Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology/Archive 5

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Dreger "who is now one of Bailey's supporters"

I've removed that passage because she does not describe herself as such, so it should not be stated without attribution. From [1]:

(A number of readers seem to think I

ended my article this way as a way of championing Bailey

rather than, as I intended, illustrating the terribly ironic

outcome of Conway’s attempt at what one might call Bailey’s

“reeducation,” were one operating in Maoist China.)

She also says about Bailey (in the same text):

Bailey may claim he was not insensitive, but given the number

of people he offended with his prose, he is obviously,

objectively wrong—being perceived as insensitive by this

many people surely means you have been insensitive.

(Especially if you don’t get that.)

So, while you can say she disapproves of Conway more than of Bailey, you have apply a strict logic like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to conclude that she unequivocally supports Bailey.Tijfo098 (talk) 00:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I can see where you are coming from here but I don't think that wording will stay. While what you have is strictly true. Consider adding something like Alice Dreger who is considered a supporter of Bailey by...

These sort of complexities are why we at one time had a separate article for the controversy. --Hfarmer (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added this which seems more neutral. Tijfo098 (talk) 00:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You say "Conway Contents Dreger account of the affair". There's a few things wrong with that. First of all Dr. Conway's website is not a WP:RS. No one has even tried to propose that it is. Here is what I would write. "Dreger is considered to be a supporter of Bailey by Bailey's many vocal critics. That's a statement which is true, no one would dispute it, and it does not bring in sourcing issues. If a source is needed I'm sure a solid WP:RS can be found for it...I do belive the NY Times has covered this issue a bit. --Hfarmer (talk) 13:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

New critique to be added?

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a927728555 -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

It looks promising. Notice that what she has there is a "review" of other work. As such it may cover ground we already have in some respects. However any new sources or aspects that can be reliably sourced there should be worked in. Just so long as it's done in a stylistically appealing way that casual readers will read.

My main concern is that every time someone writes yet another critique a block of quoted text from such a critique will be added. Thus reducing this article to a list of quotes, and not a work of it's own. Which would reflect badly on WP and everyone who has worked on this article.

Here's what I do with a source like that. Read it in it's entirety. List down it's main points and arguments. Then summarize them in a paragraph. Then I look for places in the article were similar points are being made, and try to use that source to reinforce those points. That way the view of that source adds to the article in a powerful way. IMO doing this is more powerful than a long winded article...in science the most powerful articles have been the shortest. (i.e. Stimulated Optical Radiation in Ruby The whole field of lasers is based on this one paper that is four short paragraphs long.)--Hfarmer (talk) 13:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Secondary sources are useful, or even preferred in some cases; see WP:MEDRS. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I haven't read it, but it sounds like it will be primarily useful as a replacement for some of our existing weak and/or primary sources. It doesn't really sound like it's going to introduce new complaints so much as re-hash (lucidly, we hope) the old ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is obvious that you haven't read the article, because it does make new arguments. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I made suggestions about how to use it. I did not say it should not be used. I am sure it makes new arguments but how do those arguments reinforce the ones that have already been made. How do you leggo it into the structure that's already here. You can in artfully quote two or three paragraphs it, or you can weave it into the fabric of the article. That's all I'm saying.--Hfarmer (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, are you and WhatamIdoing the same person? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I was talking to tijfo. I should have made that clear. Though I suppose you should listen to what I say too. Have any of my suggestions on this matter been really objectionable?--Hfarmer (talk) 22:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I found the suggestions somewhat condescending, so I skipped them. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

What, your too good to take suggestions from the likes of me oh high and mighty one? Perhaps you could Assume good faith which I had at the time.--Hfarmer (talk) 23:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Another study to consider adding

A rather large study done in Spain on the question of weather birth order and sibling sex ratio have anything to do with "homosexual transsexual" males. Perhaps someone could consider adding this information to the article.

Birth Order and Ratio of Brothers to Sisters in Spanish Transsexuals by Esther Gómez-Gil, Isabel Esteva, Rocío Carrasco, M. Cruz Almaraz, Eduardo Pasaro, Manel Salamero andAntonio Guillamon http://www.springerlink.com/content/1r423t5381227706/

Abstract:Three Western studies have shown that male-to-female (MF) homosexual transsexuals tend to be born later than their siblings and to come from sibships with more brothers than sisters. The objective of this study was to determine whether these variables would be replicated in 530 MF and female-to-male (FM) Spanish transsexuals according to sexual orientation. The results showed that MF homosexual transsexuals had significantly more older brothers than the non-homosexual MF group. Compared with the expected rates in the general population, birth order was significantly higher in both MF (Slater’s Index = 0.59; Fraternal Index = 0.61; Sororal Index = 0.58) and FM homosexual transsexuals (Slater’s Index = 0.65; Fraternal Index = 0.68; Sororal Index = 0.67), and sibling sex ratio was significantly higher than expected in homosexual MF (sex ratio = 0.55) but not in homosexual FM transsexuals. No significant differences were found in the non-homosexual subgroups. The replication of the later birth order and sibling sex-ratio effect in MF homosexual transsexuals corroborates previous findings in a variety of groups from different cultures and may suggest a common mechanism underlying the etiology of transsexualism.

As of right now it's full text is freely available online. I found it doing a quick google for a message board debate where someone questions the biological origin of sexual orientation. It's a pretty big study so it should be a good source of various kinds of information. Notice that they claim to have observed an effect for both male to female and female to male transsexuals when it comes to sheer birth order.--Hfarmer (talk) 11:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Influential?

Why is this hypothesis described as influential? I can find no evidence online for it being influential. In fact, it appears to be just the opposite, with most academics considering it a joke. --Zoe.R (talk) 11:30, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

It's influential within the ultra-tiny specialty of sexology focussing on the nature and causation of transgender/transsexual ... identification? Desires/urges/impulses? Delusions? Whaaatever!

Ray Blanchard, the author of this hypothesis, is highly influential in the field.  ??? bonze blayk (talk) 20:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

A senseless sentence

In "scientific criticism of the theory" is to be found:

"Moser concludes that Blanchard's assertion that autogynephilia raises questions that require further study and that what is being probed is not a paraphilia, but is instead a normal part of female sexuality that is no more prevalent among MtF transsexuals than it is within the general female population.[25]"

The end is missing. What's the case with Blanchard's assertion? Please correct anybody knowing the matter!

Dominiklenne (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out Dominiklenne!

This sentence is definitely defective; the sentence as it appeared in the original edit makes sense:

"Moser concludes that Blanchard's assertion that autogynephilia does not apply to natal women is clearly false and that what is being probed is not a paraphilia…"

… but got botched up here after some dispute over this content.

I'm addressing this by revising this so it reads: "Moser concludes that since "autogynephilia" may be found in many natal women, and that it is not obviously a paraphilia but might instead be a manifestation of normal female sexuality no more prevalent among MtF transsexuals than it is within the general female population, the theory raises questions that require further study."

Thanks again, and a Happy New Year to all! -- bonze blayk (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Page number

Does anyone know what page of Leiblum & Rosen (2000). Principles and Practice of Sex Therapy (3rd ed.) is being cited? I could only find the 4th edition, and it's single use of "demeaning" had nothing to do with transsexualism. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:57, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

"Scientific criticism of the theory" is now "Criticisms", and has been eviscerated

I noted User:James Cantor's criticism of this article as "essentially an attack page against the existing findings", and checked it out again, only to find - voila! - it's not anymore.

Of course, it wasn't really "mostly an attack page", though it probably did go on in too much detail on the criticisms contained in Moser (2010). On the other hand, User:WLU, you had just prior to User:James Cantor's comment eviscerated the substance of these criticisms from the article, and reduced them to the status of mere "criticisms" - as opposed to legitimate objections published in WP:MEDRS.

For example: Nuttbrock et. al. (2010)? GONE.

I view this as "unhelpful", and unconstructive editing in the service of a crusade. Sincerely, - bonze blayk (talk) 04:34, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

In User:WLU's edit here they "removed some questionable content (if Blanchard proposed this in the 80's, Benjamin couldn't have commented on it in 1966; other stuff too)"… well, he did.

This citation was added in Hfarmer's edit of 23 December 2008. All of a sudden, an accurate quotation that has survived over four years of inspection by those who have edited this article is found "questionable" in your eyes, and without any attempt to verify its accuracy, you delete it?

And User:WLU then proceeds to state: "Benjamin, Leavitt, and Derger have all used the term in their own work. (ref name="benjamin1966")". Guess what: That's an entirely false claim: the phrase "homosexual transsexual" appears nowhere in the text of The Transsexual Phenomenon.. Instead, Benjamin clearly differentiates between "homosexuals" and "transsexuals", for example, on page 12: "Other physicians, not too well versed in sex problems, confused transsexualism with homosexuality. 'Oh, just another fairy,' one commented to me when speaking of the Jorgensen case."

User:WLU, you should "check your false premises at the door", because Ray Blanchard has himself remarked on the dislike "homosexual transsexuals" feel for this terminology? This sentiment long precedes any outright activism objecting to the terminology… I'll cite myself citing Blanchard in Talk:Trans woman:

The neutral term is "androphilic"; "homosexual" is used by some researchers... but androphilic trans women strongly dislike being called "homosexuals" (see Blanchard, "Gender Identity Disorders in Adult Men", 1990 ... Blanchard characterizes them as "homosexual transsexuals" anyway: "Homosexual gender dysphorics maintain that their sexual interest in other men is actually heterosexual, because "inside" they really are women."

For shame. This is not "editing", this is rampaging opinionation on your part, expressed through a deletionist crusade. Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 12:34, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:MEDRS I removed primary sources, including Nuttbrock. "Criticisms" should be those published in secondary sources, that are explicit in discussing Blanchard's typology. Page content is not determined by the amount of time something has been on the page. Your changes undid several citation improvements as well, as well as having two separate and unnecessary "criticisms" sections, which ideally shouldn't be broken out into separate sections. The massive amount of text and detail was undue weight. I can justify every single one of my choices if you would prefer, and point out when it is a matter of editor judgement rather than a clear application of the policies and guidelines. But I will be replacing the majority of my edits. Wikipedia is not a soapbox to promote any crusade, including those considered important by transsexuals.

