The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
If really necessary (I thought bracketed disambiguation was discouraged in category names, but I my have dreamt that up), but I would doubt that there is anything else in the CCS disambiguation list that is likely to have a category for its band members. Kevin McE (talk) 13:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC) I have just read Categorization#Naming_conventions, and this counter-proposal does indeed meet the requirements of the ninth bullet point. I have learned something, so happily concede to the counter-proposal. Kevin McE (talk) 13:57, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:Collective Consciousness Society albums
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
If really necessary (I thought bracketed disambiguation was discouraged in category names, but I my have dreamt that up), but I would doubt that there is anything else in the CCS disambiguation list that is likely to release albums. Kevin McE (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2021 (UTC) I have just read Categorization#Naming_conventions, and this counter-proposal does indeed meet the requirements of the ninth bullet point. I have learned something, so happily concede to the counter-proposal. Kevin McE (talk) 13:57, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:Hindu communities of India
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was:delete. I checked the member pages, and they are adequately categorised without this. – FayenaticLondon 14:09, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator's rationale: Duplicates Category:Social groups of India - which is a more normative listing and more accurate. Caste and social groups more properly define communities in India. Whiteguru (talk) 21:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Question, wouldn't merging be more appropriate than deletion? Marcocapelle (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Merging is a good suggestion; however, will bring about duplication? I am not sure, but suspect it might. --Whiteguru (talk) 21:51, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Aitareya Brahmana does not appear to belong in this category, as it describes a written work, not a community. @Dawnpope: why did you add it to three categories for people groups? Was that because it documents the history of some Hindu groups? – FayenaticLondon 14:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's about communes, Kevin. The articles seem to discuss regional variations in Hindu practice and belief. We really could do with statement of an express purpose for each category. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:37, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I agree with Kevin McE's reasoning. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:Prophets of Islam
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was:disperse and delete. ✗plicit 11:42, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Thank you for the ping, Marcocapelle. This is a logical conclusion to the earlier discussions about subcats in this area. No Great Shaker (talk) 08:48, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that after dispersion the subcat should be re-parented. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:27, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:2000s Canadian black sitcoms
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was:merge/delete as nominated. – FayenaticLondon 08:08, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Propose deleting Category:2000s Canadian black television series
Propose deleting Category:Canadian black sitcoms by decade
Nominator's rationale: With only three articles in this category of which two are also duplicate-categorized into the parent category as its only contents, and no prospect of sibling categories for any other decade being created anytime soon, there's no pressing need for by-decade categorization here at this time. Obviously no prejudice against recreation in the future when the Canadian black sitcoms parent has enough entries to justify subcatting. Bearcat (talk) 16:39, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support all per nom. WP:SMALLCAT applies and these are the best options for resolution. No Great Shaker (talk) 09:59, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:Wikipedia books (user books)
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Propose renaming Category:Wikipedia books (user books) to Category:Wikipedia user books
Nominator's rationale: Unnecessary disambiguion. This could even be shorten to just Category:Wikipedia books as there is no other type of books. Gonnym (talk) 09:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Rename per nom. --Just N. (talk) 20:10, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Sorry, Gonnym, you're not right in assuming that there are no other such books. Out there exist some publishers who indeed try to sell printed Wikipedia contents, and also foolish people as online buyers who don't perceive this until it's too late and the money is paid. Just had to be said. --Just N. (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Qwerfjkltalk 12:12, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete – This is a vestigial of the Books tool, which no longer exists. There's no need to put user pages like this in categories. MClay1 (talk) 14:39, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like all pages in this category may be deleted, but that requires a different nomination. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing to stop this discussion turning into a deletion discussion. MClay1 (talk) 10:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - We do not normally categorize user subpages by type of subpage: there is no Category:User sandboxes, Category:Userbox subpages, etc. The reason we do not do so is that there is no value to the encyclopedia of doing so, and there is no such value here. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For each of those there is also a corresponding category outside of the userspace. No such outside userspace category for the user books exists any longer. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:32, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Note that the category is transcluded via ((saved book)). bibliomaniac15 05:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I think whoever closes this should read this discussion as well, for broader info/clarity. - jc37 15:13, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Looking this over, I think this category is now the only way to find these, over 51 thousand, pages. Since userfication (and WP:REFUND) was built into the namespace removal process, I don't think deleting this category fairly follows those previous discussions. I'm not opposed to a rename, but we really do not need "Wikipedia", and "user" in the name. How about Category:User namespace book pages (similar to Category:User namespace templates). With the book namespace gone, we probably shouldn't merely call these "books" (most seem to be pages of links), as it might give an incorrect impression of what they are currently. Other name ideas, welcome.