynephilic terminology, AT LEAST as an introduction!

To James Cantor et. al.:

Please, use objective androphilic/gynephilic terminology to describe sexual attraction in transsexuals. Characterizing the relationship between a post-op transsexual woman with a man as "homosexual" is just as confusing as it can be! (Besides being interpreted as derogatory and insensitive by androphilic, heterosexually-oriented transsexuals, such as myself.)

It just occurred to me that it's rather bizarre that the Blanchardian category employs the term autogynephilic for sexual self-regard as a woman in natal males, but does NOT use the terms gynephilic or androphilic for attraction to others ... that's... a weird inconsistency in terminological usage. -- bonze blayk (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any preference for using gynephilic/androphilic or heterosexual/homosexual, but it did the page no good at all to create a page that used some terms in some places and other terms in other places. I have now made the page consistent in its use of androphilic/gynephilic.

The word for "attraction to others" is "alloerotic": Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey R., & Cantor, J. M. (in press). Sexual attraction to others: A comparison of two models of alloerotic responding in men. Archives of Sexual Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9675-3. For free PDF, click here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l2v8761372637p15/

— James Cantor (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, James!

-- bonze blayk (talk) 15:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Not only should we use objective terminology here, but I believe that also applies to all mentions of the phrases sex assignment or gender assignment because: A) sex is a personal decision and therefore does not meet any of the definitions of an assignment which as far as I can understand include that someone else gave it to the person instead of the person choosing for themselves and B) gender is a social construct however it is sometimes defined as the genetic or biological sex which according to some is incorrect C) Genotype that makes reference to what an individual that starts out as female and may turn to male is determined by the encoding of a genetic expression in the human genome and therefore is neither assigned nor chosen but a genetic result, and as far as I know, genetic sex reversal is impossible only the appearance of what is bio-morphologically identified as sex is changeable, which is to say hairline, jaw structure, breasts, body and facial hair, penis or vagina, hips and I'm not entirely sure but I believe muscle grafts or reductions are also possible, for the purpose of having a larger or smaller contour, but these are only generalizations that women tend to have smaller leg and inter-torso profiles and men tend to have larger leg and inter-torso profiles. -- Benjamin D Richards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.215.226.34 (talk • contribs) 07:15, 3 June 2011

Published evidence showed, demonstrated, or what?

On the mainpage, there is discussion of how best describe scientific findings. The page, thus far, uses words such as "show" to describe findings, such as:

In 1997, J.N. Zhou, M.A. Hofman, L.J. Gooren and D.F. Swaab conducted tests on the brains of transgender individuals. Their tests showed that...

Their study was the first to show a female brain structure...

Their study shows male to female transsexuals are...

I am of the opinion that to maintain NPOV, one would also described Blanchard's original taxonomic finding as:

Blanchard showed that there were...

or similar.
I am sure that other acceptible phrases can be found for describing research findings accurately, but describing a desired finding as "shown" but undesired findings as dubious is pretty much the definition of failing NPOV. What other NPOV options for phrasing can folks suggest?
— James Cantor (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

James, as an academic, you should know the difference between observed phenomenon (such as the size of a brain structure) and the result of a correlation between self-reported factors that are used as a proxy for the operationalization of a concept. So, what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation. Hence, he has NOT demonstrated that there are two types, but only shown that it is possible to subdivide the group in two subgroups using his criteria suggesting that maybe his idea is correct. Furthermore, in line with your pledge not to edit autogynephilia and related articles, I am surprised to see you popping up here. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Kim, 1. You appear to be addressing the wrong debate. Blanchard was making a taxonomic statement (i.e., what goes with what); he did not make and his data did not show either a correlation or a causation. He merely showed that the homosexual group was very distinct from all the other groups. As a postdoc, you should be able to recognize both correlations and their absence.

2. Blanchard did not take a group and divide it. Either you didn't read his papers or you are willfully ignoring their contents. Blanchard did the very opposite of dividing. He took what was then believed to be a multiplicity of phenomena and showed that they were reduceable to two. The lay literature usually gets this wrong, but the professional literature does a better job.

So, to get back to the mainpage: The discussion relevant here is how to describe Blanchard's (and any other) findings for readers in a way unpolluted from the views of the editor providing them. So, what exactly are you suggesting to use as text?

— James Cantor (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised you're surprised...Actually, I'm not surprised at all. Throughout our interactions, I have had the consistent impression that you react to what you think I am saying because I am a researcher, for example, rather than react to what I am actually writing. In fact, I have found myself wondering at your hostile tone towards me when your next edit was to express (to someone else) the very same idea I had just pointed out.

The pages I pledged not to edit were specifically to end a long series of edit wars with specific other editors (and my invitation that they join me in that self-imposed ban stands). This page was never wrapped up in the problem my pledge was meant to help solve. No mystery.

— James Cantor (talk) 21:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"In order to prevent whatever COI I might be perceived to have from affecting Wikipedia, I pledge not to edit article space of the pages listed below, and I invite both Dicklyon, Jokestress to do the same.... Autogynephilia ... " User:James_Cantor#A_pledge

Your phrasing here appears to acknowledge the (arguable) existence of a COI which may lead to an appearance of impropriety, rather than a temporary truce in edit wars on certain topics... which you will resume on another front.

