Talk:Postgenderism/Archive 1

Neologism dispute

Is this perhaps an unencyclopedic neologism? Only 26 Google hits, some of them Wikipedia itself. The article has only one significant contributor. Andrewa 05:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

A Google search of Postgender reveals more hits, including referrences to academic conferences, as well as cultural and religious aspects. I will suggest that this entry be given more time to attract more attention and other contributors. Moreover, in the context of it being a potential neologism, I wonder if you can suggest another term that enscapsulates this sentiment and burgeoning cultural tendency? gdvorsky 09:42, 9 February 2006 (EST)

That sounds to me like a yes as to whether it is a neologism. Are you the inventor of the term? Or did you get it from somewhere else? Where? I'm sorry if this sounds confrontational, but both of the external links currently cited in the article are broken. Andrewa 20:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I fixed the external links. A quick peak at the URLs would have revealed syntax errors. I would advise that you read those links, particularly the second one, which shows the term being used in context. As for the origin of the term, "postgender" has been used for decades, both in the feminist movement and in the futurist context; that it is advocated by some groups, namely transhumanists, indicate to me that it's fair and appropriate to infer a cultural imperative, i.e. that the "ism" is valid. Moreover, it's a term used in academia, regardless of what Google says. I hardly think that a Google search justifies whether or not a term should be defined in Wikipedia. gdvorsky 16:05, 9 February 2006 (EST)

The syntax errors were not obvious to me. Thank you for correcting them.

Neither of the corrected link targets appears to mention postgenderism by name. Have you any better links? I suppose I could try to find some among the Google hits, but I really think that (as with the link syntax) you are in a better position to provide this information than I am.

Again, above you have answered the question I didn't ask. It appears to me that, in this sense at least, "postgenderism" is a term that you have coined, forming it from "postgender" as you describe. I wish I didn't have to guess! But it still seems to me that this is a neologism.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the article should be deleted, but an AfD nomination is now looking a distinct possibility. Please don't take this suggestion personally. AfD is just part of the process by which the community here discusses doubtful cases for inclusion.

If worst comes to worst and the article is eventually deleted, please don't take this personally either. There are many places for original work on the Internet. But I am still a bit doubtful that Wikipedia is the right place for this one. Andrewa 03:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You do what you feel you have to do. I'll be more than happy to subject this to broader scrutiny. gdvorsky 22:45, 9 February 2006 (EST)

Why not simply tag the article with Category:Neologisms? --Loremaster 10:04, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I would be in favour of this --Gdvorsky 08:39, 10 February 2006 (EST)

Agree, good idea. And I see Loremaster has done it. Andrewa 14:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've changed my mind about this. Category:Neologisms is for articles such as Anglicisation, which describe neologisms, rather than articles such as this, which are neologisms themselves. Hmmmm. Andrewa 19:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Dispute or discussion

Despite the heading recently added there is little if any dispute IMO. It seems agreed that postgenderism is a neologism based on "postgender" (which currently redirects to postgenderism). For my part, I am mainly interested in finding out when and by whom the term was coined, and whether there is significant usage outside of this article. Andrewa 16:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My primary argument is that the tendency towards a postgender state implies postgenderism, and since there's no dispute about the appropriateness of the term postgender, there should be no argument about the validity of postgenderism, and consequently there shouldn't be an issue about who may have "coined" the term. Gdvorsky 17:00, 10 February 2006 (EST)

That's what you mean by postgenderism, then. But others may use the same term for subtly but significantly different things... what, I can't imagine. That's one of the problems with neologisms, and one reason that, in general, they are not considered suitable as article titles here. Until there is a generally accepted meaning for the title, it's not encyclopedic, and Wikipedia should not attempt to present a meaning. Others can, but their work is original research and/or advocacy and doesn't belong here.

Let me try to guess what else postgenderism might mean... In your article, you say that part of postgenderism is the belief that gender roles are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. But, couldn't it equally be that some particular set of beliefs about gender roles ("genderism") is no longer part of society? That's not to say whether on not this is a reasonable belief, it's just a hypothetical example of another thing that postgenderism could mean according to the meaning of "gender" and the functions of the two affixes "post-" and "-ism". Your definition is about what people believe is good (or should happen), while this hypothetical definition is about what they believe is happening. The two are related obviously, but the meanings are different, and until some notable writer (and again please don't take offence at this) uses the term, and/or it passes into common usage, Wikipedia should not attempt to define it.

That's why I was interested to see whether or not Donna Haraway used the term in the work you cite. She doesn't, but if she had I'd be interested in what she meant by it. Because, if on the other hand the topic is encyclopedic, then this is of interest as article content. So either way, it's relevant. Andrewa 02:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

One solution might to move the content of this article to either the Postgender or Gender articles. --Loremaster 00:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Postgender redirects here, so that's not a lot of help. I too am unsure whether the term is commonly used with this particular meaning. Are there other references to cite? bikeable (talk) 00:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

My point is that Postgender should become an article while Postgenderism would redirect to it. --Loremaster 00:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

ah, sorry. bikeable (talk) 00:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what an article on postgender would say, other than giving a dicdef. The material currently in this article is on the purportive diverse social, political and cultural movement whose adherents affirm the elimination of gender in the human species. That's on-topic, and concerns postgenderism, not postgender which is an established term.