The page source to Benjamin does not mention Blanchard once. Further, the page is entitled Blanchard's transsexualism typology. Blanchard was born in 1945, and I doubt he would have been the basis for Benjamin's paper. More bluntly, how could Benjamin have been one of the "many sources" found in the quote ("Many sources, including some supporters of the theory, criticize Blanchard's choice of wording as confusing and degrading.")? Perhaps the page should be more broadly titled to incorporate these ideas, but currently Benjamin's statement would seem to be only relevant in the background section

I will be reverting. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Just who is engaging in a "crusade" here, User:WLU? You are not engaging in consensus editing here, you're engaging in dictation, based on grandstanding and Wikilawyering over your interpretations of policies and guidelines, which you do not cite in detail, only as a vast generalizations.

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine): "… edits that rely on primary sources should only describe the conclusions of the source, and should describe these findings clearly so the edit can be checked by editors with no specialist knowledge. In particular, this description should follow closely to the interpretation of the data given by the authors or by other reliable secondary sources. Primary sources should not be cited in support of a conclusion that is not clearly made by the authors or by reliable secondary sources."

This article has a number of primary citations based in Blanchard's writings… do you intend to delete all of those? The quotation you mention, ""Many sources, including some supporters of the theory, criticize Blanchard's choice of wording as confusing and degrading.", only came to precede the quotation of Benjamin as a result of a rearrangement of the text by a random editor; it is clearly relevant to this discussion, even though you try to frame it as "irrelevant" because it is not a direct criticism of Blanchard's use of the terminology?

Finally, your condescension - "Wikipedia is not a soapbox to promote any crusade, including those considered important by transsexuals." is most unwelcome, and is a blatant violation of WP:AGF and WP:CIVILITY. I became fed up with editing on Wikipedia precisely because repeat offenders in this regard were never met with reprimands. - bonze blayk (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

User:WLU, you have restored your claim that "Benjamin, Leavitt, and Derger have all used the term in their own work. (ref name="benjamin1966")" I see this nowhere in Benjamin's text: indeed, he explicitly rejects the assertion that transsexuals are "homosexual", as I noted above. Why do you restore bad edits of this nature, in response to my comment, in which I clearly noted the problem? WP:AGF, again. - bonze blayk (talk) 16:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Selectively removing some primary sources (that are critical) and not others (that are favorable) is a primary sign of POV pushing. So, I suggest that the article is edited with consistency or restored to the pre-gutting version. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll look through for more primary sources.

Per WP:TALKNEW I've changed the section heading. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:44, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Bonze, it aggravates me that you have accused me of engaging in a crusade followed by accusing me of not assuming good faith, and then wikilawyering. I believe your accustation of failing to assume good faith can equally be applied to you, the difference being my grasp of the relevant policies and guidelines is probably better. For instance, I draw your attention to the sentences before your quotation of WP:MEDRS:

All Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources. Reliable primary sources may occasionally be used with care as an adjunct to the secondary literature, but there remains potential for misuse.

Pointing out a misunderstanding of the P&G is not a failing of good faith, it is a chance to refer to the consensus of the larger community that the P&G document. The preference is for secondary sources, whenver accessible. There are many available, and they should be drawn upon in preference to primary. You are free to delete primary sources as well, including those to Blanchard's work. In fact, I would encourage it. Generally the only time I retain primary sources are when those sources are in some way iconic (i.e. the very first time a concept or result is mentioned; often this is a rather old piece of literature) or make very basic points of fact (i.e. incidence or prevalence rates within communities). I have no issue with removing these sources, and in particular replacing them with secondary sources. Removing primary sources is relatively easy and fast to do, particularly when focussing just on a small number of sections as I have; feel free to review the rest of the article and prune similarly. Checking the quality and summary of secondary sources is far more time consuming, but often valuable - for instance, the previous summary did not mention Bancroft's summary of the distinction between "homosexual transsexuals" and what Blanchard calls "autogynephilic transsexuals" being a long-standing distinction within the literature. A rather important point. This edit makes the distinction clear in the body as well as pointing to an example of the "iconic" approach to primary research. I would not support ongoing citation of Freund or Blanchard's primary research. In fact, I have outright removed an entire section as based on primary studies. I can't think of any circiumstance where 17,000 characters worth of text would be included based on research dating back as far as the 1970s. Surely there are secondary sources that discuss this material?

Direct criticisms to Blanchard's terminology is fairly essential given the page is called "Blanchard's transsexualism typology"; if this were part of a larger article about transsexualism typologies, then I would support including other discussions. The fact that Benjamin does not and cannot address Blanchard's typology is a critical failing, shoehorning the idea into this page constitutes a synthesis. Feel free to remove any text and sources that does not praise or criticize Blanchard explicitly.

Based on Bancroft's book, having done little other reading, it very much looks like this may indeed be a misnamed page. If Bancroft is correct, this typology is not found solely in Blanchard's writings and is in fact a long-standing clinical observation. A page that covers this distinction could certainly incorporate the earliest observations on the matter, including Benjamin's. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:17, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

No, it is properly named. The distinction between earlier typologies and Blanchard's typology is that the previous recognized that there were heterosexual and homosexual transsexuals. Blanchard added a layer of explanation to it that is fundamentally different than other typologies that recognizes heterosexual and homosexual transsexuals. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe you aren't going to be finding many secondary sources on this subject, User:WLU, and possibly none that are genuinely "reliable"?

Frankly, this page has a long history, and was merged from three other pages back around 2010 or so. You're deleting content relevant to all the subject matter that was condensed into it, including the controversy over terminology leading to conflicts around the use of "homosexual transsexual" (androphilic male/MtF) vs. "heterosexual transsexual" (androphilic woman/MtF) vs. "androphilic transsexual woman" (androphilic trans woman) etc. to describe the very same person. (And it's not all about politics or PC vs not-PC, either; there are interesting arguments for using each of the different terms.)

Here's some history:

02:22, 11 September 2010‎ 70.57.222.103 (talk)‎ . . (137,762 bytes) (+2,240)‎ . . (→‎Merger complete: new section) - "As per the approach favored by all but two commenters in Talk:Autogynephilia, the articles Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory and Autogynephilia have been merged, and Homosexual transsexual is a disambig page."

05:39, 13 October 2010‎ Tijfo098 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (48,539 bytes) (+545)‎ . . (→‎Autogynephilia: merging autoandrophilia)

19:25, 1 October 2010‎ KimvdLinde - moved Talk:Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory to Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism etiology: Per move request at talk

20:03, 12 December 2010‎ Malkinann (talk | contribs)‎ . . (39,032 bytes) (+78)‎ . . (noting merge from homosexual transsexual)

19:51, 18 April 2011‎ WhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (10,103 bytes) (0)‎ . . (moved Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism etiology to Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology: Because it's a psychological typology, not a cause

00:32, 14 May 2011‎ Bonze blayk (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (10,592 bytes) (+489)‎ . . (→‎added links to Old:Talk for Blanchard's transsexualism etiology archives, somehow gone missing, in infobox)

WAS I here to mount the WP:SOAPBOX? Maybe! See what turns up randomly while I'm searching for the article merge discussion? this edit during the rename controversy. If Bancroft is claiming Blanchard's concept is the same-old same-old, he's wrong; the Blanchard typology including autogynephilia is a novel approach. (You may be misreading Bancroft, by the way, but by the same token, he may not be getting the point of it all himself.) The attempts to formulate distinctions between types of gender-variant persons go back a long way, and I'm pretty sure Blanchard's effort is not the last that will be seen. (I will stand by my assertion in the comment I link above: Bailey fucked up, big time. Hey, there's a reliable "secondary source", no? groans)

So again: User:WLU, you're conducting a deletionist crusade on an article in an specialized subject area you do not well understand. No one does. You may know "policy", but the subject area is highly complex, and is still the focus of much controversy. Removing content wholesale, at this point in time, is probably just going to wind up gutting the whole damned article before you even locate secondary sources that discuss these issues in any depth.

Maybe you don't mind seeing the article turned into a stub; I don't think you're going to wind up with a lot left if you pursue this course, and it probably will not be as clear as the primary sources. Personally, my take is that it's "interesting" even if it's not the most solid science in the world. At any rate, I should not be wasting time on this; over the long term, I found that trying to prevent vandalism and similar "helpful" interventions in the trans• article space brings me to a state of annoyance that is distracting.

PS: You've still got the claim that Harry Benjamin used the term "homosexual transsexual" in there. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 03:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I am less interested in the page history than I am in the extensive, untapped secondary sources that should be used to rewrite the page. Quite obviously, they are reliable (reliable means "published by a scholarly venue with a reputation for accuracy and fact checking", not "I agree with it" or "I think it's right"). You may think Bancroft is wrong, but I don't care - what I care about is what other scholars have to say about Bancroft. Please provide works that cite his works, so I can integrate Bancroft and criticisms of Bancroft. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Surely this page can be better

I just removed something like 20,000 characters worth of text solely because it was primary source material. Is there seriously no secondary discussion of this topic that we have to rely so much on articles that mention an n = in the abstract? Bancroft is one secondary source, surely others can be identified and incorporated? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Secondary sources are very scarce, but maybe James Cantor can help you out here. I think that if we gut all primary sources, there is not much left to report. Instead, I think we have to recognize that some topics are so marginal that they have not achieved a lot of traction in the serious academic literature, and because of that, secondary sources are extremely rare.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

This one is free and downloadable: http://www.annelawrence.com/mtimb.html — James Cantor (talk) 00:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Narratives = primary source. Only partially downloadable. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:30, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

That the book contains narratives does not invalidate it as a secondary source for its other materials, such as the material contained in Chapter Two. That only Chapter Two is available online does not disqualify it in any sense at all. Indeed, the entire book could be behind a paywall or not available online at all, and the entire book would remain a valid secondary RS.— James Cantor (talk) 00:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, if we can decide that parts of sources are primary and other parts are secondary, we can generally consider introductions of articles secondary sources. Same logic. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I would much, much rather bleed all existing secondary sources out before I start drawing upon primary sources - particularly when so many primary sources are old. For instance, this is only used twice despite being from 2005. Bancroft is another source that should be drawn on more extensively. Here is another from 2007, used only once. Dreger is 70 pages long, uses "autogynephilia" over 170 times, and is cited twice. Here is a source from 2011 that is not used at all. Moser, 2010 is used three times only. Here is a 2009 letter to the editor criticizing Moser, 2009, used only once. rce=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A2005%2Ccd_max%3A2013&tbm=bks Here is a list of books from 2005-2013 that use the term. There appear to be more than 100.