Do you believe that editing a section on Autogynephilia in the Transgender article is somehow not (by analogy) a part of the "article space" on Autogynephilia?

Also, with respect to my earlier edit which you reverted: when I stated "Autogynephilia - deleted ULTRA-controversial minority claim by Anne Lawrence of relationship to aptemnophilia - THIS DOESN'T BELONG AT THE TOP!" in my edit summary, I meant to imply: Transgender is at a higher level conceptually than Transsexualism, and again that is at a higher level than Autogynephilia or the subject of "Similarities postulated between transsexualism and apotemnophilia". I don't see why such (admittedly interesting, yet recondite) arguments have found their way to the "top level" relating to "transgenderism" in general.

Just to note: I find that the organization of gender-related topics in Wikipedia is a wretched mess, and the articles themselves foci of partisan contention, so this topic creep isn't really surprising to me.

— bonze blayk (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes.

1. I gave my pledge in response to a series of edit wars on the pages I listed. Of the three of editors involved, only I made such a pledge. It was to specific pages, not a topic. To insinuate that I am somehow at fault for not going farther, when no other editor would go as far as I, is a bit silly.

2. We are now going back years since I gave that pledge, and have held to it, without exception. To call that temporary in wikipedia time is, again, a bit silly.

3. I'm not the one who put "autogynephilia" here, nor am I the one who put the neurological data here. I merely updated it with more recent RS's.

4. I agree entirely with the poor state of this family of topics and that the articles themselves are a series of scars from edit wars with community activists who do not like the picture emerging from the research, and so scapegoat and discount the researchers. Indeed, the extent of the activists' war against science has itself become a notable topic.

— James Cantor (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

No. I address the right debate. No, Blanchard first made an artificial grouping using two continuous variables (degree of attraction to men and women) in a cluster analysis dividing them in four groups by using the four corners of the square as reference points. The data are quite uneven positioned across the square. Anyway, he then uses this artificial grouping to see how they scored on certain factors:

Fisher Exact tests were used to compare the frequency with which subjects in the four clusters reported a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. As predicted, there were no differences among the asexual, bisexual, and heterosexual transsexuals, and all three groups included a much higher proportion of fetishistic cases than the homosexual group (p .0001, two-tailed).

This is a correlation between sexual orientation group and whether or not they have a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. So, now that we have that issue out of the way, we can find proper words for the correlation he found on which he based his topology. Words like suggest. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You're still not understanding your own point. You said "what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation", meaning that Blanchard was not able to make any causal statements. You are entirely correct that one cannot draw a causal conclusion from correlational data, but what I seem to be having trouble getting across is that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!

More to the point (that you are arguing from WP:IDONTLIKEIT): The specific paper you are talking about above is Blanchard (1985), an RS which does not even appear on the mainpage. Rather, statements about it are in the secondary sources that are on the mainpage (specifically, Bailey, 2003 and Smith et al., 2005). That you happen todisagree with Blanchard (1985)'s typology doesn't mean you get to change what the RS's say.

Next, you expressed in the above that you take neurological evidence over self-report evidence. For the record (and as a person who has published both neurological and behavioral/self-report research), I believe it is a grave intellectual error to hold neurological evidence to be automatically superior. Nonetheless, the typological question has been answered neurologically as well as on the basis of self-report. (Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded.) I have added to the mainpage two recent neurological studies (entirely independent of Blanchard) that show exactly the typology Blanchard predicted.

Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, Á, & Guillamon, A. (2011). The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45, 199-204. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006

Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032

Next, we have two neurological articles showing that the Zhou finding, for which you express favor, was in error. (One demonstrated that the BNST difference doesn't emerge until adulthood, and the other showed that the BNST changes in response to the hormone therapy that transsexuals take, thus indicating that the BNST difference prevously reported was due to hormonal therapy, no due to being the cause transsexualism.

Chung. W., De Vries, G., & Swaab, D. (2002). Sexual differentiation of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in humans may extend into adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 1027–1033.

Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Van Haren, N. E., Peper, J. S., Brans, R. G., Cahn, W., et al. (2006). Changing your sex changes your brain: Influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure. European Journal of Endocrinology, 155(Suppl. 1), S107-S114.

So, whether you use neurological vs. self-report as your criterion or independent replicability as your criterion (or anything else other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT) the same conclusion emerges. It is a pretty clear violation of WP:NPOV (and probably WP:OR) to say Blanchard's (repeatedly verified) finding suggests but Zhou's (repeatedly disproven) finding shows.

Perhaps you might bring this issue up at the neuroscience project for input?

— James Cantor (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry James, but your flood of words does not change things as they are. If someone finds a difference in the size of a specific part of the brain, that is a direct observation and the word show is appropriate. The interpretation of that is correlative, and show is not appropriate.

I am glad we agree that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!. I agree. Hence, he has not shown that autogynephilia explains gynephilic transwomen. Therefore, the word is inappropriate. It is his inference of the data.

Contrary to your impression, I do not hold neuroanatomical evidence to a higher standard, to the contrary, I believe that they both have their value in the appropriate study. I find you statement Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded. curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy. But I guess I should read that as that you disagree with disregarding those self-reports.