But is postgenderism as a topic encyclopedic? I'm still a bit skeptical. We have no sources cited, and the description of its adherents as those who affirm something (we would more normally say support, I think) sounds like a political manifesto to me. I'd be happier if this was a quote from a citeable source; Then this phrasing would make good sense.

But that's partly just style. What this style led me to ask is, has anyone else ever heard of these people? Is the author of this rather slogannish definition perhaps themselves a citeable source? Have they published it elsewhere? Or, are they publishing their own original ideas here? Andrewa 02:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Critique

Shouldn't a encyclopedia article have criticism also? --85.204.31.123 01:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It should indeed. The lack of it here or anywhere else confirms my view that this is promotional material for a not-yet-encyclopedic cause or movement, named by its proponent. AfD is still a possibility IMO, if only to determine the community feeling one way or another. The main reason I hesitate is that other editors are showing so little interest. Andrewa 18:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I agree that we should add a criticism section to the Postgenderism article, I think one solution to the debate over the very existence of this article could be to merge Postgenderism article with either the Gender article or the Androgyny article. --Loremaster 19:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

So (as asked below) would you support this? Andrewa 18:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What links here

I've linked the Postgenderism article to the following articles:

• Posthumanism
• Transhumanism
• Transgender
• Gender
• Androgyny
• Donna Haraway
• Cyborg theory
• James Hughes
• Morphological freedom

--Loremaster 19:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for finally signing this post. Andrewa 12:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Status of postgenderism

See http://www.betterhumans.com/blogs/george/archive/2006/02/12/4329.aspx for an interesting background to this article. This blog seems to me to confirm this as original research. It's notable also that, despite the request for others to become involved and provide citations to support the article, there still aren't any. None of the three references currently in the article mention postgenderism as such.

Google hits for postgenderism are growing in number, but this is partly due to Wikipedia mirrors, and partly due to blogs and similar activities by George Dvorsky, the principle author of this article. Andrewa 19:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said in a section above, I think a cogent summary of the cotent of this article could be added to the Gender or Androgyny article. --Loremaster 19:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Would that mean this article would then become a redirect? Would you support this? Andrewa 12:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes and yes. We should mention transhumanist philosopher George Dvorsky as the main theorist/advocate/proponent of postgenderism. --Loremaster 20:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess that's part of the whole question... who is this George Dvorsky? You and he, plus a few IPs, have written this article on postgenderism, one of his theories, and also a stub on George himself. But is either of them encyclopedic? There's no evidence to support this yet, in either article. He certainly seems active on the web... but well, so are lots of us! These two articles do to some extent live or die together, IMO. Andrewa 01:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. As the George Dvorsky article explains, he is far more than simply someone active on the web. So rather than deleting them, we could merge the Postgenderism article with his article. --Loremaster 07:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Loremaster 07:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Separating Postgenderism and George Dvorsky

I belive that the idea of Postgenderism and the man George Dvorsky should be separated back into two articles on the aspect that one is a idea and one is a man simple enough for me. --Kylehamilton 02:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Postgenderism advanced enough?

Does anyone else think that the postgenderism warrants its own article? Its goals and broader philosophy far exceeds the concerns of common Transgenderism after all. Fetternity (talk) 05:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Postgenderism already had its own article but it was being threatenec with deletion so we merged the content of that article into the Transgenderism article. --Loremaster (talk) 14:39, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a terrible solution though. These two things are not even related. If postgenderism needs to be deleted, that doesn't mean it should just take over a completely different article that coincidentally shares the same word. I suggest splitting these again. 24.5.174.153 (talk) 23:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As the article explains, transgenderism is also a synonym for postgenderism so they are related. Therefore, I'm opposed to a split until the word gains more currency. --Loremaster (talk)

Postgenderism most definitely is not a synonym for transgenderism. Postgenderism is a serious topic of discussion amongst gender theory circles. I think it deserves its own article. ronnycary (talk) 16:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

As the article explains (and as everyone knows), words have several meanings. How do you know that transgenderism is most definitely not a synonym for postgenderism? By the way, Wikipedia already had an article on postgenderism but it was deleted because it wasn't notable. Although you seem to care about the subject, you don't seem to realize that what you are asking for will probably lead to all information about postgenderism being completely deleted from Wikipedia... --Loremaster (talk) 07:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

And also: I don't see any citation for postgenderism and transgenderism as being used as synonyms. I've never heard anyone use these two words interchangeably. ronnycary (talk) 16:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've heard many people using these two words as synonyms but I will look for reliable sources. --Loremaster (talk) 07:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Just because there have been people who use transgenderism (as in, transhumanism + gender) as a synonym for postgenderism, doesn't mean it has anything at all to do with LGBT transgenderism (transgender + feminism). The way it is written now is confusing, because it combines two unrelated subjects. One is about pride and empowerment of transgender people in today's world. One is a theory concerning what gender will be in the far future. You seem to be just taken something that was supposed to be deleted and hiding it in another article. 171.66.82.157 (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Putting aside the fact that the article clearly states that “postgenderism as a cultural phenomenon has roots in feminism, masculism, along with the androgyny, metrosexual/technosexual and transgender movements”, who said postgenderism has to have something to do with LGBT transgenderism to be in this article? Words can and often have several unrelated meanings. Biocentrism is a good example. You also seem to be forgetting that the word “transgenderism” wasn't always positively associated with transgender pride. On the contrary, the word was negatively associated with gender identity disorder. That being said, no one is hiding anything here. Everything that was done was consistent with Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages guidelines. --Loremaster (talk) 06:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)