Narratives that are synthesized are not primary sources.

Given all of this, I see a far greater need for these secondary sources to be used to expand the page rather than relying on primary sources which generally have an n<100. Perhaps after these sources are all integrated, then primary sources could be tapped. Compared to say, homosexuality, the sources may be rare - but there seems to be considerable work to be done on integrating the missing ones. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

User talk:WLU, you're claiming Blanchard "this" ("Early history of the concept of autogynephilia", Blanchard R.) and Lawrence "Here" ("Becoming what we love: autogynephilic transsexualism conceptualized as an expression of romantic love", Lawrence AA.), "Here is a source from 2011" ("Autogynephilia: an underappreciated paraphilia", Lawrence AA.") are secondary sources on the very theory they have promulgated? Wow. That's an amazing assertion. - bonze blayk (talk) 11:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I am saying, and I believe it is a rather uncontroversial statement on wikipedia. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:16, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying they should not be used as sources, but your claim "I believe it is a rather uncontroversial statement on wikipedia" is a statement of your belief. You keep arguing your positions are correct, but provide nothing but blank assertions about "the consensus of the larger community" to back them up. (Meanwhile, I think your edits here are poor because you clearly lack knowledge of the subject area. Sorry, that's just the case, and I'm going to keep flogging at your mis-citation of Harry Benjamin as one who employed the "homosexual transsexual" terminology until you fix it. That's just one problematic assertion I see in your rewrite of the "Scientific criticism" secton; I proved this above via citation; you never manage to respond to the problem. "You broke it, you own it.")

Meanwhile, I was just looking over Lawrence's "Chapter 2 - Theory and Case Histories", and it looks like a pretty decent source… although (as expected) she just doesn't get that (for example) Deirdre McCloskey is rejecting "autogynephilia" in large part because of its association with other paraphilias, and probably due to the (questionable) assertion that "autogynephilia" is rooted in an Erotic target location error. Whatever, it appears to have a number of useful references and summaries of others' writings. - bonze blayk (talk) 13:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Synthesized narrtatives is a prime example of primary source, unless we are going to consider the raw data a primary source and the interpretation/synthesis of that data as a secondary source. I find your selective choosing and picking of what are primary and secondary source very troubling, and smells like POV pushing. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:34, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that primary sources would be the narratives themselves, synthesis and analysis would be secondary. I'm happy to bring any sources that are considered questionable to the WP:RSN for discussion.

Bonze, I provide links to policies and guidelines when appropriate, for instance WP:CONSENSUS. If a reliable, secondary source has stated that autogynephilia is rooted in an ETLE, I see no issue with including it. If a reliable, secondary source has criticized this assertion, I see no issue in including that either. I mislike when topics are treated as settled, as if there were a correct answer, when the literature I've read to date seems to suggest it is an area of active debate. Wikipeida is not about providing clean, simple answers, it is about documenting controversy when controversy exists - within the scholarly literature, not within editors. That's from WP:NPOV, the very first line, "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." Emphasis added. From WP:UNDUE further down the page, "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." Emphasis added. For me, any discussion or criticism that starts with "I think..." and doesn't refer to a source is pretty close to not being worth reading. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

You make a classical error with regard to primary and secondary. The difference to understand is raw data versus primary sources. Raw data is the uninterpreted data. Narratives are raw data (the narrative of a person), just like questionnaires, penis circumference data etc. The articles that report on this type of raw data and interpreted them are the primary sources. Articles that aggregate/summarize those primary articles are secondary sources. The problem is that the distinction between primary and secondary is blurred in most cases, because introductions contain generally a summary of what is known (secondary) and interpretation of new raw data (primary). I hope this helps.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

User:WLU, you keep lecturing me on Wikipedia policies as if I am not aware of them and do not try to adhere to them. Are you aware that this is condescending, and implies that I am an ignorant and/or a bigoted editor pushing an agenda here? That's not the case: please check out my X! Edit Counter. Apparently you are not bothering to read my comments, but are simply reacting to them.

I would like to suggest that you read Deborah Rudacille's The Riddle of Gender to familiarize yourself with the complexities of the subject areas associated with transsexualism. Rudacille, a disinterested science writer with Johns Hopkins, presents a fair and relatively unbiased presentation of a wide range of viewpoints (yes, Ray Blanchard was interviewed, likewise Paul McHugh, Milton Diamond, Cheryl Chase, Ben Barres, and many others with valuable perspectives on the issues). It may not qualify as WP:MEDRS, but it's a highly informative and beautifully written overview. - bonze blayk (talk) 02:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

…A secondary WP:MEDRS source that you should review is

Over the years, various sexuality related subcategories have been proposed (e.g., Blanchard, 1989; Blanchard et al., 1987; Buhrich & McConaghy, 1978; Freund, Steiner, & Chan, 1982; Money & Gaskin, 1970–1971; Sørenson, 1981; for a review, see Lawrence, in press). In clinical writings, there seems to be agreement that transsexual subtypes do exist, although there is no agreement on the number and kind of relevant subtypes. Although sexual orientation subtyping may be of interest to researchers in the field, no clinical decisions are currently based on this classification. Also, in the transgender community, there is strong resistance against subtyping on the basis of sexual orientation and activity and even against having to give this information for scientific purposes only. This was also concluded by clinicians attending the WPATH consensus meeting (Oslo, June 2009). The term autogynephilia, which is used for one subtype, is considered highly offensive by some (e.g., Winters, 2005, 2008). The finding that ‘‘homosexual’’ and ‘‘nonhomosexual’’ subgroups differed in psychological functioning (Smith et al., 2005) could not be replicated in a yet unpublished recent study at the same gender identity clinic. The first study was conducted in the early 1990s, when relatively few people had Internet access and applicants were not well informed about the fact that this topic was hotly debated (Smith et al., 2005). It is therefore likely that, more than 10 years later, the increased awareness regarding the sexual orientation issue has led to less reliable reports of sex reassignment applicants on their sexual orientation. Considering the disadvantages and few, primarily research related, advantages of this subdivision, one should reconsider sexual orientation as a specifier.

[italics mine]. If I recall correctly, Cohen-Kettenis was on the DSM-V committee (yup: The Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group is chaired by Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D. Its members are listed below, so this is definitely noteworthy. The review by Lawrence, by the way, is "Lawrence, A. A. (in press). Sexual orientation versus age of onset as specifiers for the diagnosis of gender identity disorder. Archives of Sexual Behavior."

- thanks, - bonze blayk (talk) 12:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Peggy Cohen-Kettenis is a leading expert on this topic who has pioneered the treatment of adolescents and now is holding the professor chair that was previous held by Louis Gooren. I think it is telling that the GID work group did not consider autogynephilia as relevant, but that the paraphilia workshop chaired by Blanchard did try to include it (did it hold in the final vote?). -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:20, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Using the search inside feature for The Riddle of Gender, I could not locate autogynephilia, Blanchard or Freund. Are there other search terms I should use? I have no doubt it would be useful for transsexualism or gender identity, what pages do you think specifically apply to this page, which is about Blanchard's typology. I believe I have mentioned it before, but I will repeat if necessary - this page may be misnamed. If there are several general typologies of transsexualism and Blanchard's is one of them, then including a single researcher's name in the title is not, in my opinion, appropriate.

I will add Cohen 2009 to my reading list, and am surprised that such an unarguably secondary, reliable source is not already on the page when so many primary sources were. The quote given also underscores my point - at best this page is about one proposed typology out of many. Are there unique pages for each typology, or should there be a single transsexualism typologies page with Blanchard being one of many? Why aren't these other proposed typologies listed in the {{transexualism}} template or see also section?

Kim, while primary sources often include secondary sections, I still think we are better off exhausting "pure" secondary sources before we should tap introductions of primary sources - still a point I consider uncontroversial. In addition, the "primary" sections of the primary sources should only be used extremely judiciously, and particularly not to the extent they were. The text I removed was 20,000 characters worth of single study reports of percentages that went as far back as the '70s. Again, surely we can do better by drawing on the most recent secondary sources and adding a small number of highly relevant primary sources, with caution, if we have no other way of reporting on their contents. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

"The Riddle of Gender" is broad rather than deep, although it covers many topics well; autogynephilia per se is not discussed. What I loved about the book is that I did not get the sense that Rudacille came to the work with an ax to grind?

Regarding the structure of all the articles dealing with transsexualism, transgender (the broader category for gender-variant persons), and gender, I'll link again to the article size and structure list I made up some time back in Talk:Transgender when User:James Cantor added summaries of a number of recent articles on brain research:

Talk:Transgender - "comment on problems with organization of gender topics, Transgender#Transsexual people and science, Causes of transsexualism, etc" - July 2011

Personally, I feel that the current title is not that bad, but is not precisely descriptive of what it has been: it came to incorporate a number of different topics - for example, the discussion of the use of the "homosexual transsexual" terminology as opposed to alternate descriptors - as several articles were merged into it, with the goal (as I recall) of trying to control duplication and divergence between the contents of articles with content that dealt with overlapping issues.

And speaking for myself, I would be OK with seeing the highlights of an updated treatment here of the best secondary sources merged into Causes of transsexualism, along with the content User:James Cantor added which is currently incorporated into the Transgender article at Transgender#Transsexual people and science, but… I tend to favor completeness in articles on complex topics such as this, with a hierarchical structure where the higher level article (e.g., Causes of transsexualism) would have a brief discussion of the prominent theories and then link to them as a Main Article, so that the lay reader can get an overview of the subject. But trying to accomplish this seems to require more agreement among editors than can be achieved…

thanks, - bonze blayk (talk) 01:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Biology

Sunny,

About this: scare quotes are not appropriate. Biological sex is determined by five factors. The transwoman's perception of being female, even if framed as "brain sex", is not one of the five factors. All transwomen are biologically males, or, if you prefer, "physically" male. The fact that transwomen are biologically male is why they are transwomen instead of being intersexed. Transwomen are biologically male because all five of the biological factors—they are the genetic sex (Y chromosome), gonads, hormones, internal and external reproductive anatomy—are typically male.

