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RfC on first sentence

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is no consensus between proposal 1 and proposal 2. There is a weak consensus across those responding that either proposal is reasonable and backed by sources. There is no silver bullet policy based argument here to tip the scales one way or another as supporters of both proposals, and the intermediate proposals brought up during the RFC, did an admirable job of sticking to policy and sources. Proposal 2 enjoys a slight numerical advantage, but in any RFC with dozens of responses four or five supports one way or the other is not enough to establish a consensus without significant flaws in the arguments of those supporting another option. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)


There has been a previous RfC in 2018 that dealt with the first sentence of this article; the result was no consensus between the two leading options, and the status quo sentence remained—the same sentence present today. A recent discussion has led to an alternative proposal to be pitted against the status quo. A new outcome in this discussion could have parallel impact at Trans man. The options are:

Proposal 1

A trans woman is a person who was assigned male at birth and has a female gender identity.

Proposal 2 (status quo)

A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth.

Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 05:23, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support 2. Proposal 1, however well-intended, implies that trans women are something other than women. And if Proposal 1 is adopted, I expect that people who do not agree or accept that trans women are women will still not be satisfied with that language. Funcrunch (talk) 05:42, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
See mathglot's section below for a better written argument as to why than I would be able to write myself. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. 09:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Procedural close/Support 2 or variations thereof. We need to be absolutely clear in the reliable sources that the current wording is strictly incorrect before we go down the direction of (1). No RS states that a Trans woman is not a woman, thus it seems perfectly reasonable to start the sentence as it is done in the article. If an encyclopedia is a reference, then it is reasonable to expect the reader to have some familiarity with the subject. We are, strictly speaking, not a Learner's dictionary, thus guaranteeing that the average reader be able to easily understand every article is not a requirement. Given that this is the case, (1) can have marginal support at best. I would strongly prefer an admin to clarify here to what extent should we balance readability/understandability with encyclopedic reference. Theheezy (talk) 14:50, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
It is useful to clarify that trans women are indeed women. Might be redundant, but I think it better educates our readers to explicitly mention it. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 21:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
If they are to function as complete, standalone definitions (notably, not the purpose of a first sentence), I think both versions are missing the semi-critical fact that trans is short for transgender, except some touchy edge-cases where it is instead short for transsexual. That information is present either explicitly or implicitly in almost all of the definitions, but notably absent here.
Since this seems like the appropriate time to decide on that (or forever hold our peace), should we include text to that effect?
Proposal 1.5 Remix: A trans woman is a transgender or transsexual person who was assigned male at birth and has a female gender identity.
Proposal 2.22: A trans woman (short for transgender or transsexual woman) is a woman was assigned male at birth..
–RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 23:12, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I think proposal 1.5 is acceptable, but including various options drastically increases the chance of this ending in no consensus, which is something we wanted to avoid in the prior discussion. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 23:18, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Pardon my presentation; think of these more as examples of what I'm talking about, rather than actual new proposed outcomes to the RfC. My intention was to demonstrate that this issue is independent of the is a woman vs is a person female gender thing issue, and that either version is compatible with either outcome. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 23:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 (More work needs to be done on the sourcing to properly evaluate.) per the RS. Unfortunately the statement that "trans women are women" is controversial, so until more high level sources can be provided which state this we shouldn't write this in wikivoice in the lead. Consensus cannot override NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:27, 21 August 2022 (UTC) strike Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 or 1.5. I've thought about it, and I think that referring to trans women as women in the body may be appropriate, but it is undue for the lead sentence. While it has not been shown whether the majority of RS describe trans women as women, I'm not really seeing RS say that trans women are not women. The assertion that trans women are not women seems to be from a minority of experts such as gender critical academics, and non-RS sources such as politicians and (a minority?) of the public. However, per WP:Tertiary, Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Of the dictionaries, only Merriam-Webster states "is a woman" in its definition, so I think it is undue. Lest anyone cite Wikipedia is not a dictionary, I would reference WP:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#Good_definitions. I am not unwilling to flip-flop my !vote again. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Also, instead of "is a person", we could write "is an individual", "is someone", or "is an adult". These words may be less likely to be perceived as in opposition to "woman". Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:52, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
I also support a procedural close until we can better evaluate RS. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 per review of RS at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions. Of the 37 references, only around 6 support the terminology "is a woman" in their definition. Around 27 endorse using terminology similar to Proposal 1 or the similar "person who was assigned male at birth and identifies as a woman." In my mind, these mean the same thing. The ones that explicitly support "female gender identity" include John Hopkins Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Cornell University, Centers for Disease Control, Fenway Health, and Planned Parenthood. One's that support the similar "identify as woman/girl" include Princeton University, American Psychological Association, National Health Service, Human Rights Campaign, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Stonewall. I skipped many of the other 27 sources, these are just the highly prestigious ones supporting Proposal 1. Only 1 prestigious source, Harvard, supports Proposal 2. These sources range from medical sources, to academic, to even advocacy. Additionally, when defining trans woman all the prior sources opt to use person/someone/individual (or something similar) rather than woman. We shouldn't be presenting this minority phrasing as the defintion. I think it's pretty clear that RS sees Proposal 1 as superior to Proposal 2. Cheers, Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 20:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
It is worth noting (solely as pedantry) that source S-3 (which you attributed to "Princeton University") is in fact a document created by the advocacy group Gender Spectrum. Prior versions of the definitions subpage erroneously attributed it to the Princeton Gen/Sex Resource Center because it was uploaded there.
Likewise, the "trans terms" document (S-5) on the Cornell University HR website (since deleted) is actually a work by Genny Beemyn (a researcher at UMass Amherst). Beemyn does seem to be an expert; they went on to co-author the The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies, which notes "[a] universally accepted definition of trans woman is not possible" (851), but does feel comfortable enough to begin a sentence with Given that trans women are women... (135).
More generally, I think we may be ascribing an undue prestige to sources in the Schools section (excluding perhaps the APA), as these are not peer-reviewed publications. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 22:08, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
If I'm giving undue prestige to such sources, then let's look at the academic sourcing thats available. There are nine, and one would be more favorable toward Proposal 2, while at least six would be favorable toward Proposal 1. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 22:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
In light of recent additions (see below), the definitions list now lists a score of peer-reviewed academic sources which would support Option 2. Politanvm raises the excellent point which I variously alluded to in the preceding discussion, which is that unweighted counting of arbitrarily picked sources is probably not the most solid basis to build our text from. Solely through the lens of WP:RS and WP:V, it is demonstrable that either option is acceptable. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. I think that the statement a trans woman is a woman is controversial, and I also think that, no matter which side of the argument you fall on, you can agree that that statement is controversial. In fact, it is the definition of a controversial statement. As such, the idea that "trans women are women" is not an axiom that can be used as the backbone to an argument, and is in no way automatically true simply because you believe it to be true (as with any argument). It is, in fact, an opinion. An opinion which can be argued very well, but an opinion nonetheless. The reasoning that version two is better than version one because 'trans women are women and version one doesn't include that' goes against WP:NPOV. I don't think any statement that uses an opinion as its backbone has any place on Wikipedia.
For example, Ixtal, why should 'person' be changed to 'woman'? You gave no reason for the change. Or, StarHOG, your statement "If they now identify as female, then it is a woman" is an opinion (no matter how valid).
I don't know. Version 1 still isn't great, but it is objectively true (I think?) and explains the topic, albeit less concisely. 2ple (talk) 21:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm genuinely confused how "trans woman is a woman" is controversial. To my knowledge the sources described above do not see it as a controversial statement or make note of existing controversy. I also fail to see how arguing that they are is a non-neutral point-of-view (and the opposite is not). This RfC is not debating whether trans women are women or not, but how to concisely and intelligibly define them for our readers.
On another note, 2ple, I strongly urge you to strike the comment "I don't think any statement that uses an opinion as its backbone has any place on Wikipedia." There is no reason to be uncivil when the discussion so far has been greatly civil and with due respect between editors. We are all discussing here in good faith with the purpose of improving the article and I think your comment is inappropriate in the context of your previous statements. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 21:20, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I see nothing uncivil in the statement I don't think any statement that uses an opinion as its backbone has any place on Wikipedia" but hey, perhaps my standard of civility is different from yours.  Tewdar  21:36, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree that by itself it is not uncivil, Tewdar, but what the editor is essentially saying when read as part of the whole paragraph is "I don't think the statements of editors that support option 2 have any place on Wikipedia". — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. 21:55, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Option 2 support has not exactly been based on a great deal of policy-based rationale...  Tewdar  22:08, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, Ixtal, if that statement comes across as uncivil. I'll strike it.
I'm genuinely confused how "trans woman is a woman" is controversial. Let me explain how it is controversial.
When you say "a trans woman is a woman", how do you define define woman? Honestly, I want to know.
The statement "a trans woman is a person" is infinitely simpler, I believe. 2ple (talk) 22:06, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
To reiterate, this RfC is not debating the validity of trans womanhood. Describing transgender people using the correct terms ("man/woman", "waiter/waitress") is an established community guideline. Inasmuch as doing so may be "controversial" to some readers (so is the the moon landing, homeopathy, and Barack Obama's citizenship), our existing sources on the matter do not characterize it as such.
We cannot, in good faith, interpret a source's use of non-gendered terms like person (human, individual, someone, etc.) as if it explicitly means a human of indeterminate/debatable gender. However, the desire of various commenters to do so (and my concern that Wikipedia readers will do the same) is largely why I prefer the status quo. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:20, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
We shouldn't be approaching this question by asking which definition makes the reader understand that a trans woman is a woman. We should ask which definition is mostly supported by RS. In this case it's very obvious, not even close, which is mostly supported, and I haven't heard an argument against that. We shouldn't sacrifice the core tenants of neutrality and weight because its possible Proposal 1 makes some people who may think trans women are not real women more pleased. It should also be noted that Proposal 1 is not negating the claim that trans women are women. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 01:52, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
We agree that the proposition that a trans woman is an AMAB human with a female gender identity (A) does not contradict a trans woman is an AMAB woman (B). All sources which say B (most notably, the Merriam-Webster dictionary) are necessarily implying that A is also true. Likewise, none of the sources which say A are directly in opposition with B. Thus the sheer fact that A occurs more frequently does not mean it is WP:UNDUE or WP:POV for the lead to state both A and B, which we currently do in our first two sentences. This is also not improper synthesis, as we are not combining them to imply any novel conclusion C.
As for arguments in specifically in favor of using woman here, (noting that I'm not deeply attached to Option 2), MOS:IDENTITY advises we prefer specific labels like Ethiopian as opposed to general labels like African, and there's a case that we should treat woman and person the same way. Likewise, MOS:GENDERID insists on describing all transgender people using the correct gendered terms ("man/woman"), although I agree that invoking it here is probably a bit silly. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. Option 2 is also acceptable, and follows Wikipedia and guidelines around reliable sourcing and due weighting, but I believe Option 1 is the slightly better option for the lead sentence. Of course, trans women are women, and I've watched this page (and other LGBTQ pages) long enough to know that some of the vocal opposition to the status quo/Option 2 is done to push a transphobic POV. Still, for a good-faith non-specialist reader who doesn't have any familiarity with transgender people or other LGBTQ topics, Option 1 seems to be to be the clearest way for the reader to understand who trans women are, without being too verbose. If "gender identity" is linked (which I assume it's meant to be, but isn't in the survey), it also gives the non-expert reader an easy way to start learning about the distinction between sex and gender. Anecdotally, I've heard well-meaning people be confused about whether trans woman means MtF or FtM, and Option 1 makes it clearer that trans women are generally MtF. Politanvm talk 01:03, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. Clear, concise and correct. A trans woman is more than just a person, she is considered to be a woman. The is zero need to repeat that such an affirmative confirmed woman has also a female identity. Start simple, expand in the article. ~ BOD ~ TALK 01:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC) ~ Plus i see no benefit in the second part of option 1 and has a female gender identity as it simply repeats/uses the very first phrase of the very next (the 2nd lead) sentence Trans women have a female gender identity,... so it does not add anything useful.
  • Additional comment (* was not sure where to put this...) I vote strongly Against a Procedure Close ...even though Aquillion has helpfully supplied the definations sub page with many more useful definations, for our purposes we do not base wikipedia simply on the number of reliable definations as Politanvm, Parabolist and Bilorv and others all point out. RfC Contributing editors opinions and votes on gender are all mostly based on their own personal lifetime recieved knowledge and wisdom and they are very unlikely to change their vote after Aquillion's addition, and if they have Editors do feel they do need to change their vote in this RfC to another option or strike their comment in this RfC, this RfC is still only 5 days old, contributors have plenty of time to read those additional definations and if necessary edit their vote. Its just the same as if someone in the course of a RfC debate offers a really good convincing argument that changes folks minds. However The vast majority of editor's opinions as whether Trans women are women or somekind of other 'person' is well and truly set in their (editors) minds. ~ BOD ~ TALK 18:53, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
RfC Contributing editors opinions and votes on gender are all mostly based on their own personal lifetime recieved knowledge and wisdom and they are very unlikely to change their vote after Aquillion's addition. That's horrible! Such votes should be discounted. Nobody here should be !voting based on their personal received knowledge and wisdom. Levivich 19:07, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
based on their own personal lifetime recieved knowledge and wisdom - may the gods have mercy on us all.  Tewdar  19:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Very interesting, do you honesty believe that editors votes are not based on their own personal reading of the subject matter up to this point in their lifetime. Is it suddenly somehow created today? And yes personally i also do feel that once a person's mind is made up on such primary social~ethical matters it is very hard to change it, even if a great variety of additional definitions are provided. Though the are times however when very well reasoned contributions like Mathglot's Talk:Trans woman#"A trans woman is a woman" is not redundant. do change a person's mind. Do we stop RfC again due to the fact that a very detailed informative contribution was added. ~ BOD ~ TALK 20:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Levivich: If this was true, why would we even vote at all? The whole point of discussing things is that everyone brings something different to the table. Our knowledge and beliefs, combined with policy, is how every single discussion is resolved, otherwise a computer would be making all of these decisions. Parabolist (talk) 19:36, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2 (with an asterisk) – I mean, I support #2, full stop. The asterisk means, that I understand that the assigned male at birth part of it may cause honest incomprehension on the part of some readers. So, in order to address the "incomprehension" part, besides just linking AMAB, what about providing an explanatory note inline, borrowing a few words from the assigned sex article? I realize this is unorthodox for a WP:LEADSENTENCE, but if it helps resolve the uncertainty with the "assigned" phrase, then the "asterisk" may be a service to our readers, and mitigate the incomprehension that some readers may feel. Here's how that would look:

A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth.[a]

I still support 2, but I'd prefer 2*, as I think it would go a long way to resolve the uneasiness some readers may feel with the current version, and it preserves previous consensus with a minimal change to the WP:LEADSENTENCE, while still resolving some uncertainty or confusion which surely must exist among some readers via the note. Mathglot (talk) 10:19, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
@Mathglot: I suggest a change to the wording of your explanatory note, thus:

A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth.[b]

