Talk:Gender-critical feminism/Archive 4

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Self published source guidelines

Defending my revert here. From Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works

Identifying a self-published source is usually straightforward. You need two pieces of information:

Who is the author or creator of the work? Who is the publisher of the work? If the answers to these questions are the same, then the work is self-published. If they are different, then the work is not self-published. In determining whether a source is self-published, you should not consider any other factors.

As noted in my revert edit, the publisher is clearly not the writer, so I reverted the change. TSN is not a blog website, it's an independent website that has professional writers like any other secondary source. If there are other concerns about the source's reliability please discuss it here, but as far as I can tell though it's obviously got a bias, the article linked is factual more than opinion and the source is not known for spreading misinformation. Arguably that section has NPOV issues if the responses to Favaro's claims from the people she accused of silencing her are not included, so I think it's important. Ashvio (talk) 23:32, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:SPS - this is the org's website with no editorial guidelines. It is essentially a blog, SPS covers:

Almost all websites except for those published by traditional publishers (such as news media organizations), including:[..] Business, charitable, and personal websites

Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about any living people, except for claims by the author about themself.

If you're going to accuse a named person of unethical practices you need the strongest possible WP:RS, not some completely unverified highly WP:PARTISAN group blog with no editorial standards, no external regulation and no complaints procedure. Using TSN to say people who had been interviewed attacked the researcher personally on social media when they realised it wasn't going to toe their particular line - which is what this is - is completely inappropriate for this page.

Not only that the Telegraph - which is a WP:RS we already use for the preceding paragraph - states that:

City found following an investigation that there was “no evidence” that the research breached any ethics criteria.

The fact that TSN publish something that is both false and defamatory - and that it has been live for a year - is IMO yet another black mark against the credibility of using them as a source on anything. They state outright in their own voice:

City University have a clear ethics policy and good research practice framework which were breached by Favaro when conducting this study.

This is, according to City University, as reported in the Telegraph, false. Do TSN have any editorial standards or corrections procedure or industry regulation? No. They've left the vexatious complaints up for a year.

Quite aside from the WP:SPS usage, using this source to repeat defamatory allegations about a living person which have already been found to be untrue is beyond inappropriate.

Please self-revert. Void if removed (talk) 09:46, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

As far as SPS goes, the article on identifying them I quoted earlier is very clear that the only criteria relevant for determining that is whether the publisher is the same as the writer. They are not the same entity, even if you dislike their beliefs or articles. They are not a blog website or essentially a blog website. The writer and their other writers are professional writers hired for that purpose, and that information is readily available. Your other concerns seem mostly about reliability, which is a different ball game. But your case for SPS seems grasping for straws, at best. By your logic, no non profit or advocacy group's writings from hired writers could be considered a published source, but this is certainly not the case.

As for WP:PARTISAN:"However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." Indeed, many advocacy related websites like this one are considered RS Perennials sources, like Pink News, HRW, amnesty international, etc. There's very little different from TSN and one of those other than prominence.

In this case, there's very little coverage of the incident that did the investigative research as this journalist did to actually talk with the people in the study. This was the best source I could find to provide a perspective of the story that wasn't entirely from Favaro's perspective. The article itself notes the lack of any trans perspectives in the other coverage on the topic. I don't object to having coverage that is biased for Favaro in the article but for neutrality there should be counter points too.

That feeds into my next point: TSN interviewed participants in her study for this article. There's no reason to believe TSN lacks editorial standards or a standard publishing process. In fact, they outline some of their editorial standards here. I'm sure you would call the standards biased, but the standards exist and it clearly disproves your point that they just post anything anyone wants with no oversight.

There's no reason to believe the comments from the participants interviewed were fabricated, which is the implication of what you're saying; the content mentioned actually are aligned with other sources that mention research participants complaining as the beginning of the end for her study. TSN has a strong incentive to properly apply editorial processes, being an organization in the UK a very libel litigious country.

Whether the university's ethical standards were breached could easily be a matter of opinion, and the article didn't state the university found her in violation but rather that the author believed there was a violation. And the university didn't say no violation occurred, rather that "no evidence" was found, which is not a statement that there was definitely no violation. In any case, that section isn't quoted in the Wikipedia article so it's moot to begin with. If you have a complaint about their writing, they have a very prominent contact us you can forward complaints to.

Finally, even if I give you that point, outdated information that wasn't fixed or presented in the best manner isn't evidence that the source deliberately lied in the entire piece, from reading the article it's clear that the statement was an argument that based on their discussions from the interviews, the writer believed there were ethical violations of the university policy.

And I really doubt your claims that this is defamatory. If it was, as others have noted, GCs are notoriously litigous so I'm sure we would've seen that acted on by now against this org which is based in the UK and would be in that jurisdiction. I'd assume that's because truth is an absolute defense to defamation claims and clearly the interviews in the article are not fabricated. And despite your implications, Wikipedia is not going to be sued any time soon for citing a secondary source with attributions and not authoritatively (eg, not in wiki voice). In addition, defamation in such cases as these usually implies malice, which is not clear at all in the writing of the source. Most of the claims from this article are based on facts such as the research specs and interviews.

Finally, to address your claims about source reliability, using criteria from WP:QUESTIONABLE

• "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts" : As far as I can tell, this is not true. At time of publication, no facts were untrue in this article (assuming the claim on breach of practices was an opinion) and in general I can't find any complaints about the publication posting untrue material on a regular basis.
• "or with no editorial oversight." : As I mentioned earlier, clearly this website has oversight.
• "Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist," : I don't believe trans safety /trans rights are "extremist" in any way
• "that are promotional in nature," As a non profit, TSN doesn't have anything to promite
• "or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." The article is largely factual, though obviously the writer has some commentary sprinkled in, there are no rumors but rather actual interviews with people in the study, and the article is based on factual claims rather than opinion.

If you still have a problem with this source, I'll go ahead and remove it and escalate elsewhere a larger discussion on this source. But I really don't see the claim that this is generally an unreliable source or that the quotes in the article are defamatory for quoting participants in the relevant study. It feels dishonest to only share one side's perspective on this issue, and considering we have (what I've proven to be) a reliable secondary source giving us the other perspective I don't see why it shouldn't be included as well. The article is clearly well researched and well intended, and I was unable to find any claims or evidence of the source generally being known for publishing falsehoods. Ashvio (talk) 10:50, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

GCs are notoriously litigous so I'm sure we would've seen that acted on by now against this org which is based in the UK and would be in that jurisdiction. This is a not a sensible argument. Litigation is expensive, and defamation litigation is exceptionally so. (see e.g. Carole Cadwalladr) G-Cs’ legal actions against the discrimination they have experienced are usually crowd-funded. And the deterrent in libel cases is that if you lose, you will be ordered to pay your opponent’s costs. So your argument on this point fails. And please read WP:BLPRESTORE. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:24, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of whether this source is a group blog (and if it’s not, then what is it?), it is problematic:

The source article directly states the following: City University have a clear ethics policy and good research practice framework which were breached by Favaro when conducting this study. If that’s presented as an opinion, it’s an opinion by a non-notable person, published by a non-notable organisation, so why include it? If it’s presented as a fact, it’s false, as confirmed by the university who are presumably the authority on their own ethics policy, and so the source is unreliable in this matter. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

That quote is not included. Ashvio (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

That quote is the premise of the whole source article, so if it’s false we have no business using that source at all. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

It is a WP:SPS in exactly the same way, for example, this post on FiLiA's website is a WP:SPS. You could use it for uncontroversial claims about the author or the org, or for a direct quote about something notable, but as the sole source of gossip about a living person no.

no facts were untrue in this article

That's a strong claim, what they said was:

City University have a clear ethics policy and good research practice framework which were breached by Favaro when conducting this study.

They weren't merely reporting other people had said it (as , eg. the Telegraph does), they were making a clear factual statement without qualification, in their own voice, of ethical misconduct by a specific living person, and one City University found no evidence of.

The second-hand Twitter complaints they are reporting here are the ones City investigated. Quibbling that they only found "no evidence" is a reach.

that section isn't quoted in the Wikipedia article

This is not an article about Laura Favaro. This is an article about gender-critical feminism and this particular section is about controversy in research.

What's there is an abbreviated, neutral presentation of the most significant parts of the order of events as related in reliable sources. It doesn't need every single thing in a blow by blow, this isn't an exhaustive news feed. That she was subjected to vexatious complaints about her ethics that the University found were groundless is interesting, but not essential to this article. Devoting 2 paragraphs to this is way overboard, and using a questionable source to recycle complaints at great length as if the University hadn't found there to be "no evidence" isn't appropriate.

What you have written here:

Critics responded to her claims by accusing her of "unethical practices" in her research, such as asking a participant to "reading out insulting comments attacking her personally," which would "fail the basic principle of fully informed consent, as [the participant] was not told in advance that this would happen." Other trans or pro-trans participants felt Favaro "misrepresented the study" when it was originally pitched to them, as they were not aware it would be carried out from a gender critical perspective. City, University of London responded with a statement that it had a “legal obligation to protect freedom of expression that we take very seriously.” It also took its “obligations with respect to ethics and integrity very seriously” and made clear that “any personal data processed in the course of any research [should be] processed in compliance with data protection legislation.”

Is longer than the section describing the sequence of events, presented out of order (this response was to the THE article, the previous paragraph continues on to later events), and gives the unsubstantiated impression of serious wrongdoing by a named person with zero balance. "Unethical practices". "Misrepresented". "Ethics and integrity". It is a laundry list of insinuation that adds absolutely nothing since the University actually investigated the ethics complaints and said there was no evidence.

There's no reason to believe TSN lacks editorial standards or a standard publishing process.

You link to their values statement. A values statement asserting their transfeminist stance is not editorial oversight. A WP:PARTISAN activist website is not on the same footing as, say a well-regarded newspaper with editorial standards, a regulatory body and a legal department checking they aren't just openly defaming people they dislike.

That I haven't personally fact-checked their entire output or sent them an email demanding corrections does not make this a WP:RS of the sort you can use to repeat accusations of unethical misconduct about a living person in their field of research.

only share one side's perspective on this issue

Peppering this page with hostile verbatim Twitter accusations by way of a biased source is not the way to go. Besides, I'm sure that Favaro would put "her side" far more strongly than is currently presented given the chance. Should we go to The Critic (which has more editorial oversight than TSN) for some "balancing" material about the complainers?

the most brazen and unscrupulous cancellation attempt I had seen in academia so far, against a migrant junior female colleague

And I see now there is this line from an UnHerd piece which completely invalidates the whole thrust of the TSN article:

While working on the survey, Favaro contacted the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to tell them about the forthcoming research. They decided to commission a report on Favaro’s interview findings, which was submitted in April 2022. It, too, remains unpublished.

Compare that to the headline "EHRC Cherry Picked Gender Critical Researcher Laura Favaro To Conduct “Unethical” Survey" which would therefore be completely backwards, or the evidence-free insinuation that there was something dubious about the contract simply because it didn't go to tender. Obviously that would be the case if one person approaches the EHRC pitching a report with survey data they've already gathered. My opinion of TSN as a source sinks ever lower. And seriously, this article treats an A-rated NHRI as "explicitly trans-hostile", these are not credible claims.

And all of this is irrelevant because we could always just use the existing sources to expand the sequence of events to note the complaints if that's the purpose. For example her research:

"was derailed by complaints"

"A research participant who “did not like the findings” and academics sympathetic to trans issues were among those who complained."

"City found following an investigation that there was “no evidence” that the research breached any ethics criteria."

" Senior scholars interviewed anonymously for the study broke cover to express their anger, claiming that Dr Favaro had breached ethical rules – claims she said were dismissed as “baseless” by a City investigation."

These are all in the existing citations. The TSN source adds nothing we didn't already have enough of if it was felt WP:DUE. I don't think any of that is WP:DUE for this article because noting complaints that were dismissed doesn't add much, and WP:NPF says Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care. Calling someone unethical counts as "adversely affect" IMO, and even if you were to say "but this was found to be baseless" at the end you can't balance that. Void if removed (talk) 16:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Significant additions and alterations to this article

In view of the fact that different editors have different approaches to the editing of this article, I think it would be a good idea if any significant alteration, and particularly, any significant addition of material, was discussed first on this Talk page, so that agreement may be reached before the article is amended. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Questionable sources

1. "Happy Pride. Don't Be a TERF". National Women's Law Center. This one is explicitly titled "BLOG POST" The authors are the "Senior Manager of Creative and Digital Strategies" and "Manager of Creative and Digital Strategies, Social Media" at the website. It is a polemic with claims like (in bold text) "you can’t support women and be a TERF at the same time", which I think every single gender-critical feminist would find objectionable. Imo this blog post has no purpose here whatsoever.
2. The Anti-Trans 'Gender-Critical' Movement Is Overflowing with Bullshit. Well from that title you don't need me to tell you it is another polemic. Unknown author. The reliability of Vice has been debated to no consensus, but as the author of this piece is unknown, and it is clearly an opinion piece rather than factual news, this also has no purpose here. It is being used to support the claim "The gender-critical or TERF movement has been linked to the promotion of conspiracy theories." which is both vague (what conspiracy theories) and "linked" can mean whatever the writer wants no matter how tenuous.
3. 'Gender-Critical' Feminism Isn't Feminist. It's Just Transphobic" From the title alone, you can tell this is an opinion piece. Another Vice article. The author, Vic Parsons, says they are "freelance journalist writing about trans lives". I don't think this is a strong enough source to back up the claim about "formed alliances with right-wing, far-right, and anti-feminist organisations". Indeed, that claim really needs the strongest of sources.
4. Why is British media so transphobic? by Edie Miller. I have no idea if The Outline is a reliable source and Edit Miller is "Edie Miller is an artist and writer". I quite enjoyed this article and it contains a lot of interesting history and links, and the author notes a correction they made to the piece. I think we could do better than it for the purpose it is currently being used for. Ultimately it is still an opinion piece rather than impartial journalism and the small publication lacks reputation I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong). For example it closes with the author pleading for UK lefties to take advice from their American cousins, and not lean towards bigotry.
5. "Opinion | How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans" Sophie Lewis. The article tells me "Dr. Lewis is a feminist theorist and geographer." so this could well be an opinion worth mentioning, with attribution. But it is clearly labelled an opinion piece so hard to use to support factual claims.
6. British media is increasingly transphobic. Here’s why. Is Xtra Magazine a reliable source? Is VS Wells a notable voice in this field? The article does attribute their claims but this is stating that Bindel's writing in the Guardian is transphobic, which strays into BLP territory, and needs a strong source than some random writer from Vancouver. It shouldn't surely be hard to find as Bindel is well known in this topic. But the two sentences sourced to this article are just a bit random and the dates jump about randomly too. It's hard to escape the feeling that this is just two factoids someone found on the internet, rather than the start of a solid section about GCF in the UK.
7. "Has Mumsnet become a hub of online transphobia?" The author seems to know their stuff about Mumsnet. But it is an opinion piece, closing with "Trans rights shouldn’t be up for debate – it wouldn’t be acceptable to speak about any other marginalised group the way trans people are spoken about on Mumsnet boards. They can, and should, do better."
8. Why the British Media Is So Transphobic. This is an interview with Shon Faye who is notable enough their opinion could well be worth including. However, I'm not sure it supports "Gender-critical views are common in the British media" which is a bit of a vague assertion anyway. The interview doesn't mention gender-critical at all. In fact Faye even rejects the TERF labelling, instead seeing the enemy as "middle class white women who’ve spent a lot of time on parenting forums and decided that trans people are an issue and this is the one issue that they care about".

I've gone through about half the refs. The ones I picked were the ones that stood out but there are likely many others that have weaknesses in that first-half. The important guideline here is at WP:RSOPINION and WP:RSEDITORIAL where nearly always opinion pieces cannot support statements of fact and must instead be explicitly attributed to an author, and subject to WP:DUE (as in, who cares what they said?). -- Colin°^Talk 09:48, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Colin’s objections to these sources seem reasonable to me. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:04, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• 'Gender-Critical' Feminism Isn't Feminist. It's Just Transphobic" From the title alone, you can tell this is an opinion piece. Another Vice article. The author, Vic Parsons, says they are "freelance journalist writing about trans lives". I don't think this is a strong enough source to back up the claim about "formed alliances with right-wing, far-right, and anti-feminist organisations". Indeed, that claim really needs the strongest of sources.