- jc37 15:13, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect. The category is populated via a template, ((saved book)), and no one is proposing the template be deleted. All the pages can be found via "What links here" on the template page (results here, and one could up the limit from 500 to get all on one page if desired: even better than the 200-page category limit). UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I remember the userbox "wars" of the past, and I do remember that "whatlinks here" argument. and while it may have been valid in some of those cases (since they were often merely about subjective opinion and/or interest, and so no category grouping was needed), and stated it myself more than a few times, I think in this case, navigation is enhanced by these pages being in a category together. Is there a particular reason I am missing for this to not be kept, besides "We don't want/need it"? - jc37 17:09, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, bibliomaniac15 03:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Pointless category that adds no value at all. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Coming back on my earlier comment before relisting. I meant to say, what is the purpose of these user pages at all. On the other hand, if the existance of these user pages is indisputable, I do not have a strong opinion about the existance of the category. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In the discussion I linked to above, that first comment by User:David Eppstein gave me pause. Clearly while the books project (and associated namespace) had an intended purpose, This also was used for other things for collaboration by editors. So, just because the books project is gone, doesn't mean these individual userfied pages do not have value. If that were true, they wouldn't have included userfication and WP:REFUND. I kind of see these as another type of index page or portal, but hosted in userspace. Hence why I suggested calling these "book pages", rather than merely "books". - jc37 19:25, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I still have five of these (linked on my user page, and userfied after the demise of the book namespace) that are useful to me both on-wiki (for grouping articles into thematic collections for me to find and work on improving) and off-wiki (as reading lists for my university courses). They were even more useful on-wiki when they were in the book namespace and there was a bot collecting their ratings and telling me which ones had problems that needed work, but even without the bot quality reports I think the grouping is helpful. I don't see a valid rationale for un-categorizing them, or otherwise putting time and effort into discouraging me from keeping these things. I don't care whether the category is renamed, but it should be kept. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I don't see an actual benefit to deleting this category, and it seems useful to some people. It doesn't violate any policies, so why make some peoples' lives harder? No opinion on whether to rename this, but deletion would be wrong. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Category:Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity
The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more categories. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
Nominator's rationale: A newly created category that is a violation of the last paragraph of WP:CATLGBT, as well as inevitably leading to WP:NPOV and WP:NOTADVOCACY violations.
CATLGBT states, Categories that make allegations about sexuality—such as "closeted homosexuals" or "people suspected of being gay"—are not acceptable under any circumstances. If such a category is created, it should be immediately depopulated and deleted. The context of that section speaks of LGBT categories, and there are no separate instructions for gender identity; this is clearly intended to apply to these as well. Community consensus is clearly against such categories.
The existence of this category is an invitation for people to use it to claim as many historical figures as 'maybe transgender' as possible. There are very many people, especially female people, through history who escaped the extremely restrictive gender norms of their society by doing things like cross-dressing and disguising/presenting themselves as the opposite gender that some people today, who lack training in historical contextualization, misunderstand and use to claim that they were actually transgender. They then write about this in some outlets that are technically RS - like some news media outlets, LGBT or otherwise - but these are often WP:FRINGE perspectives from the perspective of the actual WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Many women thus get posthumously reclassified as men (trans men). These people lived long before modern concepts of gender identity and of what words and actions are considered to declare such a thing. This category - regardless of its creator's intentions - will be used to put WP:UNDUE weight on such speculations and to enable advocacy of such claiming of historical figures as trans. There are many such people this could be done to.
Placeholder. Letting it known I've seen this. Headed to bed now. Will reply after work tomorrow. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 03:38, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I want to address a why I created the category and then respond to some criticisms of the category other users have stated. First-and-foremost, history, especially far history, is often ambiguous in itself. What this category was created to express is historical individuals (that is, as I explicitly state on the category itself, those that are no longer subject to WP:BLP) for whom the understanding of their gender/gender identity among reliable sources would be regarded here as "No consensus".
Regarding the various criticisms:
I believe the argument regarding WP:NPOV/WP:DUE/WP:FRINGE holds no water. Those aren't valid arguments for a category being nigh-instantly suggested for deletion without any suggestion or rework/rename/etc. Those are individual issues, as Ezlev noted, and can be dealt with if an editor attempts to, without proper backing of reliable sources, categorize something this way.