More concise and conveys the same information, methinks. Also removed scare quotes. Funcrunch (talk) 16:55, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Agreed; your version looks better than mine. Mathglot (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think an {{efn}} is really helpful here. If we're just trying to explain what assigned male at birth means, the linked article already does that, and in either case, the reader has to interact with something. Ideally, users with the Navigation popups gadget hovering over the link would see a preview of Sex assignment § AMAB, but annoyingly, that currently only works if we use a WP:NOTBROKEN link, [[Sex assignment#AMAB|assigned male at birth]]. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 23:54, 22 August 2022 (UTC) (Correction: users with Navigation Popups will see a preview of the right section. Hopefully. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 21:34, 31 August 2022 (UTC))
I always try to think about who the readership is, and in particular, the least clueful among them who are honestly coming here for the most basic explanation possible. In this case, I think that might be middle schoolers, trying to learn the very basics about the topic. The chances that they have gadgets enabled is close to zero. There's a chance that they *might* click the link, but we don't know (and if they do, will they come back, or are they in "surfing mode"?) An explanatory footnote at least provides another avenue, and on-page to boot, to inform them. (The "it's a boy!" was an attempt to avoid WP:JARGON as much as possible, and to be crystal clear about the issue.) Finally, probably even a lot of adults who are not familiar with the details of the topic, will never have heard the AMAB term before, and may also appreciate the on-page explanation. That's the theory behind the explanatory note, but I welcome any solution which best and most clearly conveys the basics about trans women to our readers, especially the ones least likely to know much of anything about the topic. Mathglot (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
The kind of user who doesn't follow links seems even less likely to follow a [note], so while I empathize with improving understanding among such hypothetical readers, I'm doubtful this would actually do so. If we anticipate that a considerable number of readers will be baffled by "assigned male at birth" and fail to access the page which explains the term, then we would either need to choose an alternative (who was designated the male sex at birth), or elaborate it in-text. For the record, I don't think we should do either—I still think AMAB is an ostensibly self-explanatory phrase, and a considerable number of sources treat it that way.
If we do include a note like this, the phrasing deserves a third pass. Trans man and Trans woman are perhaps the two articles where the sex-gender distinction is at its most relevant and touchy. I understand the entire point of "assigned-male" is that it is neutral to present-day gender and sex traits, so it seems sloppy to conflate "assigned male at birth" with "declared a boy" where sources do not. Likewise "It's a boy!" seems tropey and unnecessary. If we synthesized these two sentences, we would get something extremely undesirable like A trans woman is a woman who was declared to be a boy ("It's a boy!") by a doctor who inspected her genitalia at birth. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 03:34, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
A trans woman is a woman who was declared to be a boy [...] by a doctor who inspected her genitalia at birth. - apart from the "It's a boy!" bit, what are the differences between this and proposal 2? Ignore the smiley and thumbs up, they are part of my signature and I haven't changed it back yet. 😁👍 Tewdar  18:33, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
@RoxySaunders:, you said, "Ideally, users with the Navigation popups gadget hovering over the link would see a preview of Sex assignment § AMAB.." but that *is* what they see with popups, no piping necessary. And if you meant the unpiped link assigned male at birth, that's what they see for that as well. Mathglot (talk) 07:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
​Huh, you're right. 😅 Guess my browser was having a bad day when I wrote that, because the popup is working perfectly now. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 21:34, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
​ When in doubt, just blame cosmic rays. Mathglot (talk) 06:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. Accurate, concise, does the job. I don't necessarily oppose proposal 1, but proposal 2 is better in my eyes. Also on the grounds that given a lot of the time, people who are cisgender are said to have a "gender" and people who aren't are said to have a "gender identity", if that makes sense. ser! (chat to me - see my edits) 11:03, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. I feel like the arguments for 1 based on RSes are missing the forest for the trees here. This is the article for trans woman. It's definitional that trans women are a kind of women, and as far as I can tell none of our reliable sources question that. It's true that RSes usually phrase definitions of "trans woman" as "A trans woman is a person who..." rather than as "A trans woman is a woman who...", but we're not bound to their phrasing, just their information. (Sidenote: I wouldn't oppose Mathglot's 2-star or Funcrunch's 2-star-star but I don't think the extra footnote is necessary.) Loki (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
After Aquillion's update of the definitions page, I am no longer confident of the statement I've stricken, which is why I've stricken it. Loki (talk) 01:50, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. All the arguments on the other side come down to this: Trans women are women, therefore trans women are women. This kind of reasoning makes perfect sense if you are a Twitter or Reddit user. Anyone who disagrees with you is "transphobic" and should therefore be deplatformed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.73.137 (talk) 18:51, August 22, 2022 (UTC) — 24.20.73.137 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Support 1 per the clear and overwhelming WP:Due weight of sources collected for a long time at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions. As Politanvm said, Option 1 seems to be to be the clearest way for the reader to understand who trans women are, without being too verbose. We should be following the lead of the vast majority of sources when it comes to figuring out how to explain this, rather than what we personally like. Those sources know better than we do, and this principle is what Wikipedia and the RS and WEIGHT policies are based on.
Here is my total. (Note that sources that elide the "is a" clause or are otherwise unclear either way for our purposes have not been counted as neither RfC option offers that, but they are a small minority.)
  • Number of sources in the subpage which say "person", "someone", "individual", "those" or the like first and hence have a pattern akin to Option 1 (listed by heading):
    • A: 6, S: 5, G: 4, O: 7, D: 3, N: 2. Total: 27
  • Number of sources in the subpage which say "woman" first and hence have a pattern akin to Option 2 (listed by heading):
    • A: 1, S: 1, G: 1, O: 2, D: 1, N: 1. Total: 7
A clear and large supermajority come down on the side of Option 1. I see no policy-based reason not to follow the evident due weight here.
Option 1 is superior because it names the distinguishing factor that defines the topic - gender identity. This is likely why most sources use it. This is completely ignored in favor of a less clear term with pre-existing baggage ("woman") in most readers' minds in Option 2. Option 1 better educates readers and follows due weight. Crossroads -talk- 01:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Worth noting that the totals given above (particularly in section A) have now changed dramatically as 21 new "is a woman" sources (mostly academic ones) have been added to the Definitions page. Assuming your prior analysis was sound, that would seemingly leave the totals now at exactly 28 (in favor of Option 2) to 27. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 02:33, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
See Theheezy's 06:12, 24 August 2022 comment below about how the citation count distribution is very different. I do not believe the newly added ones are anywhere near as representative of the best sources as the previous list. This will require more investigation, but very likely more will need to be added to the list. Crossroads -talk- 07:18, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2 – Keep the status quo definition. It's simple and concise. Also, the definition aligns with the Miriam Webster dictionary: "transwoman – a woman who was identified as male at birth"[1]. If people want option 1 then it should be rewritten like the Oxford English dictionary definition: "transwoman – a person who was registered as male at birth but who lives and identifies as a woman"[2]. These are the two main dictionaries in the English language. --Guest2625 (talk) 10:15, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. The purpose of the lead of an article, and most especially the first sentence, is to concisely summarize the subject in plain language; and virtually all high-quality sources today refer to trans women as women when discussing them in plain language. Option 1 is clunky and, because it deviates from the way the term is used in normal speech, reads as non-neutral in tone. EDIT: See the sources added here. --Aquillion (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Long thread of replies moved to the Discussion section. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:20, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2, and variations of 1 including is a woman. The Definitions list demonstrates that either form is acceptable under WP:RS. Given that the two options aren't opposing POVs, we don't need to base our text on what we perceive to be the "most common version" at any given moment to achieve due weight. The most compelling argument for Option 1 is that explaining that trans women have a female gender identity is necessary to fully grasp the topic. However, given that we that currently explain that in the second sentence, I find this a relatively minor issue which does not impede understanding. MOS:FIRST tells us to focus on concisely explaining who/what a Trans woman is, then spread other important information across the lede, rather than try to clump everything in the first sentence. Rather, I think the most critical explanatory detail currently missing from the first sentence is the lack of a link to Transgender (and possibly Transsexual). I prefer Option 2 as-written, as I am concerned that is a person with a female gender identity implies some doubt or ambiguity about the "real" gender of transgender women, where is a woman who... does not, and thus creates a false balance with fringe reactionary POVs regarding gender identity, which are not apparent among our sources. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 05:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC) (edited –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 22:11, 23 October 2022 (UTC))
Addendum: my !vote initially attempted to comment on the Trans woman and Trans man articles simultaneously, which in hindsight reads a bit confusingly. Respectively, I prefer the text A trans woman is a woman who... and A trans man is a man who.... –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 22:11, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 It is more precise and isn't circular. Even if someone wants to dispute if a person is a woman, they can't reasonably claim we aren't dealing with persons. This is a disputed area so it is best to stick with what can be unquestionably supported. Additionally, if we follow the RSs talk:Trans_woman#Lead_sentence then the answer is clear based on the number of sources using something like option 1 vs option 2. Springee (talk) 13:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 I don't think we can be so precise in such a contentious case.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
WP:NPOV is concerned with accurately describing controversies and opposing viewpoints among reliable sources. So long as we have sufficiently strong sourcing to back us up, one version being more perceived as more "contentious" among the general population is not especially relevant for Wikipedia's purposes. Darwinism, and Creation science are also highly contentious and politicized issues, but we still feels comfortable enough to say (nay, obliged to say) that one is a sound theory and the other is unscientific crank nonsense, because all the authors whose opinions we care about say so. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:48, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Sure, but I'm not convinced this is akin to the argument of Darwinism vs creationism. Ortizesp (talk) 01:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2 With some irony, I support 2 per the reasoning given by Theheezy. Theheezy stated that Adjective Noun is an Noun is definitely redundant and confusing as a reason for rejecting the status quo, however I believe that the wording of 2 is more confusing because it follows the pattern adjective noun is another noun i.e. a trans woman is a person. I believe the status quo is far more representative of the mainstream point of view and better supported by the sources than the alternative presented. With respect to the woman versus person language choice, while all women are persons, not all persons are women. To say a trans woman is a person gives some support to the fringe/minority point of view, espoused primarily by transphobes, that trans women are men. We absolutely cannot do that in wikivoice per WP:NPOV. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
When The Lancet, Stonewall, etc. say "person", "someone", and the like, are they giving support to the fringe point of view that trans women are men? Crossroads -talk- 06:28, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
They aren't writing an encyclopedia article. This is exactly the problem with the way this whole thing has been framed, by pulling single sentences out of context, and saying that they serve the same purpose. Parabolist (talk) 06:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
With respect, The Lancet didn't say A person assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman or in similar terms, the authors of the the paper published in The Lancet said it. For example, this 2019 paper also published in The Lancet said in the abstract Transgender women (individuals assigned male sex at birth but who identify as women) are among the populations most vulnerable to HIV infection, and this 2015 paper also published in The Lancet said in the abstract transgender women (individuals assigned a male sex at birth and who identify as women, female, male-to-female, or on the transfeminine spectrum)
I've also made no commentary on "someone", I have only commented on the "woman" versus "person" wording choice. And given that Stonewall actually states A term used to describe someone who is assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman, I do not believe that can be plainly read in such a way that it supports "a trans woman is a person". Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:20, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
@Sideswipe9th: You said that Theheezy said that

Adjective Noun is an Noun is definitely redundant and confusing

which you apparently found persuasive. But you (and User:Theheezy) might want to rethink that. It's not redundant at all, any more than "Black women are women..." is redundant. When you see a noun phrase that parses adj + noun at the surface level, unless you know the history and evolution of the expression, you cannot know whether the noun phrase is a simple collocation or a compound noun which has become a set phrase that has taken on a meaning that may be nuanced, or even completely different. Is a French letter a letter? Er, no. By claiming that trans woman is a woman is redundant, you are assuming that people new to the topic already know what it means, i.e., that it couldn't possibly mean anything other than what you already know it to mean; but naive readers can't know that it isn't a set phrase with another meaning entirely unless we say so. To the extent that the first sentence is a definition, a trans woman is a woman is not only not redundant, it is pretty much required, to eliminate an infinity of other possibilities. (Well, unless you don't believe that a trans woman is a woman, in which case you would word it differently, of course.) Mathglot (talk) 09:26, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Hmm, I seem to have said this better before. Mathglot (talk) 17:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
My intent was to use Theheezy's argument to frame my own. I do not agree that saying "a trans woman is a woman" in the lead sentence is confusing, however I do believe that saying "a trans woman is a person" is.
I do not believe I remarked on the redundancy argument made by Theheezy, except that I included it as part of the context of their statement on option 1. I do not think it is redundant, any more so than as you say Black women are women. The usage of trans is a descriptor to specify a subset of women, in the same way that Black, ginger, American, lesbian, or any number of other words specify other subsets of women. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:41, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
@Sideswipe9th: ah, okay; I think I misunderstood the first time. It's hard to discuss some of the subtler points here for fear of interpolating too much within the Survey section. Please see discussion at § "A trans woman is a woman" is not redundant. on a related point.Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:14, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2 The source analysis is well put together, and an interesting read, but looking at the pure 'stats' of it misses the point. Blindly following this exact phrasing runs counter to a more central point, which is that we're writing an encyclopedia article. There's a fundamental shift in goals when it comes to how and when to deliver info on an article like this compared to a journalistic style guide, an academic paper, or even a dictionary. So when looking at the definitions list, it's clear that many of these are written with specific audiences in mind, of varying degrees of specification, and for different purposes. Many of them, the definitions are some ways into an article or page written about the topic, so by the time it needs to define "trans woman" specifically, it makes sense to expand it out, as Option 1 does. We, however, are dealing with the lead sentence, and have a duty to establish the facts quickly, correctly, and concisely. The best way to do that is what we have now. Parabolist (talk) 06:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1 The purpose of Wikipedia isi to provide information to our readers. If you don’t know what a trans woman is, then Version 1 explains it more clearly than Version 2, which does not actually mean anything unless you know what definition of ‘woman’ is being used. The language of Version 1 is also more neutral. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:05, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Neither/procedural close due to the 36 recent additions to Talk:Trans woman/Definitions, and for further WP:RFCBEFORE. As Sideswipe points out above, this RFC was launched 18 days after I started a discussion at #Lead sentence pointing out that the definitions at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions (which looked like this at the time, with 37 definitions total) did not support the lead sentence, with only 6 definitions using the language "is a woman" or similar (as opposed to "identifies as a woman", or similar, which had been used by 27 definitions). As I said in my OP back then, I don't know if the list of definitions at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions is complete, or a representative sample of the scholarship, or if all the sources should be given equal weight..

    Since that post, a number of editors expanded the definitions list, and as Sideswipe also pointed out above, I reorganized the list on August 16, which was 5 days before this RFC was launched. Here is what it looked like before the reorganization, and after the reorganization. It had, at that time, 40 definitions. A half an hour before this RFC launched, I posted a notice about this discussion, for the first time, at Talk:Trans man. The RFC question was not posted for workshopping prior to this RFC being launched (and if it had, I would have suggested significant revisions to it).