I couldn't find any evidence this is an opinion piece. It's labeled as a "feature" on their website, which is not the same as opinion. I've written professionally as a columnist, and this is clearly a story not a column. Just because the reporter covers trans topics doesn't mean it's an unreliable source. Are there claims made in this article that are false or contradicted by other reliable sources? If you are concerned about reliability we should look for additional sources rather than removing this one. Additionally "that claim really needs the strongest of sources" is an interesting comment for a claim that already has 5 different sources. Ashvio (talk) 12:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

There are already other sources covering this claim, though they should be looked at too. Reporting tells the reader the facts, from which they draw their own opinions. They report other people's opinions with attribution. An opinion piece tells the reader the writer's own opinion, what the writer thinks or though, tells the reader what they should think. The title is one example. So is ".. was chilling... but not surprising", "Queer and trans people have long known that gender-critical feminism is synonymous with transphobia, and that its proponents have very little to do with the kind of campaigning that actually benefits all women.", "Core tactics deployed to apparently advance the cause of women’s rights include", "Trans-inclusive feminists have disavowed their bigoted sisters" and so on. Bits of the article look like reporting but then the writer keeps dropping back to ranting. It's a shame since they could have written a report on the issue. The news reporter doesn't have to be unbiased: their bias can be quite obvious in their choice of who they give voice to, for example, and which issues concern them most. -- Colin°^Talk 13:55, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

A reminder that the above weak sources are soon going to be removed from the article and any statement of fact that is reliant on them may also be removed. And the above list is only taken from looking at the first half or so of our references and examining the most obvious offenders. It is a symptom of an article built from whatever someone found on Google rather than from following policy on article building. Any queries, please point to the part of policy that says otherwise. -- Colin°^Talk 13:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I would certainly dispute that many of these sources or their claims are weak. At the very least Vice News provides editorial oversight, and claims about the British press being more favourable to GC viewpoints than trans-inclusive ones are far from extraordinary. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 16:55, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

OwenBlacker, as I noted, the reliability of Vice News is does not have consensus agreement either way. But per WP:RSEDITORIAL it could be the Guardian or Telegraph for all that it matters wrt these two pieces, which are polemic opinion pieces. Both are being used to assert facts in wikivoice. This is explicitly not permitted by policy. Your point about "British press being more favourable to GC viewpoints than trans-inclusive ones" isn't AFAICS the fact we are using any of these sources for (correct me if wrong) but again would need to find a reliable source even if it was "far from extraordinary". . The "editorial oversight" attribute is a bare minimum for Vice to rise above some kind of blog hosting service but doesn't make the opinion pieces they publish reliable for facts. -- Colin°^Talk 17:25, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that many of these sources are unreliable as well:

1. NWLC is definitely an advocacy group, so I'm not really attached to this particular source, but I'd like to note here that we don't remove sources just because gender-critical feminists would find them "objectionable".
2. And here's where that starts being relevant: this is clearly an article, not an opinion. It has "/article/" in the URL. It certainly is a very sharply opinionated article, but that would place it under WP:BIASED not WP:RSEDITORIAL.
3. Similar to the above, this one has "/feature/" in the URL. You can't just say a piece is an editorial because it's opinionated, that's not how this works. If you did that, everything in Jacobin would be WP:RSEDITORIAL but they're green at RSP.
4. The Outline (website) is defunct but I don't see anything in its article or on the About page of its website that would make it less reliable than any newsorg. And again, you can't assume something is an editorial just because it's opinionated.
5. I agree this NYT piece really is an opinion, though since it's in the NYT I wouldn't mind making an exception to the normal rules against citing it for facts so long as we don't cite it for facts about BLPs.
6. Xtra Magazine has a very robust editorial standards page on their website, which suggests to me they are very much a reliable source sufficient to source BLP info to.
7. This one has been tagged "opinion" on their website so I also don't object to considering it an editorial.
8. The important part here is not the interview, it's this bit before it: TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) are endemic in the UK, where respected intellectuals like Germaine Greer are regularly given a platform to question and invalidate trans identity on national television. It's IMO very reasonable to summarize this as "gender-critical views are common in the British media".

Loki (talk) 20:12, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Everything on Vice appears to have "/article/" in the url except for "/video/". So this includes articles on "The Best Gifts for Under $100, From Cult Cookware to Mushroom Decor", "'Mouth Sweats': These Are Melbourne's Best Indian Restaurants" and "Your Monthly Horoscope: November 2023". These are all clearly opinion pieces (or complete nonsense or maybe even AI generated). Even if we regarded the article as reporting, the author is anonymous. So an anonymous author in a publication that isn't considered "clearly reliable" is low quality stuff. Reliability is a grade, rather than a yes/no. I think we should find better sources and reword this claim ("the gender-critical movement has been linked to the promotion of conspiracy theories") to be specific. Our body text particularly needs to answer the question who and what? One can link anything to anything if one is inclined.

As for the other article having "/feature/" it's weird. This is the only article on Wikipedia external link search with that kind of URL and googling for "https://www.vice.com/en/feature/" turns up only this article. So not sure what it means. If we are counting Vice as news media, then our policies have a clear distinction between articles that are reporting and articles that are opinion pieces. Some kind of tag or heading is useful but not working for us here. An opinion piece is one that "mainly reflects the author's opinion about a subject" rather than reporting something that is going on and what other people say or said or did. Well, the author's opinion is... "'Gender-Critical' Feminism Isn't Feminist. It's Just Transphobic" and this is an essay explaining their opinion. That's the entire focus of the article, the author's opinion. They make a strong case, and the essay is well cited, but policy says such sources are rarely reliable for facts (claiming things that you and I might believe are true isn't the same as being reliable). It is only one of five sources cited for the claim about far-right groups.

Wrt reliability, policy says "Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". If this site has no reputation we can't just assume "random website must be ok". Again, your view on "opinionated" disagree with policy. If advancing the author's opinion is the main purpose of the article, it's an opinion piece. Standard news reporting refrains from doing this. When the Guardian and the BBC report on some war, they don't conclude with a rant about how they wish they could bang a few heads together or it's time for us lefties to join together in agreement with the people I like and against the people I hate, which is how Edie Millar's piece kinda ends. -- Colin°^Talk 12:27, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The Xtra magazine editorial standards look good. But we are leading the section on GCF in the UK with a claim that some random writer called VS Wells says that Julie Bindel has written transphobic material in the Guardian. There's a big fat WP:DUE issue here in that Bindel and her opinions may be well known but VS Wells is not. That someone random has a negative opinion about someone famous is not due. What next, we quote every football pundit for whether team X is going to do well this year? Or a random politics sketch writer about how ridiculous Rishi Sunak looks in his suits that are way too small for him. And the second statement about "Sheila Jeffreys wrote an op-ed in The Guardian" is another big "so what?" I mean, people write op-eds all the time, and we don't enumerate them here. So I think both sentences have to go, though I'm sure we can find solid sources on Bidel's views.

Wrt the Shon Faye interview, comments on the UK media span the interview and also the introduction by the interviewer. However, are you seriously, seriously, telling me that the words "TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) are endemic in the UK" are accurate and support the comment about the UK media generally? After all, several editors here bang on endlessly about how fringe they are and essentially equivalent to white supremacist Nazis and now this writer is claiming they are "endemic in the UK" and are never off the TV. Can't have it both ways. It frankly sounds like the US right-wing nonsense that "there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in". And the comment about Germaine Greer regularly appearing on national television makes it sound like she's the UK's Tucker Carlson. She did a widely cited Newsnight interview in 2015. Em? -- Colin°^Talk 14:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Use of "“Gender-Critical” Discourse as Disinformation" as a source in lede

A strong claim has been added to the first para of the lede using "“Gender-Critical” Discourse as Disinformation: Unpacking TERF Strategies of Political Communication" (Billard, TJ, 2023) as a source. Some points:

• This is in the section "conversation and comment" and seems to be WP:RSOPINION
• The actual section title is "Conversation and Commentary: Anti-Terf: Trans Feminism Against White Nationalist Projects" which would seem to be WP:PARTISAN
• The claims of disinformation and propaganda in the article are vague and substantiated with an unpublished 2022 self-citation
• The article references "gender-critical feminists" once, but throughout the rest refers more broadly to "gender-critical" discourse, politics, talking points, disinformation etc, and equating all of this to "TERF ideology", which I argue is mixing multiple different strands indiscriminately, and heavily mixed in with accusations of racism, white nationalism etc.

The closest thing to the unpublished citation that backs all this up is this youtube video, and my own view is this is not a good source for anything much. If editors feel that this is WP:DUE (though I don't think Billard is especially notable but very few people in this area are frankly) I'd say put an attributed quote in the "criticism" section, but rendering it in the first para of the lede without quotes as "some scholars" is overemphasis. Void if removed (talk) 09:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tag me next time.

• For WP:PARTISAN/OPINION, "Bias may make in-text attribution appropriate" which is already the case. We can put it in quotes too
• The article and cited article provides evidence for disinformation, it's not just an assertion
• That doesn't really matter, the point of the citation is to point out that the claim of disinformation was made by scholarly feminists. It's clearly a reliable source.

I can add additional sources from scholars to back the "some" claim. Example Ashvio (talk) 09:59, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Added 2 more sources, I suspect I could find more if I needed to. It is a commonly held and notable belief of scholarly critics, backed by evidence they have collected and presented, that disinformation (ie, intentional misinformation) is a tactic used by GC feminists. Ashvio (talk) 10:10, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, so argue this stuff out in some body section first before sticking things in the lead. See MOS:LEADREL. Bear in mind WP:RS/AC we talking about "some" or "most" or "many", etc. If you are building your "some" by citing three individual sources, that might be acceptable for some uncontentious things. For example, if you said that some smartphones have heat sensors. But for this kind of thing due weight has a strong factor because there's an implication that the views of these "some" are important to some degree, otherwise we wouldn't mention them. Void is right that this source is an opinion piece so cannot be used to assert facts. I'm not sure we can escape our attribution requirement by waving "some" around. I'm not comfortable placing this into the lead without it being DUE in reliable secondary sources.

I also agree with Void that these sources seem to be talking about disinformation within the trans debate, which includes posts on social media or comments by right-wing politicians. We've stuck a "they" in this sentence, as though this applies to every single GCF. The claim about disinformation is also entirely vague. Nearly any body will at some point be accused of disinformation. How do you know when a politician is telling lies? His lips are moving. So without specifics (which belong in the body if this is to be covered) then it is just a rock someone has thrown. -- Colin°^Talk 14:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, secondary sources are hard to come by for whatever reason for Women/Gender studies, but I don't believe we should let that stop us from including important information using conservative framing ("some" not "consensus," despite the fact it may potentially be a consensus"). Some of the sources go as to far as saying all gender critical discourse is based on misinformation, so if we characterize it as "some" GCs use misinformation, it is already understating what they have claimed in their article. I've added in details for LEADFOLLOWSBODY, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I also added a literature review discussing disinformation on social media in general to add background for the claims. Ashvio (talk) 22:28, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The lack of secondary sources on a topic just means we have to say less and omit things you wish you could write. WP:PSTS, policy, says "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." and goes on to explain how primary sources are so easy to misuse and generally to be avoided. Building an article from primary opinion sources is, imo, even worse. It ends up with a he said she said battle of cherry picked sources by editors and that's why we want secondary independent sources to give us, a tertiary source, an idea of what's important. Is "disinformation" by GCF considered a notable enough issue to be leadworthy. Secondary sources will tell us. If we lack them then this article has to be shorter.

Consider your "some". We could write "Some Christians blame all Jews for the death of Jesus" (There's a whole article on it: Jewish deicide). Should we mention that in the lead of Christianity? Secondary sources, talking about Christianity as a whole, will tell us no. Similarly you could write "Some trans women are sex offenders" and cite various news stories. Indeed there are anti-trans activists who run websites whose purpose is to collect these stories, so there should be no trouble finding them. Would it be acceptable for us to stick that in the lead of transgender and shove half a dozen little numbers after it? No because secondary sources.

Disinformation is a tricky one. Strictly you'd have to have evidence that there's a secret cabal on Mumsnet that cooked up ROGD, knowing full well that it is bullshit, and spread it around in order to harm trans adolescents. It has to be knowingly false information spread deliberately to deceive. That's what Wikipedia and dictionaries will tell you. Some writers expand "disinformation" to include half truths and value-laden judgments and claims made with far more authority than justified by the evidence. And some distinguish between those who seed the disinformation and those who amplify it. And particularly see it occurring in identity wars. Would our readers understand "disinformation" as this more nuanced form? Or would they think we are claiming that GCF are knowingly telling lies in order to harm transgender people? If the latter, that's WP:EXCEPTIONAL. In the Cass Report, there's a line which I forget exactly, but they are talking about the information void where we really don't know enough about transgender care and its effects. And they say that both sides are guilty of making claims with absolute assurance but seriously deficient evidence. This is a feature of identity politics and culture wars and social media.

Yes the source above makes that claim, that all gender critical discourse is based on misinformation. I can't get my head around that other than that the author believes that because they are fundamentally wrong, in his view, everything they say is misinformation and if they spread it around it's disinformation. That doesn't seem a very constructive viewpoint, and doesn't lend itself to discussing other areas where reasonable people disagree, like politics or religion. -- Colin°^Talk 07:38, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I specifically raised the first source because it has been used a couple of times to make authoritative claims but I don't think it is terribly strong, and given there is no actual source for what the author can empirically state is disinformation (because it is an unpublished self-cite) it really just seems like a strong way of saying "I disagree", with extra accusations of racism thrown in. May as well put "some scholars regard gender-critical feminists as racists and white supremacists" in the lede on this basis, and I don't think that's justified.

RE: the two new sources, the first of the two new ones only says disinformation twice, once:

We are currently witnessing a supernational unification of far right, centrist and leftist agents using anti-gender, anti-feminist and transphobic mobilisations, populist affects and strategic disinformation as accelerators for hateful and anti-democratic agendas.

Which isn't really about gender-critical feminism but some nebulous conjunction of different forces, and the other with reference to:

We are told that trans-exclusionary feminism cares about women’s liberation and fighting sexual violence.

Which it considers disinformation, for reasons. Honestly, again this reads like the author just has a different opinion, and "disinformation" is hyperbole, not anything empirical.

The second new source OTOH is easily the best source of the three, specifically addressing 4 twitter accounts so at least you can tell to whom they are referring and despite their insistence on using TERF and radfem it is pretty clear that they are talking about actual feminists who espouse perspectives in line with gender-critical feminism, so even without specifically using the term it is a fair assessment who it applies to.

This source says misinformation (not disinformation) - and it is about Spain, and when you read it the part about "fake news" is mostly about the ramifications of the proposed self-id law there. I would suggest this would be better used with specificity under a new "Spain" subsection of the "around the world" section, with something about feminists being accused of spreading misinformation on social media about the proposed legislation. Because that's an empirical claim that can be verified: what did the law say, what did they say it said, scholars criticised them for spreading misinformation on that basis etc.

Broad accusations of "disinformation" directed at an "ism" are I think not to be taken lightly, and certainly not the first para of the lede without really strong cause, because this is less about the "ism" and more about whether specific contested claims are true or false in a bitterly contested political landscape. And don't get me wrong there are demonstrably a ton of liars and disinformers who wang on about "all we're doing is saying sex is real" while talking utter reactionary nonsense, but I disagree that sort of observation belongs in the lede of "gender critical feminism". Void if removed (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I suspect if one directly accused a named person of "disinformation" in the UK, you'd have a libel case on your hands. Especially given how keen GCF in the UK are to use the courts. -- Colin°^Talk 10:16, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

In view of the dispute about the ‘Disinformation’ material, I suggest that Ashvio should self-revert, and in general, should obtain consensus on the Talk page before making any significant change to this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:34, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I've done some more investigation into secondary sources on the topic, while it's hard to come by articles specifically for disinformation, there are plenty of secondary sources for related tactics such as harassment that may be worth including. If the consensus is we want claims in the lead to be backed by secondary sources, this may be a better approach. Also, as far as libel goes, so long as we maintain "accused"/"allegation" wording with attribution and quotes, there is no legal risk to Wikipedia. Ashvio (talk) 22:31, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Ashvio, the requirement to build an article from secondary sources is not exclusive to the lead. And you can't escape the "don't build articles from opinion pieces" problem by just dumping lots of attributed quotes to make a section. These are primary sources for an author's opinion. They don't establish WP:DUE. If we don't have secondary sources discussing e.g. disinformation as a specific issue for gender-critical feminism then we don't have a section on it, and in turn we don't mention in the lead. Just because Google turns up something doesn't mean it belongs here. WP:INDISCRIMINATE. -- Colin°^Talk 13:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Book: Gender-Critical Feminism

The book Gender-Critical Feminism by Holly Lawford-Smith turned up on a search. There is also Sex Matters: Essays in Gender-Critical Philosophy by the same author.

I can see in the archives that Holly Lawford-Smith has been mentioned a few times. I don't know them. Maybe their books are rubbish? But it seems odd to me that a book by an Associate Professor in Political Philosophy, University of Melbourne, and published by Oxford University Press, and on the very topic of this article, should not be cited as a source, or even as a significant source. Earlier complains in the archives that the article discusses the topic solely through the lens of detractors don't seem to have been addressed. On the face of it, these two books seem far more relevant than some random internet opinion website moaning about how transphobic Britain is. -- Colin°^Talk 18:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

She is a well-known activist within the GC or TERF movement who has herself been at the centre of an impressive number of controversies and protests against her TERF views over several years[1][2][3]. The book is not a neutral source. Using her book as a source in this article is like using a book by a well-known supporter of the KKK when writing about white supremacy in the US. There are some valid uses for such biased sources where participants in movements write about their own beliefs, but they must be used with caution; see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources. So the book could potentially be used to some degree when discussing the self-perception of GCs/TERFs. However, it's important to note that this book is quite fringe in a scholarly context, so it would be important to be mindful of WP:WEIGHT issues. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I think we need an RFC or something to decide how Wikipedia is treating GCF. It is clear from your above comments (and comments by others that consider TERF as akin to "racist" as a perfectly neutral term for a detestable person) that you view GCF/TERFs as evil and so far out of societal norm as akin to white supremacy or members of the KKK.