Now for the suggested demolition of the Zhou et al papers. The Hulshoff Pol et al paper does not address the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST or BSTc) part at all, just general brain volume and hypothalamus volume. The latter, where the BSTc is located, incidentally changes in the same way between MtF subjects and female controls. ZHpou et al also looked at one MtF who had not yet started hormone theray, and that person was square in the middle of the other MtF's. If you hypothesis would be correct, that person whould have been an outlier among the MtF's. So, the Hulshoff Pol et al paper does NOT invalidate Zhou et al.

The Chung et al paper essentially demonstrates that the differentiation of the BSTc occurs in late puberty, but that does not invalidate Zhou et al, it just pinpoints when the differentiation occurs.

So, now that we have dismantled your 'evidence' that you molded in what was obvious original research, we can go back to fixing the unwarranted strong support that you want to give your boss' hypothesis. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

(Outdenting)
1. It was never clear to me how or why you are so angry. Regardless of your emotions, I recommend replacing phrases such as "your flood of words" etc. with more AGF language.

2. It is still not clear why you are fighting against the idea that Blanchard said (or believes) that autogynephilia explains anything. He never provided it as an explanation. All Blanchard showed was that the multiple phenomena that were being described in those days could actually be described accurately as only two phenomena. There has not been an article in the many years since showing otherwise.

3. I never said you held neuro data to a higher standard.

4. There is nothing relevant to the mainpage about "curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy" and I have no need to join a war of sneers and to call it a discussion. I merely point out the danger, and what you "read" into what I say is not under my control. Your mind is clearly well made up.

5. I cannot describe Hulshoff Pol better than Hulshoff Pol, who directly addressed the Zhou data:

"The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis of the hypothalamus, larger in males than in females, was found to be of female size in six MFs and of male size in one FM. All these transsexuals had received cross-sex hormone treatment before their brains were studied. Therefore, the altered size of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis could have been due to the exposure of cross-sex hormones in adult life" (p. S108).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

6. Your interpretation of Chung is also incorrect. Zhou et al. wrote that "the small size of the BSTc in male-to-female transsexuals...is established during development by an organzing action of sex hormones" (p. 70). Because Chung found that the BSTc difference does not exist during development, it cannot be the cause. As Chung wrote:

"Late sexual differentiation of the human BSTc volume also affects our perception about the relationship between BSTs [sic] volume and transsexuality....Epidemiological studies show that the awareness of gender problems is generally present much earlier. Indeed, [about] 67-78% of transsexuals in adulthood report having strong feelings of being born in the wrong body from childhood onward" (p. 1032).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

Clearly, we are not going to see eye-to-eye on this any time soon. So, I repeat my earlier suggestion that input be sought from folks, such as at the neuroscience project, who can readily read the neurological data but have no stake in the topic itself.

(7. Blanchard is not my boss. In fact, he's retired.)
— James Cantor (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

arbitrary break

About [1] and [2], perhaps a solution would be to include the material in that paragraph, but to move it to another part of the page (not in the scientific studies section) and/or to rewrite it to include sources that disagree with it. Thoughts? --Tryptofish (talk) 16:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

A possibility, of course. But could you flesh out your thinking for me a bit? We have the best known scientist on the topic, writing in the best known scientific journal in the relelvant field, providing an hypothesis for what the scientific studies would show. What's the logic for moving that outside the science section?...especially when it can be followed by what the scientific studies do show?— James Cantor (talk) 17:15, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I may not have that much thinking to flesh out! As you know, I came to this page as someone who knows little about the subject matter here, but who is comfortable with neuroscience and who can look at the page with fresh eyes. What I see here is discussion about Blanchard being indeed well known but apparently, um, controversial, and the editor who wanted to remove the paragraph saying that it was a prediction, rather than a research finding. What I'm suggesting really does not come from any particular insight into the source material (I don't have such an insight), but from my sense of what is good editing practice on Wikipedia, and how the consensus process works. Based on what you say here, is there a way to present this in a single paragraph (so as to make the relationship clearer to the non-specialist reader) as (1) here is Blanchard's prediction, and (2, same paragraph) here is what the science actually found? Or, would it be better to delete the "predictions" paragraph, keep the description of the scientific findings, and instead put a summary sentence at the end of the scientific findings paragraph that points out how the results fit with the prediction that had been made by Blanchard? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

LOL Humility is a rare find on WP. (I think that makes me a Trypofan?)

Yes, Blanchard is well-known, and any discussion from WP would indeed suggest he is controversial. It's more accurate to say that his research led to a conclusion about the nature of transsexualism that some (prolifically vocal) transsexuals found un-flattering and attempt to discredit. (The big explosions started in 2003 when The Man Who Would Be Queen was published by J. Michael Bailey, bringing Blanchard's ideas to wider attention.) That's why I often seek external input rather than to repeat the same arguments with the same WP editors.

So, although our explicit conversation here is about good editing, the implicit conversation is the expectable one: Everything that agrees with Blanchard must be shot down, and everything that criticizes Blanchard must be included and emphasized, no matter how low the WP:RS bar must go. You'll notice, for example, that the Zhou finding is based on the smallest dataset ever reported, each aspect of that study failed to replicate, but it still receives the greatest mainpage attention even though the data repeatedly agree with Blanchard's prediction instead of Zhou's n of 6.