It is neither a POV problem nor a violation of MOS:IDENTITY to admit to these physical facts. It is, however, a violation of NPOV to treat this fact with the attitude conveyed by scare quotes. Similarly, it is inappropriate to scatter words like "purportedly" throughout the article. We need to state plain facts without constantly signalling to the reader that most of our trans editors disagree with or disapprove of some or all of the ideas on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

First, you are showing that you are very ignorant of trans women's biology. Trans women frequently have no gonads (as opposed to having testicles), vaginas and clitorises (external reproductive anatomy that appears to be phenotypically "female"), low levels of testosterone and high levels of estrogen and progesterone, as well as a preponderance of so-called "female" secondary sexual characteristics. So even using your arbitrary and uncited definition of so-called "biological sex," WhatamIdoing, many to most trans women don't possess most of the traits associated with so-called "biological males." And I'm also at a loss as to why someone's neural physiology would not be part of her "biology"? Is this some sort of bizarre Cartesian logic you are presenting. . .that the mind is not part of the body nor a product of biological factors within the brain? I don't get it. It seems to me that you are simply asserting a tautological definition of what constitutes "biology" in order to push your inaccurate and oppressive argument that trans women are "biologically male."

By using terms like "biologically male" in reference to trans women, you are most certainly pushing a point of view, WhatamIdoing, and a very harmful point of view at that. You are not stating plain facts. It is MY belief that so-called "biological sex" is largely socially constructed, and I could find many scholarly, peer-reviewed sources to back me up in that. But that is obviously also a controversial and not strictly scientific viewpoint of mine. So I shouldn't explicitly push it in the text of a Wikipedia article. Likewise, you should not explicitly push in the text of a Wikipedia article your controversial and not strictly scientific viewpoint that so-called "biological sex" is natural, straightforward, and a matter of "plain facts."

Anyway, you are right that most of our trans editors disagree with Ray Blanchard's ideas. Well, we also disagree with ideas such as the belief that trans women are "biologically male." And I see no reason why the self-serving biases of cissexual editors (I'm not assuming you are cis. . .however, you are presenting the standard cis viewpoint here) should be codified into Wikipedia articles while the perspectives of trans editors are disregarded. What you are advocating for is the essentially WP:systemic bias, which is a huge problem here on Wikipedia. Just because cis people make up the large majority of editors on Wikipedia does not mean that their unscientific opinions should be treated as facts. . .any more than the unscientific opinions of men or white people should be treated as facts just because they/we make up a large majority of Wikipedia editors. And regardless. . .plenty of cis people ALSO disagree with Ray Blanchard's bogus theories and many of them have stated this publicly as well as fought for a more NPOV (and less worshipful) representation of his ideas on Wikipedia. You stating that this article was written this way only because of Wikipedia's trans editors is an attempt to make it seem as though your only opponents are trans people, when in fact many cis people also disagree with your perspective that is articulated here. Rebecca (talk) 09:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Trans women have male gonads (which are testicles), penises, Y chromosomes, and all of the other standard signs of being biologically male, up until the moment (if ever) that they decide to use surgery or drugs to change that. (Surely you are not taking the perspective that only post-ops count as true trans women?)

I don't know why someone's "neural physiology" is not part of the definition; I only know that the definition excludes it. See this book for merely one source among many. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, this definition is "fact", because the vast majority of published reliable sources that define biological sex follow this definition. Any or all editors are free to disagree with this definition, but this is the mainstream definition and must be presented as such, with no scare quotes or personal arguments from editors against it. Reporting the mainstream view as being the mainstream view is not actually an issue of systemic bias. It is a matter of conforming to NPOV. NPOV requires that the widely accepted mainstream definition of biological sex be presented and used as being the mainstream definition, even if the people most interested in this article personally disagree with it.

The fact is that there is a definition of biological sex, that it encompasses more than merely anatomical sex (specifically, it includes chromosomal sex and hormonal sex), and that this definition provides three options—male, female, and intersexed—and it defines all trans women as being biological males rather than as being female (at minimum, they fail on the chromosomal count) or as being intersexed (because elective surgery and similar treatments don't count, just like surgical removal of anatomically mismatched body parts don't make an intersexed person stop being intersexed).

(I would, by the way, be surprised if you could find even a single scholarly source that says the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, or of ovaries rather than testicles, is "socially constructed" rather than an objective physical condition.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I will chime in, like a voice from the past, to agree with whatamIdoing's points about the definitions of biological sex. Biological sex is what it is. What we need to keep straight is that SEX ≠ GENDER. They are related but the complex set of social constructs we call gender do not prevent a male living a life that is basically that of a woman (lacking certain bodily functions). For that matter, in the 21st century, most cultures recognize a great deal of variation in gender expression.

Blanchard's ideas relate to people born, at least in most ways, biologically and anatomically male. At least, within the natural variation of virlization at birth, and then puberty that is normal for a male. Blanchard excludes people with intersex conditions. The only ones subtle enough where one might look externally male are Mild androgen insensitivity syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome. Some studies have found evidence of impaired androgen receptor response in some MTF and some MTF have KS... that does not generalize to each and every one of us.

A Wikipedia article is a place to write the facts and to use generally accepted definitions relying on primary and secondary sources, like dictionaries. The theory of gender identity has a number of articles which cover it in ways that express the views of the TG/TS community. This one is about Blanchard's ideas presented in the most neutral way possible. (That was all I ever tried to accomplish back in the day and I was vilified for it. Isn't it nice to see above how peaceful and orderly it has all been without people like myself and user:jokestress?)--Hfarmer (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Autogynephiles certainly exist, even if as a separate group from transgender/transsexual women

This is a bit of a rant because I just had an Internet-brawl with a group of people who are apparently extremely offended by *any* mention of autogynephilic people, even if you see them as a clearly separate group from genuine transsexuals. Said people linked me to the criticism section of this Wikipedia article at some point in the discussion, hence dropping this section here.

Autogynephiles exist. Well, at least one exists, which is me, though I've seen more on web forums. I have no interest in becoming a woman in general. It's purely a sexual interest. Thus I'm not transgender, and will unlikely ever become a transsexual woman, though I've had thoughts about it due to how much the idea attracted me sexually. For the record, I think it's also ridiculous to see autogynephilia as a mental disorder (let alone transgenderism), when it's pretty obviously the social prejudices that make the people who have it feel bad about themselves. I have incredibly thick skin, so I don't care and feel absolutely fine about myself, though it can be quite irritating to see genuine transsexuals paint autogynephiles as devils or want to ban their mention. Of course there can be nasty autogynephiles too; I've even seen some show disgust towards genuine transsexual women just because they don't care about their beauty as much as autogynephiles do (after all, their sole interest in transsexuality comes from sexual arousal), but that's a different issue. In any case, autogynephiles exist, even if the diagnosis has its roots in transphobia, and even if they're a clearly separate group from transgender people. (Though they might carelessly take part in transsexual communities. I certainly wouldn't, out of concern for genuine transsexuals, since it might contribute to the conflation of genuine transgender people and mere autogynephiles like myself.)

That's all. Please keep it in mind. Thanks.

P.S.: Sorry for somewhat inconsistently using the words "transsexual" and "transgender"; I didn't have time to find out in what circumstances each should be used... 2003:51:4A19:E06:213:E8FF:FEED:36FB (talk) 20:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Just a thought

The majority of criticism to the theory stems from the false assumption that the theory claims autogynephilic people are not gender variant. It does no such thing; It just describes the supposed motivation for why they decided changing their body's sex was needed and noted that it was often or always different in nature than the reasons homosexual gender variant people sought sex changes. It makes no comment as to the amount of feminine/masculine neurology or psychology in the patients, only the sexual orientation which is linked but not dependent on gender

Restoration of Autogynephilia proposed

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Autogynephilia about restoring that page, and possibly redirecting this one. KateWishing (talk) 22:02, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

The article is a mess. It's basically devolved into a discussion of the person who coined the term and the assertion (that I don't believe was ever made) that all non homosexual transsexuals have it instead of the condition itself. Autogynephilia simply means someone who has transvestic fetishism who then becomes gender dysphoric and wants to permanently change their body. There are many examples of such people and it is not a deniable thing. They seem to make up a majority of heterosexual transsexuals according to the research of Blanchard who then gave it a new name when applied to transsexualism. And yes his work and terminology usage is sloppy as is pretty much every other sex change specialist — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.135.183 (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

• It seems the discussion is now closed, but I would like to put my vote in favour of an autogynephilia article. I really do think it would be better to have that page. Cyndane5 (talk) 00:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)Cyndane5

Using Template:Which and Template:Specify in the lead

As seen with this edit, Florian Blaschke added Template:Which to the following: "Supporters of the theory include Anne Lawrence, J. Michael Bailey, James Cantor, and others who say that there are significant differences between the two proposed groups, including sexuality, age of transition, ethnicity, IQ, fetishism, and quality of adjustment.", and I reverted, stating, "Examples of the reported differences are already listed in that sentence. No need for more; see Template:Which."

With this edit, Florian Blaschke instead added "" to the end of the sentence, stating, "Uhm, that doesn't make it clear to the reader WHAT THE DIFFERENCES ARE ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE."

I noted that I would explain my objection here at the talk page. I object to using Template:Which or Template:Specify in the aforementioned case because the lead is meant to summarize, per WP:Lead, and the differences would take up a significant portion of the lead. We do not need to go into all the detail in the lead when the matter is covered lower in the article. Like Template:Which states, "Use good judgment when deciding whether greater specificity is actually in the best interests of the article. Words like some or most are not banned and can be useful and appropriate. If greater specificity would result in a tedious laundry list of items with no real importance, then Wikipedia should remain concise, even if it means being vague. If the reliable sources are not specific — if the reliable sources say only that 'In some countries...' — then Wikipedia must remain vague."