    3 days after this RFC launched, Aquillion added 36 new definitions to the definitions subpage, almost doubling the number of definitions, to 78 (by my count). Anyone who voted in the first three days of this RFC did so based on half the definitions that are currently available (indeed, one !voter has already struck their !vote). I still have the same question/concern I had at the beginning of the month, that I quoted above: I'm not sure the list is complete or representative, and no weight has been assigned to the various sources. The Lancet, Harvard Medical School, and the American Psychological Association are obviously not of the same reliability or authority on this issue as Journal of Music Teacher Education, or dictionaries, or newspapers. Without further analysis of the sources (including agreeing upon a metholodogy for searching for sources, analyzing the context of each definition, and weighing the authority or reliability of various sources, e.g. medical v. non-medical, academic v. non-academic, etc.), we cannot draw meaningful conclusions from the definitions collected so far. This process cannot and should not be skipped. I was hoping we could do this before launching an RFC, but I think it will be a necessary prerequisite before we can hope to bring a stable consensus to this lead. We gotta figure out the RSes first, then make a decision. (FWIW, I'm leaning towards option 1.5 right now, which was proposed mid-way through this RFC, but more source analysis is needed before I'd make up my mind on it.) I thank the editors who have put in their time to help collectively analyze this, I just don't think we're at a place where we can make a meanigful -- and lasting -- decision. This is just the 2018 RFC all over again... Levivich 16:28, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Levivich, I don't think this is an issue that time will solve. Even if we had a list of every single mention of "trans woman" in every piece of media and research, it won't answer this question for us. People will disagree on weighting types of media (why would medical, academic, or reliable news media count more or less?). People will disagree about the weighting of individual sources (why is one journal more reliable than another when it comes to trans women?). It will keep boiling down to people weighting the option they already supported. The Definitions page was incredibly helpful to show there is reliable sourcing for the status quo, and for Option 1. It was helpful for reducing the options to two general themes. It's also helpful for some people's individual decisions. But it will never show an unambiguous consensus as to which option best satisfies MOS:FIRST.
If I'm proven wrong, and in a year or two all reliable sources have the same exact definition, then the consensus can change here too. But putting it off and hoping that the one objective, true answer will appear if we just research and analyze a little more is a fool's errand, and a misapplication of statistics. Both of these options are true and both have verifiable sources, so it just comes down to MOS:FIRST: The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English. Based on what you know today, which one do you think does that best, and why? Politanvm talk 18:21, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm a broken record here, but I really don't think taking solely the lens of RS to that list will give you the full picture. Any source analysis for this should absolutely not just be "what is the single sentence where they say it", but a comprehensive review of what the source is DOING. The BBC journalistic style guide has a completely different motive and use than an educational encyclopedia article, for instance, and I think solely looking at "what is their exact phrasing" is getting lost in the weeds. This is a general subject article, not a news event or BLP, so OUR design as editors is different than specialized academics or journalists, unlike articles about recent events or BLPs. Parabolist (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2, or support 1 if the word "person" is changed to woman. Mathglot makes the point that "[adjective] [noun] is a [noun]" is not completely redundant: for instance, a shooting star is not a star. Conversely, a beef tomato does not contain beef. Wiktionary uses idiomatic and sum of parts to distinguish expressions that mean the totality of each individual word's meaning and those that have specific connotations. Anyway, there's no harm in saying that a transgender woman is a woman. I've known people just learning the terms who get mixed up.
    On the matter of sourcing I am, quite frankly, embarrassed to see Talk:Trans woman/Definitions. It's a fool's errand. Different types of sources and different sections within the same source (abstract, introduction, body, conclusion) write with different purposes and audiences in mind. This subpage is not a meta-analysis but a collection of random examples that prove nothing. Our aim is not to parrot the phrasing of a majority of sources that we've collectively read. It's to establish facts based on sourcing and then write those facts in our own words. Yes, we do have to select the most important facts to determine order of presentation and length of content, but that is not done by taking individual sentences from their contexts and making a word cloud. Both options 1 and 2 say true facts, which is why I suggest actually combining them, but the matter of which to use is a matter of clarity. The second sentence of the article is currently "trans women have a female gender identity", so no information from option 1 is lost by sticking with the longstanding status quo. — Bilorv (talk) 18:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2 Mathglot's useful analysis below captures exactly what I had been thinking about. Having a semi-redundant definition is pretty standard for Wikipedia. It makes it clear that a trans woman is a subcategory of woman, which is a useful clarification. I've spoken about it before on this page, but there is a common popular misunderstanding about what appending "trans" on a word means: folks can assume that "trans woman" means what is in actuality "trans man". So making the distinction clear and obvious is helpful. Further, that puts our definition in line with Merriam Webster, the avowed experts on meaning. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 01:17, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Prefer 2. The differences are 1 says "person" where 2 says "woman", and 1 takes the "gender identity" clause that's currently the start of the second sentence, and moves it to the other side of the period to make it the end of the first sentence: I don't think moving that clause makes much difference (but I'm not opposed to it); the meat of the matter is whether to say "person" or "woman". 2, the current wording, is concise and well-supported by RS; it's been demonstrated that either wording can be supported by some RS, but as Aquillion says, the lead sentence should concisely summarize the article, and 2 is a better summary; as Kolya says, I haven't seen reliable sources say trans women aren't women (but in various discussions of this, some of the push to change from "woman" to "person" has come from opinions that trans women aren't women). While some people think 1 would be clearer, I think 2 is clearer, and as CaptainEek says 2 helps clarify things for people who otherwise think "trans" means someone was a woman but transitioned and is now a man (I've seen people misunderstand "trans man" this way when talking about Mack Beggs, thinking "trans man" means he was AMAB and transitioned to be a woman).
    As for whether to procedurally close this given the expansion of the sources subpage, ehh, I'm inclined to agree with Politanvm that it seems unlikely gathering more sources would necessarily make a clearer/different outcome more likely, since (it's been demonstrated either phrase can be supported by some RS, and) there are more factors at play than just "which phrase is more common". -sche (talk) 01:03, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. It is clear, concise, and in line with what RS have to say. Also it is clear from some of the comments on this discussion that some editors prefer 1 as a way to make it ambiguous as to whether trans women are to be considered women. This goes against RS and Wikipedia policy MOS:GENDERID. Rab V (talk) 04:17, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Prefer 1 as it includes the crucial link to gender identity and is compatible with a range of views; option 2 is compatible with only one side of a contentious debate. It seems consensus is elusive in both this discussion and in the reliable sources, which makes me think that the contention needs to be addressed in the article itself somehow. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. RS define "trans woman" as a woman who was assigned the sex male at birth[1] but also as a genetic male ... who identifies or thinks of herself as a female[2]. Often RS do not take a stance on whether one should use genetics or gender to define trans women, and they simply say that a trans woman is A person assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman[3]. We should follow this third option: calling trans women "persons" doesn't imply neither that they are men nor that they are women. It is more compatible with WP:NPOV, more respectful of the public debate, which is still open (should trans gender women have access to women's restroom? etc.), and is well supported by high quality sources. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:40, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. Option two succinctly counters a common misunderstanding of the term (incorrectly swapped definitions of trans man and trans woman) and easily conveys the concept that "trans woman" is a subset of "woman". Thatbox (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. Proposal 1 conveys better information than Proposal 2. Proposal 1 is clear on precisely what a transgender woman is, since it specifies that the "woman" property comes from their gender identity. With various competing definitions on what a woman is in the first place, Proposal 1 avoids drawing any needless controversy and is clearer to the reader. Juandissimo Magnifico (talk) 05:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. I, of course, have my own opinion on this, but being NPOV means separating that out and going by what the RS say. It's clear that there is debate over whether trans women are or are not women, both between the reliable sources and among the editors - and evidently the general public, too. We should not present either view in wikivoice, but rather, state both views and say that different social/political/cultural blocs use one and the other. Joe (talk) 03:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Long thread of replies moved to the Discussion section. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:20, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. I've previously proposed a similar option to #1, but minor tweaks matter here and it's a shame to see this run as a two-option RfC. Based on the sources present (not just definitions), I find #2 to be the stronger option. I found Mathglot's analysis and Aquillion's additional sources very persuasive. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:45, 8 October 2022 (UTC)d
Let the record show that I pushed rather hard for an RfC that would consider more than these two options. Grumble. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 06:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 1. I note the fact that the survey of sources supports option 1, but editors should keep in mind that while the survey is comprehensive for English-speaking sources, it isn't for foreign sources. Trans women being women is not a matter of scientific truth or falsity, but a social construct. To that point, the statement that "a trans woman is a woman" would further WP:SYSTEMICBIAS, since it would ignore cultures in which our term for trans woman is mapped to a third gender, or where gender is defined differently altogether. They match our definition of trans women, have a female gender identity, but don't identify as women. Contrary to some editors' claims that such views are WP:FRINGE (implying this is a purely scientific or academic question, which it is not), this classification isn't being "imposed" on these people against their will, but is a part of their culture, whose condemnation I resent as a form of Anglo-centrism. An unrelated issue is the fact that many people reading English Wikipedia are non-native speakers, and may need a clearer definition so they can understand the topic properly; I think editors here may underestimate the likelihood these readers might confuse proposition 2's wording with intersex or other unrelated things, which would be detrimental. DFlhb (talk) 00:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Support 2. As with all articles, this article should be written to target a reasonably competent English-language reader who is approaching the topic in good faith because they want information they do not already posess. An accurate, precise definition such as this one is not confusing to such a reader. Many good articles use the lead to introduce new information in a way that invites the reader to look closer at the body of the article, and this seems like a good example of that approach. If this definition is novel or unexpected to readers (or anyone here) that is a good invitation to read the rest of the article to better understand the topic. If a reader sees the first sentence, it doesn't match their prior assumpptions, and so they stop reading, that suggests that they were not reading in good faith. Altering the definition to be less accurate and less precise, but easier to (mis)understand, is not a solution to this problem. Grayfell (talk) 01:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I still lean heavily toward Proposal 2, but in hindsight, I would omit "or transsexual" from this variant, with the understanding that (almost) all transsexuals are also transgender, and that although "transgender or transsexual woman" is certainly attested, various other sources are content with expanding trans to just "transgender". Merriam-Webster and Collins both make it their first priority to convey the fact that trans woman is short for "transgender [or transsexual] woman", so following their lead, my preferred variant of 1 would be:
Proposal 1.0+2.22: A trans woman (short for transgender woman) is a [woman/person] who was assigned male at birth [and/but] has a female gender identity.
–RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 21:49, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I would support that formulation too. Some1 (talk) 00:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm a bit lost because of the number of numbers (2.22?) but basically I would support "A trans woman (short for transgender woman) is a person who was assigned male at birth and has a female gender identity". 1) I would use "person"; 2) I would avoid "but". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:29, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Gitz, just noting your original !vote here, and your apparent modification of it here. For the sake of the closer, who has to read and assess all this stuff, it's important to be clear when you've voted already, and when you are merely making a comment, as I believe you are here. Or, if this represents a change to your previous vote, then you need to change it there, following the WP:REDACT guideline for usage of underscore and strikeout type to make clear what you wish your vote to be registered as. If this is unclear, please contact me at my Talk page for further clarification. Mathglot (talk) 01:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Supply missing ping: User:Gitz6666. Mathglot (talk) 01:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I thought I had made it clear I had already !voted by writing and I'm ready to change my !vote from option 1 to option 1.5. My last two remarks are more of a comment on my !vote, or a specification of it, rather than a change, and I'm confident they are clear enough not to require editing my previous !vote. Thank you anyway for having made this even clearer to the closer. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:28, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

references for Survey

  1. ^ Morgenroth, Thekla; Ryan, Michelle K. (May 6, 2020). "The Effects of Gender Trouble: An Integrative Theoretical Framework of the Perpetuation and Disruption of the Gender/Sex Binary". Perspectives on Psychological Science. 16 (6): 1113–1142. doi:10.1177/1745691620902442. ISSN 1745-6916. PMC 8564221. PMID 32375012.
  2. ^ Poston Jr., Dudley L. (2019). Handbook of Population. Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 978-3-030-10910-3. OCLC 1103562108.
  3. ^ Winter, Sam; Diamond, Milton; Green, Jamison; Karasic, Dan; Reed, Terry; Whittle, Stephen; Wylie, Kevan (July 23, 2016). "Transgender people: health at the margins of society". The Lancet. 388 (10042): 390–400. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00683-8. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 27323925.
Notes

  1. ^ A person "assigned male at birth" means someone who as an infant was declared to be a "boy" by a doctor or birth attendant who inspected the external genitalia when the baby was born, and announced their sex ("It's a boy!")
  2. ^ A person assigned male at birth is someone who was declared to be a boy ("It's a boy!") by a doctor or birth attendant who inspected the external genitalia when the baby was born.

Discussion

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gender studies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:32, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

There is no universally established consensus (or, at least in the context of the English Wikipedia, established consensus between English-speaking countries) that a trans woman is a woman. Plain and simple. Or, maybe not plain and simple.

Keep in mind that this is not the United States Wikipedia, nor the English-speaking Western world Wikipedia, but the English Wikipedia. Transgender/transsexual men and women across the globe are not always considered to be men/women. Too many of these votes for option 2 simply say that "a trans woman is a woman, obviously," when in reality it isn't all that obvious. As with any reasoning, I think that statement deserves, at the very least, an explanation. I don't think it can stand by itself as truth. For example, the reasoning that a trans woman is a woman because reliable sources A, B, C, and D define the term 'woman' not only biologically, but socially rests with me as a better argument than a trans woman is a woman, obviously.

I read an article that talked about how we are trying to force this false dichotomy on something that isn't binary. Sex itself is a spectrum, even disregarding self-identity (people are born intersex). I believe the entire idea of being trans does not fit the traditional binary notion of male and female or man and woman.

I am not arguing that trans women are or aren't women. I am arguing that trans women are not universally agreed upon to be women, and as such, it is impossible to state that as a standalone truth from which reasoning can be derived.

Also: we are not allowed to promote any sort of ideology, or disallow any ideology here on Wikipedia. The fact that a certain statement may make a certain side's POV more valid is never a reason to disallow it. To say that the statement a trans woman is a woman is unfair because it promotes the ideologies of transfeminists, transactivists, and trans supporters is not a valid reason to strike down anything, just as it is unfair to say that the statement a trans woman is a person is unfair, simply because it promotes the ideologies of transphobes. I acknowledge that not labelling a trans woman as a woman has historically ripened the transphobic divide, and while I vehemently detest that, I do not consider it fair to use that as reasoning to ignore the rules, and especially to ignore the consensus of reliable sourcing (or maybe lack of consensus).