My personal opinion is that the Blanchard quote gives obvious context for the rest of the neuroanatomy section, but rather than take another ride on the edit war wagon, I'd likely follow your thus far uninvolved opinion.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:56, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! OK, then, what are the data that "repeatedly agree with Blanchard's prediction instead of Zhou's n of 6"? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, again. Sorry for the delay.

For reference, these are Blanchard's prediction(s): "The brains of both homosexual [androphilic] and heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals probably differ from the brains of typical heterosexual men, but in different ways. In homosexual male-to-female transsexuals, the difference does involve sex-dimorphic structures, and the nature of the difference is a shift in the female-typical direction. If there is any neuroanatomic intersexuality, it is in the homosexual [androphilic] group. In heterosexual [gynephilic] male-to-female transsexuals, the difference may not involve sex-dimorphic structures at all, and the nature of the structural difference is not necessarily along the male–female dimension."

The data for the first part of the prediction are in Gizewski et al. (Gizewski, E. R., Krause, E., Schlamann, M., Happich, F., Ladd, M. E., Forsting, M., & Senf, W. (2009). Specific cerebral activation due to visual erotic stimuli in male-to-female transsexuals compared with male and female controls: An fMRI study. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6, 440–448.] and in Rametti et al. [Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, Á. & Guillamon, A., (2010). The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment: A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007.]. Both studies scanned homosexual male-to-females and found that they were shifted towards the female direction in sexually dimorphic brain areas (only). The data for the second part of the prediction are in Savic & Arver [Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032.] They scanned heterosexual male-to-females and found that they were not different from controls in any sexually dimorphic region, but were different from the controls in several non- sexually dimorphic resions. Other neurological studies of transsexuality have been conducted (and are on the mainpage), but did not record or report whether the samples were homosexual or heterosexual, so they are not informative on this aspect.

Each of studies I cite above were several times the size of the Zhou study. Although Blanchard's idea is unpopular in some quarters, that is neither here nor there for WP purposes. I think Blanchard's prediction is more than germaine to any discussion of the neurological discussion of transsexuality. Input?

— James Cantor (talk) 16:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

OK. What I'm going to do by way of response is to adopt the position of someone who is neutral and non-expert in the editing dispute, and to try to mediate the issue according to my understanding of the consensus process.

Anyone: My reading, on face value, of what James said immediately above is that there are three published studies—Gizewski et al., 2009; Rametti et al., 2010; and Savic & Arver, 2011—that, taken together, provide experimental support for Blanchard's predictions, and are peer-reviewed reliable sources per WP:MEDRS. There is also the Zhou study, which provides evidence that contradicts Blanchard's predictions. Zhou is, similarly, a reliable source per WP:MEDRS, but was a smaller study than any of the other three. Those four papers constitute the principal scientific literature that experimentally tests Blanchard's hypothesis. Is that correct, or is that incorrect?
James: Why not simply cite those three studies, and note briefly that they support Blanchard's predictions, instead of devoting a paragraph to an extensive quote of the prediction? In other words, focus on the empirical data (since it's a section about science), instead of the theorizing?
Anyone: Why not present the information as: Blanchard predicted such-and-such, and there is not yet a clear scientific answer as to whether the hypothesis is correct. Three studies, constituting the bulk of the literature, seem to support the predictions, whereas one study calls them into question.

--Tryptofish (talk) 17:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Tryptofish; I think that's a very productive suggestion.

Re 1: Yes, those three articles are the most direct neurological tests of Blanchard's prediction. (There have long been indirect studies suggesting those findings, but these three articles are the most directly neurological.)

Re 2: I have no problem at all summarizing instead of quoting Blanchard's prediction. (If I can trouble you to do so, my experience is that anything I write quickly gets diverted into OR or COI debates, so a summary from you instead of me would be of great help.

Re 3: Although that summary would indeed capture those four studies, I would not put Zhou on the same footing as the other three: In addition to the sample size issue, Zhou's test that transsexuality per se shows sex reversal in sex dimorphic brain anatomy has failed to replicate multiple times. Already on the mainpage: Emery et al (1991); Haraldsen et al. (2003); Wisniewski et al. (2005); and Luders et al. (2009). All failed to find the sex reversal the Zhou hypothesis would predict. So, the overall picture is not only 3:1 in favor of Blanchard's prediction. It is also that the alternative has repeatedly failed. I am not saying that Zhou should be ignored, but as you can see from the mainpage, it's getting quite the WP:UNDUE treatment despite being the very clear outlier of the relevant literature. The finding is very popular in some circles, not because it is a reliable finding, but because the finding has a political implication that many people espouse. (Hence the difficulty achieving consensus.)

— James Cantor (talk) 14:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you James. Now, the ball is in the other editors' court. Editors who see things differently than James does, please indicate what you think about his answers to questions 1 and 3. Please weigh in: what do you think? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

"Now, the ball is in the other editors' court." Tryptofish, I don't think you're going to find many editors eager to engage with User:James Cantor and his abusive tactics in an effort to try to reign in his WP:COI and POV/Truth™ -driven crusade to cleanse Wikipedia of all references to viewpoints on trans* issues which do not agree with his own through WikiLawyering, badgering, and just plain persistence. (Here he's trying to enlist you to certify his WP:OR/WP:SYNTH interpretation of primary sources! WOW!)