And as for Template:Specify, it states, "Use this tag for information that needs citations to make it complete, or quotations that are used without citations, as per Wikipedia:Citing sources. Do not use this tag to label text which appears doubtful or false, especially in the case of biographies of living people. Otherwise please use {{Verify source}}. For passages that are confusing, unclear, ambiguous, or missing a clarifier of some kind (i.e. the problem is with the wording, not the sourcing), use {{Clarify}}." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:54, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Fine, but the problem is that the differences are not specified anywhere in the article. I could change the tag to say "specify in article body" using {{Fix}}, which allows custom text, but is this really necessary?

I mean, I'm serious here, not trying to annoy you. Not having access to the literature, I would really like to know what these claimed differences are that are announced but never shown, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Wikipedia is about giving information, not teasing the reader with incomplete information even though it is relevant; at least I think it is justified to inquire just how the groups are said to differ from each other. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:10, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, it's about my choice of the "Specify" tag. Sorry, skipped over that part accidentally. Uhm, I don't know which the correct tag or wording to use is when I just wish to request more information. "Clarify" doesn't cut it either because that's for when the text is difficult to understand, not when it is incomplete. I've used {{how}} now, is that better? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:16, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

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External links

Is there a reason that we have a section for it without links? If we have no sites to link to for this page why not just delete the External Links subheading? Cyndane5 (talk) 04:20, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Cyndane5

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Aggressive and unexplained reverts by User:Sceptre.

For editors unfamiliar with this area, there is a long-standing conflict between what several scientists (and RS's) say about this topic and what several trans- activists say. This has played out on WP as very many conflicts rather than good editing. (Because I am a real-world expert on this and related topics, I have sworn off of several of these pages to minimize such conflicts, as noted on my user page. Other editors have vanished or been topic-banned.)

Now on this particular page, user:Sceptre has revert a long series of improvements to the page (each with the justifications noted), but citing no reason other than the edits came from me. No statement about anything missing any RS's, no addition of RSs to the unsourced material I removed, no indication that SPS's should be treated as RS's, etc. Not a single WP-valid reason for any of the reverts, no talk page discussion---just opposition to me editing this page. (No to mention Sceptre's misunderstanding/misapplication of WP policy that says real world experts should disclose our COI's and not for that to be used against us.)

For the record, if neither Sceptre (nor anyone else) has a WP-valid reason for reverting WP-valid edits, then those edits should be restored. Any input be appreciated.
— James Cantor (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I've been following this page for awhile and don't see anything wrong with user:Sceptre's latest edit. Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:32, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Let me be more specific about the unexplained reverts, and you can provide why it is you see it nothing wrong:

• In this edit, I removed a cite to an activist's blog: [2]
• In the edit summary, I cited WP:SPS, the policy which says specifically that such claims are insufficient.
• user:Sceptre reinstated the SPS, but provided no better no indication at all why an exception should be made to the RS policies. The only "reasoning" provided was that the edit came from me, citing but doing exactly the opposite of what is said in WP:COI.

So, anyone can type out the words "looks fine to me," but in the absence of any specific policy cites, it's still just WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Is there a WP-valid reason for agreeing with the above (re-)insertion of the SPS blog (for example), or was that specific edit an exception to "look okay to me"? Can you provide any WP-policy for any of the other changes?

— James Cantor (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it the case that there's some info in question that is only supported by the blog? Doesn't appear to be, as you took out the cite, but not any info. I see no reason not to leave it in. And I think that as a principal in these disputes you should abstain from tuning up the descriptions. Dicklyon (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I made a series of edits to the page, as can be seen, and I included the reasoning for everyone, as also can be seen. I provided the above single example as a single example, which I labeled as a single example. To ask for that single example to be treated as an isolated case is simply to ignore what can easily be seen by anyone wanting the whole truth. If Dickyon, or anyone else wants to list and discuss these edits, do please do ahead. And to repeat the obvious: No one else is citing any WP-valid reason for any edit.— James Cantor (talk) 20:52, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

The real dispute is that Cantor and his ilk have been pushing the same unscientific bullshit for the past thirty years and Cantor has been using Wikipedia to give it a wider audience for the past ten, and whenever challenged, Cantor resorts to the "well, I'm an expert!" defence. He was caught out doing this anonymously, which is why he was forced to disclose his COI in the first place. And for someone who has pledged to abstain from the topic, he barely edits outside of it. Sceptre (talk) 17:50, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I cannot say what user:Sceptre's comments don't already make obvious. There is no WP-valid justification for the reverts, and despite requests, continues to provide only NPA's devoid of any WP-valid content.— James Cantor (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

That cite you deleted "to an activist's blog" is a link to the blogger's article in a RS journal, what's wrong with that?! Raquel Baranow (talk) 21:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

If we take that as true, then the link is illegally distributing copyrighted material on WP. Take you pick as to reason it should be deleted. Any WP-relevant justifications for reverting the remaining edits?— James Cantor (talk) 01:13, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed interaction ban between James Cantor and Sceptre. A WP:Permalink for it it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:22, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

As there appears to be no real support for Sceptre's reversion of James Cantor's edits, I have restored them. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Latest edits

Ajfweb, you need to justify this revert with guideline and/or policy-based reasons, just like James Cantor justified his edits above, and like FreeKnowledgeCreator did when making this revert. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I can't really justify it, it was somewhat knee-jerk, sorry. I've gone and manually copied over individual changes where it seems fitting, trying to justify them. —ajf (talk) 16:06, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Ajfweb, yes, I saw that FreeKnowledgeCreator reverted again, and that, instead of you reverting again, you have been making individual and careful edits. Thanks for that. I know that Cantor can sometimes edit in a questionable way regarding opponents of his and/or his colleagues' work, but he is aware of his WP:COI and he does have a point about activists' views vs. psychologists' and psychiatrists' views. Also, using "is a disputed psychological typology" for the lead sentence is a WP:LABEL issue. It's also why "controversial" should not be added. We should not begin by stating that a concept is controversial or disputed; we should explain why there is debate on the matter. The lead can explain that debate without "controversial" or "disputed." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, stating "The theory has been the subject of controversy in the transgender community, which peaked with the publication of Bailey's The Man Who Would Be Queen in 2003.", as the lead currently does, is fine since that is explaining the controversy matter. The previous criticism text already explains how the typology is controversial, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Re: “disputed”, that's a fair criticism. I'll revert that. —ajf (talk) 15:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

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Whether or not “autogynephilia” is a kind of transsexualism

A point that the article in its present form seems unclear on is what “autogynephilia” is. Under Blanchard's transsexualism typology, it sounds like “autogynephiles” are considered transsexuals. However, the DSM version is a subcategory of, or at least related to, “transvestic fetishism”. These sound like different beasts: one is a classification that would mean someone is transsexual, the other is a classification that excludes being transsexual. The latter could then be a source of pushback if it is used to deny people care (which I seem to recall being a criticism of it). Should the article touch on this? Is my interpretation correct? —ajf (talk) 15:34, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

In Blanchard's typology, autogynephilia is considered a cause of dysphoria that can merit transition. However, while some autogynephiles do transition, most don't. This is similar to the situation on the HSTS side, where most gay men don't transition either. Tailcalled (talk) 15:27, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Word choice (transgender vs. transsexual) & non-binary trans representation/erasure

Under "criticism", this article should mention issues with terminology (the generally accepted term among trans people and in academic literature is "transgender", not "transsexual", and has been for some time). It should also mention the issue of the erasure of non-binary trans people. Tyro Kathar (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Tyro Kathar, as noted in the Transgender and Transsexual articles, some people still embrace the term transsexual and this is because the terms are still sometimes distinguished. In medical contexts, transsexual often has a specific meaning, and some researchers use this term as to be clear that they mean people who have undergone hormone therapy and/or sex reassignment surgery. After all, transgender is sometimes used as a broad term. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Re-redirect other way?

Although "autogynephilia" had redirected to here, I think that might be backwards. As stated on this page itself, this idea does not really belong to Blanchard. He just came up with the term autogynephilia and provided evidence to show the idea was correct. I think this page should redirect to autogynephilia instead of the other way around.StarLightBright (talk) 19:46, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Moving text to autogynephilia page.

I just re-created the autogynephilia page, which included a passage that was the same as on this page. So, I removed it from here. FreeKnowledgeCreator re-added it, which is not really a problem, but I thought having the same text on two pages would be redundant. StarLightBright (talk) 22:35, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, you clearly aren't a new editor. Sighs. Anyway, I agree with this revert by Lithopsian and this and this edit by FreeKnowledgeCreator. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Oversimplifying the HSTS side of the typology?

The article states that homosexual transsexuals are thought to transition in order to attract straight men. From having talked with Michael Bailey, I think this might be an oversimplification, with innate behavioral femininity and unusual ability to pass as female also being proposed as contributing factors. Tailcalled (talk) 12:18, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I would agree. All the attention is going to autogynephilia (via folks who don't want to be thought of as autogynephilic), with the other kind being reduced to a straw-person.— James Cantor (talk) 12:53, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits

Tailcalled, you clearly are not new to editing here. I don't know whether to think of you as StarLightBright or not, but I reverted you (followup note here) because not only did I see some WP:Editorializing and POV language, this article already has enough WP:Primary sources. It needs more WP:Secondary sources and sources that are compliant with WP:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) (WP:MEDRS). Further, I don't completely agree with the way you set the article up. For example, you had a "Autogynephilic vs. homosexual transsexuals" section as a subsection of the "Theory" section and then a separate "Autogynephilia" section that came after it. This made it so that autogynephilia would be addressed before the definition and explanations that come in the "Autogynephilia" section. Terminological stuff -- explaining what something is -- should ideally come first. All that stated, I don't feel strongly about your changes. If the article is rearranged slightly better than you rearranged it, I won't mind much. But the article should still mainly use secondary sources and WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm new to editing here, not sure why you think otherwise. Also, looking at some of the things you link, it seems like I might have some conflicts of interest I should disclose (not sure tho): I am a moderator of a sexology discussion group that generally focuses on Blanchard's typology, I am transsexual(-ish... it's complicated), and I have a blog on the subject. Not sure if these are significant enough to mention. I can try arranging things differently and change some of the sources. Tailcalled (talk) 07:29, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe you are. Your correct use of reference formatting, and signing your username on your very first post and with subsequent posts, and your correct use WP:Indentation, is not the way newbies typically edit, though. In fact, it's almost always the case that they don't edit like that right out of the gate unless they have edited similar wikis or are a supposed long-time lurker of this site. On the other hand, your use of heading formatting did not adhere to MOS:HEAD, which is the typical newbie editing. I mean that new editors almost always capitalize the first letter of each word, or most of the first letters. But we can move past my commentary on the newbie stuff. Maybe you're just a quick learner. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:59, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I've edited other wikis before and I'm good with technology. I probably also count as a lurker, considering I made this account in 2012. --Tailcalled (talk) 09:08, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Having created an account years ago without having used it is what we call a WP:Sleeper account. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Suppose we start from this revision. I would be tempted to merge the beginning of the "Theory" section with the "History" section, as a lot of it is about history, and then rewrite the "Theory" (perhaps renamed to "Background" or changed back to "Terminology") to only talk about a single typological distinction instead of the current handful it mentions (most likely "Homosexual"/"Autogynephilic" but perhaps "Early-onset"/"Late-onset" or "Early-onset"/"Autogynephilic", since these are used in some newer texts).

