This is both a collection of information on Wikipedia's gender identity guidelines, including a table of community discussions, and draft working towards gaining wider attention and consensus.
Current guideline
Recommendations
- When choosing how to refer to a transgender subject, consider the use–mention distinction. Before using a transgender person's former or legal name, consider only mentioning it instead. And before mentioning it, consider not including it at all. For example, the article Switched-On Bach mentions but doesn't use Wendy Carlos's former name: "Switched-On Bach is the first studio album by the American composer Wendy Carlos, released under her birth name Walter Carlos".
- Before including a transgender subject's former name inline, consider including it as a footnote instead. In the article about The Matrix the writers/directors are credited as the Wachowskis with a footnote adding that they were originally credited as The Wachowski Brothers.
- If a transgender subject's former or legal name is not well known or widely reported, don't include it, even if it appears in a few reliable sources.
- Avoid using an out-of-date, pre-coming-out photo of a transgender subject as a lead image. If no other photos are available, it is generally better to have no lead image at all. In general, avoid using pre-coming-out photos unless the subject's pre-transition appearance is especially well-known and notable. The article about The Wachowskis, for example, is better without any pre-coming-out photos since the way they looked is not well known as they shied away from public appearances. Conversely, the Caitlyn Jenner article does contain photos from before her transition because she was a well known Olympic athlete, so her appearance at the time is relevant to the article, though none are in the lead section.
- If consensus cannot be reached over which pronouns to use for a subject, rewriting to avoid pronouns altogether may be considered. However, this can make the article very awkward or confusing to read and therefore should only be done as a last resort.
Essays
- Wikipedia:Gender identity
- Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines § How to write about transgender and non-binary people
Discussion timeline
A central table of community discussions on gender identity from throughout Wikipedia. For anyone interested in discussing or changing our gender identity guidelines, it's helpful to become familiar with prior discussions on the topic. (Requests for Comment and Requested Moves are in bold.)
Date Y/M | Subsection | Page | Conclusion/Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2004/6 | Trans people and pronouns | Manual of Style/Biography | The use of pronouns on the article Patrick Califia was discussed, but not concluded. The main propositions were to use only masculine pronouns or feminine pronouns when referring to time before Patrick's transition and masculine after. Discussion was primarily about clarity for the reader e.g.: alignment with Patrick's presentation and the (then) recency of his transition. Patrick's identity was also discussed in terms of how it might make Patrick feel (who was contacted but didn't seem to reply) and respect for his current identity. |
2006/1 | Identity | Manual of Style | First instance of gender identity guidance. Original wording: Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self identification). This can mean calling an individual the term they use, or calling a group the term most widely used by that group. This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the name and pronoun they use to identify themselves. |
2007/4 | Transgender pronoun / identity | Manual of Style | |
2007/8 | Pronouns | Chevalier d'Éon | |
2007/9 | Transgender pronoun issue | Manual of Style | |
2008/8 | Gender | Manual of Style | |
2009/2 | Gender of gender-ambiguous persons | Manual of Style | |
2009/6 | Gender pronouns | Manual of Style | |
2010/6 | HTML comment for trans women | Village pump | |
2010/6 | Manning's sexuality/gender identity | Chelsea Manning | |
2010/9 | It is relevant that Manning is transgender | Chelsea Manning | |
2011/4 | Pronouns | Sonia Burgess | |
2011/8 | Renée Richards, and Gender Identity | Manual of Style | |
2011/12 | Singular They use because the subject prefers to use gender neutral pronouns | Manual of Style | |
2012/5 | Fundamental problems with MOS:IDENTITY | Village pump | |
2012/6 | New template for trans women | Village pump | |
2012/8 | Proposal to modify MOS:IDENTITY | Village pump | |
2013/8 | Chelsea Manning move request 1 | Chelsea Manning | |
2013/10 | Chelsea Manning move request 2 | Chelsea Manning | Chelsea Manning's page was moved from her former to her current name about a month and a half after she came out. The debate over the move received some outside media coverage. (See: the media section at the top of Talk:Chelsea Manning.) |