His recent activities on the Transgender article here are just another instance; you would need to go over his history on these issues, beginning with his anonymous exploits as User:MarionTheLibrarian beginning in July 2008, to get it. Read his own characterizations of others just on this Talk page; go over the history on his Talk page; perhaps you'll see what I mean.

I would go over this in detail... including my assessments of his interpretations, made in his recent edit spree here, of the details related in the source articles cited; but I think it's a waste of my time... see YouTube: Professor Wikipedia... I will suggest that a good secondary source on this subject, appropriate for citation in Wikipedia, is Deborah Rudacille's excellent "The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights". [3].

... and hey, do I have a COI myself? SURE DO! - Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 11:01, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Bonze, thank you for your comments here. I'd like to assure you that I've had a lot experience with content disputes, agendas, and COIs, and it isn't easy to fool me. I haven't taken anyone's "side" here. I'm aware of James' recent block and the issues on both sides of it. I'm asking questions, to which there should be reasonably objective answers, in the hopes of reaching a good, encyclopedic outcome for the content of this page. I find that it's usually a good idea to approach these kinds of discussions thinking about how one's comments would appear to an objective reader unfamiliar with the case, and your response to me sounds, on the face of it, an awful lot like WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment, and perhaps you speak out of genuine frustration, but that's how it comes across. I asked about some specifics of the scientific literature. Telling me instead to look at Professor Wikipedia insults my intelligence. Instead of focusing on COIs, whether James' or your own, let's focus on the sources. You draw attention to Rudacille's book, which is a good start. Please point me to specific passages or chapters in that book, that speak directly to my questions 1 and 3. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear User:Tryptofish, I'll take what's behind Door Number Three! — I.e., "It's not proven." (In my scans from The Riddle of Gender, I can find no directly relevant citations.)

... but please note: when you ask editors to decide how they'd like to see James Cantor's WP:SYNTH presented here, you're asking the wrong question. To begin with, this material on brain research relevant to issues of the classification and etiology of transsexualism does not belong in this particular article, and the editors who would take an interest in summarizing these findings would most likely be observing posts in Causes of transsexualism.

Transgender deals with a MUCH higher level of generalization about variations in gender identity and/or presentation than Transsexualism, and in turn that subject has a broader scope than Causes of transsexualism. ALL THESE POSTS by James Cantor are... miscategorized. A naive reader interested in finding out more about the "transgender spectrum" is going to find this article VERY misleading! E.g.: "I found my husband crossdressing... he says he's just a bit transgendered, it's OK, he's not... one of those... OH NO! OMG! In Wikipedia, "Transgender" is mostly about transsexualism!" (Which is kind of amusing, since Victoria Prince coined the term "transgender" to distinguish HER class of feminine but non-surgery-seeking males from "transsexuals" ... language is not just a virus; it's a rapidly-mutating one ... *sigh*)

To address the claim I'm making that James Cantor's edits here comprise WP:SYNTH, here's a relevant citation from a WP:RS :

Luders et al, Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism (2009)

"Moreover, a highly controversial line of research has suggested that homosexual and non-homosexual MTF transsexualism are etiologically heterogeneous (Blanchard, 1989a; Blanchard, 1989b), which may be associated with differences in neuroanatomy."

Blanchard's transsexualism typology is described here as highly controversial. OK? If James Cantor could cite an article linking all this research together and describing it as sufficient proof that the BAT is correct, I'd have no problem.

WP:SYNTH might well be correct, but is inherently problematic; I'll give one further example why: James Cantor cites Rametti et al. 2010 "The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment" as supporting the BAT with respect to HSTS subjects...

"Studies have consistently shown that specifically homosexual male-to-female transsexuals, like gay men, show a shift towards the female direction in brain anatomy." - James Cantor, similar text first appearing at [4] ... (first, note that as of yet there has been no response to the Citation Needed I posted on the "like gay men" claim...)

However, that study states "The etiology of transsexualism is unknown but biological variables could play a role in its development (Cohen-Kettenis and Gooren, 1999; Gooren, 2006; Swaab, 2004)." ... and "Sexual orientation of transsexual subjects was determined by asking what partner (a man, a woman, both or neither) the subjects would prefer or feel sexual attraction to if their body did not interfere."

Please note that this is not Blanchardian "homosexual transsexualism": I qualify, even though I'm a once-married fashion-mad trans-geek with offspring. (And here I am, active on the Internet, to boot! Lawrence & Bailey ("Transsexual Groups in Veale et al. (2008) are 'Autogynephilic' and 'Even More Autogynephilic'"): "MtF transsexuals who are active on the Internet appear overwhelmingly to be autogynephilic.") (NB: prudence forbids more than this remark: this self-knowledge is not based on fantasy, OK?)