I move to avoid any reasoning that uses the statement a trans woman is a woman, obviously and to shift to statements that explain why a trans woman is a woman, and more importantly, why we can call a trans woman a woman in Wikipedia's voice. 2ple (talk) 03:02, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

@2ple: To date, I don't see anyone except you using the word "obvious" or "obviously" to define trans women in this RFC. Speaking as a trans person who supported Option 2, I am very well aware that many people throughout the English-speaking world do not consider trans women to be women. But honestly, if you're saying that we can't say something in Wikivoice unless it's universally agreed upon, that means throwing out a good deal of this encyclopedia, including virtually everything said about LGBT folks, positive or negative. There really is no such thing as perfect neutrality when it comes to these sort of subjects. Funcrunch (talk) 07:33, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I think 2ple is saying that "trans women are women" is not WP:OBV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I understood that was the intent, but having reviewed the !votes I disagree that anyone stated this as boldly as 2ple suggests. Especially as 2ple used quote formatting to imply that a trans woman is a woman, obviously was actually stated by one or more !voters. Funcrunch (talk) 22:32, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
If you're saying that we can't say something in Wikivoice unless it's universally agreed upon—no, that is not what I'm saying. I am arguing that trans women are not universally agreed upon to be women, and as such, it is impossible to state that as a standalone truth or an axiom from which reasoning can be derived.
For example, I'd like to use this reply by BOD—Support 2. Clear, concise and correct. A trans woman is more than just a person, she is considered to be a woman. There is zero need to repeat that such an affirmative confirmed woman has also a female identity.
  • A trans woman is more than just a person, she is considered to be a woman—considered by who?? I don't think that the reasoning presented, alone, is enough to prove anything. That is the point I am trying to make.
Here is an argument for option 2 I like by Guest2625—The definition aligns with the Miriam Webster dictionary: "transwoman – a woman who was identified as male at birth". The reasoning uses a source to establish the idea that a trans woman is a woman, instead of simply stating it as truth. 2ple (talk) 20:48, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Considered by who? actually remember you have been advised at least twice above, this RfC has nothing to do with who has proof that trans women are women or not. This is simply the very first line of the lead section of an article, it does not need sourcing, only that it correctly reflects the body of the article that follows (and that it hopefully invites the reader to read further). ~ BOD ~ TALK 21:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the lead sentence does reflect the body. In the body we have:
  • [Rachel McKinnon] concludes that "trans women are women" who challenge socially constructed norms of what it means to be a woman.[1]
  • Thus trans women fall under the umbrella of being transgender because their gender was assigned male at birth but they identify as a woman.[2]
Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:13, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree that that isn't the point of the RFC. However.
Trans women are not universally agreed upon to be women. At least in my limited experience. Just read the first paragraph of the Terminology section. There is no agreed upon definition.
Therefore, I don't think that 'trans women are women' can standalone as truth without evidence/sourcing.
I am not trying to argue about whether or not trans women are women. 2ple (talk) 01:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
2ple, stop trying to use this talk page to discuss the validity of trans women as women and drop it. Multiple editors including myself have warned you that the way you are discussing this RFC is not condusive to good discussion. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Non nobis solum. 18:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
"I agree that that isn't the point of the RFC. However..." — that pretty much seems like the definition of WP:NOTFORUM to me. Mathglot (talk) 09:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
This comment is wrong for a large number of reasons. Firstly, the "context of the English Wikipedia" is not English-speaking countries, but the world, globally. Though of course we have huge demographic imbalances with editors, our policies and guidelines are (with no exception that I can think of) country, language and culture independent (minus the fact that we write our articles in varieties of English).
We do implicitly accept a number of ideologies on Wikipedia: accepting the ideology of the scientific method, for instance, is what allows us to state that climate change is happening and fringe theories do not deserve equal weight. We have notions of expertise, varying based on field and type of source, that allow us to decide what reliable sources are. There are many other (ideological) choices about determining fact that we could make.
But to speak to the point at hand, we do accept that trans women are women and trans men are men because this is what expert sources do. (I don't care what the guy in your local pub says.) For example, MOS:GENDERID mandates that we use gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's most recent expressed gender self-identification i.e. explicitly calling somebody a woman (resp. man) if they identify as a woman (resp. man). This was agreed through discussion between volunteers by consulting relevant style guides and all manner of expert sources. — Bilorv (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Bilorv, some expert sources say that trans women are women, and some do not. Do we know there is consensus among experts? Do only experts of certain disciplines say this? I don't have a sense of this yet. As for MOS:GENDERID, do you know where the discussions are where relevant style guides and all manner of expert sources were consulted? I'm going through the archives now. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:10, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Everyone is being polite for some reason, but this entire rant and its follow-ups should be hatted. Ridiculous to let this stand. Parabolist (talk) 22:29, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

If proposal 2 gains consensus, would those voting for it have any objection to the addition of ...but has a female gender identity i.e. the lede sentence would look like A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth, but has a female gender identity? I'd prefer 'but', since this is the less likely development, but I suppose 'and' would also be alright...  Tewdar  19:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Is it necessary to merge the first and part of the second sentences? Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:43, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
No, only if option 2 is chosen. 😁 If option 2 is chosen, the concept of gender identity is not explicitly included in the lede. Should I assume that you would not be happy with the Frankenproposal I suggested?  Tewdar  20:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I've proposed the "frankentext" a few times now (back in April and last August). Crossroads and Iamverygoodatcheckers raised concern with it being redundant and clunky phrasing, a concern I somewhat agree with, sheerly based on how long it is. As for but... I've somewhat softened on the issue a little, and could probably go either way there.
As for gender identity not being explicitly included in the lede, you seem mistaken. The current article text (of which Proposal 2 is currently a part) mentions it in the second sentence: Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition... –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 03:26, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, yes, for 'lede' read 'lede sentence'. I'm suggesting that the 'female gender identity' part be moved to the first sentence. It reads like this is just an incidental property rather than part of the definition at the moment. As for redundancy and length, I don't agree that FGI can be easily interpreted from 'woman', so it seems necessary to include this. Maybe it's a bit clunky. You got any better suggestions?  Tewdar  08:21, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Not "but", though "and" is fine. The connective "but" implies some tension or contradiction, but there is no contradiction between having a different sex and gender. Proposal 1 uses "and". — Bilorv (talk) 20:58, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
There's no contradiction, but a male gender identity is overwhelmingly the usual development for somebody assigned male at birth, which is why I'd prefer 'but'. 'And' is sort of, better than it not being there at all, I suppose, mumble grumble...  Tewdar  21:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Does MOS:GENDERID apply here? As far as I can tell the focus of GENDERID is on WP:BLP and WP:MOSBIO. Is it a valid and legitimate position that regardless of the sources on the topic, the wording is a woman is required by MOS:GENDERID? Theheezy (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

By my read of MOS:GENDERID, it wouldn't lead to requiring this article to use "is a woman" instead of "is a person" within the first sentence. It's about using the correct gendered words for a biography (pronouns, actor/actress, etc.), but "person" isn't gendered. Also, the example given later on suggests non-gendered terms are preferable if it would be confusing to use the correct gendered word (Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent).). I'm not suggesting "a trans woman is a woman..." is confusing, but it doesn't seem like MOS:GENDERID prohibits using a gender-neutral term. Politanvm talk 21:24, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, MOS:GENDERID doesn't imply we should use "is a woman" over "is a person" or vice versa. — Bilorv (talk) 09:05, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
No it doesn't apply. That would be using Wikipedia as a source. Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 01:47, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


References

  1. ^ McKinnon, Rachel. "Gender, Identity, and Society." Philosophy: Sex and Love, edited by James Petrik and Arthur Zucker, Macmillan Reference USA, 2016, pp. 175-198. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.
  2. ^ Levitt, Heidi M. "Transgender." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 2nd ed., vol. 8, Macmillan Reference USA, 2008, pp. 431-432. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Apr. 2017

"A trans woman is a woman" is not redundant.

Whether or not you believe that a trans woman is a woman, one thing that I see being stated numerous times in the survey comments is that the expression a trans woman is a woman is redundant. It is not redundant; that's a misunderstanding of the term redundant. Granted, it is repetitive; but there is nothing wrong with that—indeed, it is desirable in many cases.

I tried to explain this above, but I couldn't really make the point in a brief comment in response to a Survey !vote without interrupting the flow. So, this comment may be a bit repetitive, but hopefully it is not redundant.

There's been some commentary supporting !votes based on the assertion that the phrase "A trans woman is a woman" is redundant. But this is inaccurate; "redundant" and "repetitive" are not the same thing. Something that is "redundant" is "superfluous", "unnecessary", "inessential", "excessive". I suspect that some who are claiming the phrase is "redundant" may actually mean that it is "repetitive" and therefore argue for some sort of solution which observes elegant variation, such as "a trans woman ia a person" (or "an individual") but this is not helpful for various reasons that have been already explained.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with starting off an article with "An adj noun is a noun which ...", repeating the noun part of the subject noun phrase in the predicate of a copular sentence, where the subject noun phrase is a subclass of the larger class in the predicate. We do it all the time:

You get the picture; I could go on forever. There is nothing wrong with any of these WP:LEADSENTENCEs. The sentence defines the bolded attributive title as a subclass of the main topic consisting of the noun class repeated in the predicate; the dots at the end in each case explain the characteristics of that bolded subclass. The repetition in the predicate is not redundant, it is necessary to establish the class to which the title topic subclass belongs.

Of course, sometimes the meaning of a compound noun phrase is not determined by the definitions of the component parts, and repetition would be inaccurate:

It is precisely because of examples like these four, that the repeated noun in the predicate in the first batch of examples is required, and not redundant.

So *if* you believe sources support the meaning, then just say it: "A trans woman is a woman who...". This is completely standard usage in definitions, and there's no good reason to avoid such wording; certainly not because of a claim of supposd "redundancy". In that case, it isn't redundant, it's required to establish the containing class.

In addition, when evaluating definitions in sources, beware of cases where the source itself may be (misguidedly) skittish about repetition and use elegant variation instead, and so even though they make it clear that a trans woman is a woman, they may avoid saying so in one sentence in an attempt to avoid repetition and break it up into two or more sentences which amount to the same thing. We don't have to parrot what sources say word for word, and if it takes two or three sentences for a source to say "a trans woman is a woman", that is still the meaning, and we can word it however we like. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:17, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

This is becoming an (unintentional) straw man argument. A lack of redundancy is not a reason to include "is a woman". Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:28, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

"A trans woman is a woman" and NPOV

Can we discuss whether "is a woman" is DUE? I feel like that's the main question here and it's getting very little high quality discussion. CaptainEek, as an arbitrator, could you address this more? You stated in your !vote that it makes sense to go with the Merriam-Webster definition because they are the avowed experts on meaning. If we can settle this based on Merriam-Webster being the most reliable dictionary that would be great, but how do we know that? As I said in my !vote, per WP:TERTIARY it makes sense to evaluate weight based on dictionaries. Kolya Butternut (talk) 09:02, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut While I appreciate the vote of confidence, being an arb doesn't give me any special weight in this discussion :) At any rate, the weight of the sources is important. But weight is more than just the numerical quantity of sources, it's about the quality of sources. I've run into this a lot recently in writing about the american civil war: it's one of the most written about topics in the English language. To poll the opinion of even a fraction of sources would be impossible. So instead the resident editors have chosen a handful of the very best books on the subject and used them to break ties/be authoritative. Now, using that approach is a little harder here because there are no Pulitzer winning books about trans women (as far as I can tell). But in my mind, Merriam-Webster is a high quality authoritative source which is worth more than a dozen random websites. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I totally agree that Merriam-Webster is a high quality authoritative source which is worth more than a dozen random websites. In my mind it it better than the many other dictionaries, but can we back that up somehow? Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  • A previous discussion at WP:RSN about Dictionary.com: [3].
  • Lexico is defunct as of two days ago.
  • According to Columbia Journalism Review, "Merriam-Webster is 'synchronic,' meaning it concentrates on current, active vocabulary. The OED is 'diachronic,' written from a historical perspective. The two philosophies are complementary, not opposed, but that often means a word has to be in use longer to make the OED than it might take to get into M-W."[4]
I feel like this is starting to point us towards Merriam-Webster, but there's also a guideline which I can't locate about Wikipedia not being on the leading edge? Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:29, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Kolya, you probably mean WP:NOTLEAD, but the same is true of dictionaries, which are descriptivist, therefore by definition not in the vanguard, as they have to wait until a significant body of attestations are available before they can assess them and compile a definition. (You might also have been thinking of WP:SUSTAINED, but that's more about notability.) Mathglot (talk) 06:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
This discussion is focused on the question of whether it's a settled fact that trans women are indeed women in some sense of the word "woman." Now, in practice, when there is a debate about what trans women are, the issue is whether they are entitled to all the prerogatives of cisgender women; in other words, it's a question of law and social mores. Many of those taking part here are taking a position in that sort of debate. But that's not the issue here. The issue here is semantic: the meaning of the word "woman." According to the definition of that word in this very encyclopedia, trans women certainly are not women, because they are not humans of the sex that produces ova. The status quo is in blatant conflict with other WP articles that it refers to. There is a real controversy here, reflected in the sources, of which the article takes no cognizance whatsoever. It is a violation of NPOV for the article to advocate for a position, one way or the other. It should not state that trans women either are or are not women. It should instead recognize that there are different usages of that key word and leave it to the readers to choose for themselves. 24.20.73.137 (talk) 02:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Agree 2A00:23C5:4229:A601:4CF9:F504:DD51:9795 (talk) 13:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Woman says that A woman is an adult female human, and Female says In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender., ergo a woman can be an adult human whose gender is female, so there is no contradiction with Trans woman. Even if there was a contradiction, there is no Wikipedia policy or guideline that articles must be consistent with each other.
WP:NPOV says that All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Many reliable sources say, in some form, that "a trans woman is a woman". There is a lot of (in my opinion, futile) debate about the proportion of sources that say "is a person" or "is a woman", but there is no ambiguity that some reliable sources say "is a woman", so it is not a NPOV violation. Sure, the article body can talk about the variety of definitions, but this RfC is about the lead sentence, not the body of the article. Politanvm talk 21:11, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
This is what you just wrote:
1. All significant views published by reliable sources must be represented.
2. Some reliable sources say that trans women are women.
3. Therefore, only those sources need to be represented.
I've never seen a better example of Twitter/Reddit logic. 24.20.73.137 (talk) 03:30, 2 September 2022 (UTC) — 24.20.73.137 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
@CaptainEek: The only Pulitzer-nominated works involving transgender people I'm aware of are Middlesex, I Am My Own Wife, In the Darkroom, and "feeld" by Jos Charles. Suffice to say, these probably wouldn't be especially useful in assessing due weight here. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 20:54, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

On the topic "A trans woman is a woman" and NPOV, looking at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions it seems we have three options to choose from:

  1. "A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth", which is acceptable because the word "woman" can also be used to refer to gender and because it is supported by sources. Notwithstanding Merriam-Webster, however, one could doubt that this definition is reflected in common parlance, as most people wouldn't call "trans woman" a biological female who were assigned male at birth by mere oversight/typo. Based on popular meaning, one could argue that being a biological male at birth is a defining feature of "trans woman".
  2. In fact, also "A trans woman is a man who identifies as a female" is supported by sources (Poston, Handbook of Population). I understand that this definition would sound contentious, provocative and even insulting to some transgender people. Based on sources, it's also WP:FRINGE and UNDUE, so I think NPOV requires that we avoid it.
  3. IMHO "A trans woman is a person who was assigned male at birth and identifies as a female" is the NPOV definition. It overcomes the difficulties of option 1 and 2, it doesn't state with wikivoice that they are women or men, it doesn't take a stance on the position of trans women in society (should they be allowed to compete in sports as women? should they be allowed access to single-sex changing rooms and toilets? etc.). It seems to me that option 3 (which is Proposal 1 in the RfC) is the only one compatible with MOS:OPEN