I have previously linked to polls that demonstrate an even split in the UK and a majority in the US of the population who align with the core beliefs of GC. Let me repeat. This US poll has 60% of Americans believe gender is determined by sex assigned at birth. Only around half think it important to respect someone's new pronouns. This UK poll has only around 40% think a trans woman is a woman and a nearly equal 36% do not. This does not indicate to me, not even remotely, that our populations view GC beliefs as beyond the pale. Add to this that GC views form the basis of our UK current governments policies and that our opposition party (who seem set to form the next government) are not remotely interested in contesting this. If GC views were as toxic as racism or antisemitism in the UK, as Amanda proposes Wikipedia should treat them, then we'd expect a progressive liberal party to be enthusiastically attacking "the nasty party" on this matter. They aren't.

This has been the basis from which I've been approaching this subject, where this debate is far far closer to religious or political beliefs. These can be strongly held and invoke profound distaste for the "other side". For example, political choices regarding COVID or air pollution or poverty have, in the UK where I live, led, imo, to tens of thousands of deaths and countless needless suffering. A combination of religious and political beliefs is causing enormous grief in the middle east right now. And yet Wikipedia does not take a side and we don't write articles on the UK Conservative party citing only those who hate them and go on protests and hold "TORY SCUM" placards aloft.

It is very clear, Amanda, that you and some others here, believe Wikipedia should take a firm side in this debate, absolutely down the line where those with GC views are as detestable and voiceless as KKK and white supremacists. That has shaped this article into nothing better than a dumping ground for "here's some hate I found on the internet" low quality opinion sources, and let to the complete rejection of voices who are actually defining for themselves what GCF believe. Loki elsewhere has given me grief for arguing that a professor's academic work might be biased and falsely claimed I was asking for their work to be excluded from our articles. And yet here you are demanding that a professor at a university who's actual job is studying GCF and who has written papers and two books published by the most highly regarded university press in the world, should be relegated to "the opinions held by a fringe extremist" rather than be one of the core sources of an article on what proponents believe and think.

Amanda, you keep going on about fringe. Within the domain of what GCF is, and believes, and asserts, (you know, the topic of this article) Lawford-Smith's work cannot possibly be fringe (if other GCF's reject them and disassociate themselves from them, let me know). If you are right, and I'm sceptical they are less than "small minority", that GCF is fringe within feminism as a whole, then that is interesting wrt weight in our feminism article. But not here. This is the article on GCF. -- Colin°^Talk 09:21, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

"I have previously linked to polls that demonstrate an even split in the UK and a majority in the US of the population who align with the core beliefs of GC. "

Wikipedia doesnt determine consensus based on public polling. We do it based on the consensus of subject matter expertise/Reliable sources in that area. In this context, it's absolutely true that GC beliefs are a fringe in scholarly discussions about gender and sociology. I've never seen public polling used this way here.

If we started using public polling like this on Wikipedia, we'd have to start calling the 2020 US Presidential Election fraudulent, Global Warming a hoax at WP:DUE and all kinds of other nonsense that goes against consensus of RS. Ashvio (talk) 12:33, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Found this and this covering academic response to the book and a response by the publisher. The attack on the book can imo be summarised as "her views are hateful, why are you publishing the views of hateful people". The response from OUP is that it "offers a serious and rigorous academic representation of this school of feminist thought". And they describe the rigorous approach they took to reviewing it. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes a reliable source on Wikipedia for what GCF is. Let's be clear, I'm not proposing the book is used for Wikipedia to declare, in wikivoice, that trans women are not women or for Wikipedia to share any of her opinions. But it seems an entirely suitable source for Wikipedia to declare, in wikivoice, that GCF believe trans women are not women. That we can authoritatively state what GCF's believe rather than have to write some attributed opinion about what some TERF-hater writing in some random website on the internet thinks GCF's believe. And that's an important improvement. -- Colin°^Talk 09:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Personally, the main obstacle to using Sex Matters as a source is the price (£50!), but I am tempted to bite the bullet on it and see. But some essays that apparently appear in it are public, eg this one.

This recounts multiple different examples of what constitutes a "women-only space" (and mentions distinctions between physical spaces, virtual/social spaces, and conceptual spaces), and gives 8 different rationales for them, going far beyond the well-worn "moral panic over toilets" framing. For example, permissibility of women-specific political groupings purely on grounds of self-determination:

Part of what men determined women to be is ‘accessible to men’, so in creating space in which to be inaccessible, women are exercising self-determination.

It doesn't matter whether anyone accepts her arguments - the point is that this is the kind of position gender-critical feminists take, and it is possible to neutrally present this with decent sources and if possible balance it with a specific critique.

Compare this to this page's current section on "gender-segregated spaces", which recounts Germaine Greer leaving Newnham College over a trans colleague and complaints over Julie Bindel in 2004 comparing trans performance of gender stereotypes to "the set of Grease".

This explains nothing in particular, it just relays two controversies that don't seem to be related to the issue.

It also illustrates I think the clear distinction between this sort of academic feminist argument, and the broader "gender critical" viewpoint that plays out mostly in the popular press, that is often far more moral panic focused, and why I think these need to be treated as separate but related phenomena. When it comes to gender-critical feminists, it is easier to say what they actually think and dig into the detail because there aren't many of them, they haven't managed to get a whole lot published, and aside from a bit of infighting the basics seem to concur. Whereas when you're talking about wider views I doubt there is even one prominent "gender critical" who could give 8 different rationales for women-only associations. Munging it all together and calling everyone a TERF is just not the way to go IMO. Void if removed (talk) 10:53, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• I looked into Lawford-Smith's Gender-Critical Feminism. It looks to be a high-quality, non-independent source on this topic. Ideally, our article will be guided by high-quality, independent sources as much as possible. The balance between medium-quality, independent sources (like news coverage) and high-quality, non-independent sources is tough to strike. Books like this one should definitely be used to state, with attribution, what the views of GCFs are. I see this happening in the Views section, and I don't see a massive need to increase the overall weight given to GCF views in that section. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:42, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  Firefangledfeathers I'd be interested to know which sources in this article you consider independent. I'm concerned that the views section would either end up as little more than a attributed name-dropping list of who thinks this or that, and the only independent source for a collective view comes from the fallout in a couple of UK legal cases, which is limiting. For example, Mormons heavily uses "Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction" which is written by Richard Bushman, a Mormon teacher. He appears highly respected, but he's not independent from Mormonism. And in fact, I'd be extremely surprised if the "Beliefs" section of any of our "ism" topics was sourced heavily to people antagonistic to the group, as this article certainly has been, or that one could write much encyclopaedic content on -isms if the beliefs of a group could not be sourced to members of that group. I really wouldn't imagine the Mormonism article saying "Richard Bushman thinks Mormon's believe X" all the time. Or that other articles on feminism couldn't possibly cite an actual feminist without attribution. Maybe what you mean is writing "Gender-critical feminists believe" is sufficient attribution, as clearly we aren't going to write "sex is immutable" in wiki voice unattributed to the group. -- Colin°^Talk 17:35, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  Statements like "Gender-critical feminists believe" are generally fine with me. Some attributed name-dropping is reasonable, as is some "some writers, including X and Y, argue that ...". When you say "antagonistic to the group", I hope you're including people that self-identify as opponents of GCF or who are described as such by secondary sources. If we're just using the term to refer to sources critical of GCF, I think we'd be less likely to land somewhere near true NPOV. I'm similarly opposed to labeling sources based on their just saying something good about GCF.

  I think most of the news sources in the article right now are independent, though I still think they're at the mid-tier of quality for an article like this. The Stanford Encyclopedia source is strong and independent but doesn't have much coverage of GCF. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  By antagonistic I'm talking about our, currently many, sources who are comfortable flinging words like "bigoted transphobes" outside of quote marks. News sources (as in ones reporting the news, rather than the many opinion pieces or interviews we cite newspapers and other current-affairs media for) only take us so far. One can't really build an article about an -ims from news stories. My ideal source would be like some kinds of Ros Atkins (BBC journalist) explainer or encyclopaedia of feminist beliefs where the authors take great care not to load their opinions into the description of what people believe and what opponents criticise them for. But in this field there aren't many of those. I think at the moment this is too much like citing Richard Dawkins on Christianity. Or some other branch of feminism where scholars were divided and we somehow built the article on X feminism by citing only Y feminists. -- Colin°^Talk 13:59, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

  It is not "a high-quality source". Such sources as "The Transsexual Empire" by Raymond, "Gender-critical feminism" by Holly Lawford-Smith etc. at best they are ignored in the academic literature (because they can't say something new), at worst they are harshly criticized. There are many sources about transphobia and transmisogyny in TERF movement (which use the acronym TERF, yes) which have many positive quotes in academic literature. Pro-TERFs sources are fringe and they shouldn't be used in Wikipedia. Reprarina (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

  It only matters to us if they are "harshly criticised" for not accurately describing what gender critical feminism is, what adherents believe and campaign for, what they reject, etc. Academics can "harshly criticise" it all they like for "I think this ideology is bullshit and transphobic and the adherents are assholes" (and I am repeating an academic here) all they like, as long as the book is a reliable source on this topic. If you want to write the article on 21st century feminist academic thought, then go ahead, in another article. Wikipedia does not pick sides and I've already pointed out on this page that polling demonstrates core gender critical beliefs are no less widely held than pro trans beliefs. It cannot possibly be "fringe", except in the hopes and dreams for some academics. -- Colin°^Talk 07:08, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  WP:Fringe theories: fringe theories in science depart significantly from mainstream science and have little or no scientific support. Fringe theories which have social support are still fringe theories. Your source has clearly less academic support than ordinary articles in transgeder studies journals about TERF movement. Reprarina (talk) 08:43, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  Reprarina is entirely correct here. Those books are fringe sources in an academic context. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 18:49, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

  Well, this discussion is continuing in the "Where are actually reliable sources section" but both of you seem to be confused that somehow this is a "science" topic. -- Colin°^Talk 10:16, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is an anti-trans activist, but she is not a gender-critical feminist – she denies being a feminist at all – see the article on her. So any activity by her has no place in this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:09, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that she's not a feminist, but I think that her associations with gender-critical feminism are so close that she's a special case here. She identifies as a "women's rights advocate" and is clearly intends herself to be in the same movement as gender-critical feminists, so I think that the appropriate thing to do is to rephrase the mention of her, not to remove it. Loki (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

This article is about gender-critical feminism, and since K-J K-M is not a feminist, her activities should not feature in it. Since she denies being a feminist, I do not think that there is any justification for saying that she ‘intends herself to be in the same movement as gender-critical feminists’. Sweet6970 (talk) 18:45, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Even assuming she is a GCF, the bigger issue is whether the spats and controversies of individual gender-critical feminists are due in an article about gender-critical feminism. Ayn Rand said some unsavoury things about homosexuals, but the article on Objectivism doesn’t waste time on those - and the Postmodernism article doesn’t get distracted by Michael Foucault’s controversial views on consent. Whether or not an individual GCF got into a fight or called someone names or whatever doesn’t further the reader’s understanding of the subject. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the whole section on ‘Allegations of harassment of trans people’ should be removed? Sweet6970 (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't have much going for it in terms of elucidating what gender-critical feminism is. It seems like a coatrack of social media drama. Gender critical feminists have been accused of harassing trans people and their allies on social media and, in one instance, in real life One instance, really? That's the bar for inclusion? Imagine if we picked any other political or philosophical discipline and started inserting allegations of bad behaviour from one of its adherents. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:29, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

For clarity – I am the one who inserted the words ‘in one instance’, because that is all the source supports. But I agree with your general point – this article is about gender-critical feminism, not the g-c feminists. And I see that Transgender does not have a section detailing the harassment by trans supporters of J K Rowling and others. So I support the deletion of this section in its entirety. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

In a way, this is broadly true. I will mention, though, that the article mentions that "The phrase adult human female has become a slogan in gender-critical politics". Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull's page says that:

Keen-Minshull is credited for popularising the term "adult human female" to define a woman, which she began to promote in 2018 on billboards. The term is associated with gender-critical feminism.

This seems pretty notable to mention, even if KJKM does not describe or consider herself a feminist, gender critical or otherwise. XTheBedrockX (talk) 17:48, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

@Void if removed To address the revert: I don't believe that simply mentioning that KJKM was described as coining "adult human female" as a definition of "woman", to contextualize the use of "adult human female" as a slogan (whilst making no judgement on her as a person, her beliefs or anything she may or may not have done, even mentioning she rejects being called a feminist for clarity) is unreasonable. If the person who popularized "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" can be mentioned here, who not mention this as well? XTheBedrockX (talk) 00:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

She did not "coin" it, it was already in widespread use among radical feminists while KJKM was still arguing the exact opposite of her current positions on Twitter, and she is not a "gender-critical feminist". The article at this point makes several leaps purely to squeeze in references to KJKM - from gender-critical feminism (a specific subject), to gender-critical politics (a vague, broad subject), then AHF somehow being a prominent political slogan (among whom? which gender critical feminist groups use it? Is it more commonly used by those groups than other slogans? The citation here is to KJKM, so this is circular), then KJKM being mentioned because she sticks it on billboards and t-shirts. She has her own page, it belongs there, not here.

I don't think the person who coined "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" should be mentioned here either - it belongs on the page for TERF, and that it has to be wedged in here because of the encroachment of that subject onto this is something I continue to disagree with, seeing as we have sources that make clear these are distinct subjects, and the insistence that they are the same is increasingly incoherent. It is little more than an exercise in throwing everything "anti-trans" in one place and calling it "gender-critical feminism". Void if removed (talk) 09:32, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Everything in that section is sourced. If there are reliable sources mentioning earlier uses of "adult human female" and/or it's origins as a slogan, you can probably add it to the article. XTheBedrockX (talk) 14:49, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The existing source does not support the statement "The phrase adult human female has become a slogan in gender-critical politics, and has been described as transphobic." seeing as all it does is note that a billboard KJKM put up was taken down. The words "gender-critical" never appear, with or without "feminism". This is extrapolating from KJKM's use of it as a slogan to "a slogan in gender-critical politics".

In any case its pretty ordinary usage predates her involvement by several years, eg. this 2016 post by FairPlayForWomen. This is hardly surprising, given that it is a dictionary definition of "woman", so crediting her with "coining" it as the author of the article in The National does is fairly ridiculous, to the point of being a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim. She made headlines for sticking it on billboards and turned it into her own slogan, but she didn't invent it or originate it, she isn't a gender-critical feminist and none of this is much of anything to do with "gender critical feminism", so I seriously don't see why this particular trivia isn't confined to her own wiki page. Void if removed (talk) 19:03, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The topic of this article is not feminism. It's the anti-trans movement known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism, TERF(ism), gender-critical feminism, gender-critical movement, gender-critical, GC. Also, whether Keen-Minshull calls herself as "feminist" is immaterial; she has in fact described herself as a "women's rights advocate" which means the same thing, and is clearly a prominent member of the movement covered in this article. It's time to stop the ridiculous attempts at nitpicking over the article's title, perhaps it would be better if we just moved it to gender-critical movement. Most GCs and third-party sources rarely use the full term anyway, and it's just one of several names of the movement. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 15:20, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

AAB – the title of this article is Gender-critical feminism, and that is what it should be about. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

No, it's not, as has been explained to you a million times, and it never ever has been. This article was from the start conceived as an article on the topic which until then only had a section in Feminist views on transgender topics titled "Gender-critical feminism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism" as equal alternative titles. It's entirely normal for a topic to have more than one widely recognized name: Compare: Twitter/X, eggplant/aubergine, aragula/rocket, ground beef/mince, liquor/spirits. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 23:43, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

This article is not about “the anti-trans movement”. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 06:39, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I find it very weird when people include KJKM as a TERF or GCF or whatever you want to call it. While it's true that KJKM shares some of the views of TERFs/GCF, so do anti-trans religious fundamentalists. While KJKM doesn't fall into the religious fundamentalist category she doesn't really fit into the TERF/GCF category either. From what I can tell, many TERFs/GCFs actively reject her and some of her views because a number of them are diametrically opposed to what they stand for. For example, KJKM wants to treat 17 year old women as children unable to consent to any sort of medical treatment (and possibly things even not generally considered medical treatment), instead requiring their parents' (which realistically in many cultures is going to be their father's) permission. Nil Einne (talk) 10:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Ultimately though my views don't matter. Do the preponderance of RS describe KJKM as a TERF or GCF? If they do then perhaps we can include her. If they don't then we can't no matter what editors may think of her fitting or not fitting. Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with that. My only subtle caveat is that if a Reliable Source calls her "Gender Critical" then that's good enough. It doesn't have to explicitly say "feminist" or "feminism". --DanielRigal (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

That is a profoundly important caveat because this article at present is trying to combine at least four different things with the subject "gender-critical feminism":

• TERF (as a purported neutral word specifically and only for trans-exclusionary radical feminists, who are also exactly the same thing as gender-critical feminists, and not at all a slur)
• A history of what seems to be trans-exclusionary radical feminism, but which predates the coinage of the term "TERF" by decades, and does not go up to the even later origins of the term "gender-critical feminism"
• Gender-critical (as a widely-interpreted catch-all term for any vaguely anti-trans sentiment)
• Anti-trans (as a crossover point for pretty much any movement, belief system or political actor)

All under the title "gender-critical feminism".