And in closing: Tryptofish, you note that an "objective reader" might not be impressed with the tone of my Talk post... since I'm a comedienne, and not a scholar, I tend to avoid striking poses of "objectivity" in Talk, which suit my temperament and style of expression... not. The "Professor Wikipedia" YouTube video I linked was not intended as an insult to you or any other editors here: I myself started patrolling various articles in order to delete vandalism, well, just because I happen to rely on Wikipedia for initial impressions and relevant external links on many subjects, and like to see it kept free of the worst detritus. The video is outrageously funny; there's a KILLER punch line: wait for it!

It may even make you feel happy about becoming involved with the trans* edit wars... if you think about it ;-) -- "Am I WP:N yet?" - b.a.r.blayk —— bonze blayk (talk) 20:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

A neuroscientist and a comedienne walk into a bar... I, in turn, got interested in Wikipedia because I enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people. I'm impressed that there seems to be a lack of edit warring at Causes of transsexualism, but I think that it's reasonable to have some sort of section about science here, at Transgender. And I think that it is abundantly clear that, however this page presents Blanchard, it is essential to do so in a way that makes clear that his hypotheses are controversial, and not to imply that they are generally accepted in the scientific literature. Anyway, please allow me to continue to focus rather narrowly on the scientific questions here.

With regard to my question number one, I asked whether there is further scientific literature calling Blanchard into question. James basically said that there are not other studies that directly test the hypothesis. Bonze points to Luders et al., who, I'm guessing, James will say does not directly test the hypothesis, but which I think can be considered to be a reliable source examining the anatomical issues and finding something, but something different than what Blanchard predicted, and who seem to express the opinion that Blanchard was "controversial". James: is that fair? Bonze also points out that the Rametti paper, cited by James, has issues about how the subjects of the study were categorized, and makes the statement that the etiology is unknown. James: do Rametti et al. actually state that their results support Blanchard's hypothesis—I'm looking for a verbatim quote here, saying something like "we conclude that our results are consistent with Blanchard's hypothesis" or words to that effect!—or is it your own interpretation of their results that the results support the hypothesis? Or is Bonze doing WP:SYNTH about how the subjects in that study were defined?
With regard to my question number two, James' agreement means we have consensus against a lengthy quote.
With regard to my question number three, I think we are going to agree that, as Bonze says, it is not proven, but, beyond that, I think we need to settle what we think about my question number one.

--Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Re: Yes, just about. To emphasize a minor point that is hard to communicate via typing: It is not it that no one else has directly tested Blanchard's model (which several others successfully have), it is that no one other than these three teams have tested Blanchard's model using directly neurological techniques.

Regarding the exact terms in each text; I'd need to go back and re-read how which one phrased what. However, I have no problem telling you up front that not all three said that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and that calling that set of papers an explicit confirmation of Blanchard could indeed be a WP:SYNTH problem. My goal in coming to this page was simply to add all the other neuro-relevant findings pertinant to that section. (It contained only the exceptional finding rather than the predominant finding.)

— James Cantor (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, James. I think that answer is very helpful, and it suggests to me a way forward. First, let me say to James that I can readily understand how you feel about the issue. As an academic scientist, I too would sometimes like to see my own best judgment about issues that are currently unresolved in my own areas of expertise more clearly reflected in Wikipedia content. But Wikipedia simply isn't the place to work those issues out. That has to happen in the primary literature, and Wikipedia, as tertiary literature, can only follow. And my editing experience is that SYNTH can be interpreted strictly or loosely, but on pages where editors have strong opinions, as is clearly the case here, it is best to apply it strictly.

So I want to propose the following way forward, and I'd like to know what all editors here think about it.

Transgender#Brain-based studies should be sourced to, and discuss, only sources that are looking at biological aspects of brain structure, using neurological or neuroscientific techniques, and should generally refrain from discussing these findings in terms of Blanchard's typology. As for how you write the section of the page just above it, about that typology, I leave that to the rest of you, since it is above my pay grade!
The brain-based studies should be discussed in terms of what the authors of those studies say, explicitly, that they concluded, and not include anything that Wikipedia editors might infer from those studies. It will be a lot of "this part of the brain was larger", "that part of the brain was smaller", and "this other part of the brain was the same". There may be three studies that said a particular part of the brain was larger, and two studies that said the same brain part was smaller; they should all be cited, and no attempt by Wikipedia editors should be made to say which was wrong and which was right (unless there was subsequent consensus in the scientific literature).
The only time that Blanchard's typology should be mentioned is when the authors of the cited study said, explicitly, that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and concluded that it was either true or false. Commenting parenthetically that it is controversial does not count; rather, the authors must say themselves that their evidence has direct bearing on it.
This probably means that the section will not have any sweeping conclusions, instead treating the subject as one that is currently unresolved. That's OK.
It is unacceptable for editors to refuse to allow some reliable sources to be included, and doing so may give the appearance of POV-pushing. If there are various studies, some pointing one way, and others pointing the opposite way, they should all be included, at least briefly, so long as they are presented as above.

Would that be acceptable to everyone? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Although I am happy to write a sentence summarizing instead of quoting Blanchard's idea, I would first like to invite any of the other folks who previously expressed an interest here to propose one/some.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:01, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

If, and I'm just saying "if", we agree on what I suggested, do we really still need that sentence (at least in this part of the article) at all? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

To my eye, it's rather bizarre without it. That is, there are a string of studies all testing the same prediction, but the prediction itself would be missing.