The content of the "Exceptions" section could arguably be placed in "History". I'm currently sourcing this with primary sources, but it's also mentioned in the tertiary (I think?) source "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies". If I'm reading the sourcing policy correctly, this would be treated similarly to a secondary source and is thus acceptable source material.

I think arranging the rest gets difficult because there is a lack of content on homosexual transsexuality. Ideally, we would likely want to have a section on each kind of transsexual, but there isn't anything written about HSTSs on this page yet. I could try writing it, using "The Man Who Would Be Queen" as a source, but I've heard a lot of people criticize that book and it would also take some time that I probably don't have at the moment.

I think there are some questions about what to do with the Autogynephilia section. In the linked revision, it's essentially a standalone article embedded within the outer article. This is because it was moved here from a separate article, but I think also there is a degree where it's "almost" a separate topic - you can say a lot of things about autogynephilia-in-general, while not focusing on transsexuals specifically. Having some text about this is probably good. --Tailcalled (talk) 08:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Let's wait a bit and see if anyone has anything to state. If they don't, we can go with your suggested revision as a starting point. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:59, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, folks. FWIW, I agree entirely with the autogynephilia section being/seeming a standalone article embedded here. I think there should be a stand alone autogynephilia page (although it need not be verbatim what appears here). It's the only major paraphilia without one, and autogynephilia is not a subconcept of Blanchard's typology. (It's generally thought that most autogynephiles are not transsexual at all.) — James Cantor (talk) 12:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

James, as you know, we've discussed before whether or not it should be a standalone article. I don't see that it should be.

Tailcalled, I think that the current setup you have going on is better, but it's still the case that the "Theory" section talks about "autogynephilic" before the Autogynephilic section is introduced. Why not have the terminology material that is in that section be in the first Terminology section? I'm also not keen on two terminology sections, but I can see why the second one is titled what it's titled as part of the "Criticism" section. Still, would it not be better to rename the first terminology section "Definitions"? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

@Flyer22: Yes, we do disagree on this one, and I see no problem whatsoever with your (or my) saying so. However, consensus can change, it's been five years (can you believe it??) since the wars over these pages, and the editors who have commented over time are mostly neutral or appear open to discussion about autogynephilia being its own page. Indeed, there have been several calls to discuss exactly that, but no actual discussion. So, rather than quickly dismiss the prospect, I think we should foster such discussion. — James Cantor (talk) 13:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Consensus can change, but consensus needs to to actually align with our rules. See below. Also, we last discussed this in 2015, three years ago. Not five. Back then, I was more open to you idea of a split, but not now. You and Tailcalled making the decision to split the content is not actually a discussion. Setting up a WP:RfC about the matter -- to get more editors involved and a close that will decide the matter -- is. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not making any decision. I've emphasized that I'm uncertain what to do, with statements like "keeping things as they are also makes sense" and "but I don't have strong opinions on it". --Tailcalled (talk) 08:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I think part of my confusion is that I'm not quite sure how much of the concept of autogynephilia you want to introduce before the main theory section. There is, after all, already some there. I think there is also still the question about how closely coupled Autogynephilia should be with Blanchard's transsexualism typology. I wouldn't be opposed to moving (or copying?) some of the Autogynephilia section up to the Terminology section, I'm just not used to writing Terminology sections so I'm not sure exactly what and how much. The Terminology section currently has a definition of autogynephilia. The main additions that the Autogynephilia sections seems to bring is a decomposition of the word into its roots, a bit of history about the word, and some other words that mean the same thing. Is it one of these pieces of information that you think are missing? Or is there something else that I'm missing? With regards to the two Terminology sections, I would suggest renaming the second to Misgendering language. For the record, I'm weakly in favor of moving Autogynephilia to a separate page, but I don't have strong opinions on it. --Tailcalled (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

All I am stating that sections about concept should not be introduced before explaining what those concepts are. Moving relevant autogynephilia material up to the Terminology section that gets the definition out of the way would be good. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, indeed I think these issues are linked. The more complete that a (hypothetical) autogynephilia page is, the more material can be put there with shorter summaries of it and links to it here. Without such a page at all, this page becomes the predominant container of that information. But, by being that container, it greatly outsizes everything else on the page (winding up being an autogynephilia page in everything but name). The major problem (from my point of view) is that that arrangement leaves no good place at all for people who experience autogynephilia but are not transsexual. That is, we have an autogynephilia page in everything but name which is incomplete.

I have shared my reasons for thinking why there should be an independent autogynephilia page before, but just to have them at hand:

• Autogynephilia is the only paraphilia (never mind highly RS'd paraphilia) without one.
• Autogynephilia is not a subtopic of transsexualism (even though autogynephiles indeed are a subset of MtF transsexuals).
• Corollary: Most autogynephiles are not transsexual.

Also to repeat what I've said before (and I know Flyer disagrees with me), I believe this page is WP:NEO, created during the great transgender wars as a WP:POVFORK to try to discredit/de-emphasize the idea of autogynephilia altogether. By the end of those wars, however, no one hand the energy left to clean up all the scarred earth. To me, this is just one of those scars. — James Cantor (talk) 16:24, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I can see how you could label this as a POVFORK. As far as I know, something similar to Blanchard's typology (the early-onset/late-onset typology) is relatively broadly accepted, though without the same causal claims embedded. In my view, the most logical thing to do (but not the only logical thing to do - keeping things as they are also makes sense) would be:

• Have a page about autogynephilia
• Have a page about autogynephilic transsexuals or perhaps late-onset transsexuals (with a section about autogynephilia), mirroring the page about homosexual transsexuals
• Include the early-onset/late-onset distinction on various pages relating to trans issues
• Have a page about controversies surrounding Blanchard's typology
• Cut the contents of this page up and spread it around those things above

However, I don't know if this is something that can practically be done, nor whether you agree that this approach makes sense. --Tailcalled (talk) 18:02, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that's very reasonable, and I could support that. The single exception, however, would be a independent page about the controversies. There could be a page about the controversy surrounding Bailey's The Man Who Would Be Queen, since there have been independent RSs specifically about that controversy. It's less clear to me whether there are equivalent RSs about Blanchard's typology per se. I think the controversies should be on each of the pages (so that each page provides both to readers), emphasizing whichever parts are relevant to that page. I do think that that could be done practically, except that it's easy to imagine a page about the controversy itself causing a great deal of warring. — James Cantor (talk) 19:15, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

It's not about disagreeing with you; it's about what our rules actually state. So I'll just repeat what I stated in the previous discussion: Restricting autogynephilia within Blanchard's transsexualism typology is not a WP:POVFORK. And titling the article "Blanchard's transsexualism typology" is not a WP:NEO violation. That is a title matter, and is allowed per WP:Precise if there is going to be a Wikipedia article specifically about Blanchard's typology. Having a section titled "Autogynephilia" or "Autogynephilia and autoandrophilia" also is not a WP:NEO violation. I don't like seeing unnecessary WP:Content forks. Ideally, we should be directing readers to one article that covers all of this, and only split content into separate articles when needed.

Like WP:POVFORK states, "The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion."

Blanchard's typology is WP:Notable for a Wikipedia article. Having an article tiled "Autogynephilia" would be argued by a number of Wikipedia editors as the actual WP:NEO issue; see that last paragraph currently at WP:NEO about descriptive phrases/plain English. Furthermore, with regard to both autogynephilia and autoandrophilia, if splitting were to happen, the article should be titled "Autogynephilia and autoandrophilia"; we shouldn't have one article titled "Autogynephilia" and the other titled "Autoandrophilia." It should be covered in one article. But again, I am against such splitting. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:37, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

(Replying to both of Flyer's posts...)

1. By “great transgender wars” I meant those culminating in the ArbCom decision, which were indeed five years ago. I don’t know why you would interpret it to mean any discussion between you and me, which have largely been quite cordial and productive. I believe the present would be similarly productive if it included less than 100% certainty in your interpretations. (Moreover, even if it were three rather than five years, my point would stand just as true. I don’t think gotcha!s lead to good editing or discussion.)
2. “You and Tailcalled making the decision to split the content is not actually a discussion.” This too is unnecessarily antagonistic. Neither of us treated it or referred to it as a discussion sufficient for going ahead. I don’t know what in my own call to foster discussion might be interpreted that way. Given the number of editors on this talk page over years who have asked for or recommended discussion, I think the better approach would be to follow your own recent advice on this page: “Let's wait a bit and see if anyone has anything to state.”
3. I agree entirely that “consensus needs to actually align with our rules.” I disagree, however, with your interpretation and application of our rules. Again, I believe the conversion would be more productive if it included less than 100% certainty that your interpretation is the interpretation. Moreover, in case it is not clear, I believe this page is a clear POVFORK, not of autogynephilia, but of Transsexualism, keeping this politically unpopular material off that page.) Estimate the attention this typology has among RSs, take a look at Transsexualism, and estimate the attention you see there.
4. None of this addresses, for example, autogynephilia being the only paraphilia without its own page, etc..
5. It is indeed possible that “Having an article titled "Autogynephilia" would be argued by a number of Wikipedia editors as the actual WP:NEO issue.” But what matters you also said yourself: “It's about what our rules actually state.” And following those rules (and the RSs) says autogynephilia is the broad topic, that its association with transsexuality is a SUBtopic; and transsexualism is the broad topic, with Blanchard's typology a SUBtopic of that. That is how they are treated in the textbooks of this field. Moreover, I do not understand why one would argue on the basis of false arguments that others would make. If you have come to believe that autogynephilia is NEO, you are again so entitled, but it’s not clear why you wouldn’t just say so.