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:06, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

"A trans woman is a man who identifies as a female" is supported by sources - no, Poston does not say a trans woman is a "man". He says that a 'trans woman,' is a genetic male consistent on all five biological definitions, by which he means chromosomes, gonads, sex-specific hormones, internal reproductive structures, and sex-specific external genitals. Funnily enough, Poston's definition is the only one on that page that mentions genetics, although one or two make some reference to 'biology'. Some even try to have cake and eat it, e.g. assigned the biological aspects of a male at birth..., assigned a male anatomical sex at birth...". I find it unlikely that many Wikipedians would support any mention of biology at all in the definition.  Tewdar  11:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Maybe it's unlikely that many Wikipedians would support any mention of biology, but it would be neither unreasonable nor unsupported by sources. Could a biological woman be called "trans woman" for the sole reason that she had been mistakenly assigned male at birth? Apparently being a biological men (a genetic male consistent on all five biological definitions) is a necessary (conceptual) feature of trans women. Therefore the definition "A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth" may sound surprising and POV - a way of making a point rather than providing an objective definition to introduce the subject. Speaking generically of "persons" or "individuals" (Proposal 1) is more in line with our policies and guidelines, and it's also more simple because it saves us from having to explain if we use man/woman and male/female with reference to gender or biology. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:40, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Could a biological woman be called "trans woman" for the sole reason that she had been mistakenly assigned male at birth? - according to my reading of the article and the sources used to support this definition... I'd have to say the answer would be yes.  Tewdar  12:19, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Conversely, it would also appear to exclude, say, a genetic male consistent on all five biological definitions with a female gender identity who was not assigned male at birth, for whatever reason.  Tewdar  12:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I agree with your reading of the article and the sources. However, both answers sound puzzling to me, they are not self-evident and they are incompatible with the definition by Poston. So Proposal 2 is basically maintaining that Poston is wrong and that common usage is wrong, and that we should say so with wikivoice. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:26, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Welcome to Butlerpedia, the post-structuralist encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but nobody can understand... 😭  Tewdar  14:57, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I think you meant Derridapedia. Mathglot (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, it certainly is a catchy name. But surely an encyclopedia needs more than a single article?  Tewdar  11:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Replies to Aquillion's !vote

The following thread was originally positioned as a reply to Aquillion's !vote in the Survey section. I have moved it here due to its length. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:20, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Citation needed! Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, since you asked. That's an additional twenty-plus citations to broadly high-quality academic sources using wording very close to our current version. It's clearly the overwhelming majority in academic sources, at least by my searching. I also take issue with the assessment of that list above (even before my additions.) The proposal is to change the wording to person, which has clear implications; it is completely misleading to lump together every source that uses any other wording. Only about 16-17 sources total in that list use "person" as the operative term. But either way the twenty-plus academic sources I found in a quick search outweigh all other sources currently on the list - particularly notable since the list has existed for two years, yet a few hours of searching turned up a massive number of sources that had been overlooked. Most importantly, though, virtually all of these sources point to the same, singular, straightforward definition. The other items on the list don't point in any one particular direction (hence my objection of how so many of the ones being used to argue for a change to "person" don't actually use that word) - they're enough to establish that some other terms exist, sure, but none of them have the clear consensus support among academic sources that "a trans woman is a woman" does. --Aquillion (talk) 02:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Thank you Aquillion for this. One of my main concerns over the definitions subpage was that it lacked a great many academic sources which I know overwhelmingly state "a trans woman is a woman", as well as some other sources that would be relevant (eg AP Stylebook, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, NHS, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, etc). It was something I had hoped to address prior to the RfC being launched, and I regret not noting this absence prior, however I've not had the time to do so.
There are still some sources missing, like those I've named above, however the list is more comprehensive now and representative of the academic consensus on this. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
NHS is already present: We use "trans woman" for someone who was registered male at birth and now identifies as a woman.[5] Iamreallygoodatcheckerst@lk 02:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. I'd searched for the acronym, as that is the more familiar way for a UK native to refer to the service, and not the full name. My bad, struck that now. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:02, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Aquillion, the definitions list still needs more work. You've only added scholarly articles which use "is a woman", but we need to compare that to how many articles use alternative language. And I think that it is fair to lump together every source that uses any other wording than woman, because woman is a contentious term [6] while "person", etc., are not. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I strenuously disagree that using "person" in this context is uncontentious; in fact my !vote more or less stated as much explicitly when I said that I felt that option 2 is not neutral. The fact that some people disagree with the wording used overwhelmingly by academic sources does not make it "contentious" by Wikipedia standards; after all, if that were the case, evolution or who won the 2020 US election would also be "contentious." More generally it is hard to credit the argument that a definition used so precisely and repeatedly by high-quality sources, generally with no disclaimers or indications that it is considered controversial at all, could be as contentious among top-quality sources as the culture-war furor implies. What this means is that if you want to argue that any specific wording has a stronger consensus among sources behind it and is therefore less contentious, you must demonstrate stronger use for that specific wording (or for mild variations which keep the same key word) than there is for "a trans woman is a woman..." If you think there are sources that are overlooked, you can add them to the list, but at least as far as my position goes, if you want to argue that any wording is less contentious than "a trans woman is a woman...", you must demonstrate that a specific wording has stronger usage behind it. --Aquillion (talk) 03:35, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Stating that a trans woman is a person does not imply that a trans woman is not a woman; it's just avoiding a contentious statement. No RS say that a trans woman is not a person. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:09, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Stating that a trans woman is a person does not imply that a trans woman is not a woman - that is your interpretation, which I obviously do not share. When there is an overwhelming number of sources referring to trans women as women in their core definition, referring to them as a "person" instead in our definition clearly carries a POV, and is plainly a contentious statement that requires high-quality sourcing. --Aquillion (talk) 04:15, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
"Just avoiding a contentious statement" by using a double negative like

no RS says that a trans woman is not a person

doesn't really work; no RS says that a trans woman is not a featherless biped, either, so that wording is uncontentious with respect to truth, but contentious wrt how Wikipedia generally works. We editors aren't tasked with coming up with wording of our own merely in order to avoid supposedly contentious statements made by actual sources. If the world views the sources as contentious, they'll probably view Wikipedia's summary of them as contentious as well; and that's as it should be. Mathglot (talk) 04:30, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
"A trans woman is a person" is WP:OBV. Cherrypicking sources which state "is a woman" and then stating "there is an overwhelming number of sources referring to trans women as women in their core definition" is unnecessarily muddying the waters and casts doubt on the statement which might actually be true. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:51, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
"A trans woman is a featherless biped" is also WP:OBV but that doesn't mean it's WP:NPOV. In fact, we could go further: "A trans woman is a person who was born with XY chromosomes and socialized male but later claims to be a woman" is all arguably WP:OBV as per the facts but still clearly POV. It's possible to push a POV by careful selection of unambiguously true facts. Loki (talk) 01:45, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Not really equivalent since none of the sourced definitions mention chromosomes, socialization, or "claim". Crossroads -talk- 06:21, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
In general, I don't think it will be very helpful to decide the lead sentence based on a simple count of definitions. I'm sure there are hundreds or thousands of potentially reliable sources, and there's no way we'll be able to census all of them. So it would likely come down to people hunting for the definitions they want. It's clear that both Option 1 and Option 2 are supported by numerous reliable sources, and either would be due. Also, the two options don't contradict each other, but rather are different wordings for the same thing. I think focusing on the components of WP:FIRST (none of which are "use the definition that has the most citations") will get this RfC to a better outcome. Politanvm talk 04:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
If anyone has access to some of the journalistic style-guides which Sideswipe9th mentioned, their research would be greatly appreciated. I can't personally reach the latest AP Stylebook, but their Transgender Coverage Topical Guide (while it doesn't offer a definition of trans woman) does offer the following guidance which seems somewhat relevant:

  • Use the term sex (or gender) assigned at birth instead of biological sex, birth gender, was identified at birth as, born a girl and the like.

  • The word identify is frequently used to describe how someone views themself and can be useful when writing about issues of identity. But often phrasing like is a woman is more to the point than identifies as a woman.

  • Avoid terms like biological male, which opponents of transgender rights sometimes use to oversimplify sex and gender, is often misleading shorthand for assigned male at birth, and is redundant because sex is inherently biological.

–RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 03:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
@Aquillion Could you explain your methodology of finding the sources you have added to the definitions page? I went and listed the citation count for each academic source at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions, the average citation count for the first 9 sources is 316 with a stddev of 506. The sources you have added have an average citation count of 26 with stddev 40, a difference of an order of magnitude. This crude analysis indicates that your sources are likely not coming from the same population as the first 9 sources. I will do a more fine grained analysis with well understood statistical tools later.
I would assume that the proper way to add sources to the list would be to search on Google Scholar with the terms 'Trans woman', and add each source which defines the term. This approach emphasizes well cited and relevant papers as Google Scholar strongly prefers to list these papers first. This is about as close as we can get to a weighted (by citation) Simple random sample, which I think is what we should aim for when trying to understand the weight among the academic community.
Could you specify your methodology in collecting your sources? Theheezy (talk) 06:12, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm also interested in the methodology, and it's hard at first glance to imagine anything other than a targeted search which elicits the desired result, but I'm all ears. Mathglot (talk) 07:47, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
It was based on a variety of Google Scholar searches for different terms. To be clear, WP:CHERRYPICKED is about citing specific things to cherrypicked statements from within a source that are contradicted within that source or which fundamentally misrepresents it; it specifically says it does not apply to broader knowledge of sources or attempts to find them - it spells that out carefully in the third paragraph and the section near the end. That is instead covered by WP:BURDEN, ie. I have a burden to find sources for assertions I make, or for things I "know" or believe to be true, while other people have a burden to find sources for their own alternative assertions. I certainly do not intend to present the sources I listed as a random sample (they obviously are not), but I certainly don't accept that the list was a random sample prior to that, either; and the thrust of my argument is not that this represents a random sample of all sources but that this shows overwhelming usage of a specific definition, which is used in a wide variety of professional contexts and which no other specific definition can compare to. The existing sources that people point to for other definitions are a scattershot variety of definitions that do not support any particular wording. Obviously, if someone thinks I'm wrong about that they're welcome to produce sources demonstrating it, but the burden to find sources supporting option 1 obviously isn't on me; and if someone does that work then we can compare what we've dug up. --Aquillion (talk) 20:29, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
You added 36 sources which all state that a trans woman "is a woman". WP:POVPUSH: The term "POV-pushing" is primarily used in regard to the presentation of a particular point of view in an article, including on talk page discussions. It is on you and everyone to try to present NPOV information. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Kolya Butternut you're asking Aquillion to find multiple sources for you. That goes against WP:BURDEN, where it is the responsibility of an editor challenging a claim (in this case you) to provide the citations. If you believe that the array of sources Aquillion has added are not representative of sources in this subject, then it is on you to prove that by showing the sources that state otherwise.
With respect to a POVPUSH, based on my own understanding of this content area, this is not a POVPUSH. The sources Aquillion has added do represent the mainstream view, that a trans woman is a woman. This is not an aggressive presentation nor is it denoting the undue presentation of minor or fringe ideas. The shortcoming with the list of sources in the definition page at the opening of this RfC, which I remarked on earlier, was something that I had hoped to address myself prior to the RfC launching. However off-wiki circumstances had prevented me from doing so. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:43, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I share the interest in methodology. In its current state, the "Academic publications" section of Talk:Trans woman/Definitions contains a definition (similar to option 1 in this RFC) from The Lancet, and another definition (similar to option 2) from the Journal of Music Teacher Education. While I'm sure the Journal of Music Teacher Education is a fine journal of music teacher education, I do not think it should be included in the same group as The Lancet, despite both being academic journals. Also, it's unfortunate that all these definitions were added to late in this process, in the middle of the RFC, and not during the weeks that this was being discussed (and the definitions were being analyzed). Unfortunate because I don't think the definitions page is much help anymore, until we go through and start weighing sources instead of just listing them, and also probably using some kind of agreed-upon methodology for searching for and including sources in the first place. Maybe procedural close and back to the drawing board. Levivich 23:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
With respect, there was only five days between the substantive reorganisation of the definitions page, and the launch of the RfC. And only seventeen days between the launch of the RfC, and when one was first proposed on this issue.
I would also be opposed to a procedural close on this point. I do not think the definitions page is somehow less useful now that the balance has shifted against your preferred option. If you believe that the sources added do not represent the mainstream point of view on this topic, then WP:BURDEN is pretty clear that it is on you to demonstrate this with sourcing of your own. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:55, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Let's correct a few errors in your reply: I did not propose an RFC and what you linked to is not an RFC proposal. I did not launch this RFC. I did not vote in this RFC, and I do not have a preferred option in this RFC (especially not since the definitions page has been updated). The burden is not on me to do anything here, nor on anyone else. And WP:BURDEN, the actual page, has nothing whatsoever to do with RFCs or voting in them. Nobody here is claiming that either Option 1 or Option 2 are unverifiable, which is what WP:BURDEN is about. (I don't know why some editors link to WP:BURDEN whenever they use the word "burden" as if linking the word somehow makes the argument stronger.) The one point where I do agree with you is that this RFC was launched too soon; we would have benefited from taking more time to analyze the RSes, and the RFC question should have been workshopped first. I expect this RFC will end in no consensus and everyone will end up taking another look at the RSes anyway, functionally the same as a procedural close but less efficient. Levivich 00:08, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Re I did not propose an RFC and what you linked to is not an RFC proposal. You were the first person to mention an RfC during recent discussions when you said I wonder whether we should have an RFC with those two options (one somewhat-minor quibble: I would change the "but" to "and" in Option 2)
I did not vote in this RFC, and I do not have a preferred option in this RFC While you have not !voted, you did indicate a preference for option 2 of the 2018 RfC, based on your own analysis of the definitions subpage. Option 2 of the 2018 RfC is identical to proposal 1 of the current RfC, while swapping "but" for "and", which is a "somewhat-minor quibble" you felt needed addressing in the prior wording.
The relevance of WP:BURDEN comes from repeated challenges to WP:FINDSOURCESFORME above by Kolya Butternaut, per you challenge them to find a source that disproves your unsourced claim. BURDEN applies somewhat to arguments made on the talk page, where if an editor says "X represents the mainstream perspective", then it is the requirement of that editor to demonstrate it, either via the sourcing already present in the article, or new sourcing. If another editor wants to assert otherwise, that "X is not the mainstream POV", then again it is on that editor to demonstrate it via either new sourcing or materials that are already present in the article.
While I'm obviously involved, having !voted and commented a couple of times, so you can take my reading with a pinch of salt if you wish, but I would say that based on the current discussion and quality of the arguments presented at the time of writing this reply, that there is a weak and rough consensus for the status quo option and not no consensus. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Sideswipe, please do not mischaracterize my asking people if they think there should be another RfC as "proposing" an RfC, nor mischaracterize analysis as my "preference". These are not honest characterizations and I would appreciate you striking them. Levivich 14:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I do not believe I have mischaracterised what you've said in any way, and I wonder if perhaps there is an WP:ENGVAR issue at play here?
To me, as a native speaker of British English, saying I wonder whether we should have an RFC is a weak proposal for that action, as it is suggesting a course of action to resolve an issue. A strong proposal for an action would have instead been a statement like We should have an RFC, leaving out the possibility of not having one.
As for preference, I think that is a fair way to describe that contribution. You read through the definitions subpage, and formed an opinion based upon that analysis. I also read through the definitions subpage at that time, and formed a different opinion based on my analysis. Your analysis lead you to suggest through question, if an RfC should be held on the issue. My analysis lead me to the conclusion that the subpage was incomplete, because it lacked key definitions and usages. Both conclusions are equally valid, depending on your perspective and background knowledge of a subject.
As such, I will not be striking my comments at this time, because I do not believe they need to be struck. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
There a lot of problems with this comment, but I must object to your characterizations of my comments. The claims I made were that at the time of my !vote the RS overwhelmingly did not support the "is a woman" language, and I claimed that woman is a contentious term with a source.[7] Here are more: [8] [9] [10] Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:32, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I have not made commentary on your !vote. Nor have I made comments on whether or not 'is a woman' is a contentious term.
What I have commented on is your requests ([11], [12]) to Aquillion to find sources for you, while accusing them of POVPUSHing ([13]) and cherrypicking ([14]). The unsourced claim is that "is a woman" is not the phraseology used by the majority of reliable sources, and that still remains unsourced and undemonstrated. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Where did I claim "is a woman" is not the phraseology used by the majority of reliable sources?
I have not requested that Aquillion find sources for me. I criticized Aquillion for selectively adding definitions which state "is a woman", and I said that the definitions list still needs more work before they can conclude that that language is clearly the overwhelming majority in academic sources.[15] Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Levivich, I agree the late addition is unfortunate. The subpage is over two years old and has been added to by numerous editors both inclined for and against the existing text. I purposely argued against an RfC at the time the page was created to allow time for a representative sample to develop and for both sides to add sources. Crossroads -talk- 06:34, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Replies to JoePhin's !vote