The opening sentence of the lede conflates gender-critical feminism, TERF ideology, TERFism and trans-exclusionary radical feminism, from 5 sources, not one of which says that and at least one of which says the opposite. This is WP:SYNTH.

While this continues there is little point actually looking at what reliable sources say about "gender-critical feminism" as long as editors continue to insist that "gender-critical feminism", "gender-critical", "TERF" and "anti-trans" are all the same thing.

As long as editors continue to do this, there will always be a reason to include KJKM, because the definitions are so ill-defined no-one can draw any clear boundary around anyone. It doesn't matter that she explictly disavows - indeed attacks - feminism, if the subject of this article is in effect just "the crossover of any anti-trans politics with any other anti-trans politics".

I think until a clear consensus of the actual subject of this article is established, discussing who is or is not included is futile. Right now it is a WP:COATRACK Void if removed (talk) 09:07, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

It's not quite as bad as that. Everybody accepts that this is about a fairly specific sort of anti-trans thinking and the partially coherent movement centred around it. Nobody would try to argue that Christian Fundamentalist anti-trans thinking is GC, only maybe that there is some cooperation going on between groups. But, zooming in on the specifics, there certainly is a fog of confusion about the very nature of what GC is. That is not a failing of Wikipedia. It is intrinsic to the subject at this stage in its history. The Gender Critical movement brands itself as "radical feminist" when it suits it to and not when it doesn't, as "gender critical feminist" when it suits it and not when it doesn't, it claims to be "pro-LGB" when it suits it to and not when it doesn't and as "left of centre" when it suits it to be and not when it doesn't. We are trying our very best to document a movement that is genuinely nebulous, yes, but also deliberately obfuscatory about its fundamental nature. We can only go by what the best sources say and be aware that it may take years for a fully coherent narrative to emerge from academic sources.

I don't want to reopen the question of what the article should be called. I'd have preferred "Gender Critical movement" but people insisted on "feminism", and that is semi-defensible under WP:COMMONNAME, so I'm not going to argue for a change now. Lets not bloat this Talk page any more than we need to with yet another heated discussion that is very obviously not going to get anybody anywhere.

Let's not get derailed here. The actual question here is simple enough: Do we have valid sources to support making a claim about KJK in this article? If we have good RS saying that KJK is GC then we can say that. If we have good RS saying she is associated with the GC movement then we can say that, taking care not to go beyond what the sources say. If we have good RS that other GCs don't accept her as GC, or just don't like her, then we can also say that, without getting too deep into the interpersonal dramas obviously. It all comes down to sources. We can get this bit right even while several other elements of the subject remain obscure and obscured. --DanielRigal (talk) 11:29, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

There is quite clearly no consensus (and likely never was) that this article should cover any and all transphobic matters and people perceived to be transphobic in recent times and through the lens of writers who are almost exclusively hateful of this feminist group or anti-trans activists in general. If folk want to write a general "Transphobic people just awful and here's why" article, then start Transphobia in 21st Century UK or whatever. We've currently got complete garbage at the bottom of the article, where people have found someone calling themselves a TERF and ending up on Tiktok and somehow that's relevant to a branch of feminism? Look, there's a place on the internet where all this hate can be dumped but it ain't here. I'd very much like Wikipedia, an encyclopaedia, to have an article on what gender-critical feminists think, campaign for and against, and what serious critics have to say about their views.

Policy says our articles should be built on secondary sources and give due weight to matters concerning the subject, as reported by reliable sources. Opinion pieces do not establish weight as they are not reliable sources for facts, only that author's opinion. See WP:INDISCRIMINATE. -- Colin°^Talk 13:26, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Does this mean you are in favour of deleting the Allegations of harassment of transpeople section entirely? I would support this. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:52, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, as Void has been complaining, and I agree, this article has been a dumping ground for comments on anyone who is anti-trans or perceived to be anti-trans, regardless of their actual beliefs. So this section contains, for example, In 2023, a woman was filmed declaring "I am a TERF" and allegedly verbally assaulting a trans woman at a Cheesecake Factory with insults and threats of violence. We already know that "TERF" is not something anyone self-identifies with unless they are being aggressively anti-trans and don't care. This woman, according to the Independent, claims TERF means "Trans-eccentric radical feminist". Have we really got to the point when news stories about random violently deranged people appear in articles about feminism?

And the Twitter stuff. People behave like shit on Twitter. On both sides. This random opinion piece in "Into" (no editorial standards I can find) is used to claim GCFs dox trans individuals. But the author of the piece clearly regards anyone who picks on a trans user on Twitter as "a TERF". They cite one account, presumably someone doxed, and when I click on it I see a post from them saying "The amount of bullshit TERFs spew is amazing. I think we should punch more of them." Another cite on twitter has someone saying "A terf ally snuck into a trans parent group on facebook and doxed the kids". Really? This is evidence? This is the equivalent of heresay heard down the pub, only the pub is a website specifically designed to maximise discord and amplify misinformation. It is rather ironic that these two sections we have on violence and misinformation both contain examples, if you read the sources and follow the links, of violence and misinformation spread by the other side. This is why we must rise above just citing random crap we find on google. We know that people are shits on twitter, so examples of people in group x being shits on twitter don't really tell us much other than that they aren't all saints. We need someone without an axe to grind who has truly examined if actual GCF have harassed trans people to any notable degree that it is a pattern of behaviour worth citing. I suspect there may well be such a pattern, but it needs the highest quality sourcing. At the moment, this is like if someone went to Black people and started adding in any random crime they found on the news that featured someone with black skin. This isn't how articles should be built. -- Colin°^Talk 11:31, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Do I take it that’s a ‘Yes’? Sweet6970 (talk) 11:37, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, most of it. The Atlantic article is better though has limitations. It talks about a reddit group r/GenderCritical which it says the members shifted to Ovarit. This is covered at Controversial Reddit communities#GenderCritical. That's really its focus (as well as another group called r/The_Donald). The question is whether such forums actually represent gender critical feminists, or some subgroup or even just an another group that happens to have overlap. Just as whether you could use a comment about r/The_Donald forum posts in an article about Republican voters. Would that be reasonable? If it is felt worth mentioning, I think it should instead talk about participants at a forum called r/GenderCritical rather than labelling all GCF with this accusation. I mean, people who post on reddit or twitter are highly unrepresentative of the general population to begin with. Also, when we refer to an article, we don't attribute to "The Atlantic" but to the author. -- Colin°^Talk 13:21, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Do you have an exact proposed wording for a reduced ‘harassment’ section? Sweet6970 (talk) 16:37, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Where are actually reliable sources?

The most reliable sources about this topic are sources like The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies. In these sources, TERFs are reviewed academically and objectively, as TERFs and not "gender critical feminists". In the articles about misogynists, we will not ignore sorces like Encyclopedia of gender studies/women's studies/feminist studies in SAGE Publications. Or in the articles about racists, we will not ignore sources like Encyclopedia of race studies/Black studies etc. in SAGE Publications. So why should we ignore the most reliable sources about transphobia here? I see the mass media sources here, but not the much more reliable acedemic encyclopedia sources.--Reprarina (talk) 20:51, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a fine source for transgender. Repriania, if some folk want Wikipedia to treat GCF as "racists", whom society as a whole rejects (imperfectly, for sure) or "white supremacists" (as other have suggested) then you're going to need an RFC and actual evidence that society has that opinion. Otherwise, Wikipedia should treat this like some political view or religious view, and we do not write articles about them solely from the lens of those who hate that politics or hate that religion. So, go find your evidence that your view is widely held by our cultures. I don't mean some TERF-hating academic. I mean someone neutral like the BBC or a dictionary (you know, find an entry that says "TERF: detestable transphobic person"). Because, the neutral sources I've been reading are utterly impartial on who is right on this culture war. And if neutral sources don't decide GCF is as bad as misogyny or racism then neither can we, regardless of what you and I personally think about them. -- Colin°^Talk 07:15, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

TERFs, according to academic sources are very popular in many societies. It's true.

According to academic sources, antifeminists are also very popular in many societies. And racists, according to academic sources, are very popular in many societies (and also don't want to call themselves racists). And according to academic sources, it is problematic. That's not different, that's literally the same.

Popular in society doesn't mean popular in academic environment. WP:FRNG forbids to popularise theories that are fringe in academic environment. In society, they can be popular. In academic fields, mainstream point of view is the point of view on TERFs is that they should be called TERFs and that they are transmisogynistic, transphobic and (last not but least) not gender critical. Reprarina (talk) 08:25, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you are misreading FRNG. Gender-critical feminists may be a minority within the broader sphere of feminism, or even a fringe minority (are they? Has anyone done a survey?), but they are not fringe within the field of gender-critical feminism, which is what this article is about. Neither are GCF views fringe in society at large.

Furthermore, political / philosophical academia doesn’t make the same kind of claims to truth that the physical sciences do. When we write an article on Evolution, we sideline the theory of Lamarckism because there is near-universal consensus that it is unproven or disproven by objective scientific reference to reality. In contrast, philosophy and politics is essentially all opinion (even, and especially, in academia). There’s no comparable objective reality against which any -ism can be measured. Hence, many political and philosophical disciplines which are mutually wildly contradictory can coexist as legitimate viewpoints. “Mathematics is the second-cheapest department - they just need paper, pencil, and a wastebasket. Philosophy is the cheapest department - they just need paper and pencil.” In short, notions of fringe and pseudoscience don’t map cleanly to this branch of academia. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:53, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think so. FRNG means fringe in science, including popular in society at large.

And WP:NPOV indeed forbids to write "TERFs are bad people", "TERFs are morally wrong", but it is absolutely possible to write "TERF is transphobic[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] movement". How many academic sources oppose this claim? It would not be a violation of NPOV. The violation of NPOV would be "transphobia is a bad thing[1][2][3][4][5]", but we never write such way. Reprarina (talk) 12:44, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. In its particular field. What do you think is the field here? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:35, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Basically, according to WP:NPOV, Wikipedia can't literally say "misogyny is bad", or "racism is bad", or "Nazism is bad". It can say that it is condemned by human rights organizations, by UN, etc. However, no matter if we talk about Nazism, rasism, sexism, TERFism, conservatism, liberalism, commumism or transgender rights movement - the core of the Wikipedia articles about this topics should be mainstream academic sources. Not BBC, and not CNN, not Holly Lawford-Smith. Reprarina (talk) 08:58, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll gladly go through and delete every single reference to Vice, Xtra, lgbtqnation, pink news etc. They're mostly fluff.

However, Routledge - an academic publisher of nearly 200 years vintage - and Oxford University Press - the world's largest university press, and almost 450 years old - are mainstream academic sources, so that means "Sex & Gender - A Contemporary Reader", and HLS' "Sex Matters" for example are both right up there as high quality sources. Void if removed (talk) 09:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The book represents a fringe perspective in academia. Even major publishers sometimes, more often than one might expect, publish stuff that is quite fringe. Lawford-Smith is primarily known as an anti-trans activist, has been at the center of a ton of controversies related to her anti-trans views, and also many academics protesting against publishers publishing her views. The book must primarily be judged on its own merits, its reception in academia, and who the author is. The corporate history of the publisher isn't that relevant when we consider the issues that are most important, especially how we potentially use the book. As I noted above: She is a well-known activist within the GC or TERF movement who has herself been at the centre of an impressive number of controversies and protests against her TERF views over several years[4][5][6]. The book is not a neutral source. Using her book as a source in this article is like using a book by a well-known supporter of the KKK when writing about white supremacy in the US. There are some valid uses for such biased sources where participants in movements write about their own beliefs, but they must be used with caution; see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources. So the book could potentially be used to some degree when discussing the self-perception of GCs/TERFs. However, it's important to note that this book is quite fringe in a scholarly context, so it would be important to be mindful of WP:WEIGHT issues. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 18:38, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be a misunderstanding among a couple of editors here that this is a science subject, where there are theories, evidence, proof and so on. Authors who hold a societal or religious or political view, writing about their (and their groups) societal or religious or political views are not "neutral" but nor are such sources forbidden. Indeed such sources can form basis of our articles on what these groups believe. We can't use them, of course, to determine how we write about these views within a wider context. So, for example, our articles on Mormonism or Anglicanism could well be largely sourced to theologians within those traditions/sects when describing their beliefs. But an article on American religious beliefs needs to find a more neutral source to determine the weight or when describing their relevance or acceptance today.

We certainly want to use academic sources to place GCF within a wider feminism topic and describe its importance or otherwise within academic feminist thinking. But it is also a world-view that stretches outside of academia's ivory towers. Where to does it fit within our society? For that, we need absolutely neutral sources that do not take sides. Amanda here repeats their view that GCF is equivalent to KKK, and expecting Wikipedia to take that viewpoint wrt the sources it would touch.

At the recent Tory conference, Rishi Sunak, the UK's prime minister, gave a speech which included "Patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women. And we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense." Depending on your world view, that either disgusts or delights you. And folk can cite it as yet another example of misinformation (e.g., the "bullied" language and the idea that trans is a lifestyle choice). On the same day the Tory party announced (though whether it will ever be law) that trans women will not be permitted onto women's wards in hospitals and the promotion of gender neutral or trans-inclusive language in the NHS would end. The BBC reported on this by merely saying "Mr Sunak won applause from activists by weighing in on gender issues". If, as Amanda would have us believe, Sunak has just joined the KKK, I'm struggling to find where Sunak had found himself cancelled by world leaders. The best the Guardian could find was Belgium’s deputy prime minister, who is transgender, and the best the BBC West Midlands could find was the founder of a local Pride event, who is transgender. Sure, there was lots of criticism among those we'd expect to be outraged (I'm outraged, fwiw) but this certainly is not a fringe viewpoint in the UK or US. -- Colin°^Talk 11:36, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this article is comparable to the article on Mormonism at all. Mormonism is mainly about what Mormons believe in. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism aka the gender-critical movement is exclusively about attacking a minority group's human rights, dehumanizing them, etc. So the article could rather be compared to various articles on white supremacist ideologies. Obviously we couldn't write those articles with only "believers" as sources, especially not when then are third party, academic sources out there. And yes, this is a fringe ideology, in the sense that it lacks societal acceptance, acceptance in feminism, and acceptance in academic contexts (where it's primarily studied as a form of populism or extremism). The Council of Europe has explicitly condemned it and linked it to "virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people" in the UK, Russia etc. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 14:04, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

the gender-critical movement is exclusively about attacking a minority group's human rights, dehumanizing them, etc. This is a POV. Other POVs are available. The task here is to write neutrally. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:01, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Amanda, your claim "it lacks societal acceptance" lacks sources. I mean, I personally agree with the Council of Europe statement but they don't, as an organisation, have any authority, and them themselves admit "Paradigm shifts in social and cultural understandings of gender equality, harmful masculinities and the rights and freedoms of LGBTI people are still needed in many societies". I've given some sources above where polls on some gender-critical beliefs were carried out, and they dispute your claim of societal acceptance. How can it "lack societal acceptance", to the degree you keep comparing it to a white supremacist ideology, if the Prime Minister of the UK adopts this viewpoint as part of his speech at the annual Tory conference, and the leader of the opposition effectively nods his head in agreement, and the cabinet of the UK government each variously propose GC reforms. If our UK society firmly regarded an adherent of this as one who "attacks a minority's human rights and dehumanises them", you'd think that would be good grounds for not renewing their employment contract. Or you'd find that socially progressive political parties like the SNP, the Green Party of England and Wales or Labour have a united front on this, rather than be tearing themselves apart in conflict over members proudly declaring their gender-critical beliefs as champions of women's rights. How can it "lack societal acceptance" if most of the UK's press is firmly gender-critical, and even The Guardian employs GC opinion columnists. -- Colin°^Talk 17:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

This is not an article about the United Kingdom. The UK is widely considered one of the most transphobic countries in Europe[7], has been compared to Russia by the Council of Europe over its attacks on LGBTIQ+ rights[8], and is led by a party that observers and scholars increasingly consider to be far-right[9][10][11] (it even left the mainstream conservative group in the European Parliament years ago to join a group consisting of openly far-right parties), etc etc. Quite recently the US had a president who espoused climate change denial, racism and all sorts of extreme or fringe views, but that didn't make those extreme or fringe views "mainstream". The same applies here: Far-right politics isn't mainstream, even when they have influence in some countries. TERF (or "GC" as it's called in the UK) ideology is a fringe ideology, firmly part of a far-right, anti-gender landscape known for its promotion of conspiracy theories (as noted by numerous sources, also in this article), condemned by the Council of Europe as an ideology linked to "virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people", and with virtually no support in academic contexts or organized feminism, originating as a fringe movement in US feminism as several sources here point out. That transphobia remains widespread in some countries doesn't change that. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I will say again - "fringe" in Wikipedia doesn't mean "fringe in society", it means "fringe in academic environment". In many societies homosexuality is considered to be a crime. It's not absolutely fringe point of view on the international social level. There are many people in the world, many politics, who thinks that homosexuals deserve death penalty. However, such claims are absolutely fringe in the contemprorary scientific works that focus on gay people. And this is the reason that we don't write articles about homophobia even partly from the point of view of homophobes.