2014/9 | Should the historic figure of the Chevalier d'Éon be referred to as a man or a woman? | Chevalier d'Éon | |
2014/10 | Birth Name | Laverne Cox | |
2015/6 | Problem analogous to the above discussion | Village pump | |
2015/6 | MOS:IDENTITY clarification | Village pump | It was decided that in the 1976 Summer Olympics article, Caitlyn Jenner should be referred to as male rather than female. This was a partial rejection of the Manual of Style's gender identity guidelines, which, at the time, were unequivocal: Wikipedia favors self-designation [of gender identity], even when usage by reliable sources indicates otherwise. Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. |
2015/6 | Birth name in parenthetical | Caitlyn Jenner | |
2015/7 | Clarifying/updating WP:BIRTHNAME with respect to MOS:IDENTITY | Village pump | It was decided that that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Names should be updated to say that a trans or non-binary person's former name should only be mentioned in the lead if they were notable under that name. |
2015/8 | Pronoun pref | Manual of style | |
2015/9 | Requested move 15 September 2015 | Sonia Burgess | |
2015/9 | MOS:IDENTITY clarification close | Manual of Style | |
2015/9 | Outing and Wikipedia | Manual of Style/Biography | |
2015/9 | Cisgender is mainstream and germane, Should all of the uses of cisgender be included in this article? | Caitlyn Jenner | |
2015/9 | MOS:IDENTITY clarification close | Caitlyn Jenner | |
2015/10 | Preparing two proposals that would change transgender policy | Manual of Style/Biography | |
2015/10 | References to academic publications with transgender authors | Manual of Style | |
2015/10 | Parallel discussion on transgender authors in citations | Village pump | |
2015/10 | Clarifying MOS:IDENTITY in articles in which transgender individuals are mentioned in passing | Village pump | A few months after Caitlyn Jenner came out, the scope of the MoS's gender identity guidance was essentially narrowed to main biographical articles. For those, editors were still advised to use the person's latest expressed gender self-identificationfor any phase of that person's life. But for articles where a trans person was just mentioned in passing, the MoS now offered little guidance except that editors should use contextto determine how to refer to them. |
2016/1 | "The Wachowskis" vs "The Wachowski Brothers" | The Matrix | |
2016/3 | Gender changes and deadnaming | Manual of Style | |
2016/5 | RfC: How should the directors of this film be presented in the lead? | The Matrix | |
2016/8 | RfC: Allow inclusion of former names in lead section of biographies covering transgender and non-binary people | Manual of Style/Biography | |
2016/11 | Retroactive use of transgender pronouns in indirect quotations? | Manual of Style | |
2016/12 | RFC: Gender | Albert Cashier | |
2017/4 | No birth name | Laverne Cox | |
2017/5 | Naming transgender people in other articles than their main biographical article | Manual of Style | |
2017/5 | RfC regarding MOS:GENDERID for genderqueer people | Requests for comment | |
2018/3 | Applications of the transgender/non-binary birth name guidelines | Manual of Style/Biography | |
2018/3 | Photo, RfC on article image | Daniel Mallory Ortberg | It was decided that it was better not to have a photo for writer Daniel Mallory Ortberg than to have an old photo from before he was out. |
2018/4 | MOS:GENDERID | Manual of Style | |
2018/6 | Guidelines regarding birth names of trans individuals | Village pump | |
2018/7 | Deadnaming trans people | Manual of Style | |
2018/7 | Request for Comment about pronoun usage | Albert Cashier | Albert Cashier was a Union soldier who was assigned female at birth and lived as a man for over 50 years. In 2016 it was decided that the article could refer to Cashier with female pronouns. But in 2018 it was decided that the article should be rewritten to avoid pronouns entirely. |
2018/8 | WP:GENDERID advice requested | Village pump | |
2018/9 | More recent pictures | The Wachowskis | It was unanimously decided that, for the The Wachowskis article, it was better to not have a lead image than to have an old photo where one of the two sisters was not out. |
2019/1 | Gender information | Village pump | An editor inquired about the presentation of gender information in tables, etc. The discussion was inconclusive. |
2019/1 | Request for Comment - Crediting the Wachowskis | The Matrix (franchise) | It was decided that Lana and Lilly Wachowski should be credited as The Wachowskis in the leads and infoboxes of articles about films they made before they came out as women, with footnotes detailing how they were originally credited. |
2019/2 | Pronouns | Rose McGowan | |
2019/2 | The Signpost: Humour: Pesky Pronouns | Wikipedia Signpost | |
2019/2 | The Signpost: Humor deletion discussion | Miscellany for deletion | |
2019/3 | MOS:GENDERID and death, MOS:GENDERID Suggested change | Manual of Style | Discussion of the Sonia Burgess case; the requested move was resolved below. |