The following thread was originally positioned as a reply to JoePhin's !vote in the Survey section. I have moved it here due to its length. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 04:20, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

In lieu of stronger evidence of such a debate… between reliable sources, this seems like an appeal to FALSEBALANCE. Can you point to RSs which declare that trans women are not women, or otherwise define trans identities as a point of serious debate and controversy? The sources listed at Talk:Trans woman/Definitions currently seem split between is a woman who… and is a person who…, which are not mutually exclusive. I’m not seeing any trans women believe they are women but are actually… or is a man who… in there. Are there sources which feel obliged to give equal weight to both views as part of their definition, and not in a more relevant context (such as a section/article/entry about the groups who hold each viewpoint)? –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 06:35, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Re Can you point to RSs which declare that trans women are not women:
The notion that transwomen are defined by their being biologically male is both reasonable and widespread: they have one X and one Y chromosome (XY), which implies that most of them have penis and scrotum and also present secondary sexual characteristics. Defining them as "men who believe they are women" might be blunt, politically incorrect, offensive to them, but it's not WP:FRINGE as plenty of sources, both scholarly and mainstream, define them in that way. However, defining transwomen as "a person who was assigned male at birth and has a female gender identity" (proposal 1) makes for a sensible middle-ground and is supported by many HQRS. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:23, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Re: plenty of sources, scholarly and mainstream - your scholarly sources for this seem a little bit threadbare. So a demographer, a law professor and a grief counselor walk into a drag show ... dammit, where's Tewdar to finish the joke. :p Newimpartial (talk) 11:13, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I didn't understand your unfinished joke and I don't know who or what is Tewdar, but I'd suggest to avoid off-topic, chat-like conversation because it can be distracting and easily misunderstood. If you just you don’t like the sources I provided, maybe the following ones are best:
  • "transwomen (biological males who identify as female or transgender)": Koken, Juline A.; Bimbi, David S.; Parsons, Jeffrey T. (2009). "Experiences of familial acceptance–rejection among transwomen of color". Journal of Family Psychology. 23 (6). American Psychological Association (APA): 853–860. doi:10.1037/a0017198. ISSN 1939-1293.
  • "transwoman: Biological male who identifies as female": Berg, Wendie A.; Leung, Jessica W. T. (2019). Diagnostic imaging. Breast. Philadelphia, PA. p. 862. ISBN 978-0-323-54814-4. OCLC 1231987709.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
The point, however, is not how many sources say "trans woman is a person who..." (Proposal 1), "is a woman who..." (Proposal 2) or "is a man who..." (missing proposal). The point is that today "transwoman is a woman" is a controversial statement. This is the elephant in the room: we all know it's true, and we shouldn't dodge the fact and hide it away. So Proposal 2 is basically Wikipedia taking a stance on a controversial ethical and political issue. Do you really need sources showing that it is controversial?
  • Saul, Jennifer Mather; Sheffield, University of (2012-03-14). "Politically Significant Terms and Philosophy of Language:Methodological Issues". Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199855469.003.0009.:

    I would argue that trans women are women and should therefore be allowed to use women’s toilets. But many others, some of them perhaps lawmakers, would insist that trans women are not women and that therefore they should not be allowed to use women’s toilets. I would like to say that these lawmakers are wrong when they say “Trans women are not women” to one another. But according to the contextualist view, their utterances of this sentence are perfectly true. I can insist all I want that “Trans women are women” is true—and it is, when I say it to my like-minded friends, but this does not mean that their utterance of “Trans women are not women” is false. Nor can I argue that their law banning trans women from women’s restrooms is at odds with the meaning of “women.” There are simply different standards at work in the lawmakers’ context

  • Jarvis, Edward (2022-04-29). ""Men" and "Women" in Everyday English". Journal of Controversial Ideas. 2 (1). MDPI AG: 1. doi:10.35995/jci02010005. ISSN 2694-5991.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link):

    the same sentence can seem to some to state an obvious truth but to others a logical or metaphysical impossibility (“Transwomen are women” and “Some men have cervixes” are topical examples) … These results suggest that different people use “men” and “women” to mark different distinctions, but the majority use them to mark a distinction of biological sex.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:51, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
There seems to be a STRAWMAN emerging here. I don't believe anyone in this discussion denies that the term "woman" varies both denotatively and connotatively depending on the context, and that some of these meanings exclude trans woman. However, this is an article about a gender identity (and gender expression) and so - as I have said before - the most relevant definitions of "woman" in this context deal with gender. While I believe both Option A and Option B of this RfC can be supported from the available sources, I do not believe that the POV language transwomen (which is now a dog whistle term, yet you choose to use it) are defined by their being biologically male is supported by anything but a tiny minority of recent HQRS - although it is in fact supported by a large number of LQ, RSOPINION sources.
Also, I don't believe that anyone in this discussion denies that there is a political debate about the inclusion of trans women as women (though this debate is specific to contexts; it is much more active for example in the UK and the US than in Spain or Canada). You assert that there is also an ethical debate, though the philosophy sources you have added are bit notably from ethicists, so I don't really regard that claim as substantiated in your part.
And so we come back to the drag show the sourcing. The RS you have proposed on this fit entirely into one or more of the following categories: (1) pre-2010 sources from relevant fields, which will age out of being "recent RS", (2) philosophers and legal scholars writing about/contributing to the political debate (including Edward Jarvis whose absurd "methodology" on this I have mocked elsewhere) and (3) sources offering what WP:FRINGE calls "expertise in a different field" (grief counseling, diagnostic imaging, etc.) That's it. And there are only about a half dozen of these - far from enough to establish that "trans women are defined by their chromosomes" is more than a FRINGE POV in the context of this article and its lede. (And what happens when these random exemplars walk into a drag show is, sadly, still to be worked out my less serious minds than mine.) Newimpartial (talk) 13:35, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I oppose the claim that we should turn to gender studies for the best definition of "trans woman". That's a misunderstanding of what a lead section is about - see especially MOS:FIRST. We didn't turn to legal philosophy for a definition of "law" for the opening sentence of Law, although legal philosophers spend most of their time discussing about what is the law, and we didn't turn to criminology for a definition of crime for the opening sentence of Crime. We turn to legal philosophy, criminology and gender studies to fill articles with encyclopedic contents. But the opening sentence "should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is" and should "define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view". Here we are risking to turn the opening sentence into a contentious political manifesto. Besides, the subject of this article is not exclusively in the field of gender studies, but also in the fields of philosophers, legal scholars, psychologists, physicians, etc., whose contributions should not be disqualified. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I didn't say or mean gender studies, I said and meant gender. Many fields deal with gender, gender identity and gender expression, including psychology, medicine, human rights law, sociology, etc., etc. And when each of these fields deals with gender, the mainstream view is that "woman" is a gender identity held by both cis and trans women. Your handful of dissidents, including aging sources and sources that are clearly ill-acquainted with gender as a concept, do not establish that, as WP:FRINGE puts it, a reasonable amount of academic debate exists whether trans women are female in gender. Newimpartial (talk) 15:20, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
this is an article about a gender identity (and gender expression) and so - as I have said before - the most relevant definitions of "woman" in this context deal with gender. Are you saying that the definiens (such as "woman") must refer to gender identities because the definiendum ("trans woman") is a gender identity? If so, this is a paralogism. If you were correct, Aristotle's definitions by genus and differentia would be the only possible definitions, which is absurd.
Anyway, my "handful of dissidents" are actually widespread and much in line with common parlance, that identifies trans women with men with a female gender identity. Luckily we can avoid unnegotiable POV conflicts between "women who were assigned male at birth" and "man who have a female gender identity" by simply saying "persons who were assigned male at birth and have a female gender identity". Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:13, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
"Common parlance" may include such expressions as "across the world", but it cannot be used as evidence that the world is flat, much as Jarvis might attempt the equivalent argument. But anyway, I havent seen evidence beyond Jarvis's misconceived experiment (which was based on gender roles rather than gender identity) suggesting that common parlance...identifies trans women with men with a female gender identity. This seems to be something people say to support their POV that trans women are not women, and nothing more. That isn't an argument in line with WP WP:RS policy, I'm afraid.
And to deal with your initial paragraph, I made no such argument; you have constructed a straw goat, sorry to say. My argument is that because the domain of the term is gender identity etc., it must be defined using sources that are reliable within the domain of gender. Nothing more, and nothing less. Newimpartial (talk) 16:25, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
cis-but-2-ene
trans-but-2-ene
Did you mean to put two bullet points, User RoxySaunders? Anyway, countless sources define a woman as "an adult human female" or some variation on that.[1][2][3][4][5] "Female," incidentally, is defined as 'the sex that produces gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes (sperm).' Since trans women aren't female, in the biological sense, they aren't women, in the biological sense. This is the most common available definition of what a woman is, by the way.
When dealing with any scientific issue, that's probably the best definition of "woman" to use. And, if one is concerned about biological reproduction, that's probably also the definition one wants to use. However, unless one is the type of pervert who goes around checking under ladies' skirts and pulling down men's pants to inspect their gametes, that's not how we actually determine who is and isn't a woman in day-to-day situations. For that, we mostly use the social role that the person is filling at any one time. Not everyone who fills the social role of a woman is a woman, but that's mostly how we tell in the day-to-day, and for that purpose, we don't use the scientific definition, we use a simple intuitive method that counts passing trans women and, sadly, generally doesn't count non-passing trans women. In more niche, gender-critical circles, the tautological "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" definition is used. One notes that this definition is pretty bonkers, since we don't use identity or tautologies to define any other morphological characteristics (one wouldn't say that anyone who identifies as 10 feet tall is 10 feet tall, for example). However, using gender identity works well to exclude people who fill the social role of women without themselves identifying as women.
All of these conceptions of what a woman is are valid for different purposes, and different people use different methods for determining what a woman is. It isn't our job, as Wikipedia editors, to decide which one is the "correct" one, we should merely report on the fact that some people use one definition and others use another method. It's hardly false balance to present the most commonly given definition of what a trans woman is (a person who has a feminine gender identity that doesn't correspond to their biological sex, which is literally where we get the word trans from), alongside other less common but equally valid definitions that eliminate the distinction between biologically female women and non-biologically female women. As you can probably tell, I use the intuitive method in my day-to-day life, as do most people, but that doesn't mean: The biological definition is wrong, only the intuitive method or the gender-critical tautology is right! And there's no debate on this issue! None at all! Can't you tell how little debate there is on this issue from the massive thread above!? That's just silly, and it's equally silly to simply state in Wikivoice that trans woman are women, as if there is no scientific or cultural contention on this issue. Joe (talk) 08:43, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Re: "Female," incidentally, is defined as 'the sex that produces gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes (sperm).' I think you know, Joe, that this definition only applies in certain situations; applying it as a specification of the "adult human female" definition you have also provided, in order to arrive at a most common definition of what a woman is, is WP:SYNTH, as you also ought to realize. Newimpartial (talk) 11:22, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
No, User Newimpartial, saying "the word 'woman' is defined by many RS as 'adult human female,' thus women are female," is WP:NOTSYNTH, particularly SYNTH is not the word "thus". Please see also WP:NOTOR, particularly "Identifying synonymous terms, and collecting related information under a common heading is also part of writing an encyclopedia. Reliable sources do not always use consistent terminology, and it is sometimes necessary to determine when two sources are calling the same thing by different names. This does not require a third source to state this explicitly, as long as the conclusion is obvious from the context of the sources." In this case, since the word female is used in common between two simple definitions, this is doubly NOTOR. Using synonyms is never OR or SNYTH.
Moreover, what exactly about User Gitz's many RS did you find 'threadbare'? Calling a large number of RS 'threadbare' doesn't just make them evaporate. The fact is that many RS produce differing statements about what a trans woman is, what a woman is, etc. The article lede should reflect all these RS, not just those we prefer. Joe (talk) 12:26, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
The assertion that when RS use the phrase "adult human female", they are referring specifically to "female" as "the sex that produces ova" - as opposed to the many differing definitions of "female" - is unsupported by sources. It is WP:OR to assert this without evidence that this is the meaning of "female" used in a specific instance. Your argument that the word "female" has this particular definition in both contexts, so that the first definition can be read into the subsequent phrase, is a classic instance of WP:SYNTH.
Also, if you want to discuss the Gitz sources, let's do so in the Gitz subthread. Newimpartial (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Um, there are like 30 more sources like this on the definitions subpage. "Threadbare"? :-) If you look at the sum total of sources we've collected so far (supporting 1 and 2), they're pretty evenly split. And both sides include non-medical sources: eg law reviews, even a music journal IIRC, but also advocacy orgs. That's why the sources need further analysis (eg catalogued by specialty and date) to draw any conclusions about what the sources say, about what's mainstream and what's not. It's why this RfC was launched too soon. Levivich (talk) 15:28, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
What I was referring to as threadbare was Gitz's CHERRYPICKed list of "trans women are not women" sources; that doesn't map onto the split between Option 1 and Option 2 sources - that's wasn't what I was talking about. Newimpartial (talk) 15:42, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't recall you saying the same about Aquillion's equally-cherry-picked sources. It's not fair to call them "cherry picked", when they are provided in response to the question, "are there any sources that support...". Similarly, you critique a law journal but I don't recall you critiquing the music journal used to support the opposite view. Admit it: there are many sources that support both options. Neither option is the sole mainstream view, and neither is fringe. Levivich (talk) 15:55, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
But I'm not talking about 1 vs. 2, both of which I have already noted to be supported by sources. I am talking only (in this subthread) about Joe's SYNTH claim that all the "adult human female" sources support a strictly ova-based definition, and (in the Gitz subthread) about the CHERRYPICKED sources presented there as though they showed an academic debate about whether trans women are defined by their chromosomes. That is a WP:FRINGE view, and that had nothing really to do with the support in sources for 1 or 2. Newimpartial (talk) 16:03, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
It's funny - an editor asks "Can you point to RSs which declare that trans women are not women", another editor shares RSs on the point, and a third editor disqualifies them because they are...CHERRYPICKED! But if you're trying to argue that "trans women are women" is not controversial and/or that contrary statements are FRINGE, and therefore Proposal 2 is fully compatible with MOS:OPEN, I think you need better arguments. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:21, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I just don't think you've shown evidence of controversy within the on-topic, recent RS. Is there a political controversy about trans rights and trans existence? Sure there is. Newimpartial (talk) 16:43, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
And all those people (a majority of the population in the U.S., according to a recent Gallup poll) who think that trans women should not have all the privileges of women, such as the privilege to compete as women in sports, would nevertheless accept the definition of trans women as women. No controversy there at all. Or perhaps they just don't count, because they're "fringe." They've been "fringe" since 2010, when a cultural revolution occurred and everyone who publishes reliable sources accepted the status-quo definition. Published sources older than that reflect the old order and are no longer reliable.
If this so-called debate were anything other than a ridiculous kangaroo court, it would consider reasonable proposals for neutral language that doesn't beat readers over the head with ideology. For example, "A trans woman was labeled male at birth but has a female gender identity." 24.20.73.137 (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
(note: I refactored your reply to be positioned as a reply to the ongoing thread, rather than to Firefangledfeathers' vote). Wikipedia doesn't count the opinions of the majority of the population because their opinions aren't published in high-quality reliable sources, which is, and always has been, the standard for ascribing due weight to viewpoints. Popular wisdom is frequently wrong, and sentences that begin with According to a poll, 51% of Americans believe... aren't always the most flattering. Likewise, you should not be quite so surprised that WP:AGE MATTERS: older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed.. For the record, a similar proposal to yours (removing is a [person/woman/someone] entirely) was considered in preceding discussions. I don't see it as a major improvement over Proposal 1, but you're welcome to discuss alternatives. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 03:28, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
references for replies to JP