Rishi Sunak is not a gender researcher. So his opinion is not weighty in the Wikipedia articles about gender-related issues. I can say the same about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, J. K. Rowling - when they recieve recognition in gender studies, transgender studies, feminist studies as those who have academic knoledges in this field, then their opinions about it will have weight in Wikipedia. So far I see the opposite. Reprarina (talk) 01:53, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. The fact that prejudices against minorities remain widespread in some countries—Russia, the UK[12][13]—is no reason to treat them as socially accepted in Wikipedia articles. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen the argument that because homophobia is "accepted" in Russia (or a number of other countries) and promoted by the government there, Wikipedia must treat it as an equally valid opinion, or something like that. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 02:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This is what WP:FRINGE actually says: In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field.. So if you want to claim that HLS’s book, say, is fringe, you need to state the field in which it’s fringe. Then we can discuss whether the book departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in that field. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

It departs, even in UK.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2022.2147915

Trans inclusive academic feminism is dominant in UK academia and traces its origins from the emphasis on intersectionality in Black feminism and its influence on third and fourth wave feminism, and the emergence of queer theory, gender theory and trans theory... The views of trans inclusive feminists are dominant among experts in the field as evidenced in an open letter signed by professional academic philosophers in opposition to Professor Stock being awarded an OBE. Reprarina (talk) 12:26, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

There's a bit WP:FRINGE where it says "the opinion of a scholar whose expertise is in a different field should not be given undue weight." The article you quote is in "Women’s History Review" which "is an international journal whose aim is to provide a forum for the publication of new scholarly articles in the field of women’s history... In addition to main articles the journal also publishes shorter ‘Viewpoints’ that are possibly based on the life experiences, ideas and views of the writer and may be more polemical in tone. " The above article is one such "Viewpoints". The author Deborah Shaw, is "Professor of Film and Screen Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK." The article explicitly states it is written "From a trans inclusive feminist viewpoint" and ends with various pleas and pledges by the author that it hopes other might share.

So we have someone who is an expert in Film and Screen Studies. Their "evidence" that "views of trans inclusive feminists are dominant among experts in the field" is a letter signed by 600 people opposing Kathleen Stock's OBE. The Wikipedia article also tells me 200 people signed a letter supporting Stock (not necessarily agreeing with her). Such letters are not serious polls so we can't read a lot into the size of each letter's signatory list. But the point they are missing is that Kathleen Stock is a philosopher and her academic career isn't within feminism or gender studies. That 600 people don't like a philosopher and her views on trans issues very much doesn't tell me where trans-inclusive/exclusive positions lie within academic feminism. But the fact that Stock is cited and highly notable within discussions about GCF tells me the point Void makes below, is that GCF is a set of beliefs that isn't constrained within the domain of academic feminism or academic gender studies. Anyone can adopt GCF ideas or oppose them. -- Colin°^Talk 13:56, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Still more weighty than Rishi Sunak who is not a scholar at all. Reprarina (talk) 13:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Not sure if you are making a serious point here. -- Colin°^Talk 14:14, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This isn't the article about trans inclusive academic feminism. By all means treat GCFs as a fringe voice in that domain. But in this article, we seek to explain the ideas of gender-critical feminism. So a book published by a reputable academic institution, that explains what gender-critical feminism is, and is written by a gender-critical feminist, is absolutely mainstream in its field. We should be perfectly capable of writing what those ideas are (NPOV) without endorsing or vilifying them (POV). Academics from different fields are free to hold differing opinions, and we can write about those opinions too, to put the views of the GCFs in context. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

"a book published by a reputable academic institution, that explains what gender-critical feminism is, and is written by a gender-critical feminist, is absolutely mainstream in its field."

On the contrary. Reprarina (talk) 16:13, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

If there are tons of academic sources about so-called gender critical feminism that say and explain why it's a transphobic movement and only one so-called gender-critical feminist source claims that "it's not trans exclusionary! it includes trans men because trans men are biological women!" than it's not mainstream but fringe source in the studies in the field of the topic. Whether someone likes it or not. Reprarina (talk) 16:26, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

We can certainly write statements like "notable feminist X considers gender-critical feminism to be a transphobic movement", but we cannot write in wikivoice "gender-critical feminism is a transphobic movement", because "transphobic" is a contentious label in a contentious topic, and we are not here to pick which side gets to apply its preferred contentious labels to the other side. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:52, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about that is relevant to this discussion. For example, I'm not at all opposed to us citing good quality sources criticising GCF for being transphobic. But wrt "fringe", some editors have been flinging that word around as if it is a magic spell to make sources they don't want to cite disappear, or permit Wikipedia to write about a group of feminists in wikivoice as though they were the KKK. The article needs to use a higher quality of sources than "viewpoints" written by someone who studies movies for a job. Or random low-quality media platforms hosting articles about how hateful TERFs are, where TERF is defined as "People I hate on twitter".

Barnards, I think the rule about whether we can state "X is transphobic" is a bit more complicated than just whether this is a contentious topic. The guidance you link to points out that we can do that if "widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject". Editors can debate whether that test has been met, though it is usually easier to just describe what they believe wrt trans rights or trans people. For example, we firmly state man-made climate change is a thing. Being a contentious topic doesn't mean "the jury is out". -- Colin°^Talk 17:08, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The guidance in LABEL does go on further: ...unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution - so my first example, attributed to a notable critic, would be fine, but the second unattributed statement would be much more difficult to justify in wikivoice. I think the reason we can say anthropogenic climate change is a thing is because that claim exists in the domain of falsifiable science and approximates what we would call a fact, whereas the determination of transphobia is closer to opinion than fact. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we can absolutely write that it is an anti-trans movement when that is supported by a preponderance of academic sources. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 17:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Fringe theories in this domain include ROGD and Autogynephilia and we can agree on those. There are things that sensible people leave to the experts, like climate change or medical therapies, and there are things that are entirely up to us as individuals and as a society to work out for ourselves. You seem to have an almost old fashioned priest-like view of academic feminists, as if us proles have to ask them what we should think and believe, as only they are learned enough to have the wise thoughts and read the holy books. Academic feminists are not gatekeepers on whether sex is binary or whether we allow trans women to use the woman's loo or to be regarded as "women" for meeting a gender-diversity target in the boardroom. They aren't gatekeepers on pronouns or misgendering or deadnaming the way we regard scientists and medics as gatekeepers on whether vaccination for XYZ is safe and effective or whether homeopathy is a load of bunk. All these beliefs are not "theories" nor do they require academic training in order to be clever enough to answer them wisely.

Most of Amanda's argument documents an extremist activist viewpoint. Good luck sticking "transphobic" or "far right politician" categories in Rishi Sunak's article. While I read newspapers that make very harsh criticism of our government for these views, and do regard many of their statements as transphobic or populist, I'm also aware that my opinion and the opinions of the journalists I like to read, do not represent the majority view. And the US is no better and no less divided. It's this awareness that "my POV is not the only one" that seems to be lacking.

Many people make the mistake in thinking a source is "reliable" and that's a yes/no answer about the source that can then be used and abused for anything one might want to draw from it. The clue is in the name "source" rather than "book" or "article". It has to be a source of some fact or opinion we write about in article text. So the question really is when we write X, what would be a suitable source for X. Nobody here is expecting us in Wikivoice to declare the beliefs of GCFs and cite them as authorities on whether sex is binary. But I think the opinion expressed by a couple of editors here, that GCF is so societally abhorrent as to mean we cannot and should not even cite them for what they themselves believe, doesn't stand up to even the most basic examination. A book by a university professor, who studies the subject for a living, and who's book title is our article title, and which is published by Oxford University Press, meets the tick boxes for reliability on what GCF is. That lots of people really really hate the author and hate what the author believes is quite a separate matter. -- Colin°^Talk 09:41, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you are the last person who should talk about extremist activist viewpoints, considering your own statements and behavior. I'm also tired of your constant strawmen ("sticking "transphobic" or "far right politician" categories in Rishi Sunak's article", which noone here has done; in fact I haven't even mentioned the guy. The discussion about the Tory Party's drift to the far right as a party is a very mainstream debate, in academic contexts and other RS.). --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 17:23, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Em, you responded to my citation of Sunak's remark with a claim that the UK was now run by a transphobic far right political party. This isn't a strawman argument. You might personally feel the UK is now run by a transphobic far right political party and you might personally read sources you consider reliable that back up your views. Similarly you might personally feel that GCF is fringe and akin to white supremacy within society and personally read sources that back up your views. But both of these ideas evaporate one you consider "my view is not the only view" and look outside of one's personal political bubble. -- Colin°^Talk 17:49, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Nope, I've never said anything about the guy. When I'm commenting on something, I'm not necessarily engaging with everything you might have said or everyone you might have mentioned on this talk page. I have just pointed out that many observers have noted the Tory party's drift to the far-right, with no less than three sources (of course many others exist), a very well known issue and debate regarding that party. A perfectly fair point to make. Re: personal political bubble: I have cosmopolitan, mainstream views on this issue, similar to what every major feminist organization in the US (and Germany) espouse, and to the consensus in academic feminism and other scholarship globally. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 18:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Academic reseachers in social sciences can't decide for Wikipedia, what is "good" and what is "bad", but they can find that TERFs are transphobes and that they actually haven't gender critical views.

The term gender-critical is not about them. It is the recently appropriated term by them. Reprarina (talk) 10:41, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I mean, if you use TERF to refer to "anybody with transphobic views" then of course you're going to find a lot of people who aren't in any meaningful sense "gender-critical" because that encompasses a lot of conservative viewpoints that advocate traditional gender roles (like Sunak). This goes back to the fact TERF should never have been directed here, because it is turning this page into a dumping ground since you cannot actually define what ideology "TERF" is supposed to map to, and as editors keep demonstrating on this talk page, it just means "transphobe". The idea that Sunak has even heard of Sheila Jeffreys for example, let alone adheres to whatever radical feminist ideology she advocates, is absurd, let alone any feminist who has actually called themselves a "gender critical feminist".

OTOH "gender-critical feminism" is any feminist analysis that maintains sex is biological, binary, immutable, and distinct from gender, which it is critical of and considers a social construct. We have WP:RS saying that's what it means and WP:RS saying they're all liars and white supremacists and that any reasonable-seeming statement is a dogwhistle. How do you capture that neutrally? Crucially, how do you capture it neutrally if you exclude up front any source that doesn't treat the subject with sufficient contempt?

They say their positions are reasonable and mainstream, critics say their positions aren't merely unreasonable, but fringe, outright bigotry, and that the surrounding talking points cross over into rising fascism across the world. The wider you cast the "gender-critical" net, the more true that is, but also the less neutrally you actually capture the subject of "gender-critical feminism" or the dispute within feminism that it was coined in response to and the political organising it spawned.

There's a dispute here and all sides of it need to be accurately and fairly represented - deciding up front that one "side" is so contemptible and dangerous it cannot be put forward in its own words is deciding what is "good" and what is "bad". Void if removed (talk) 11:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

There is also a disput should homosexuality be considered a crime or not. Many politics in the world think it should be. And they don't like when they are called homophobes. But according to academic literature, it's homophobia. Reprarina (talk) 11:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Reprarina, comparisons with homophobia or white supremacy aren't helping. You may personally regard this societal issue settled in your mind but there is abundant evidence that it is not settled in our societies. This is an ongoing culture war. The clue in the word "war" is that both sides are still fighting. Wikipedia needs to find a way to document this accurately and fairly. Currently, this article has story about a random, possibly ill and certainly violent, person who claimed to be a TERF and picked a fight with a trans person in a cafe. I don't think that is remotely a reasonable way for Wikipedia to handle such a controversial subject. -- Colin°^Talk 14:11, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

This is an ongoing culture war, yes.

It doesn't change that the point that TERFs are not transphobes (that they don't have and don't do "negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general" i.e. transphobia) is fringe in the academic resorces. Reprarina (talk) 14:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Good luck sticking "transphobic" or "far right politician" categories in Rishi Sunak's article.

Well, his statements are recent, so I don't think there are many academic articles focusing on them. But we can wait. Reprarina (talk) 10:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Don't get hung up on what the individual words inside terms mean or who coined them. While we might document some writer's views on whether "gender-critical feminist or "trans exclusionary radical feminist" are word-for-word the best choice of words for these groups of people, all that matters for a topic on Wikipedia is that this term, these three or four words, is used to describe a group or set of beliefs that are a topic cohesive enough to warrant an encyclopaedic article. So whether someone thinks they are or are not actually critical of gender or that being critical of gender is something specific to this group, all that matters is that in 2023, enough writers think "gender-critical feminism" is a thing we can write about and when you use those words people know what you are talking about.

The point about Rishi Sunak isn't whether it is too soon to have sources that brand him the way Amanda paints it. Its that you wouldn't stand a snowballs chance of expecting Wikipedia to characterise him the way Amanda does. Same goes for The Telegraph: good luck getting that one struck off the RS list even though its worldview is 100% gender critical. We can have viewpoints that we in our little bubbles might all nod in agreement with, but the moment you step outside that bubble, it falls apart. Wikipedia needs editors to step outside their bubbles. -- Colin°^Talk 11:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I would really appreciate it if you stopped making entirely false claims about what I have said. The claim that I have characterized Sunak in any way is a blatant fabrication; I've not said a single word about the guy. I have discussed the TERF movement, transphobia in the UK, the Tory Party's drift to the far right (a well known issue addressed by countless sources) in general terms. You're the only one who keeps going on about this guy. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 02:17, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

"The point about Rishi Sunak isn't whether it is too soon to have sources that brand him the way Amanda paints it. Its that you wouldn't stand a snowballs chance of expecting Wikipedia to characterise him the way Amanda does."

Never say never. Reprarina (talk) 11:09, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

"Don't get hung up on what the individual words inside terms mean or who coined them."

The fact that the term "gender critical had previously referenced a trans-inclusive, queer feminist critical analysis of the sexist aspects of gender, such as gender stereotypes, gender roles, and gender hierarchies" is noted in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies. This is an important fact. It is one of the core facts about the topic. It should also be prominently featured in the Wikipedia article. Reprarina (talk) 11:24, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

There's examples of "gender-critical" being used in the 80s and 90s as "feminist critical analysis of the sexist aspects of gender, such as gender stereotypes, gender roles, and gender hierarchies", eg in education and archaeology. I fail to see how this is incompatible with the current claim of "gender-critical feminism" - and indeed sits with the general claim that they're essentially continuity 2nd wave feminists, or radical feminists. Void if removed (talk) 12:32, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The 2nd wave radical feminist Andrea Dworkin: "Hormone and chromosome research, attempts to develop new means of human reproduction (life created in, or considerably supported by, the scientist’s laboratory), work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex difference into the radical biology of sex similarity. That is not to say that there is one sex, but that there are many. The evidence which is germane here is simple. The words ‘male’ and ‘female,’ ‘man” and ‘woman,’ are used only because as yet there are no others”. Woman Hating, p. 175. Reprarina (talk) 13:02, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

"I think there are a lot of things really wrong with the last chapter in Woman Hating"

Andrea Dworkin, two-and-a-half decades later. Void if removed (talk) 13:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Without any speculations: they're essentially continuity some of 2nd wave radical feminists. Reprarina (talk) 13:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, Catharine MacKinnon has also consistently supported trans rights, and she's also still alive and saying so.

Not that either of them is necessarily representative of second-wave feminism or even radical feminism. They were both pretty extreme even in their heyday, and there were plenty of people who disagreed with them on all sorts of things. Heck, Betty Friedan infamously got into a big dispute over excluding lesbians from NOW, so it's hard to say that being in continuity with the second wave is even necessarily desirable. Second wave feminism was a big complicated thing that had a lot of internal arguments about all sorts of stuff. Loki (talk) 04:51, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I think the issue with this is the actual impact of "gender critical feminism" goes far beyond gender studies in terms of expertise. For example, Jo Phoenix is a criminologist whose insistence on eg. the importance of sex-disaggregation of statistical data to her field led to abuse and deplatforming, an apology of from the University of Essex, the setting up of a "gender critical research network" and a recent tribunal against the Open University over her treatment.

As the article states:

The transgender debate cuts across many academic disciplines, including law, education, gender studies, philosophy and history. So-called gender-critical feminists, who believe that gender is a social construct rather than innate, say they want to explore trans issues within their fields, but that they, and the debate as a whole, are being stifled in British universities.