2019/3 | Recent move, Requested move 12 March 2019 | Sonia Burgess | It was decided that the article on human rights lawyer Sonia Burgess should use her female name as the title, regardless of the fact that she was still presenting as male at work when she died. |
2019/5 | Requested move 1 May 2019: Genderqueer → Non-binary | Non-binary gender | The fourth contentious RM discussion about whether to move the Genderqueer page. A narrow consensus was reached to move the page to Non-binary gender. |
2019/5 | second alleged perpetrator (minor) | STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting | Discussion over how to refer to a suspect in a 2019 school shooting who is reported to be transgender. A consensus formed to use his chosen name, but to also mention his legal name. |
2019/6 | RFC about Tilda Swinton | List of people with non-binary gender identities | Tilda Swinton made comments about her gender that some people interpreted as her coming out as non-binary, but it was decided the situation was not clear-cut enough to put her name on a list of people with non-binary identities. |
2019/7 | Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 July 2019 | Stephanie Hirst | The subject of an article requests, on the talk page, that her former name be removed from the article. |
2019/11 | Including dead names | Manual of Style/Biography | A preliminary discussion on deadname guidance, featuring highly polarized arguments for including and for excluding them. |
2020/8 | RFC to broaden MOS:DEADNAME | Manual of Style/Biography | This discussion extended the exclusion of non-notable former names of trans people, established in 2015/7, to the rest of article space (rather than applying to the lead sentence only). Language to implement this change in the MOS proved elusive. |
2020/10 | RFC to broaden MOS:DEADNAME#Further refinement of wording | Manual of Style/Biography | This implementation discussion proved more divisive and less decisive than the RFC it was intended to implement. |
2020/11 | RFC to broaden MOS:DEADNAME#Three-part policy proposal | Manual of Style/Biography | Another bootless implementation discussion concerning the same RfC. They key issue here was whether the pre-RfC language merely permitted the inclusion of notable headbands in the lead sentence, or whether this placement was required by the guideline. |
2020/11 | RFC on inclusion of Nicole Maines' former name | Nicole Maines | This discussion determined that, although Nicole Maines' former name has been discussed in reliable sources, it should not be included in the article per recent changes extending MOS:DEADNAME to "article space". |
2021/1 | Birth name again#New poll after death | Sophie (musician) | This revival of an RfC initially launched before Sophie's death asked about the inclusion of her deadname, either in the lead or elsewhere in the article. The interesting close found consensus against its inclusion in the lede but no consensus about its inclusion elsewhere; in the first half if 2021 the stable version of the article excludes the deadname. |
2021/2 | RFC on how MOS:DEADNAME should handle attribution for previously released works | Manual of Style/Biography | This RfC, with wide participation, decisively overturned the 2015/10 decision about articles where transgender people are mentioned in passing. In almost all cases, the new guideline requires the person's chosen name to be presented in the body text, with the former name mentioned parenthetically or in a footnote. |
2021/2 | RFC: Use of deadname in quotes | Manual of Style/Biography | This RfC ratified new guidance limiting the inclusion of deadnames in quotations and recommending paraphrase as the most widely-appropriate solution. |
2021/3 | RfC on prior names | Elliot Page | RfC concluded that only Page's notable former name, but not his birth name, should be included. |
2021/3 | Transgender and nonbinary | Elliot Page | Discussion of the scope of transgender and nonbinary categories. |
2021/6 | Request for comment on infobox image, if any | Elliot Page | RfC determined that it was better to have no infobox image at all, given the limitations of the images available post-transition. |
2021/7 | Notability prior to transition | Rachel Levine | A surprisingly civil, source-based discussion to determine whether this BLP subject met Notability standards prior to her transition. It seems not. |
2021/08 | RfC on non-notable pre-transition names of deceased trans people | Manual of Style/Biography | Conclusion/Notes |
2021/08 | MOS:DEADNAME | Manual of Style/Biography | Conclusion/Notes |
See also
- Transgender
- Gender identity
- Gender binary
- Feminist views on transgender topics
- Third-person pronoun#Transgender pronouns
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Identity (failed proposal)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT Studies
- WP:Gender neutral language
- Template:They – also: Them, Their, Theirs