  1. ^ Google
  2. ^ Mosby (2009). Mosby's Pocket Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions - E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 1453. ISBN 978-0323066044.
  3. ^ Venes D (2017). Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. F.A. Davis. p. 2539. ISBN 978-0803659407.
  4. ^ Dictionary.com
  5. ^ Dictionary.Cambridge.org

Grouping the sources in Talk:Trans woman/Definitions

Hello @RoxySaunders, with regard to this, [16] I'm wondering: if I were to change the heading of the third subsection from "trans women are men/males" into "trans women are males", would that adequately address your concern? Or are you referring to something else when you say the grouping here is biased and blatantly misrepresents the intentions of various sources? Grouping the sources into three subsections (female/male/unspecified) seems to me quite helpful and straightforward, and it increases the intelligibility of the list for the purposes of the RfC. Is there another way you propose we could do it? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:52, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

My issue is the false trichotomy itself. You've demonstrated multiple times your penchant for conflating sex and gender terms, but in this context, "assigned male", "biological male", and even Goldman's "males" are not comments on the gender of trans women, nor are they negations of "woman". As evidence, Poston and Goldman each go out of their way to emphasize she/her pronouns when describing them. The only source in this list which actually holds the anti-trans viewpoint set out by your heading is Asteriti & Bull (a comment in a law review, which, as I understand it, does not represent a rigorously peer-reviewed HQRS, but merely the opinion of two lawyers). It strikes me as disingenuous to lump TERF gender-critical ramblings in alongside four research papers (research with the intent of improving the lives and experiences of transgender people) as if they all demonstrated that a trans woman is a man is a valid academic POV that Wikipedia must compromise with, or treat as anything except simple bigotry. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 17:15, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
To add to this: the objection here is that "trans women are biologic/genetic males who..." is as relevant to the question of their gender as "trans women are assigned male at birth". Neither of those are the actual full definition nor should the mention of the word "male" in a definition be automatically assumed to mean the definition is "trans women are males". Loki (talk) 17:29, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree: the mention of the word "male" in a definition doesn't necessarily imply something about gender - it doesn't imply "a trans woman is a man". Actually I don't think we differ as to how we read the sources, but we might have a different understanding of what this survey of sources is about.
To me it obvious that the survey is a mere collection of definitions of "trans women". Most of the sources do not deal even remotely with the issue of trans women's gender identity, and qualifying them as pro-trans/anti-trans/TERF would be an overstretch. E.g. Handbook of Population, The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, Endocrine Reviews, Journal of Music Teacher Education, etc.: most of the sources don't give this issue much thought. That's way this survey may be useful for the opening paragraph, which must only identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific (MOS:OPEN).
In fact, to deal with trans women's gender identity, and to distinguish what's FRINGE and what's mainstream within that debate, we don't need an opening sentence but rather a self-standing section, which we editors would do better to write. That issue is full of theory and is full of politics, and to write about it one needs entirely different kind of sources: e.g. Rachel McKinnon (I take it as now well-established that trans women are women. Full stop. Thus, the flawed ideology … at the heart of this propaganda is that trans women are men)[1], Kathleen Stock (We are told by progressive-styled organisations and leaders that, quite literally, transgender women … are women … Since on ordinary understandings, trans women are by definition biologically male … this looks like a radical shift in usage)[2] and IMHO the beautiful contribution by Lori Watson[3].
Writing the opening sentence, however, is an entirely different issue: we don’t need to say loud and clear the Truth emerging from debate; besides, the debate is still ongoing. We just need that kind of lexical definition we find in the survey of sources. So, looking at it, it's seems to me reasonable to classify the definitons there listed as follows:
  1. “trans women are women who…”
  2. “trans women are people who…”
  3. “trans women are males who…”.
Let me repeat the point: the third set is not necessarily based on an anti-trans approach to gender issue – as Roxy noted, that's likely not the case Poston and Goldman. The first set is the only one that probably takes a stance on the gender identity of trans women, but most of the definitions under 2. and 3. are not related to that topic. And yet they are reasonable and useful definitions of "trans woman", although I'd avoid definitions under 3. because they could easily be misunderstood, as this discussion proves, as a theoretical and normative stance on gender identity. By the way, thank you Roxy for your WP:REFACTORING powers, they are much appreciated. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 18:49, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
To the extent that you're talking solely about the sources grouping topic implied by your section header, I don't have an objection. But where you start to talk about what's appropriate for the lead sentence, that seems to be very much a different matter. Regardless how contentious it is in sources, you're going to have to say *something* about gender identity of trans women in the lead sentence, imho, because without gender identity, there are no trans women. That the task of writing it may be difficult, doesn't absolve us of that fact. Mathglot (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Gitz: what? "Trans women" are, in the first instance and by essentially everyone, defined by their gender identity (and sometimes gender expression). In essentially all of your second group of sources (people who...), the sentence goes on to base its definition on gender identity (and sometimes gender expression). The idea that Most of the sources do not deal even remotely with the issue of trans women's gender identity seems prima faciae to be quite absurd. There isn't really any debate on this point - all of the "women who" and "people who" sources agree on it, and it is also worth pointing out that there is no special theoretical and normative stance involved in this great mass of sources. Some people with the gender identity of "woman" and essentially all identifying as "Trans women" were assigned male at birth, and that is people are the topic of this article. Among the reliable sources on this topic of good or even middling quality, there is no debate about this - whatever debate there is, it isn't about what the gender identity of trans women might be. Newimpartial (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
@Newimpartial, obviously trans women have a gender identity that does not align with their assigned sex at birth, and obviously there's no debate on this. Either you're not trying to understand what I'm saying or I'm expressing myself very badly! The point I was trying to make is that most of the sources of the survey don't define trans women in order to take a stance on the substantive (theoretical and normative) debate surrounding their gender identity - what counts as a woman? should femaleness and womanhood by biologically defined or are they social constructs? under what circumstances is it appropriate to distinguish trans women from other women, under what circumstances should they be treated as men? etc. I'm sorry, but MOS:OPEN requires us not to answer these questions in the opening sentence of the article. The survey of sources shows that there are three possible ways of defining trans women, one of them takes a definite (pro-trans) stance on the issues surrounding their gender identity, another one can easily be misunderstand as taking a definite (anti-trans) stance, and the third one is totally indifferent/neutral. I might be wrong: this is my reading. Anyway, I wanted to group the sources into three categories because I think grouping them in subsections makes the survey more readable and helpful - I don't see the point of a messy list of 50+ entries. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:53, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
It seems to me that you are confusing the question "how are trans women defined by the RS?", where the answer is essentially, "in terms of their identity", with the question "how should trans women be treated?", but the latter isn't the topic of this article. There is indeed a view (a WP:FRINGE view) that AMAB people with the gender identity of "woman" ought to be understood as mentally ill, possibly subjected to conversion therapy, and in any event denied access to gender-affirming surgeries or treatments and to social support for their gender identity. There is another "gender critical" view (represented by Kathleen Stock), less extreme but still minoritarian, that argues does not necessarily advocate for such extreme measures but that argues that trans women must not be accepted as "women" in the same sense as cis women, for various reasons. There are then a range of more mainstream views. But only FRINGE writers argue that "woman" (and "man") are identities formed by biology outside of society, and that, e.g., pronoun usage in English should be based on (imagined) biology rather than social gender. So aside from this fringe that essentially denies trans existence, all the rest of the sources about trans women deal with gender identity. Therefore, what I am arguing is that sources that define the topic differently are inherently unreliable (because of their FRINGE perspective) and are not to be taken into account in drawing up the lead sentence - WP:OPEN simply doesn't mandate the inclusion in the lead sentence of perspectives that cannot be found represented in the vast bulk of scholarship on any article's topic. Newimpartial (talk) 21:22, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
To what Newimpartial just said, I'd merely add, are you (Gitz) considering the centrality of WP:DUEWEIGHT here? You are still a relatively new editor, and sometimes even experienced editors are slow to gain a full understanding of it. In fact, I believe WP:DUE underlies Newimpartial's entire last comment, and they may have assumed you are well aware of it, but I thought it worth explicitly mentioning. Mathglot (talk) 21:35, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for your concern Mathglot! Yes, I understand WP:DUE - working on the articles on the invasion of Ukraine editors discuss about what's DUE all the time. But I'm afraid you don't understand our survey of sources. For the purposes of WP:DUE, that survey is entirely useless. Even if we ware to take it as indicative of mainstream views in the pertinent field, "trans women are women" is not predominant and "trans women are people" is not FRINGE. But most importantly: in no way that survey can be taken as indicative of the prevailing views in the field. First of all, define the "field" and explain why Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, etc., are more relevant to the "field" than Penny Mordaunt's views on The Spectator (Male people are not female people, and therefore transwomen are not women. As a transwoman I should know: I fathered three children [17]) or Susanna Rustin's views on The Guardian [18], or the review of Helen Joyce's book on The New York Times [19]. It doesn't make any sense. Secondly, explain how do you count or weight the voices in the field. With regard to gender identities, the "field" is the whole society, there is no normal science, no epistemic communities ruling the world of gender identities, and no super-high-quality-super-reliable-secondary-source saying "the debate is over! they've won!". The best we could do is to describe disputes, but not engage in them (WP:YESPOV), which implies adopting a definition of "trans woman" that is common in RS and that does not prejudice the debate and the writing of the article. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:28, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
You're clearly aware of WP:DUE, and that was my concern, which you've answered; thanks. With regard to your comment:

But most importantly: in no way that survey can be taken as indicative of the prevailing views in the field.

Without commenting whether or not I agree with your assessment that the survey list is unrepresentative of the sources, the question of whether it is or not, *is* the DUEWEIGHT question, and is, in my view, the key question to determine in order to resolve the central question of this Rfc. Neutrality policy is non-negotiable and is not subject to consensus (i.e., it cannot be overridden by an Rfc). Due weight is part of neutrality policy, and so what you identify as "most important" above, is, in my view, the central question about the available sources that must be answered in order to come to the correct conclusion to the Rfc question. If we do not, the closer would have to throw it out, per WP:NPOV. Mathglot (talk) 23:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Gitz, your contention that there is no normal science, no epistemic communities ruling the world of gender identities is an assertion on your part without evidence, and veers (perhaps unintentionally) into the realm of WP:POV. There absolutely is an epistemic community, a "field" as it were, of medical sources, as well as researchers and practitioners working in various allied disciplines, and within this field it is absolutely "settled science" that, e.g., gender identities are real phenomena, that gender identities at tension with a person's sex assignment are not in themselves pathological, and that some combination of social support in one's gender identity and chosen surgical or hormone treatments, if desired, represent the best practice for those experiencing gender dysphoria. Disputes related to trans issues are seldom found within these communities of practice and such disputes are not about these core findings. That is why, for example, the DSM-V and the WPATH standards read the way they do (and these are in fact "super high quality super reliable sources", in spite of your protestations that none such can exist in this field).
There are absolutely figures in the political and social realm (including some "philosophers" and many op-ed writers) who cast doubt on consensus reality, but this isn't any different in nature from those who contest human evolution by natural selection, or the Nazi holocaust, or the 2020 US election. And it would be no more appropriate to take account of gender identity denialists in the lead sentence of this article than it would be to take into account "big lie" proponents in the lead sentence of 2020 United States presidential election. There are a much wider range of approaches to how and how much to accommodate trans people, trans rights and teams reality socially, but none of that is relevant to the task of defining concisely who trans women actually are - a task that ought to be based on the reliable sources and not WP:FALSEBALANCE concerns. Newimpartial (talk) 00:23, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
With regard to the (admittedly very minor) issue of the grouping of sources, maybe this edit [20] addresses everybody's concerns? Really there's no reason for keeping the survey of sources - whatever its meaning to the present RfC may be - in a disorderly and unintelligible condition. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:41, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