Insisting that the only legitimate voice is "trans/gender studies" and that everyone else is akin to the KKK is untenable. Void if removed (talk) 10:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

If there is evidence of systematic suppression of gender-critical research in a particular academic field, then one might argue that that field has become a less reliable source for assessing the due weight of gender-critical views. Can you imagine citing 1930s Soviet biology journals in the grip of Lysenkoism to prove that genetics and natural selection were fringe views? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:31, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

It's typical for fringe theories that their promoters face such suppression of their research in their academic field. At least in democratic countries. Lysenko also faced it in the end of his life in his own country. Reprarina (talk) 17:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. Physics journals legitimately reject papers on perpetual motion machines. So how do we tell the difference between legitimate suppression of bad ideas, and illegitimate suppression of challenging ideas? Favaro tells us of bullying, smears, abuse, threats and incitements to murder. Sound more Stalin than Science to me. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 18:13, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

It is a tricky one - in science we expect a preponderance of evidence one way or another, and at worst to "both sides" the issue. With rare exceptions, people claiming their glorious ideas are being suppressed by science journals are invariably producing low-quality or fringe ideas.

But this isn't science. While there are lots of testable, empirical claims made in contested political areas that spin out of the whole sex/gender dispute - covering everything from law to medicine to criminology to sport - there is no "true" answer to how feminists should theorise sex and gender and whether "gender-critical feminism" is right. It isn't that kind of subject.

There are endless scholarly articles disparaging "TERFs", dismissing "gender-critical feminist" as a lying sanitised version of what they really believe. I can find dozens of academics calling them white supremacists, fascists, homophobes and transphobes. In virtually none of these sources can I find a neutral account of what it is gender-critical feminists actually believe. For that we have to use their own words, and to choose not to do that is to accept their critics arguments entire, and present a one-sided account of a deeply contested political issue. Void if removed (talk) 23:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

What if these sources say that TERFs are white supremacists, fascists, homophobes and transphobes because TERFs are actually white supremacists, fascists, homophobes and transphobes? Reprarina (talk) 00:02, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Before you complain about the comment above this one, notice how when we start to insert our own personal beliefs or judgments into Wikipedia, there's no reason why we should consider your opinions over others. You may personally believe that academics are covering TERFs unfairly, but someone else may disagree with you. Whether or not Wikipedia should represent the viewpoints of reliable sources and only reliable sources is not up for debate unless you want to change WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V. PBZE (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

That is not the point - what is happening here is that scholarly sources are being used to argue that other scholarly sources should not be relied upon at all, because they are so WP:FRINGE.

We are being invited to judge that only sources in eg. trans/gender studies are reliable, and that their incredibly low opinion of "gender-critical feminism" - indeed, that they can freely call them and "TERFs" - can be rendered in wikivoice because they are numerically superior.

But what is the scholarly field? Is it gender studies? Women's studies? Feminism? Transgender studies?

"Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader" encompasses easily a half dozen different fields, from law to criminology. Any scientific paper where data is disaggregated by biological sex instead of gender identity is, de facto, a paper that the chapters on data and statistics or criminology are arguing for.

How are we to decide that the feminist arguments being made for sex-disaggregated data in science are so WP:FRINGE they cannot put their case in their own words (to be offset by critics)? Void if removed (talk) 08:10, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

We are being invited to judge that only sources in eg. trans/gender studies are reliable

What are you talking about? Sources from other fields are used in the article. The social sciences, especially those relating to gender, are the most likely to cover gender-critical feminism and with the most detail. There is no prejudice against other fields.

and that their incredibly low opinion of "gender-critical feminism" - indeed, that they can freely call them and "TERFs" - can be rendered in wikivoice because they are numerically superior.

How are we to decide that the feminist arguments being made for sex-disaggregated data in science are so WP:FRINGE they cannot put their case in their own words (to be offset by critics)?

Viewpoints supported by only a minority of reliable sources need to be presented with proper context and cannot be presented as equal to the prevailing viewpoints. Please reread WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE.

Any scientific paper where data is disaggregated by biological sex instead of gender identity is, de facto, a paper that the chapters on data and statistics or criminology are arguing for.

While you're at it, please brush up on WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. PBZE (talk) 09:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

There is no prejudice against other fields.

There is prejudice against publications by gender-critical feminists in whatever field they actually work in, evident in this talk page again and again, literally comparing using such a source to citing the KKK.

But WP:FRINGE also says:

Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular viewpoint.

So how does that map to eg. Trans Studies Quarterly? Is this representative of overwhelming consensus in the field that supposedly encompasses "gender-critical feminism", or is this inherently POV, ie such journals by definition exclude "gender-critical feminism" ever being a valid POV because their sole perspective is "trans-inclusivity"? It is a viewpoint that needs reflecting as it is prominent, notable and critical to understanding the debate, but I also think the high quality WP:RS expressing the gender-critical feminist position need to be cited neutrally and prominently, and doing so is not remotely like citing the KKK.

WP:SYNTH and WP:OR

This is a talk page. I'm suggesting that the view that recording sex-dsiaggregated metrics in science is not only not a WP:FRINGE view, but it is standard, and that gender-critical feminists advance a gender-critical argument for continuing to do so, while trans-focused academics advance a trans-focused argument either for not doing so, or to argue that we never actually did in the first place. How do we judge perspectives like this when this touches so many fields so widely?

We have to present both sides of this fairly. What we are not here to do is to simply agree with one POV that the GCF position is so dangerously racist that it cannot be rendered neutrally, lest an unsuspecting reader be taken in by it.

So, in the area of impact on data collection (as an example), I think we could very fairly quote one author saying something like "In order to fully understand outcomes for people of either sex and any self-defined gender identity, we need data on both variables", and another saying that this would "perpetuate the category systems and power structures of white patriarchy" and letting an impartial reader make up their own mind how seriously to take this particular disagreement. Void if removed (talk) 17:08, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

There is prejudice against publications by gender-critical feminists in whatever field they actually work in, evident in this talk page again and again, literally comparing using such a source to citing the KKK.

We have to present both sides of this fairly.

Read WP:BALANCE. The viewpoints of gender-critical feminists cannot be presented as equal to the prevailing viewpoints or given a disproportionate prominence because (by your own admission) they are a minority of reliable sources.

So what do you mean by "fairly"? Are you advocating for WP:DUE, or WP:FALSEBALANCE?

So how does that map to eg. Trans Studies Quarterly? Is this representative of overwhelming consensus in the field that supposedly encompasses "gender-critical feminism", or is this inherently POV, ie such journals by definition exclude "gender-critical feminism" ever being a valid POV because their sole perspective is "trans-inclusivity"?

I don't know. Is Ecology and Evolution inherently POV because it by definition assumes that evolution exists? Is Race and Justice inherently POV because it by definition assumes that racism exists?

It is a viewpoint that needs reflecting as it is prominent, notable and critical to understanding the debate, but I also think the high quality WP:RS expressing the gender-critical feminist position need to be cited neutrally and prominently, and doing so is not remotely like citing the KKK.

We already do. But you complain that those reliable sources are incoherent and contradictory, except for the ones by gender-critical feminists themselves, based on nothing but your own personal opinion. We don't prominently cite gender-critical feminists themselves because again, they make up a minority of reliable sources at best.

This is a talk page. I'm suggesting that the view that recording sex-dsiaggregated metrics in science is not only not a WP:FRINGE view, but it is standard, and that gender-critical feminists advance a gender-critical argument for continuing to do so, while trans-focused academics advance a trans-focused argument either for not doing so, or to argue that we never actually did in the first place. How do we judge perspectives like this when this touches so many fields so widely?

By using reliable sources that actually discuss the topic at hand instead of reliable sources that you personally believe support your views. I cite WP:SYNTH because the fact that some studies use the word "sex" instead of "gender" in their statistical analysis is completely irrelevant if they don't actually reach the conclusion that sex assigned at birth is more important than gender identity. PBZE (talk) 18:35, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Are you advocating for WP:DUE, or WP:FALSEBALANCE?

Examples of false balance include things like flat-eartherism. You cannot compare different feminist opinions about the relative importance of sex and gender identity equivalent to a WP:FRINGE theory of that calibre which would struggle to be published anywhere. Likewise, because this subject spans so many disciplines, simply looking to "gender studies" or "trans studies" as an absolute authority is invalid.

Taking one example, which just happens to come second when I search literature for "gender-critical feminism" (after Holly Lawford-Smith's work).

Michael Burke 2022 "Trans women participation in sport: a commentary on the conservatism of gender critical feminism"

This is published in "International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics", so not a "trans/gender studies" exclusive publication.

This contains such as the following:

The WR policy was influenced by some people who openly support gender critical feminism. [...] This commentary will look at three key pillars of gender critical feminist sport policy regarding trans woman participation. For space reasons, each pillar will be described in abbreviated ways, with a more elaborate explanation of the gender critical position found in numerous academic articles (Sailors 2020, Devine 2021, 2022, Pike 2021, Pike et al. 2021). Each pillar will then be critiqued using a different feminist frame that locates political strength in the formation of alliances between women and transwomen.

So this author is providing a critique of positions found in scholarly work, and there are further citations elsewhere in the text.

Every citation here is acknowledged by this author as advancing a "gender-critical feminist" perspective. So already we have a considerable body of published work in the area of sport in reputable journals and a WP:RS calling it "gender-critical feminist" - and the context is that this body of work was recognised, heavily cited by and overwhelmingly influential upon the shaping of policies of major, well-respected sporting bodies. In the first instance, this was World Rugby, but others have followed suit since.

Some of those authors (Hilton, Devine) contributed chapters to "Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader" summarising this work and others, acknowledging the principal critiques and responding to those criticisms in depth.

This is not by any stretch WP:FRINGE, either by number of publications, reputation of the journals publishing the work, or wider impact.

based on nothing but your own personal opinion

I've cited examples multiple times in the past. When some sources are appalled that GCFs consider sex and gender to be different, and others are appalled that GCFs consider sex and gender to be the same, one of these is just wrong. Void if removed (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

If you can't find what you believe is a neutral account of what gender-critical feminists believe in the sources, then per Wikipedia policy whatever you think the answer is is not neutral. WP:NPOV does not mean we need to write from a single "neutral point of view". In fact it means almost the opposite. It really means we need to reflect the perspective of the sources, and not insert our own perspective that's not present in the sources.

So if you're saying that your perspective on what gender-critical feminists believe is not present in the sources, that means we can't include it and must instead go with what the sources say. If the sources are very critical of a particular perspective, then we need to include that criticism. It's no different from how the sources on homeopathy or excited delirium are quite critical of the subjects of both those articles and definitely do not provide what proponents would classify as a "neutral definition". Loki (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Loki, Void isn't saying this perspective isn't in the sources nor is he asking to exclude criticism or for that criticism to not be clearly the dominant view. But most of the sources are divided like in politics or religion. Editors here seem to be just trying to remove sources that have the opinion they don't like. Loki, comparing this social-political culture war issue to a medical one like homeopath, which is scientifically settled, isn't helpful. Nor is it helpful when others use this as a forum to declare "TERFs are white supremacists, fascists, homophobes and transphobes". We have to examine each source and ask what perspective is this source writing from. Many sources write from a trans/activist perspective and that's a valid perspective but not the only one. I cannot accept the argument that this is as settled as homeopathy is in science or white supremacy is in social politics. In the UK we have all mainstream political parties with GC politicians and we have mainstream media dominantly taking the GC view. And the US is more divided down political lines but again there is a majority taking a GC view wrt trans issues. The "Republican Party" is not a fringe party and their supporters are not a fringe group. -- Colin°^Talk 09:42, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, even if all uneducated in trans studies normies in the world believe that TERFs are right, as long as they are fringe in the academic environment, they are fringe in the Wikipedia meaning. WP:ABIAS. Reprarina (talk) 10:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

For starters, WP:ABIAS is an essay focused on science and that's where academia gives us our best approximation to "truth". Other academic disciplines are not scientific and there isn't a "right" answer. Gender-critical beliefs are not a "theory". They can't be tested or falsified. You can agree with them or disagree with them. Stop trying to use policies that are focused on debunking pseudoscience and conspiracy theories to tag a set of beliefs as FRINGE. It simply doesn't belong. It's as ridiculous as saying Methodism is FRINGE. Lots of people, overwhelmingly many, do not follow Methodism or even any form of Christianity and academia is largely irreligious. Your argument would then be like saying that since most academics are irreligious and certainly not Methodists, our article on methodism cannot possibly cite Methodist texts when explaining what they believe.

Once we stop playing games with WP:FRINGE we can focus on applicable policy for political and societal matters, which is WP:NPOV. We need to neutrally describe this socio-political set of beliefs. That's our job. Not to be activists. -- Colin°^Talk 12:00, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

"And the US is more divided down political lines but again there is a majority taking a GC view wrt trans issues"

Is it gender critical to support traditional gendered dress codes? Reprarina (talk) 03:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Please explain what point you are making, and how it is relevant to editing this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:59, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

My point is that Colin is wrong and Republican Party don't support key tenets of so-called “gender-critical” feminism. About half of the tenets of Lawford-Smith's Gender-Critical Manifesto contradict Republican Party's policy. However, Colin argues that "GCs aren't fringe because they are supported by Republican Party". To be honest, on the social level, transphobia is less fringe idea that its special case "gender-critical feminism". Most people in the world don't identify with feminism, and only part of those who identify with feminism identify with "gender-critical feminism". Reprarina (talk) 12:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, on this point I think we definitely agree. Societal support for transphobia is not the same as societal support for gender-critical feminism, and neither implies support for gender-critical feminism by reliable sources which is the thing we actually care about here. Loki (talk) 19:50, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Above someone gave a source claiming it demonstrated TERF views were fringe, and it turned out it was published in Woman's Weekly (sorry, Women’s History Review. Would actually have been better in Women's Weekly, since, you know, history is the past and Woman's Weekly is "the grown-up woman's guide to modern living", which sounds more relevant to me). The author was a professor of Film and Screen Studies and the article itself was clearly labelled as one of their "viewpoints" which can be a personal polemic (as this was indeed).

I think Void has a valid argument that if one cites journals, like Transgender Studies Quarterly, which we do at least six times, then one would expect a trans inclusive angle. I mean, if I cited Journal of Anglican Studies, I wouldn't expect it think much of Richard Dawkin's opinions or complain Anglicans aren't inclusive enough of Islamic beliefs. You get what you look for and if folk here are googling for "TERF" then you're going to get the hating stuff, which is a logical fallacy.

Clearly we can find examples of suppression and (attempts at) forced removal from academic positions like with Kathleen Stock and Holly Lawford-Smith and our article on the latter documents a petition against the publication of their book by Oxford University Press. It makes it very difficult to argue whether a preponderance of anti-TERF academic writing reflects a consensus of academic opinion or just reflects the politics of 2023. These fields are highly political/fashionable.

But there is a way around this. We follow policy, which demands that we build articles from reliable secondary sources. Every time editors cite a primary source personal opinion piece in some newspaper or random internet site we are seriously weakening the article, and to have such pieces as the framework of the article, as this article currently does, is totally against how Wikipedia article should be built. -- Colin°^Talk 08:50, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

We can search "gender critical" in Google Scholar and found articles that it's the problematic and appropriated term. Don't you see violation of NPOV in the situation when we write "Gender-critical feminism, known to its opponents as trans-exclusionary radical feminism"? Why not "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism, known to its proponents as gender-critical feminism"? So we see that pro-TERFist appelations to NPOV is "all animals are equal, but gender-critical animals are more equal than trans animals". Reprarina (talk) 11:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

What I mean is: I cannot find a singular and consistent, neutrally rendered definition. The critical sources - amidst the invective - contradict each other.

And homeopathy is a great example. Compare the opening paragraph of homeopathy to this article:

Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent "remember" the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.

Aside from "psuedoscientific" (which is so well-established it can and should be rendered in wikivoice here), this neutrally puts the homeopaths position, in their own words, sourced to their own primary texts.

On this page however, only the second sentence of the lede is comparable, and sourced to uncritical or GCF's own statements.

Gender critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, while believing gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, is inherently oppressive.

The rest is criticism, arguably inaccurate, disputed use of TERF, or just random nonsense about people shouting in coffee shops.

All I am saying is that every effort should be made to put across both their position - from the reliable sources we have - as well as any well-sourced criticism, and thus present a balanced picture to a neutral reader. The balance is not even close - this is a WP:COATRACK that is overwhelmingly drawn from critical sources, prioritises criticism and contested (potential slurs) in the lede, uses a contested and widely accepted derogatory term as a redirect, and still manages to fit in a section on "criticism". And this talk section was started by someone arguing that even this current state of affairs is too generous. Void if removed (talk) 09:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure comparing further with Homeopathy is useful as that one is a settled WP:FRINGE science topic. That the lead happened to cite Samuel Hahnemann's original text is pretty much chance. Indeed, many of our best, featured articles contain no or few citations in the lead at all, as they are summaries of the article body, which is well cited. I think a stronger argument is that this is an unsettled social-political culture war and attempts to use our policies on pseudoscience and conspiracy theories to suppress one side in that war are harmful to wp's WP:NPOV policy.

See WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:BALANCE which of course is not about giving both sides equal prominence. But editors wanting to give one side zero prominence in terms of sources used and voices quoted need to demonstrate factually that this social-political belief is as entirely settled as eugenics. Overwhelming evidence in reliable sources say it isn't and our best neutral sources do not take sides in this matter. -- Colin°^Talk 09:58, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes I worded that badly - what I meant is that even in the case of something as obviously well-established as WP:FRINGE pseudoscience as homeopathy, the lede of that article does a better job of neutrally explaining what homeopathy is without launching straight into criticism. The lede is not liberally peppered with "crackpot" or overemphasising Nazi fondness for homeopathy or a link to Dr Crippen to highlight how some homeopaths have been "criticised for murderous tendencies". Void if removed (talk) 12:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

How neutral sources describe the debate

• What's happening with Scotland's gender reform plans?
• The divide over Scotland’s gender laws.
• Scotland’s proposed gender recognition laws explained

Here's just one example out of many debates where pro-trans vs gender-critical activists have conflicted. These highly reliable sources describe the debate on Scotland's gender self ID bill. They describe the opinions of those who are for and against it. Including those who fall into the gender-critical camp who raise concerns about trans women accessing "women-only spaces and services" among other concerns. This is what independent neutral high quality sources do. None of them describe gender-critical campaigners as "white supremacists, fascists, homophobes and transphobes", as a couple of editors here keep claiming, and none of them even label them "TERFs". There are people with these views and here's what they say and there are people with those views and here's what they say. In particular, you will note that when they want to find out what someone or some group thinks, they bloody well ask them. The idea that we shouldn't, and go instead to ask people who hate them what the other guy's think, is wrong, and not what our best sources do. -- Colin°^Talk 12:16, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

BBC, The Guardian etc. are not academic sources and therefore, given the existence of a large number of academic sources, cannot be used as the core of the article. As well as the fringe part of academic sources. If academic sources call them mostly TERFs and popular media call them mostly GCs, that's an argument against the reliability of popular media. Reprarina (talk) 13:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Repranrina I think you should read our actual policies on sources before commenting further. This is wasting our time because your impression of what counts as a reliable source doesn't match actual policy and you appear to be using the page as a soapbox for your views on TERFs.

"The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view." is WP:NPOV policy. Editors wishing this article took a different tone should try contributing to Twitter or a blog instead. Please read the above three articles and examine the tone they take towards the subject. Then pick some of the sources we currently cite. There's a difference. Highly biased sources use language and tone that are inappropriate for an encyclopaedia and often represent nothing more than the opinions of the writers.

As a medical editor I'm all too aware that one can find rubbish on PubMed, the huge academic resource of medical papers. That's why WP:MEDRS actually excludes the vast majority of academic works. The primary research material. That one can find opinionated "viewpoint" articles in academic journals does not mean Wikipedia considers them "reliable sources" for determining WEIGHT or stating facts or governing our choice of language. -- Colin°^Talk 14:27, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

"That's why WP:MEDRS actually excludes the vast majority of academic works." Non-academic works are even more excluded.

BBC and The Guardian shouldn't be a core of the articles in Wikipedia when there are many academic sources. They can be used occasionally, but the core should be such sources as encyclopedias in SAGE Publications, for example. Reprarina (talk) 22:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I hate to tell you this, but this is just not how sourcing works on Wikipedia (outside of WP:MEDRS topics). BBC and the Guardian are in fact reliable sources for most articles per WP:RSP, just like any other WP:NEWSORG. Loki (talk) 23:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Did I say that they are not reliable at all? Reprarina (talk) 00:10, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• I absolutely would not describe the BBC as neutral in this context; honestly, describing it as such is slightly shocking. Its coverage of trans issues has gotten constant criticism (much of which is in this and related articles.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

While the point in general is well taken, I think the focus on British sources is problematic as we have good sourcing that the UK media in general is biased in this area. And I also note that the only mention of feminism in any of those articles comes from the self-identification of Nicola Sturgeon, who supports the reform bill and could not at all be described as a gender-critical feminist. So I'm not sure why you even think they're relevant.

Using sourcing from other countries, it's not hard to find this overtly neutral piece from NBC which still doesn't hesitate to use the term "TERF", this local story about a specific protest in San Francisco which uses scare quotes when describing the protested group as "feminist" but not when describing them as "anti-trans", and this very critical piece from Vox which consistently describes its topics as "TERF"s. NBC and Vox are both unambiguously green at RSP, and the SF Chronicle, while not on RSP, would undoubtedly qualify as a WP:NEWSORG and thus as reliable.

The basic fact of the matter is that outside of the UK, trans-exclusionary feminism is very much fringe, and generally agreed to be anti-trans. Reliable and neutral sources describe it as such. This is not to say that trans issues aren't still an open political debate outside the UK, but outside the UK the anti-trans side is consistently seen as right-wing, with the left (including feminists) forming a united front against it. Loki (talk) 19:07, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into some debate about the BBC (I'm guessing a certain Newsnight's coverage of GIDS is the basis of your complaint). The point is the tone of the pieces and the approach, which is journalistic reporting rather than opinion columnist or invited op-ed from an activist. You can read them and the views of the journalist are not personally expressed. They don't tell you want they think you should think. The are impartial pieces. You might guess what the author's opinion is, if they have one, by the balance they give to one side or the other, but it isn't explicit.

The NBC piece is good but it certainly does not use the term TERF in the author's own voice. Not once does the author call anyone TERFs. Indeed the word is only ever mentioned when discussing it as a controversial label. It actually confirms my view that reputable impartial journalists wouldn't use the word today in their own voice. Similarly the SF Chronical story only uses the word TERF once and in quotes when describing a sign someone held. It's essentially a signifier that one is no longer being objective. Like describing an individual as "awful".

The term "anti-trans" isn't a problem compared with "transphobic". See MOS:LABEL. The former is a demonstrably provable adjective: the policies they advocate for "denying access to gender-affirming care for minors and keeping trans athletes out of sports" are objectively anti-trans.

The Vox piece is not neutral journalism and not reporting. It's an opinion essay from a freelance activist who, well, writes opinion columns for Vox. All their columns do that. They aren't a reporter. You can tell it isn't reporting because the author's primary purpose is to explain their opinions and why they think you should share them. It's a potential source we could use only with attribution and with care. It is also a bit old. -- Colin°^Talk 20:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The term "anti-trans" isn't a problem compared with "transphobic" There’s a Wikipedia-specific problem here in that anti-trans redirects to transphobia, which limits the extent to which readers can be expected to understand that there might be any difference between the two. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:43, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

So, I agree the NBC piece doesn't use the term "TERF" in the author's own voice (and I shouldn't have said that it "used" the term), but it is definitely a lot less hesitant about mentioning it than most British media I've seen on the subject. (Same with the SF Chronicle story).

I frankly disagree that tone and approach are the only or even the main signifiers of bias or unreliability here. That's injecting a "view-from-nowhere" requirement into WP:NPOV which is directly contrary to it. What's most important is whether the source accurately reports the facts and which facts they cover versus exclude, both things that the BBC is historically bad at regarding trans issues (and much of the rest of the British media is even worse). The reason WP:NPOV is about reflecting the POV of the sources and not inserting our own outside POV is exactly because it's very easy to seem facially neutral while being biased, so a WP:NPOV rule based on facial neutrality would be trivial to game.

Also, again, a piece having a clear point of view does not mean that it is an editorial, nor does a piece being written by a freelancer means it's not from Vox. Vox categorizes it as an "explainer", and by publishing it they have endorsed it alongside any of their other explainers. Vox, as far as I'm aware, doesn't do editorials per se at all; the closest thing they have are pieces that have "/first-person/" in the URL like this one.

Attempting to police what pieces are editorials and which aren't by whether they seem to have a point of view to us (rather than going by what the source labels them as) is injecting our own point of view onto the sources, which is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. Loki (talk) 20:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into some debate about the BBC - if you don't want to debate over their WP:BIASED status when it comes to trans issues, then you shouldn't try to present them as a neutral source, surely? The fact that you made that mistake shows the core problem with trying to evaluate individual pieces based on how you feel about their tone and approach. Doing so inevitably involves our own biases - if you strongly view TERF and transphobic as intrinsically loaded words regardless of context to the point where you don't personally feel reliable sources should use them, then any source that uses them is going to strike you as having an unacceptable "tone and approach". Nobody will ever be able to convince you otherwise because any source they present must use those words, allowing you to dismiss it. More generally, if you strongly believe or disbelieve something, then any source that unambiguously contradicts you in its article voice is going to read to you as "taking a position", whereas sources present issues from perspectives that you agree with will read as simply stating the facts. There are certainly some sources that do a bad job at separating reporting and opinion, and when it recurs constantly it is an issue for the reliability of the source as a whole; but allowing users to discount specific coverage because they don't like its tone or because they object to the language it uses is inviting them to inject their own biases into the process, especially in fraught culture-war situations like this. --Aquillion (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

It is not a question of not liking the tone of a source, or objecting to the language which is used: ‘TERF’ has become a term of abuse, and any recent source which uses it cannot be considered to be serious on this topic. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:56, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Reliableness of the sourse doesn't depend of percieving by some users as abusive or not. Reprarina (talk) 12:39, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

"'TERF' has become a term of abuse" is itself a claim that needs to be sourced. All academic sources we have do not support the idea that TERF is a slur.

All indications I've seen is that it's used very much like "racist" (or maybe more appropriately here "transphobic"), in that using it is strong language for a WP:NEWSORG but not so unheard of that it'd really cause me to doubt their credibility. Loki (talk) 16:38, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

All academic sources we have do not support the idea that TERF is a slur.

Whether TERF is technically a slur is disputed, with academic sources both for and against and others noting that it is not a settled question.

Something does not need to be a slur for it to be abuse though. That TERF is at least derogatory is well-established - dictionary definitions note this widely - and association with sexist and violent imagery and abuse is incredibly common. It can fall short of technically being a slur while still being abuse. And some sources note that it functions like witch, with exposing TERFs a moral panic:

The discomfort with the kinds of critical thinking that happen in feminist studies — which is at the heart of the matter — is precisely what generated attempts to discredit feminist scholars through labeling us TERFs. Of course, making feminists disappear is exactly what this moral panic over TERFs was meant to do.

All indications I've seen is that it is not remotely like "racist", that is sanitising it. It is highly gendered, much more like "bitch", or worse, and very very commonly associated with sexual or violent threats.

So it is insulting at best, considered abusive by some, but the academic dispute over whether it is technically a slur hasn't moved on in 5 years. Void if removed (talk) 23:08, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

And even the source quoted by you says that:

Let us be clear: TERFs exist and transphobia is real. Violence against trans people occurs with depressing regularity. Some self-identified feminists are transphobic; a simple search for “gender skeptical” demonstrates how much transexclusionary feminism exists.

Even scholars quoted by you, Carly Thomsen and Laurie Essig, prefer to call them TERFs, not gender skeptical. That's what I'm saying: there is an academic mainstream position that they should be called TERFs, supported even by those who say there is a moral panic about TERFs. Reprarina (talk) 00:08, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware what they say amounts to "do it to Julia".

That doesn't negate that their experience of "TERF" was being on the receiving end of a moral panic. This is an aspect of the usage of "TERF", and pretending it is straightforwardly neutral is based on a narrow reading of sources who like the term, and ignoring the other sources who don't. Void if removed (talk) 09:19, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Categories

I have deleted the categories Anti-gender movement, Discrimination against transgender people, and Transphobia. This edit has been reverted with the edit summary: no evidence provided for why these categories would be "incorrect" for this page. But if the categories are correct, then evidence should be provided to support their inclusion. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:12, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

The anti-gender movement page directly mentions "Trans-exclusionary radical feminism or gender-critical feminism" by name, and links to this article, and both pages mention that these movements oppose "gender ideology". In addition, the anti-gender movement page is categorised under Transphobia and Anti-LGBT sentiment. These topics seem pretty clearly related, all things considered. XTheBedrockX (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Where in this article is the material which justifies these categories? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:37, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I already mentioned that both pages mention that these movements oppose "gender ideology", for a start (and this page links to anti-gender movement in the lead). This clearly seems like a related topic. What makes you think those categories are not justified? XTheBedrockX (talk) 14:52, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

The lead says that it has been linked to ‘anti-gender ideology’ – that doesn’t mean that this is an appropriate category for this article, since gender critical feminism is separate from ‘anti-gender ideology’. And you need to show that this subject is about ‘Discrimination against transgender people’ and ‘Transphobia’. Sweet6970 (talk) 18:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:CATPOV would seem relevant, particularly "Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial". Can someone provide neutral sources that these are indeed uncontroversial labels for this topic? -- Colin°^Talk 18:45, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to Colin for directing us to this guideline. I see it also says, at WP:CATDEF:The defining characteristics of an article's topic are central to categorizing the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to[1] in describing the topic, such as the nationality of a person or the geographic location of a place. The categories which I deleted do not fit this para, either. So I suggest that XTheBedrockX should self-revert, so that these incorrect categories are no longer applied to this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:01, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

There are a plethora of sources that explain how GC relates to transphobia Ashvio (talk) 12:25, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

No-one has yet come up with proper justifications for attaching these categories to this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Would those who wish to retain these categories please provide their justifications for doing so. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:41, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

That you dislike the wisely held assertion that GC feminism is transphobic and discriminates against trans people does not make it untrue. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 09:44, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Your assertions are not justification for the inclusion of these categories. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:09, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

It's in the lead, along with its refs:

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13634607221107827
• https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/9/3/311/319375/IntroductionTERFs-Gender-Critical-Movements-and

EvergreenFir (talk) 22:22, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@TucanHolmes: If you have a justification for including these categories, you should state it here, instead of hiding this discussion using an insulting summary. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:21, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: You are currently engaged in what could be described as a textbook example of civil Point Of View pushing (aka "sealioning"). You made an edit. It was reverted, because it is controversial. You opened a new section on the talk page (so far, so fine). You disputed the reversal. You asked for evidence. You were presented with reasons for the reversal. You didn't engage with them (ignored them, even) and asked for more evidence (moving the goalposts). You were presented with more reasons. You ignored those as well, simply dismissing them with blanket over-the-top statements: "No-one has yet come up with proper justifications for attaching these categories to this article." You were, at multiple times, pointed to the lead of the article, the pages it references and the sources it cites. But you didn't check them, instead placing the burden on other editors to find those sources and list them for you, to satisfy your insistence.

You wanted to make an edit, and instead of justifying a controversial removal of categories (probably in violation of Wikipedia's policies of neutrality and verifiability, which go both ways), flipped the board and made other editors justify the current state of affairs, making them do a lot of unnecessary work just to prevent you from pushing your obvious POV (in violation of Wikipedia's guidelines). This is why sealioning is considered to be disruptive—polite, but disruptive nonetheless—and why I hid this discussion. TucanHolmes (talk) 09:46, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

TucanHolmes, you seem to have got this backwards. Not having a contested category cannot possibly be described as "controversial". There's nothing to have controversy about if it isn't there. So the thing that is controversial is the presence of categories such as "transphobia". Our guideline on categories WP:CATPOV says "Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial". The categorisation system is a supplementary aspect of our article building and hard to attach citations to. It isn't possible to offer nuance to it as an article is either entirely in or entirely out. Adding a contested category should be a hard thing, and our guideline says editors may need to demonstrate that it is uncontroversial. EvergreenFir cites two sources above that demonstrate the views of the authors of those sources. For example, I can find lots of sources that Conservative Party (UK) is viewed as transphobic, but there's no way I could use them to add a "transphobia" category to the article.

I'm not saying the category isn't warranted. Just that we'd need better sources than an opinion piece ("In this article I argue that ...") by a research student and article in "Transgender studies quarterly". It's a bit like me citing Polly Toynbee in The Guardian for an opinion on the Conservative Party's economic policy. It wouldn't convince anyone that this was a universal belief. Evergreen, there's a good reason why the lead says "These views have been described as transphobic by feminist and scholarly critics" rather than, in wikivoice, "These views are transphobic", which is what a category of "transphobia" is saying. It's a hard ask, for good reason. -- Colin°^Talk 10:38, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

*Sigh*, you're moving the goalposts further, and you've clearly misunderstood the the meanings of Wikipedia:CATPOV, as well as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:BURDEN in general. I strongly suggest you read the essay I've linked (WP:SEALION). You're cherry-picking bits from various policies which suit your goals, without including or understanding their context. That sentence you cited (Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial) includes a half-sentence behind it which completely alters its meaning: Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. So, this refers to the topic of a category, and not to the act of categorizing an article. The appropriate response here would be deleting the category and replacing it with a list article (which may be a sensible option). But this is immaterial to whether the article should be included under that category, although turning it into a list would enable a more nuanced inclusion.

Categorization exists to enable articles to be indexed/found, and to group related things together by defining characteristics. Categories exist for an encyclopedic purpose. Those who wish to include "Gender-critical feminism" under the categories in question argue that these are defining characteristics (and I'm inclined to agree, and would also say that this is pretty obvious, since if you remove those characteristics it wouldn't be gender-critical feminism any more). They have repeatedly pointed to obvious reasons in the article and related articles to support their claim, and have provided reliable sources as well. You have provided nothing, and simply dismissed the sources provided using dubious and surface-level arguments (among them unspecific comparisons), never really engaging with them. As I've already said, our policies go both ways. From WP:BURDEN: Once an editor has provided any source they believe, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material must articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g. why the source is unreliable; the source does not support the claim; undue emphasis; unencyclopedic content; etc.)..

