User talk:PigeonPidgin

On Your Recent Edits

Hello there and welcome to Wikipedia, PigeonPidgin. I see that you seem to be a new editor and I wanted to say hello while also explaining why many of your recent edits have been reverted. As I can see from your editing history, thus far you have focused exclusively on removing the birth names of transgender people from biographical articles devoted to them. One of the articles you did this on was Suicide of Leelah Alcorn, which here at Wikipedia we rank as a "Featured Article", meaning lots of editors have worked hard to make it one of our best. Please remember that one of our principles at Wikipedia is Wikipedia:NOTCENSORED: this means that "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia.'" Simple put, as a general rule, we don't remove information from articles simply because it may upset some individuals. It is important to clarify that, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Gender identity, we do refer to individuals at Wikipedia using their chosen pronouns; this does not mean, however, that we remove their 'birth names'. I hope that provides some clarity regarding why your edits were reverted. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:44, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

This is elaborated on in Wikipedia:Gender identity, as well as in Wikipedia:Official names#Where there is an official name that is not the article title. In cases in which it is necessary for context, I am not removing the birth names of trans people. For example, in the article on Suicide of Leelah Alcorn, I deliberately left Alcorn's birth name in a place in which it would have been inappropriate to delete it. However, I would very firmly argue that having a transgender person's birth name bolded at the top of their biographical article, is not only inappropriate and unnecessary, but also demeaning and at worst, transphobic and insulting. PigeonPidgin (talk) 20:20, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

And yet you completely removed any acknowledgement whatsoever of Barbra Amesbury's birth name from her article, even though it is contextually necessary — the hit single that is her entire basis for having a Wikipedia article at all was released under her old name before she ever came out as trans, so memory-holing her former name would completely misrepresent both her and the song. I can assure you that Wikipedia does try to be careful in how we write about transgender people, but the question of whether we include a transgender person's former name in the article or not is a lot more complex than just a blanket ban — there are some situations (i.e. the person's notability was already established under the old name before they ever came out as trans in the first place) where it's unavoidably necessary for us to provide the old name and just take some care not to overuse it, some situations (e.g. there are no reliable sources for the name at all and somebody's trying to add it based on claims of private personal knowledge) where it's unequivocally inappropriate for us to publish any old name at all, and some situations that fall in between those two extremes and leave room for debate.

You're more than welcome to initiate discussions on their talk pages to review whether there's an important reason for their old name to be given in the article or not. But you need to understand that sometimes there is a genuinely important reason why the birth name is necessary information — so initiating a discussion is perfectly appropriate, while arbitrarily removing the names yourself is not. Bearcat (talk) 23:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

October 2023

Hello, I'm Renewal6. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Deaths in 2023, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Renewal6 (talk) 23:28, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Please do not add unreferenced or poorly referenced information, especially if controversial, to articles or any other page on Wikipedia about living (or recently deceased) persons, as you did to Robert von Dassanowsky. Thank you. Renewal6 (talk) 09:47, 14 October 2023 (UTC)