In an effort to gather some sort of summary of Talk:Trans woman/Definitions that doesn't depend on absolute numbers of sources, I've leaned on @Levivich's organization of the Academic section and made some charts of the spread of published dates of the sources listed at User:Spellcheck/TransWomanDefinitionChart. These could be expanded to factor in number of citations (weighting directly would not be useful, but perhaps as a category with stacked bars: <10, <100, <1000?). Currently I've manually pulled out the year for each source, but that data is at the bottom of the page and can easily be updated as sources are added. At a first impression, it seems that newer sources favor "is a woman", whereas "is a person" is more often seen in the older sources. I'm not nearly experienced enough an editor to know how that factors into DUE or NPOV, but for an area of language like this that is actively developing it seems potentially worth considering. The Human Spellchecker (talk) 09:49, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@Spellcheck: Thank you for this. While trying to determine the WP:DUEWEIGHT for a given viewpoint can be fraught, anything that exposes the data, and particularly exposes it visually in a way that attempts to make it more transparent, is to be applauded. Normally I'd use a line graph for something like that, and maybe you thought of that also but the data is too sparse especially with the empty years which would make it too spiky, and there isn't enough to apply smoothing, either, so bar charts were probably your best option. Thanks again, Mathglot (talk) 06:06, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
@Spellcheck I added 27 academic sources to the sample. All of them belong to the "neutral or unspecified" section. After an hour or so, I got bored and stopped searching - I'm sure there's more. Besides, I forgot to make a search for "someone who..." and I see that using that query one could get a few results for the neutral/unspecified section [21]. A few days ago I also made a search for the "are women who.." section but I didn' find anything new: my impression is that Aquillion's targeted search has been very thorough and complete. However, their conclusion virtually all high-quality sources today refer to trans women as women when discussing them in plain language appears to be wrong. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:39, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
references for 'Grouping the sources'

  1. ^ McKinnon, Rachel (2018). "The Epistemology of Propaganda". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 96 (2). Wiley: 483–489. doi:10.1111/phpr.12429. ISSN 0031-8205.
  2. ^ Stock, Kathleen (2022-02-17). "The Importance of Referring to Human Sex in Language". Law and Contemporary Problems. 85: 25–45. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  3. ^ Watson, Lori (2016-05-01). "The Woman Question". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 3 (1–2). Duke University Press: 246–253. doi:10.1215/23289252-3334451. ISSN 2328-9252.

"A *trans woman*, or *transgender woman* is a..."

I wanted to raise another aspect of the first sentence issue, that concentrates on the (grammatical) subject, rather than the predicate, the latter being where all the difficulty lies, or at least, the large majority of it, and represents practically the entirety of the discussion above. So, consider this a break from the main event, if you like, but still a serious part of the "first sentence" question. Everyone here, I'm pretty sure, is so well versed in transgender issues that we take the two terms trans woman and transgender woman as obvious identical synonyms, with not a hair's breadth of daylight between them. (The existence of this ten year-old redirect with no strife, no discussion, and no edits since creation implies that this view is much broader than just participating editors here.) But I wonder if that identity equation is true of the casual or naive (or young) user who may come here to find out exactly what it means?

I think that as experienced users (especially those self-selected to participate here) we might forget that some people out there might have a conception (wrong or right) about the term transgender woman (or trans woman if they are younger), but are not quite sure if these two are really the same, or not. It seems to me, that one of the first things we'd want to do in the lead sentence, is dispense with any uncertainty on that point right at the outset, and state both synonyms upfront in the subject (bolding both, per MOS:BOLDSYN).

Personally, I have no preference about which one is stated first, regardless whether the first mention matches the title or not (it doesn't have to: see Bill Clinton or NATO, for example), so I consider these two proposals equally good:

  1. A trans woman, or transgender woman, is a ...
  2. A transgender woman, or trans woman, is a ...

Note that in the second formulation, I had originally typed, "...or more commonly, a trans woman", assuming that was the case, but actually that's not so clear. A general ngrams in English books find that the two terms track very closely. I again guessed wrong, thinking usage among Brits and Yanks would be pretty similar, with possibly the Americans opting more for the short, "casual" term than more precise British, but no: (Yanks, Brits). Not quite sure what to make of that, but I don't think it affects which of the two proposals above is better.

But the title of this Rfc all the way at the top (I know it's far, but you can see it with low-power binocs or opera glasses), is: "RfC on first sentence", so this question is germane and on-topic as part of it: In the subject part of the first sentence, should we mention both terms as in the options above, and if so, which do you prefer? If another option, please specify below (starting with '3'). Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:44, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Inserting the word transgender into the first sentence would improve clarity, I think. One minor issue with treating these as exactly identical terms (although I think for most purposes they are) is the existence of a small but vocal minority of trans women who identify strictly as transsexuals and reject or dislike being lumped into transgender (I ran into this particularly in a past discussion at CfD). If we think that’s something worth distinguishing, my preferred formulation (let’s call this #3a) would be A trans woman (short for transgender or transsexual woman) is a…. This is probably poor form according to MOS:BOLDSYN, but I think having blue links to both articles would be nice. Barring that, (short for transgender woman, or less commonly, transsexual woman). Let’s call that #3b. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 01:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Roxy, good point. I'm well aware of the small minority who reject transgender in favor of transsexual, but I forgot that they might also accept the term trans women (not all though; I wonder what proportion?) which then does double duty and we have to take that into account in some form (although if it's quite small, then not necessarily in the lead sentence). I think I like #3b best so far, but I'm open to change. Maybe we should consider one of the suggestions made by Funcrunch or Pyxis Solitary in that Cfd discussion. Mathglot (talk) 02:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree additional clarity in the lead about the relationship between the terms trans/transgender/transsexual would be an improvement. I'm certainly among the cis population that does not understand the difference, eg if different people prefer different terms, why, and what's the difference between the terms? That's getting beyond the lead of course but I think it's generally an area of potential improvement for the lead and the body. Levivich (talk) 03:22, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks, Levivich, and agreed—probably not in the lead. This next is o/t, but since you asked, you could start with Transgender#Terminology; which, now that I think about it, should probably be linked somewhere in the lead, if it isn't already. Mathglot (talk) 03:32, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
    The very oversimplified explanation is: "transsexual" emphasizes a physical change in sex (i.e. hormones and surgery) while "transgender" emphasizes the mental/social change in gender. As such, "transsexual" is often associated with transmedicalists, i.e. trans people who believe that gender dysphoria is (exclusively) a medical condition that can be treated with medical procedures. This ideology is controversial among the wider trans community, chiefly because it often excludes nonbinary people, and so "transsexual" isn't often used, except among either open transmedicalists or trans people who are old enough to have been around when it was the only term available. Loki (talk) 04:46, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Analysis of the survey of sources

The survey of sources is now quite extensive. No doubt some sources are still missing, but we can already discuss the results.

I believe that the survey cannot be used for the purposes of WP:UNDUE. It is true that the current debate on transgender and women's rights is often framed as an opposition between the proposition "trans women are women" and the denial of that proposition ("no, they are biological males", "sex matters", etc.). But if the purpose of this RfC is to take a position on that debate, then the survey of sources is hardly indicative. One cannot distinguish mainstream and fringe theories based on the definitions of trans woman found in Journal of Museum Education, Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing and Labour Economics. Apart from their lack of expertise, most of our sources do not wish to participate in the debate on transgender rights, and they deal with entirely different subjects. The survey is only a lexicographic sample of the recurring definitions of "trans woman" among educated people who publish in academic journals: it cannot reveal the prevailing opinion of the scientific community in the relevant field. After all, when it comes to gender identity, what is the "field", who are the experts? A strict disciplinary delimitation is not plausible.

However, if we take the survey for what it is – a lexicographic record of common practices – it emerges that on most occasions academic sources prefer to use neutral language. We currently have 29 sources defining trans women as "women who...", 63 sources defining them as "individuals who/people who, etc" (neutral/unspecified), and 5 sources defining them as "(biological or genetic) males who...". Probably the reason for this preponderance of neutral definitions is that the sources do not want to take a substantive position when doing so is unnecessary or irrelevant: if one is writing a contribution for The Lancet on transgender health issues,[1] why on earth would they hint at the fact that they are pro-transgender rights or gender-critical feminists or conservatives? The same may happen in more theory-conscious contexts. When one is writing the definition of trans woman for the American Psychological Association,[2] the Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics[3] or Wiley's Companion to Feminist Studies,[4] one may be inclined to choose the more neutral and less controversial option.

I think we should do the same. The debate on transgender rights is still open, and it should be our task to describe it in the body of the article, rather than trying to resolve it in the opening sentence. We shouldn't impair our ability to describe the debate by rushing to take a substantive position in it. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:10, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Beyond the inclusion of raw counts, this strikes me less as an analysis of the accumulated sources (good work, by the way), and more as an argument that enWiki should avoid taking stances on politically charged subjects (in this case, whether a trans woman is a woman), sheerly because (in addition to the many sources which establish that this claim is verifiable and due), there exist sources which take no stance on the issue (person with a female gender identity... identifies as a woman... overwhelmingly prefer to be described as...). The absence of a strong viewpoint is not itself a viewpoint deserving due weight. Although it is a widespread misconception, WP:NPOV does not mean Wikipedia aims to be perfectly balanced, nor to only include universally agreed upon facts.
What we do care about is if some contrary claim (e.g. "a trans woman is not a woman, but instead...", "woman and female are not quite applicable in this situation because...", "some trans women look like men and therefore...") is a substantially prominent viewpoint among high quality reliable sources, deserving significant or equal weight in this article. Although there clearly exist people (and academics) holding such viewpoints, a short glance at the collected sources seems to demonstrate that this viewpoint is far less prominent than the one it contradicts, at least in this specific context of defining the term. Of course, that's a a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, as the term trans women itself contains an assertion about the validity of transgender identity (hence TERFs instead preferring the closed compound transwomen). Nonetheless, the WP:ONUS is on the editors pushing to validate them to demonstrate their relevance to the lede. Some editors believe these viewpoints follow self-evidently from various definitions of other sex and/or gender terms (I imagine the phrase adult female human appears several dozen times across this page's archives), but unless those definitions explicitly mention transgender people, then it's improper synthesis.
At least in reference to the Definitions subpage, DUE and UNDUE weight is a relevant question; in fact it's the only question that page can reasonably answer. Bilorv's !vote in the survey put it the most succinctly and eloquently, but I (and others) have repeatedly argued how pointless and naive it is to try writing Wikipedia by robotically averaging the sum of all sources available on Google Scholar. Our arbitrary corpus tells us absolutely nothing, except that:
  1. a trans woman is a person with a female gender identity,
  2. a trans woman is a woman, and...
  3. a trans woman was [usually][5] assigned male at birth,
...are all verifiable statements. Insofar as sources exist which actively qualify or contest these facts (typically the second, as the first and third are largely points of universal agreement), they are sufficiently rare to be described as "in the minority", if not fringe. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 01:50, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing back up what you, Bilorv, I and others had said earlier in this discussion - I've been watching this coming back up but haven't had a time to reply. One other point is that while MOS:LEADREL does discuss the importance of due weight in the lead section overall, the primary consideration of MOS:FIRST is that the first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English. As you've pointed out Roxy, all of these definitions are supported by reliable sources. Now the question is how we paraphrase and summarize that information for a nonspecialist reader, not how we make it match as closely to the exact wording of academic sources. Politanvm talk 02:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree with your analysis of what is most common, but I would suggest (and maintain) the reason for that is not because of ostensible sociopolitical neutrality but because of utility as a definition - simply that they are clearer to readers who are unfamiliar with what a trans woman is, the very people a definition is for. Crossroads -talk- 23:15, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Agree with your analysis, and disagree with RoxySaunders above; the majority of sources use "neutral" descriptive language, because that is clearest to readers. I see no reason why we shouldn't do the same. DFlhb (talk) 00:19, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Question on precision

My preferred phrasing is probably a mixture of 1 and 2, i.e. A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth, but has adopted a female gender identity. Anyway, I do wonder whether A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth is accurate, given (the fairly small number of) people with ambiguous anatomy. Shouldn't it be, A trans woman is a woman who was not assigned female at birth? In fact, I feel this would actually be the clearest phrasing: A trans woman is a woman who was not assigned female at birth, but has adopted a female gender identity.

As an aside, why not make the lead sentence randomly switch between the candidates? Leave everyone unhappy. Ovinus (talk) 04:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ovinus:, thanks for your comment. First, you should know that WP:PRECISION has a particular meaning at Wikipedia, and your comment has nothing to do with that sense of precision. (Just mentioning this, because others more familiar with Wikipedia jargon may misunderstand your intent.) The second point is more serious, however: trans women have nothing to do with ambiguous anatomy, which pretty much negates your point. See Intersex. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 05:12, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
I am confused on both points... bear with me. Why does "precision" necessarily refer to WP:PRECISION? It's just another word, and I'm not sure of a more precise alternative here. Of course most trans women are assigned male at birth, but if someone who is intersex has a female gender identity, are they not considered a trans woman? Maybe I don't understand. Ovinus (talk) 05:20, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
This cleared it up for me. My comment is now mostly moot. Ovinus (talk) 05:23, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It doesn't necessarily, but there are tons of discussion about "PRECISION" and I was pretty sure you were talking about "precision", and you've now confirmed that, so all is well. Your second question is worth a response, but let's not derail this already *very* long Rfc discussion with tangential issues that don't affect the first sentence. Please read Intersex, and if you'd like further amplification after that, ask again at Talk:Intersex, WP:Reference desk, WT:LGBT, or my talk page. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 05:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Ec postscript: I'm glad you found a solution to your question. Mathglot (talk) 05:31, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
references for 'Analysis of the survey of sources'

  1. ^ Winter, Sam; Diamond, Milton; Green, Jamison; Karasic, Dan; Reed, Terry; Whittle, Stephen; Wylie, Kevan (July 23, 2016). "Transgender people: health at the margins of society". The Lancet. 388 (10042): 390–400. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00683-8. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 27323925.
  2. ^ American Psychological Association (2015). "Guidelines for psychological practice with transgender and gender nonconforming people" (PDF). American Psychologist. 70 (9): 832–864. doi:10.1037/a0039906. ISSN 1935-990X.
  3. ^ Aylward, Erin (2020). "Intergovernmental Organizations and Nongovernmental Organizations: The Development of an International Approach to LGBT Issues". In Michael J. Bosia; Sandra M. McEvoy; Momin Rahman (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190673741.013.10. ISBN 9780190673772.
  4. ^ Naples, Nancy A. (2021). Companion to feminist studies. Hoboken, NJ. ISBN 978-1-119-31495-0. OCLC 1159653855.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Wright, Shultz, Jackson (2015). Trans/portraits : voices from transgender communities. p. 200. ISBN 978-1-61168-823-8. OCLC 968248579. trans woman / A person usually assigned male at birth who has taken social, medical, or surgical steps to physically or socially feminize her gender expression or body. This term emphasizes chosen gender as opposed to assigned gender.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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