Similarly, "Not having a contested category cannot possibly be described as "controversial". There's nothing to have controversy about if it isn't there." is a misinterpretation of WP:NPOV, see WP:POVDELETION. It all hinges on reliable sources. Again, if you think the category is too controversial, go change the category to add some nuance, but don't exclude articles from it because you think including them is a problem because it lacks nuance.

The scholarly article you're referring to is clearly not just an opinion piece (you've misinterpreted the meaning of In this article I argue that ... in an academic context). It is at minimum a scholarly opinion, and may even establish facts. It also doesn't matter whether it was written by a research student, since it was published in a peer-reviewed journal, i.e. a reliable source until demonstrated otherwise. Your flippant dismissals of all sources provided by other editors moves the discussion nowhere. Discussions are for establishing consensus.

Regarding your comparisons: You're comparing apples and oranges. The Conservative party is—well, a party. Gender-critical feminism is an ideological current. "Transphobia" as a category for the entire Conservative party is indeed far too general, and also doesn't make much sense, except if transphobia would be a defining characteristic of the party. Gender-critical feminism is far more narrow and specific.

Polly Toynbee is a journalist, writer, and active in politics. She publishes in newspapers, and writes opinion pieces. Why are you comparing her to two academic authors/scholars/researchers, who publish articles in scholarly journals?

On a related note, why should we dismiss the article in "Transgender studies quarterly"? You have provided no reason for it. Consensus doesn't mean we have to satisfy your standards of evidence, it means we have to satisfy Wikipedia's standards of evidence. TucanHolmes (talk) 14:11, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

You say So, this refers to the topic of a category, and not to the act of categorizing an article

This is wrong, it says: Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial

Not categories. Not category topics. Categorization. The act of categorizing an article. This is in a section headed "Articles", which repeatedly refers to categorization in this context ("Categorization of articles must be verifiable.", "Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view" etc).

You've misunderstood.

You say Categorization exists to enable articles to be indexed/found, and to group related things together by defining characteristics.

The following are not "defining characteristics" of gender-critical feminism: Anti-gender movement, Discrimination against transgender people, and Transphobia. These are things some (highly critical) WP:RS say. They are also things some WP:RS refute. This is a dispute that cannot be rendered neutrally by picking either side and categorizing it correspondingly.

When you say if you remove those characteristics it wouldn't be gender-critical feminism any more, the most neutral, evenly sourced description we have, as currently phrased in the lede, is:

"Gender critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, while believing gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, is inherently oppressive."

If you remove "Anti-gender movement, Discrimination against transgender people, and Transphobia", this definition remains unchanged.

I think we were actually engaged in a productive discussion about how to improve the lede about 3 months ago that seemed to be moving towards consensus, before a highly contentious redirect derailed progress. I propose not adding a load of contentious categories into the mix as well, and instead revisiting the lede discussions. Void if removed (talk) 19:22, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

(Apologies in advance for the wall of text:)

I disagree with your interpretation of WP:CATPOV, because I still think the context mattered in the point raised by Colin. But that's neither here nor there.

I also understand your point. With the current situation (you already mentioned the redirect), it has all got a bit muddied. You seem to be referring solely to the (theoretical) ideological construct. (If I misunderstood that part, please correct me.) I would still argue – and many reliable sources do – that it undoubtedly has the essential features and effects of "transphobia", and "discrimination against transgender people". Just taking the article at face value: The views described are undeniably a bit transphobic.

However, right now the article also covers the real-world impacts of this ideological current, impacts which also without a question produce transphobic and discriminatory outcomes. After all, we mention a condemnation by the Council of Europe in the lede ("linked it to 'virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people'").

Gender-critical feminism is at loggerheads with trans activism, and nothing will change that. It nowadays functionally and maybe even primarily exists in opposition to trans rights, something which reliable sources consistently point out. From an encyclopedic point of view, not grouping it under at least "Transphobia" would be an extraordinary decision.

(To that point: Which reliable sources refute the characteristics?) TucanHolmes (talk) 20:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Tucan, please restrict yourself to citing WP:SEALION for when you are writing a topic ban rationale at AN/I. Citing such a hostile essay at other good faith editors at an article talk page, with whom you merely happen to be in disagreement with reflects really badly on you, not them. Again you in bad faith accuse an editor of moving goalposts, when in fact they were responding to policy advice from another editor (me) and that emboldened them to demand, correctly, better justification for the category. You wrote "You were, at multiple times, pointed to the lead of the article". But as I explained, the lead of the article does not say, in Wikivoice, that GCF is transphobic. If editors respond, in good faith, with an argument, and that argument is reasonably dismissed, as here, it isn't "moving the goalposts" to keep asking "well, we still don't have a good argument".

As Void notes above, you misread WP:CATPOV, which is about categorising articles, as we are talking about here, not whether a category should exist at all. It does indeed suggest that a category where articles are frequently or inevitably controversially so-categorised might be better as a list or plain article, where the controversial aspects of inclusion can be cited and give nuance. But that isn't the only solution editors find. Sometimes they agree the category is worth having but also agree to heavily restrict what should go in it. Bias categories are fundamentally problematic. An old discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9#Bias categories identified BLP issues and agreed to limit where they were used. I've just myself noticed someone added Category:Organisations that oppose transgender rights in the United Kingdom to the BBC article, which had the effect of including it within Category:Transphobia. (I undid their edit).

I'm aware of WP:POVDELETION but it isn't saying what you want it to say. Clearly controversial things exist on Wikipedia. But it is an absolute physical fact that text (or categorisations) that are not present in an article are not controversial in the same way that my imaginary private jet is not costly to run or bad for the environment. You said "It was reverted, because it is controversial." It was reverted because someone wants to add the category, and the dispute makes the presence of the category controversial. The edit itself isn't controversial since editors are, you know, permitted to make edits.

Wrt my Conservative party analogy, anyone can respond to an analogy by picking differences. Your justification is very odd and upside down in which things you have claimed are general and which are narrow and specific. If you don't value the analogy just ignore it.

Categories have always been problematic and their hierarchies cause much difficulties. Everyone can agree a Boeing 747 is an aeroplane and stick the relevant category on it. The standard for categorising a disputed attribute like "transphobia" is that we should be able to say, in wikivoice, that X is transphobic. Just like we don't need to say, as our lead does, that "The Boeing 747 has been described an aeroplane by passenger-jet flight enthusiasts". If you need to attribute it, don't categorise it.

If you think publishing opinions in a scholarly journal makes them viewpoints Wikipedia must state in wikivoice or so-categorise, or even claim to be facts, well can I point you at ROGD or autogynephilia for ideas published in scholarly journals by academics. Primary sources of opinions do not themselves demonstrate that those opinions represent a scholarly consensus and opinions coming from one side in a battle-of-ideas do not themselves demonstrate which opinions are held to be so and which are in dispute. -- Colin°^Talk 19:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for loosing my good faith. That was unfair of me. TucanHolmes (talk) 20:48, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Colin°^Talk 08:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

It is my understanding that the categories in question where added by user Amanda Brant, then removed by user Sweet6970, a removal which was reverted. In the ensuing discussion, reasons and reliable sources have been cited for the categorization (inclusion in Wikivoice was never up for discussion, and as far as I understand it, is neither equivalent to nor a requirement for categorization), and I don't see why we should dismiss them yet.

The criteria for inclusion are thus:

Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories.

Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view. Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. For example, a politician (not convicted of any crime) should not be added to a category of notable criminals.

The defining characteristics of an article's topic are central to categorizing the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to

In my opinion, these criteria are met, unless we dismiss a whole lot of sources cited and mentioned in the article, and also ignore a good chunk of its content. I don't think including the article in these, or some of these categories, violates our neutral point of view policy, or our policy on verifiability, because we have reliable sources to back its inclusion, not yet including the obvious links and connections already present in the article. So, in my understanding, it only hinges on whether these categories are uncontroversial. Is that correct so far, or have I missed something?

If you think publishing opinions in a scholarly journal makes them viewpoints Wikipedia must state in wikivoice or so-categorise I don't think that, and I never said that. I think that there's a big difference between an opinion and a (peer-reviewed!) scholarly analysis. The latter might still be opinionated, but is far more substantial, so I don't see why we should so easily dismiss it when it comes to the question of categorization. TucanHolmes (talk) 20:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with TucanHolmes here; these categories are well-sourced, including from international bodies and the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity.

That some editors here dislike that the gender-critical movement is (widely) described as being transphobic and has well-documented links to the anti-gender movement doesn't make either point untrue. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 21:03, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

The category is not Category:Things some people regard as transphobia or Category:Things right-minded people regard as transphobia or even Category:Things many people regard as transphobia. I cannot think of a better test for "is it safe to include this in the category X" than that we can, in article text, state in Wikivoice that this topic is indeed X, that GCF is transphobic, with an inline citation to a non-partisan highly reliable source that does indeed suggest this is pretty universally believed.

Maybe it helps to view what would happen if your test was merely that many people hold the opinion and have got their opinions into reliable sources. We'd have to categorise Mermaids as a child abuse organisation (the breast binder "scandal") and an organisation with links to paedophilia (the trustee resigned "scandal"). We'd have to categorise Gender identity as a mythical concept. And categorise Transgender as a mental illness. All these can be reliably sourced but we cannot state them in wikivoice. How do we then rise above cherry-picking sources that support one's personal view or the views of only one side in a culture war or political dispute? Do we have independent reliable secondary sources with a reputation for neutrality?

My own personal views would align with adding this category, but we can't let that drive what we state on contentious topics like this. I'm influenced by the fact that when e.g. the BBC report or when The Guardian report (rather than have opinion columns) on matters concerning GCF political matters, they do not say "The transphobic group LGBA lobbied government today to reject..." or "Transphobic activists crowded outside the court today to hear the result on whether GCF is a protected belief". This is a big sign to me that we are not in a position to declare this "transphobia" either in Wikivoice or in categorisation. And if I support doing that here, then I am a hypocrite if I insist editors can't just categorise according their beliefs or the beliefs of partisan sources at some other article. -- Colin°^Talk 08:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

No, the category is "things related to the topic of transphobia". Not "things that are definitely transphobic" or even "things that are widely described as being transphobic".

I would argue that it is safe and relatively uncontentious to say in wikivoice that the topic "gender-critical feminism" is related to the topic "transphobia". I would argue that it is clearly not safe to say in wikivoice that the topic "Mermaids" is related to the topic "child abuse" or that "transgender" is a mental illness — indeed those are FRINGE beliefs. —  OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 20:47, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Would you say that Brexit is related to the topic of "racism"? Void if removed (talk) 23:07, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

What someone writes on the Category:Transphobia page doesn't change (a) the definition of transphobia or (b) how categories work on Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia:Categorization if you think they are suitable for "things related to X" purposes and Wikipedia:Defining for advice with the primary concept of categorisation, which is to enumerate an article topic's defining characteristics. If we started going down the path of "is related to" for categorisation, then there really would be no end to it. I mean, Mermaids is "related to the the topic of transphobia" because its notability largely rests on the concerns of the transphobic UK press, so should we stick that in as well?

I mention "Mermaids" not because one can't counter those categorisations I mentioned but because they demonstrate that we cannot categorise based on the opinions of partisan sources in a culture-war or political battle topic ground. Editors battling with partisan primary sources of opinions will get unstuck. For example, you claim the idea that Mermaids is involved in child abuse or has links to paedophilia is a "fringe" idea. I've got news for you. Lots of news. Go on. Try to find reliable sources saying Mermaids is not involved in child abuse or not linked to paedophilia? What will you find? A Pink News article maybe? Whereas I could turn up dozens of articles in the Times, Telegraph, Spectator, GB News. Even the neutral BBC has headlines screaming Mermaids trustee quits over paedophile-group links. Mermaids was referred to the Charity Commission over the "safeguarding concerns" wrt advice it offered to children and breast binding. Those are objectively true and not fringe and I can overwhelm you with sources screaming "child abuse" and you will not be able to find sources or sufficient sources to counteract that. This of course doesn't stop it being unfair. But concerns like child abuse or links to paedophilia such as these are best dealt with in article text where nuance and counter arguments can be presented and long term, when the history of an organisation is clearer in secondary sources, we can better judge the weight of those matters at all. Those options are not available to you if your standard is that you've found a primary source of opinion in a reliable source alleging X or links to X.

It is why we must rise above primary opinion pieces and trying to claim categorise can be "related to X" because it will backfire on you on other articles. What do neutral secondary sources say about the topic? Do they define GCF by transphobia or do they merely frequently note that critics label it transphobic? That's the difference between sticking Category:Child abuse and Category:Pedophilia on Mermaids , and discussing the allegations by The Telegraph and referrals to the Charity Commission and Trustees resigning in article text. -- Colin°^Talk 09:29, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Abigail Shrier

The article contains the following line, which I removed, and which has been reverted:

Abigail Shrier, an American gender-critical feminist, wrote the book Irreversible Damage.

So, my objections in detail:

• I can find not a single source that calls her a "gender-critical feminist"
• The cited source actually calls her a "notorious trans-exclusionary radical feminist", which is odd and hostile phrasing, and also not "gender-critical feminist".
• I can find no other source calling her a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist", so she is clearly not that notorious
• She doesn't call herself a gender-critical feminist or a radical feminist of any sort
• Every other online source I can find calls her only a journalist
• The source is the "arts" section of The Coast, which is a free alternative weekly newspaper in Halifax, and not exactly authoritative for the singular, definitive source about whether one person is actually a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist", in contrast to their own non-identification as such.
• The source later describes her as "Shrier, a TERF cut from the same cloth as J.K. Rowling" so it is clear the context she is using it is not in any sense actually being a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" in any ideological sense that would fit this article, but merely in the same way that Rowling is denigrated as a TERF.
• A later article on the same subject by the same author simply calls her a "notorious TERF".

You can make the case some academics are insisting on using it with precision, despite its controversial nature, and despite other academics saying it is imprecise and counterproductive.

I don't think you can make that case for the arts editor of a tiny free Canadian local paper calling the author of a book she clearly dislikes a "notorious TERF", and this is a classic example of "anyone I think has anti-trans views is a TERF" usage.

So, please remove this questionable and badly sourced line. Void if removed (talk) 09:53, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I cannot find anything in our article on Irreversible Damage which says that Abigail Shrier is a gender-critical feminist. So I do not see that she and her book have any relevance to this article. The text on it should be deleted.

And PBZE, your edit summary 'Again, get consensus before changing the topic of this article. We've discussed this' is not appropriate. Deleting the text is not ‘changing the topic of this article’. It is not helpful to make this kind of unsubstantiated accusation. You have presumably seen the edit notice which says This article is related to gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them, a contentious topic. Pages related to this contentious topic are subject to additional rules as authorized by the Arbitration Committee. Before editing, please familiarize yourself with the contentious topic policy

Sweet6970 (talk) 14:08, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The problem here is that it is not obvious to the reader what relevance this line has. I can see two possible ways to fix this. Either find some RS source(s) linking Shrier to the GC movement or briefly state the significance of the book to the GC movement (again, with RS sources). Preferably both.

As I understand it, Shrier's book sets out core ideas held by, although maybe not exclusive to, the GC movement and it has become one of the core texts of their ideology. It is not necessary that Shrier actually be GC herself for the book to merit a brief mention here although such a mention should not go beyond what the sources support and should not say that she is GC unless that is demonstrably the case. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The problem here is that it is not obvious to the reader what relevance this line has..

I think the greater problem is that badly sourced, and misstates the source to make an unsupported novel claim in wikivoice, without which it has no relevance.

I can see two possible ways to fix this

A third option is to simply delete it. This is already a WP:COATRACK. Irreversible Damage has its own lengthy page, and none of that is about gender-critical feminism. Void if removed (talk) 16:57, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a BLP thing, so we should delete the bit about Shrier being a GCF herself unless it can be sourced. And I don't think that the existence of the book alone gets in, but the context that it's influential among GCFs probably could if it can be sourced. Loki (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

It's more about the medical debate than the feminist debate. Quite a different cast of characters, although I'm sure they agree on a lot. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

As no sources have been provided to support the text about Shrier, I agree with the deletion of the para. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree the text should stay removed. I don't think "transness in teenage girls is caused by a social contagion" is a core belief of GCF, but it is a concern mentioned by many GCF and influences some of their campaigning against affirmative healthcare, particularly in children. It is an example of when people seize on something that fits their values and answers some of their questions, even if considered fringe within the medical or scientific community. GCFs are not the only group to fall into that, most activists are guilty, but ROGD is a good example of one. Maybe there is a link to the book if we can find high quality sources documenting this phenomenon wrt GCF, but I wouldn't say it was a vital point. -- Colin°^Talk 17:33, 12 November 2023 (UTC)