— James Cantor (talk) 19:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Please carefully re-read what I proposed. Do those sources actually say that they were testing it? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've misread you (wouldn't be my first time).

The original articles vary in their explicitness. Some articles seem to have accidentally tripped upon the androphilic/gynephilic distinction just by luck whereas others cite Blanchard explicitly as the reason for the research design they chose. I don't think that either Blanchard (or anyone else) has said or used the neurological data as an explicit test of the Blanchard typology. Rather, there have been predictions made on the basis of the Blanchard typology (and those predictions have, thus far, been correct). Thus, I believe the predictions are very relevant here, but should be cast either as proof or disproof.

— James Cantor (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Then, to repeat what I suggested: "The only time that Blanchard's typology should be mentioned is when the authors of the cited study said, explicitly, that they were testing Blanchard's hypothesis and concluded that it was either true or false." In this case, I don't necessarily see a need for a summary sentence; instead, I would just state what the authors concluded. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

To close the loop then, you're saying you think the current mainpage should stay as is?

— James Cantor (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with further edits. I made a suggestion with five bullet points just above, and those five points are what I suggest. I would advise against writing the section as though it were a literature in which various investigators have tested Blanchard's predictions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Please use Androphilic/Gynephilic terminology, AT LEAST as an introduction!

To James Cantor et. al.:

Please, use objective androphilic/gynephilic terminology to describe sexual attraction in transsexuals. Characterizing the relationship between a post-op transsexual woman with a man as "homosexual" is just as confusing as it can be! (Besides being interpreted as derogatory and insensitive by androphilic, heterosexually-oriented transsexuals, such as myself.)

It just occurred to me that it's rather bizarre that the Blanchardian category employs the term autogynephilic for sexual self-regard as a woman in natal males, but does NOT use the terms gynephilic or androphilic for attraction to others ... that's... a weird inconsistency in terminological usage. -- bonze blayk (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any preference for using gynephilic/androphilic or heterosexual/homosexual, but it did the page no good at all to create a page that used some terms in some places and other terms in other places. I have now made the page consistent in its use of androphilic/gynephilic.

The word for "attraction to others" is "alloerotic": Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey R., & Cantor, J. M. (in press). Sexual attraction to others: A comparison of two models of alloerotic responding in men. Archives of Sexual Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9675-3. For free PDF, click here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l2v8761372637p15/

— James Cantor (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, James!

-- bonze blayk (talk) 15:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Not only should we use objective terminology here, but I believe that also applies to all mentions of the phrases sex assignment or gender assignment because: A) sex is a personal decision and therefore does not meet any of the definitions of an assignment which as far as I can understand include that someone else gave it to the person instead of the person choosing for themselves and B) gender is a social construct however it is sometimes defined as the genetic or biological sex which according to some is incorrect C) Genotype that makes reference to what an individual that starts out as female and may turn to male is determined by the encoding of a genetic expression in the human genome and therefore is neither assigned nor chosen but a genetic result, and as far as I know, genetic sex reversal is impossible only the appearance of what is bio-morphologically identified as sex is changeable, which is to say hairline, jaw structure, breasts, body and facial hair, penis or vagina, hips and I'm not entirely sure but I believe muscle grafts or reductions are also possible, for the purpose of having a larger or smaller contour, but these are only generalizations that women tend to have smaller leg and inter-torso profiles and men tend to have larger leg and inter-torso profiles. -- Benjamin D Richards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.215.226.34 (talk • contribs) 07:15, 3 June 2011

Please use Androphilic/Gynephilic terminology, AT LEAST as an introduction!

To James Cantor et. al.:

Please, use objective androphilic/gynephilic terminology to describe sexual attraction in transsexuals. Characterizing the relationship between a post-op transsexual woman with a man as "homosexual" is just as confusing as it can be! (Besides being interpreted as derogatory and insensitive by androphilic, heterosexually-oriented transsexuals, such as myself.)

It just occurred to me that it's rather bizarre that the Blanchardian category employs the term autogynephilic for sexual self-regard as a woman in natal males, but does NOT use the terms gynephilic or androphilic for attraction to others ... that's... a weird inconsistency in terminological usage. -- bonze blayk (talk) 15:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any preference for using gynephilic/androphilic or heterosexual/homosexual, but it did the page no good at all to create a page that used some terms in some places and other terms in other places. I have now made the page consistent in its use of androphilic/gynephilic.

The word for "attraction to others" is "alloerotic": Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey R., & Cantor, J. M. (in press). Sexual attraction to others: A comparison of two models of alloerotic responding in men. Archives of Sexual Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9675-3. For free PDF, click here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/l2v8761372637p15/

— James Cantor (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, James!