Finally, I have no problem at all with an RfC. For the statement I would suggest something like “The material should be organized analogous to pages about other paraphilias and the behaviors they motivate, such as (apotemnophilia and amputation, biastophilia and rape, or hypoxyphilia and suffocation (etc.). Material about Blanchard’s typology (mostly the history, terminology, and theory except for erotic target location errors) moves to the Transsexualism page, and the material about autogynephilia (the autogynephilia section plus the ELTE subsection) moving to the Autogynephilia page.”
— James Cantor (talk) 17:04, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Other than you stating "since the wars over these pages," which I perhaps should have paid better attention to, how was I to know that you weren't referring to the actual previous discussion about this topic? I was not being unnecessarily antagonistic, or antagonistic at all. And interpretations? James, you have been with Wikipedia for a number of years, but you are not read up on/very familiar with a lot of Wikipedia protocol. You call this page a POV fork of transsexualism, but Blanchard's transsexualism typology is not transsexualism, and the topic is noted in that article. Back in 2015, there was substantial material on it in that article, but it has since been trimmed per WP:Summary style. The topic is simply an aspect of the topic of transsexualism, and is WP:Notable for its own Wikipedia article. So all of this is why your POV fork claims do not hold up in my view. And Wikipedia routinely deletes or merges neologisms regardless of whether there are reliable sources calling the topic a neologism. I'm not going to debate you any further on all of this, however. As for an RfC, I suggest you read WP:RfC before drafting it. It should be worded as a question...and neutrally. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Um, you're right. Other than by reading what I wrote there is no way for you to know what I wrote. Not much I can do about that.

I'm sure you do not intend to be unnecessarily antagonistic. Whether you want to accept the feedback that that is how you are being perceived (by someone who has been with Wikipedia for a number of years) is up to you.

Not only have I not said that Blanchard's transsexualism typology is transsexualism, I have essentially said the very opposite, explicitly labeling the typology a SUBtopic of transsexualism. Other than by reading what I wrote, there is no way for you to know what I wrote. It is exactly because (again in your own words) "The topic is simply an aspect of the topic of transsexualism" that I believe this material should be simply a subsection of that page.

I have nothing but respect for your much greater experience on WP than mine, and I continue to take very seriously any policy issues you point me to that I have overlooked (or forgotten). In none of this, however, have you said more than what amounts to "Because I said so." I have indeed read (and re-read) each of the relevant policies, and none of them leads me to the conclusion you have.

FWIW, I do not really oppose this current page existing. I just don't see (and no one has ever said) what here is does not belong better somewhere else.

(To check: Are you saying that the single sentence on the Transsexualism page, transcluded from yet another page, is proportionate to the coverage among RSs?)

You are perfectly entitled to say "I'm not going to debate you any further." However, after not responding to several of my points, not responding to my pointing out that you're not responding to those points, and then calling it quits, I can't say you are giving me much reason to reconsider my view.

I have read the policy on RfC. (If someone you have known and worked with here for several years says you are starting to become rather frankly condescending, would you pause a moment before responding?) In my reading of examples of current RfC's, some where phrased as questions, others, not. Many were statements simply followed by "Thoughts?". Because many were 'Do you prefer Option A or Option B?', I couldn't write the verbatim text until first I gave you the opportunity to present an Option B. I actually have no preference about phrasing. Because you are the only one expressing a strong negative view (most other folks being on shades of neutral), I wanted to be sure you are satisfied with the phrasing before I post it. This RfC was your idea, but I am having trouble getting you participate in it. It is starting to feel as if the suggestion were made as a roadblock rather than as a way forward. Do you have a better way to questionify my previous suggestion than this?:

Should the material on Blanchard's transsexualism typology be organized analogous to other pages about paraphilias and the behaviors they motivate, such as apotemnophilia and amputation, biastophilia and rape, and hypoxyphilia and suffocation, etc.? Is there a better way to do this than to move material about Blanchard’s typology (the sections on history, terminology, and theory except for erotic target location errors) moves to Transsexualism, and the material on autogynephilia (the autogynephilia section plus the ELTE subsection) to Autogynephilia page?

— James Cantor (talk) 18:35, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

James, in my opinion, you are the one being unnecessarily antagonistic. That is part of the reason I have "called it quits" when it comes to discussing this matter with you. The other reason is your notion that I am basing my reasoning on "because I said so," when I never argue in such a way on this site. In terms of feedback, you are not listening and are simply attributing everything I'm stating to my opinions. For example, the reason that I stated that Blanchard's transsexualism typology is not transsexualism is because you are arguing that this article is a WP:POVFORK of the Transsexualism article. WP:POVFORK clearly states "another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view." The Blanchard's transsexualism typology article is not another version of the Transsexualism article. Nor is it "another article on the same subject." It is a subtopic of the transsexualism topic. Many Wikipedia topics have subtopics and some of those subtopics have their own Wikipedia article. Unlike you, I don't feel strongly about Blanchard's transsexualism typology. Again, my reasons are actually based on what WP:NEO means, how WP:Precise factors in, and what WP:POVFORK means. This latest discussion between the two of us is a sour turn in our Wikipedia editing relationship; so it should be no surprise that this is yet another reason I do not wish to continue it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Relies too heavily on phallometry?

The article currently states

Charles Allen Moser, a sexuality advocate, criticized Blanchard's theory, stating that it uses an overly-broad definition of autogynephilia, is not sufficiently relevant to MtF transsexual patients, fails to account for all information on sexual and romantic interests of homosexual and transsexual people, relies too heavily on phallometry, and lacks supporting data.

However, the linked source states

The use of phallometry is controversial (APA, 2000; Marshall & Fernandez, 2000); however, a critique of this technique is beyond the scope of the present paper. Nevertheless, we will assume the method is accurate for the purposes of the present article.

I think the claim that it relies too heavily on phallometry isn't quite what the linked source states here, but I'm uncertain because the source seems to hint that this argument could be made. I don't think if that's enough to include it. However, the source has different critiques on the use of phallometry that may be relevant to include. --Tailcalled (talk) 09:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree: The claim (and the paraphrasing of that claim) are not what could be called encyclopedic, and I think should be deleted.— James Cantor (talk) 12:18, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Blanchard vs Blanchard-Bailey/Blanchard-Bailey-Lawrence

The article currently mainly credits Blanchard and predecessors (e.g. Freund) for the typology. However, if my understanding is correct (and it may not be), a significant part of the typology was developed by Bailey (and Lawrence), who are mostly presented as "supporters". For example, from what I understand, the proposed sexual motivation for HSTSs comes from Bailey, as well as the more-detailed claims about HSTS lives. If my understanding is correct, this should probably be reflected in the article, e.g. by properly crediting Bailey. (Maybe the article should also be renamed?) I'm not sure that it is true, though. --Tailcalled (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Both Bailey and Lawrence certainly fleshed it all out a great deal, but the basic idea that the motivation was sexual is Blanchard's. I do agree, however, that credit (and citation) is not correctly balanced. I agree also (as I have said before), that I don't think the current page title is the more helpful or accurate.— James Cantor (talk) 16:13, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Huh. I've tried searching through various publications by Blanchard, but I can't find his proposal of the sexual motivation for HSTSs. Do you happen to know where he did it? --Tailcalled (talk) 18:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps we are using "sexual motivation" in different ways. When I say it, I am referring to Blanchard's passages like this:

"One of the most striking features of full-blown homosexual transsexualism is the effect of gender dysphoria on the individual's sexual behavior....After vaginoplasty, of course, homosexual transsexuals are better equipped both to copulate as they wish and to attract heterosexual men." pp. 71-72 of Blanchard & Steiner (1993), Clinical management of gender identity disorders in children and adults.

In what sense do you mean it? — James Cantor (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I mean in the same sense which makes Bailey writes

He is near the boundary of male and female, and someday he may cross it. If he does, one primary motive will be lust.

Unless have misunderstood Bailey, he's arguing that a very significant part of the reason homosexual transsexuals transition is because they find straight men more attractive than gay men and that this makes them want to be women so they can attract them. --Tailcalled (talk) 18:48, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that that correctly understands Bailey, but that it is exactly the same thing that Blanchard said/says (and to whom Bailey credits the idea). If you see Blanchard as saying something different from Bailey, can you explicate the difference a bit? — James Cantor (talk) 18:59, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't have the text you're referring to, so I might be missing some context, but Blanchard seems to present the greater attractiveness to straight men as a phenomenon that just happens (thus, for instance, leaving open the possibility that they don't care much about whether they attract heterosexual or homosexual men), while Bailey presents it as a factor in the decision-making of homosexual transsexuals. --Tailcalled (talk) 19:13, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The chapter can be downloaded from Blanchard's website, at http://individual.utoronto.ca/ray_blanchard/GID_Men.pdf . He is entirely explicit about the preference for heterosexual male over homosexual male partners. — James Cantor (talk) 21:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Hm. I don't want to be pedantic, and it's still very possible that I'm misunderstanding people (especially since Bailey himself is attributing the idea to Blanchard), but (assuming we are talking about what's written on page 71) I get the impression that Blanchard is saying that they prefer heterosexual male partners because these are more likely to see them as women. Bailey also emphasizes the aspect of gay men being too feminine, e.g. writing He had several gay partners — Terese calls this her “gay boy” phase—but began to notice that he did not find other gay boys or men to be particularly attractive. They were too feminine. Jose was much more attracted to the straight men that he met. I don't know if Bailey was the person who first noticed this part. Arguably, these constitute two different forms of preference for straight men. --Tailcalled (talk) 22:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I have to laugh: Pedantry (and caffeine) are Wikipedia's very fuel!!