-- bonze blayk (talk) 15:50, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Not only should we use objective terminology here, but I believe that also applies to all mentions of the phrases sex assignment or gender assignment because: A) sex is a personal decision and therefore does not meet any of the definitions of an assignment which as far as I can understand include that someone else gave it to the person instead of the person choosing for themselves and B) gender is a social construct however it is sometimes defined as the genetic or biological sex which according to some is incorrect C) Genotype that makes reference to what an individual that starts out as female and may turn to male is determined by the encoding of a genetic expression in the human genome and therefore is neither assigned nor chosen but a genetic result, and as far as I know, genetic sex reversal is impossible only the appearance of what is bio-morphologically identified as sex is changeable, which is to say hairline, jaw structure, breasts, body and facial hair, penis or vagina, hips and I'm not entirely sure but I believe muscle grafts or reductions are also possible, for the purpose of having a larger or smaller contour, but these are only generalizations that women tend to have smaller leg and inter-torso profiles and men tend to have larger leg and inter-torso profiles. -- Benjamin D Richards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.215.226.34 (talk • contribs) 07:15, 3 June 2011

Blatant violation of WP:RS

James Cantor has now tried multiple times to insert a self-published piece by Anne Lawrence[5][6] in conflict with WP:RS:

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database, Cracked.com, CBDB.com, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users.

Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources.

As far as I have seen, Anne Lawrence has NOTHING published on neuroanatomy. Furthermore, she is a well recognized activist with a obvious agenda regarding autogynephilia. As such, claiming that this self-published critique is RS is absurd. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Anne Lawrence is an internationally recognized expert on transsexuality as well as an M.D. She is entirely able to provide an expert opinion on the biological basis of transsexuality. In fact, I can think of only a few other people in the world better qualified. (And I have published in neuroanatomy.) But...an activist? Really? Lawrence has published several papers expressing her agreement with the concept of autogynephilia, but an activist? This isn't about any activism on her part, this is about WP:IDONTLIKEIT on your part.

Obviously, outside opinion would be helpful here. I have already posted at RS/N, asking for input .

— James Cantor (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Lawrence did her internship and practiced as an anesthesiologist; I personally don't believe that anesthesiologists are especially well-qualified to assess the nature of neurological syndromes which [ins. 5/1/11] may (or may not) be relevant to gender identity and may (or may not) be related to the development of endocrinological systems, either one of which is a subject of specialized study in its own right.

Dr. Lawrence is indubitably an activist... she has chosen, as the form of her activism, to specialize in sexology, to publish articles in support of "autogynephilia", and advocate for the acceptance by trans women of the concepts related to autogynephilia.

As you yourself wrote, she is a "an openly autogynephilic transsexual": a public proponent of this theory, with a prominent website (no longer maintained) where she has published numerous testimonies sent to her of trans women's personal perceptions on the subject. (I should also note: I greatly appreciate the fact that Dr. Lawrence made the information on her website available, and has also made her published research papers available on it.)

My take on this particular citation is: it's a WP:SPS from a source who is not an expert in this specialty: as was commented regarding Madeline Wyndzen's WP:SPS writings: if this is really worthwhile work, why has she not had it published? And in Dr. Lawrence's case, there is obviously no felt need to preserve her anonymity!

And finally: any out transsexual person is an activist... in some sense or another. If you are confronted with The Bathroom Problem... either way you choose... you're an activist .-)

— bonze blayk (talk) 02:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Since I've been asked to weigh in as an editor with a neuroscience background, I have to agree with Kim and Bonze about this. If, instead, there is a peer-reviewed scholarly paper that mentions and assesses this hypothesis, then that would be the way to go. Absent that, I think the most that one could do would be to present it as part of a discussion of a controversy, not as part of the scientific knowledge base on the topic, and present it from both sides of the controversy; however, I'm not convinced that such a treatment would pass WP:UNDUE in this particular case. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I can't say I agree, but I am happy to follow the consensus.— James Cantor (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's OK to cite her for her opinion, but not in a context where it pretends to be science. In a similar vein, I just removed a "prediction" attributed to Blanchard; it was from an opinion paper, but Cantor had stuck it into a science section. And I add a few words and a source in the bit about Blanchard's typology, which again was mostly opinion masquerading as science, and sourced to a controversial book that has science in the title but which nobody actually claims is scientific, if I remember correctly. Some more POV balancing in this area is probably in order. Dicklyon (talk) 18:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

We are definitely going to need to reduce the role of "Blanchard's sexual typology" on this page. Reading this page and the flawed way the few studies are characterized (not to mention all the other studies that are not even mentioned), it is clear that the Blanchard position is vastly overrepresented. Blanchard's decades-old hypothesis in deprecated area of a non-influential field (sexology), rates barely the smallest whisper in the growing study of human biodiversity. His pathological view of neutral phenomena clearly shows his bias and anything that mentions his outdated work, which he "borrowed" from Fruend apparently without attribution, needs to be tagged as such so that readers get a clear picture. What we have now is naked propaganda presenting itself as "the scientific position".

We need more than the sexological view in discussing the hard science, and the role of the sexologists such as Blanchard and his associates needs to be reduced, if not altogether removed, from discussions about neurology and other sciences which they do not have any particular expertise in. This page already borders on the ridiculous and having it read like a propaganda piece for the Blanchard group isn't doing it any favors. Boredtwotears (talk) 23:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Question about section titles

Should "transgender people" be repeated in the section titles? For example, should "Transgender people and the law" just be "Legal aspects" or "Law?" --Aronoel (talk) 15:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to decrease the repetition. That doesn't mean that it has to be removed at every instance, but yes, style guidelines do discourage repeating a page title in the section titles. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)