It is indeed true that in describing the phenomenon, both Blanchard and Bailey are describing/emphasizing different aspects for the benefit of readers in their respective contexts, but I don't think they are describing different phenomena. (And I don't think they would say they are describing different phenomena.) To get right down to what should appear on this page, I think we can phrase it a way that appropriately acknowledges each of their contributions without inadvertently putting our own thoughts on the page. You wanted (correctly, I believe) to indicate that Bailey and Lawrence were more than "supporters." I think that that can be accomplished by referring to their works as "expanding" or "further detailing." — James Cantor (talk) 13:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I guess the follow-up question is, was it Blanchard who discovered that the reason HSTSs weren't attracted to gay men was because of their femininity, or is that an example of Bailey fleshing out the theory? --Tailcalled (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Clearly emphasizing that autogynephilic transsexuals aren't "fake trans" and can benefit from transition

A common concern about presenting the typology is that some may conclude that their autogynephilia means that they shouldn't transition. This is neither supported by the typology nor by surrounding research, and it might be worth addressing this point very clearly. However, I'm not sure what the best approach for this is. Also, I'm not sure if it would violate some rule about presentation or bias. Is there some policy on how to address common myths? --Tailcalled (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

You are correct to attend to potential bias (or perception of bias). This is a controversial area, including protracted problems on exactly these pages. Nevertheless, so long as the material is relevant (and I believe it very much is) and accurately conveys the RS is comes from, it should be fine. The way to avoid the bias is to ensure that each of the opinions on the issue are represented on the page (proportionate to their impact among RSs). — James Cantor (talk) 17:11, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Causes of transsexualism

The article currently states:

The typology suggests distinctions between MtF transsexuals, but does not speculate on the causes of transsexualism.

This sounds wrong to me. A large part of why the typology is interesting seems to be the approaches it suggests for learning about the causes of transsexualism. I know there are some who downplay the importance of this aspect, but I think it's wrong to state that there's no speculation about the causes at all. Thoughts? --Tailcalled (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

You are correct. His chapter on adult females with gender dysphoria is also available from his website, at http://individual.utoronto.ca/ray_blanchard/GID_Women.pdf. The section on homosexual gender dysphoric females starts on page 79, and the section on heterosexual gender dysphoric females starts on page 86. — James Cantor (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Did you misread this as being about FtMs? The statement in the article is about MtFs. --Tailcalled (talk) 22:11, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, yes I misread you. It is technically correct that the typology doesn't speculate on causes, but it's a pretty vacuous thing to say. Typologies, by definition, do not address causes; clustering based on causes is a taxonomy. (A typology is descriptive only.) A typology does, of course, suggest the initial questions and hypotheses about causes, but that is not part of the typology itself. — James Cantor (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Request for Comment on material in Autogynephilia vs Blanchard's transsexualism typology vs Transsexualism

The consensus is against the proposal.

Cunard (talk) 01:41, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion 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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Should the material on Blanchard's transsexualism typology be organized analogously to other pages about paraphilias and the behaviors they motivate, such as apotemnophilia and amputation, biastophilia and rape, and hypoxyphilia and suffocation, etc.? Is there a better way to do this than to move material about Blanchard’s typology (the sections on history, terminology, and theory except for erotic target location errors) to Transsexualism, and the material on autogynephilia (the autogynephilia section plus the ELTE subsection) to Autogynephilia? — James Cantor (talk) 19:14, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• No. Per WP:No page, not every notable topic needs its own Wikipedia article, and especially if the term is a neologism (see WP:NEO). Something like the short article Biastophilia, for example, would be better covered at the Paraphilia article or the Rape article. I see no issue with the Blanchard's transsexualism typology article continuing to be its own article, or an issue with autogynephilia continuing to be covered within it rather than being spun out into its own article and/or having the rest of the Blanchard's transsexualism typology material merged into the Transsexualism article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:00, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Also note that apotemnophilia redirects to the Body integrity identity disorder article, and that hypoxyphilia redirects to the Erotic asphyxiation article, which lends to the WP:Precise/descriptive phrases argument that WP:NEO makes about isolated terms or terms that require specialist knowledge. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. (Do I say 'from nominator?). Of the many paraphilias appearing in RSs (see List of paraphilias), Autogynephilia is the only one without a page, despite being for more RS'ed than almost all. The tangent about redirects is rather a red herring: Many paraphilias have multiple names, so a page with one name redirecting to another name for that paraphilia is unremarkable (and irrelevant). The point, which Flyer22 does not address, is that the pages about the paraphilias are separate from the pages about the behaviors they motivate. — James Cantor (talk) 13:09, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Anyone is free to look at the Autogynephilia section in this very article and see how relevant it is to this article and that it absolutely does not need its own page. Your comment about "many paraphilias hav[ing] multiple names" is irrelevant since my point is that an article titled "Aapotemnophilia," for example, does not exist. Instead, we have the precise "Body integrity identity disorder" title and any alternative terminology (including outdated terminology) and concepts are covered there -- in one article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• No. per Flyer22 Reborn. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:55, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
• No. We already have significant overcoverage of this fringey stuff. Guy (Help!) 08:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
• Hell no per WP:FRINGE. Keira1996 12:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

JzG and Keira1996, WP:Fringe currently states, "In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a very broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field." With regard to studying the causes of transsexuality, I'm not sure that I would call Blanchard's typology fringe. The causes of transsexuality are not well understood; there is no general agreement about what causes it or even what doesn't cause it (except perhaps that rearing doesn't influence a person's true gender identity), and a number of sexologists and other researchers support Blanchard's typology. But, yeah, Blanchard's typology is controversial in the transgender community (although there are some transgender women who support the typology). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:21, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The question is not Blanchard per se, but the ever decreasing spirals of hypothesised paraphilias built on it. That was the specific question. Guy (Help!) 12:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• No. A single article provides a proper context on the controversial taxonomy. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:28, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• No. This article is currently about a controversial typology. What makes a typology, or taxonomy, controversial (or indeed uncontroversial) isn't the typology itself, it's the hypotheses on which it's based. When zoologists argue about the taxonomy of reptiles, they aren't really arguing about taxonomy, they're arguing about issues such as "are turtles closer to crocodiles or to lizards?" (and they're in the fortunate position of being able to discuss it without offending anyone, and obtain evidence from DNA sequencing). I doubt that we should have an article about this typology. But if we do, it should be about the typology, and be organised as such; it shouldn't be "organized analogously to other pages about paraphilias", because it's not a page about a paraphilia. Maproom (talk) 06:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• No. Proponents of the typology cherry pick or distort evidence to fit a model (which is a sign that it is pseudoscience) -- but not just any model. It is made to fit Blanchard's model specifically. Critics of the typology also cite Blanchard. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 19:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Marie Paradox, cherry picking happens for a lot of articles here, especially contentious topics. It does not indicate or mean that the topic is pseudoscience. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, I was not talking about Wikipedia editors. The problem is that Blanchard and his acolytes have been cherry picking and distorting evidence. Good scientists shape models to fit the evidence. Blanchard tries to shape evidence to fit his model. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 13:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Marie Paradox, what you state about Blanchard is an opinion. I'd rather not debate it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:34, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

I can't write more fully until later, but I did want to address at least the very strange NEO comment. There is no shortage of secondary sources. These are some I happen to have on hand:

• Balon, R. (2016). Transvestic disorder. In R. Balon (Ed.), Practical Guide to Paraphilia and Paraphilic Disorders. NY: Springer.
• Bogaert, A. F. (2012). Asexuality and autochorissexualism (identity-less sexuality). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 1513-1514.
• Bockting, W. O. (2005). Biological reductionism meets gender diversity in human sexuality. Jouran
• Bockting, W. O. (2009). Transforming the paradigm of transgender health: a field in transition. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 24, 103-107.
• Carroll, R. A. (2015). Transvestic fetishism. International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs520
• Dreger, A. (2015). Galileo’s Middle Finger. NY: Penguin Press.
• Kórász, K., & Simon, L. (2008). Diagnosis an differential diagnostic features of gender identity disorder. Psychiatria Hungarica, 23, 196-205
• Lawrence, A. A. (2004). Autogynephilia: A Paraphilic Model of Gender Identity Disorder. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 8, 69-87.
• Lawrence, A. A. (2011). Autogynephilia: An underappreciated paraphilia. In Balon, R. (Ed.), Sexual Dysfunction, Beyond the Brain-Body Connection.
• Leli, U, & Drescher, J. (2004). Crossing over: Introduction. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 8, 1-5.
• Lehmiller, J. J. (2017). Controversial issues in human sexuality research. European Psychologist, 22, 1-4.
• Serano, J. M. (2010). The case against autogynephilia. International Journal of Transgenderism, 12, 176-187.

For those interested, some of the recent primary sources are on Talk:Autogynephilia.
FWIW, googling "autogynephilia" retrieves 489,000 results. Googling "Blanchard's transsexualism typology" retrieves 1,140 and consists almost entirely of pointers and mirrors of the WP page.— James Cantor (talk) 12:59, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Our own Wikipedia article defines a neologism as "a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language." It also states, "In psychiatry, the term neologism is used to describe words that have meaning only to the person who uses them, independent of their common meaning." Both definitions are cited to sources. Perhaps James Cantor is referring to the second definition when saying "WP:NEO" doesn't fit "autogynephilia," because that first definition covers autogynephilia. I state that because "autogynephilia" is mainly used by one group of people, including Lawrence and Dreger. And when sources refer to the theory, sometimes objecting to it, they refer to that group of people (especially Blanchard). Our own Wikipedia article currently states, "Autogynephilia is most notable for its use in Blanchard's taxonomy to explain the presence of gender dysphoria in 'non-homosexual' (gynephilic) male-to-female transsexuals, in contrast to the gender dysphoria observed in 'homosexual' (androphilic) transsexuals." I don't know if it's sourced or not, but the association with Blanchard is very clear by most of the Autogynephilia section in the article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:50, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

And considering the coinage of the term, it is "relatively recent." We (on Wikipedia) refer to things far older than the term autogynephilia as "relatively recent." But the term autogynephilia falls outside of that scope? Well, people do disagree on what "relatively recent" means; I've seen it in some WP:NEO debates. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:43, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

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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.