I believe the suggestion that WP:NOTADVOCACY applies against this category misses the mark. Given the fact the category is specifically for historical individuals beyond BLP-scope, not only is the potential for abuse low, but even if someone potentially were to attempt rebranding a historical figure as gender-ambiguous, they would need significant RS to do so, and, outside of that sourcing, the category can be deftly removed.
Regarding WP:CATDEF/WP:DEFINING, in many cases, the gender ambiguity or variance of these historical individuals is already defining (as is the case of James Barry (surgeon) on which talk page gave me this idea, as no honest evaluation of the variety of sources in Barry's case could ever render a definitive gender or gender identity, and classification of Barry as a trans man vs a cross-dressing woman was sparking debate and controversy). Those saying that this policy requires deletion of the category I feel miss the same point as the content issues Ezlev noted. Whether or not a historical individual is defined in this way is up to the preponderance of the reliable sources and not what we as editors wish it to be. If the sources don't hold the ambiguity of the subject's gender to be defining or of notable/great importance, then it can simply be removed.
Regarding WP:SMALLCAT, this was created less than 24-hours ago. It's not going to be fully-populated in a day.
I believe the assertion that WP:CATLGBT forbids this type of category is improper. Also the fact that CFD is being used to propose deletion is indicative that it does not apply, as Crossroads omitted some of the policy, the full text of the paragraph reads Categories that make allegations about sexuality—such as "closeted homosexuals" or "people suspected of being gay"—are not acceptable under any circumstances. If such a category is created, it should be immediately depopulated and deleted. Note that as similar categories of this type have actually been attempted in the past, they may be speedily deleted (as a G4) and do not require another debate at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. The fact that Crossroads did not propose G4 CSD for this category, as the policy recommends for applicable categories, feels like a tacit admission that said paragraph does not apply. In addition, this is not an attempt to define sexuality and make allegations, this categorizes individuals for whom the consensus of reliable sources, all academic understanding and due-weight considered, is not clear regarding gender.
Regarding the utilization of another category, such as Category:Cross-dressers. Those categories have a heavy implication that the individual just dresses opposite of their assigned binary gender, that gender being theirs. It would only be proper provided clear basis for it. Categorizing a subject as this when there is significant proper sourcing that indicates the possibility of other gender/gender identity is deeply improper.
So it is for these reasons I believe Keep is in order. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 02:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did seriously consider using G4 as CATLGBT mentions; however, even the slightest technical difference from the criteria usually leads to the viewing admin declining a CSD. That seemed probable enough that using CfD would be better; otherwise people may then argue that such a decline means my point is wrong. I maintain that this is against the clear spirit of CATLGBT even though some clauses only mention sexual orientation. Crossroads-talk- 03:04, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The nominator's rationale seems to be that people will use this category to categorize historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identities, which seems like an endorsement of it, not a reason to delete. That you personally think some of those cases shouldn't be disputed (by things that are "technically RS", or in other words are RS) doesn't mean that they aren't. And while I agree that the "allegations about sexuality" bit should be read to apply to gender as well, it's not an allegation of anything to say that there's ambiguity or a dispute. That'd only be an issue if there isn't ambiguity or dispute in a particular case, which can be resolved on an article's talk page, same as with any other inappropriate category. Keep.-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 04:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What I said is that outlets that are generally considered RS - say, LGBT sites or The Guardian - may publish articles that are actually WP:FRINGE opinions from a scholarly perspective. This category clearly is alleging (i.e. making allegations) that these people could have been transgender, in the same way as "people suspected of being gay" - specifically forbidden by the guideline. There are tons of people where someone claims somewhere that the person was actually trans or non-binary simply because the person wasn't, say, a silent and hidden housewife as that society's construction of gender demanded. If this is permitted to remain, then very many historical biographies, especially of women, will be categorized as "disputed gender" even though this disputation is WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. Crossroads-talk- 04:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If the disputation is fringe and undue, it should be removed from the article or properly characterized as such within the article. Then, per the guidelines for categorization of articles, this category should not be applied to that article. Would it get added anyway sometimes? Yes. Then someone would have to remove it. But is that really a reason to delete the category? Baby, bathwater, et cetera...ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 04:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Editors may wish to read the discussion that precipitated the creation of this category here: Talk:James Barry (surgeon)#Trans men category. The article James Barry (surgeon) is a perfect example of the gap this category is trying to fill. At the center of RS treatments of Barry's life is the fact that they were raised as a girl but lived their entire adult life as a man. Despite this being a defining feature of the subject, there is no extant category that really speaks to this circumstance. There is no RS consensus that Barry should be labelled as a trans man. Category:Female-to-male cross-dressers exists, but deals with episodic/situational cross-dressing, not individuals who permanently lived as men. I think it's reasonable to say that this category violates the spirit (if not the letter) of the last paragraph of WP:CATLGBT. I also happen to think that paragraph is bad policy, and would love to have a discussion about loosening it to apply only to BLPs. But until that happens, I'm leaning toward a regretful delete. Colin M (talk) 04:29, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, largely per Tamzin above. I agree with Tamzin's interpretation of the WP:CATLGBT issue, and would add that (although the current wording of its description is confusing) the category appears to exclude living and recently-dead people, which should mitigate some of the issues that I believe necessitated the last paragraph of CATLGBT in the first place. (I'd also add that CATLGBT is a guideline, not a policy.) The nominator also raises WP:UNDUE/WP:NPOV and WP:NOTADVOCACY as things with which the policy is incompatible, arguing that people will be added to the category who may not actually be transgender – but that's a feature, not a bug, isn't it? If a person was unambiguously and undisputedly transgender (or cisgender), there would be no reason to add them to a category called "Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity". Sure, I can imagine the situation Crossroads seems to be thinking of, in which someone would add a biography to this category with intentions of advocacy – but I can also imagine someone adding a biography to a category like Category:Transgender and transsexual men with similar intentions. I don't think possible misuse of a category is a valid reason to delete it. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 04:30, 22 September 2021 (UTC) Note: I've left a short note about this discussion at WT:LGBT and WT:GENSTUD. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 04:37, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A category directly calling someone a trans man is far less likely to be misused than one vaguely stating that the gender is "disputed". CATLGBT does not limit itself to living people, and indeed part of it specifically discusses historical persons. Crossroads-talk- 04:56, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Tamzin and Ezlev. The category clearly fills a gap, in that the most notable aspect of Berry's biography isn't at all reflected in the categories. It is reasonable to hold additions to the category to a high standard of sourcing, but where the reliable sources establish a valid historical question as to someone's gender, it isn't for us to discount them as lacking in training, historical contextualization, or misunderstanding. (That sounds like a No true Scotsman fallacy.) I think the application of the last paragraph of the CATLGBT guideline to non-BLP articles is unhelpful, and I am not inclined to construe it any more broadly than it is currently written. Per Tamzin, a valid historical discussion of a subject's gender identity is not an "allegation about sexuality".--Trystan (talk) 04:59, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom because, whatever the counter-arguments may claim, there is a clear violation of WP:CATLGBT. A category like this will certainly encourage POV pushing and entries will mostly be subjective. Although it is newly created, I also think WP:SMALLCAT will inevitably apply because potential for growth is surely minimal. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:10, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I forgot to mention CATDEF per Springee below. You cannot define someone by a disputed opinion about gender identity. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:20, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per No Great Shaker and CATDEF. How many historical figures are defined by the fact that their gender identity is disputed? That has got to be a VERY small number since just being in dispute is not enough to qualify for a category such as this. CATLGBT also seems to be an obvious concern here. Springee (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, the category does not fill a gap, the gap is already filled by a big tree of Category:Cross-dressers. Whether gender identity was the motive for cross-dressing or not remains open for speculation, insofar people did not speak up about it themselves. Let Wikipedia readers check the cross-dressers articles and make a personal judgment about it. For instance it seems very likely to me that James Barry (surgeon) would in modern times have identified as transgender, but again that is no more than my personal belief. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:23, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Historical figures tagged with this category would become collateral damage caught in the crossfire of contemporary trends and interpretations. These individuals cannot reveal their raison d'être, nor can they explain why they chose to disguise their identities and assume roles that defied the expectations of their societies and the times they were born into. We can speculate about a historical figure, but speculation is guesswork and assumption. We cannot determine past lives through contemporary lenses. Besides, this category violates WP:CATLGBT and WP:CATDEFINING. Pyxis Solitary(yak). L not Q. 07:42, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is one potential way to address situations like the discussion currently happening at James Barry (surgeon), where a historical figure's trans and/or crossdressing status is the defining and most notable thing about them (Barry is more notable for this than for any medical accomplishments), but reliable sources are split on which interpretation is correct. Any individual inclusions can be discussed on article talk pages, like we do for any category. The "delete" !votes are making strong arguments for this category: that we can look at modern scholarly sources which apply different interpretative lenses but we can't mind-read through the past; that Category:Cross-dressers already exists but we cannot apply it to articles where a significant minority or majority of the sources believe the subject was trans; that it is likely to be used for people where we can't definitively say that they were either trans or cis. That is the gap that this is created to fill! People where it is the defining component of their notability, such as Barry, but where we don't have eg. an "AFAB people who lived as men" category that we leave up to reader interpretation, and have to instead go with how reliable sources interpret the facts. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I pay little attention to the gender politics involved. What I do see is a single-purpose category. There is only one article and no attempt to populate this category. Dimadick (talk) 10:14, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I will say that we can populate it (assuming it survives this deletion proposal). It's only existed for a single day. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 10:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Gwennie-nyan. This category was nominated for deletion an hour after it was created. The fact that it only contains one article currently is not strong evidence of a WP:SMALLCAT problem. Other examples of articles that could go in this category include Catalina de Erauso, Chevalier d'Éon, and Charley Parkhurst. Colin M (talk) 17:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete "Disputed" in this case often merely means that one media article or group of activists have made a claim about a historical person which (in far too many cases) is not actually supported by professional historians. One of the most basic rules at Wikipedia is the requirement that all claims need to be based on expert consensus rather than merely a "disputed" idea, and hence we should not categorize historical figures based solely on a "dispute" created by amateur speculation or even a dispute among experts if there's no consensus in favor of the theory. Other categories of this type have become magnets for abuse by allowing people with an agenda to tag articles with a category that implies support for a theory that would not be supportable with reliable sources, thereby bypassing the normal system of careful vetting - i.e. if someone can't insert their ideas into the article text itself without violating the RS rules then they add the article to a category which strongly implies the same thing but without any need for reliable evidence to support it. Such people often justify the category by saying it only implies that a "dispute" exists, but of course if the idea is disputed then it's not an accepted theory and hence not encyclopedic. Categories like this therefore serve no justifiable purpose and often become endless headaches for editors trying to keep dubious ideas out of Wikipedia. GBRV (talk) 12:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What you're describing is a problem that is solved by normal application of Wikipedia policy and procedure, not by deletion of a useful and sourceable category that fulfills WP:CATDEF for most of its members. (To go by an article you've been working on lately, would you support the deletion of Category:Wrongful convictions because some people might disagree that Joan of Arc belongs in it? Or, for that matter, Category:People whose existence is disputed, as in Margaret the Virgin? Speaking of "disputed"...) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:30, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We already have categories for gender identity issues, so this category is both redundant and (more to the point) also too vague due to the phrase "ambiguous or disputed", which creates an open-ended situation where almost any historical figure could be added if even one author has given an opinion on the subject. If one of us objects to a given historical figure's inclusion by pointing out a lack of scholarly consensus, we'll be told "inclusion in the category only requires that a dispute exists rather than consensus by experts", which is an obvious problem. If you want to keep the category, its title would need to be changed to something less open to abuse, such as "Historical figures with a non-binary gender identity". That would cover the same basic idea but with the expectation that the person's identity has been established by consensus. GBRV (talk) 21:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That would not be a solution at all. You can't split the difference between "some scholars say x was a crossdresser, some say x was trans" with "x was definitely nonbinary." The reason this category was created was because other users objected to the inclusion of our existing "categories for gender identity issues." –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:14, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You said this new category was created for cases where a given person's gender identity cannot be definitely determined, but that's precisely the type of ambiguous case that we shouldn't be categorizing at all since it's impossible to reach a reasonable conclusion, and we certainly shouldn't have an all-purpose dumping bin where all ambiguous cases can be unloaded. If there is some debate among experts about a specific person then that should be handled in the article for that specific person, so that any nuances or uncertainty can be clearly explained rather than the misleading practice of putting someone in a category that implies something well beyond what can actually be proven. Vague categories are always a terrible idea, partly because they tend to feed the common problem of authors using Wikipedia to quickly copy-and-paste a list from a category page and then use it for sloppy articles making untenable claims about historical people. Categories need to be precise and clearly limited. GBRV (talk) 16:34, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Can you tell us whose opinion we should defer to at eg. Category:States with limited recognition? Like, should we be removing Palestine and/or Israel from Category:Middle Eastern countries until there's a unanimous consensus that it's a country? I don't know why people here are acting like this is the first ever category to document a split opinion. For the members of this category, their trans and/or crossdressing status is the main thing for which they are notable, and WP:CATDEF tells us to categorize them by their defining features. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You said this category was designed only for people whose "trans and/or crossdressing status is the main thing for which they are notable", but the title's current wording doesn't place any such limit since it just says that their gender identity is "ambiguous" or "disputed". This creates an open-ended situation where almost any historical person could presumably be included since you can probably always find at least one author who disputes the consensus among historians; and any editor who argues against inclusion for such people will be told that the "dispute" over the person justifies inclusion. The fact that certain other categories have ambiguity problems does not justify creating yet another one; and in any event this category has a worse problem than Category:States with limited recognition since at least the latter has a good potential for selecting objective criteria to overcome any classification problems (i.e., "recognition" of a country can easily be defined based on the UN's categorization or some other external legal standard) whereas defining a historical person's gender identity is far more subjective and hence open to endless disputes. I think Gwennie's suggested alternative is a good way to get around the problem even if the suggested title needs refining. GBRV (talk) 19:31, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think we can afford to revisit this CfD if the sky does actually fall, instead of making hysterical predictions that would justify the decimation of Wikipedia's categories. "What if someone misapplied it" could happen anywhere. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The titles for most categories are worded in a way that places reasonable limits on inclusion, which means we don't need to change the vast majority of the other ones and tightening the wording for this single category is not going to "decimate" all of Wikipedia's categories as you imply. But you accused me of making "hysterical" comments here. In any event, the person who created this category is willing to change the wording, so I have no idea why you're stubbornly refusing to make any changes, much less trying to poison this debate by resorting to ad hominem allegations. GBRV (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Vague categories are always a terrible idea, partly because they tend to feed the common problem of authors using Wikipedia to quickly copy-and-paste a list from a category page and then use it for sloppy articles making untenable claims about historical people. A nonsense non-argument for what should or should not be done at Wikipedia. --Equivamp - talk 16:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't "nonsense" to point out that there are umpteen numbers of media articles listing "X Historical People Who Were [insert hot-button issue]", and it's a safe bet that many of these articles were compiled by just quickly copying from a convenient but potentially misleading list at Wikipedia. Nor is it "nonsense" to simply suggest that category titles ought to be precisely defined enough to avoid predictable problems. GBRV (talk) 19:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody objected to inclusion in the crossdresser category tree except those insistent on a POV that they were something more. GBRV is right that almost anyone could be added for the most tenuous connections. Did some activist amateur "historian" include them in a book listing say, a thousand allegedly trans people in history? Did someone write about them in some PinkNews article? All because the person at some point disguised themselves as the opposite sex to escape oppression, they're now genderfluid or something? There, labeled. Completely contrary to NPOV and FRINGE, and especially CATLGBT. Crossroads-talk- 00:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If what you object to is the concept of being trans, I don't think you have anything valuable to contribute to this discussion. If "what if someone included something based on unreliable sourcing" was a valid argument for deleting a category, Wikipedia would have zero categories. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't object to "the concept of being trans" whatsoever. I said nothing of the sort. Crossroads-talk- 05:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The key is in the name - disputed. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:47, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep I'd say that the arguments by Roscelese, Trystan, Ezlev, and Tamzin have merit. Roscelese makes a good point about having an article sources are split on a "historical figure's trans and/or crossdressing status," Ezlev makes a good point that the possible misuse of this category is not a valid reason to delete it, and Trystan is right that it appears to fill a gap. I also think that Gwennie has a point that the category should be populated if it survives this deletion proposal. On the other hand, I also can see the ones supporting deletion as having some good points here. I support this category but only if it is populated by more than one entry in the future, as it is currently, and has strict guidelines to what pages can be included within the category to address the concerns of those calling for the category's deletion. Historyday01 (talk) 13:06, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, we've got articles on plenty of historical figures with scholarly opinions on all sides of the gender debate (James Barry and Albert Cashier are the two that spring to mind immediately), and neither side of the debate is a fringe theory. There's just no consensus. Having a category like this lets us say, in Wikipedia's voice, that we just can't know. NekoKatsun (nyaa) 15:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The question I would ask the delete !voters is: What is your proposed solution to the problem this category solves? Do you have answers other than "no, no, no" for the issue of being unable to categorize articles by the characteristic that defines their notability? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is Category:Cross-dressers. Possibly (if enough articles exist) the creation of cross-dressers subcategories by century may help finding historical people who might have identified as transgender when they would have lived now. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Crossdressing and seeing yourself as a different gender are two different things. If someone is living as a different gender than their assigned at birth one in their private and public life consistently crossdresser may not be the right word. Rab V (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that that describing living as one's identified gender as "crossdressing" would be likely to cause controversy and POV issues, and would possibly run into even worse verifiability issues from the other side. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:14, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When it comes to historical figures we usually have no way of knowing how they truly saw themselves or what they did or thought in their private lives, which almost by definition were not recorded in sources. They were of one sex but publicly wore the clothing typically worn by the other sex, at least for a time. Describing them as crossdressers is far more neutral than this "wink wink, they may have been trans" category. Crossroads-talk- 23:49, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot see how categorizing as cross-dressing would be controversial. Crossdressing is no longer a relevant category only after someone identifies as transgender. The latter did not happen in this case, for obvious reasons. Marcocapelle (talk) 04:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The operative morpheme here is cross-, which implies that the person is definitively not the gender they appeared as. In some cases, like women who cross-dressed in the Civil War and then returned to life as women after, that may be a reasonable characterization, if supported by reliable sources. With someone like James Barry, though, it would definitely not be a non-controversial characterization. To call Barry a cross-dresser is to say that he definitively did not identify as a man, and that's not something the RS support (no more than they support the converse).-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 04:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
RS support that they did not make a statement about gender identity and that the motive for cross-dressing will hence never be known for sure. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:09, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-dressing is defined as wearing the clothes worn by the opposite sex (keep in mind the sex and gender distinction). [1][2][3][4][5][6] (Indeed, the prefixes "cross-" and "trans-" mean the same thing; we know they trans-dressed, but not that they were fully of the 'across-gender', as it were.) That is a verifiable and undisputed fact that applies to everyone in this category. The whole reason these disputes exist is that a concept of transgender matching our own didn't exist in societies of the time, and clear evidence of inner gender identity difference is lacking in these cases. It does not say or imply they were not (or would not have been) transgender had they lived today. It sticks to the known facts, rather than speculation. Crossroads-talk- 05:10, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, I want you to realize that the argument you make here is one that uses assigned sex as a loophole to make claims about gender. I also want you to know this argument can easily be repurposed and reused without any modifications to claim that all trans folks are also crossdressers, provided one assume their sex is an immutable fact of their birth. Best to tread lightly. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 10:55, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That is not what I meant or believe and I don't agree that follows. Crossroads-talk- 04:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Crossroads: That's what the WP:RS guideline is for. I guarantee this is not anyone's first encounter with the concept of people falling into categories that were reified after the end of their lifetimes - or should we not be putting the Renaissance masters in Italian nationality categories anymore? How about taking a bunch of figures foundational to Christianity out of the "Christians" category, since they wouldn't have identified as part of a different religion? Or would you, instead, concede that it's okay to defer to the judgment of reliable sources? (Honestly, I no longer know what you're arguing, since you seemed to be leaning on the an argument that unanimous sourcing was required and we couldn't categorize a split opinion at all, and now you've jumped to "it's literally impossible to categorize any historical person as trans regardless of the sourcing.") –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:23, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is a good idea to have a more general discussion about this. For categorization I advocate (close-to) unanimity of sources and am against creating "disputed/speculated" categories for instances where unanimity is very far away. It would open a can of worms. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"What is your proposed solution to the problem this category solves?" We have Category:LGBT people by century and its subcategories for cases like these. Dimadick (talk) 12:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That category is quite inappropriate in this instance. That category implies the individual is LGBTQ in some way. However for this instance, the individual is ambiguous and often defined by their ambiguity. Defining them as LGBTQ requires a much different ONUS. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 00:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Dimadick: the whole reason we're having this discussion now is because a user repeatedly reverted the addition of Category:Transgender and transsexual men to a subject whom at least a significant minority of sources describe as a trans man, because some sources refer to the subject as a cross-dressing woman. Prior to the creation of this category, my preference was to use both categories in cases of scholarly dispute, but I think this category is a fine alternative. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Tamzin and Ezlev. The category fills a navigational need currently haphazardly filled with "See also" sections. --Equivamp - talk 23:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me, if not deleted, the category should be renamed to Category:Historical figures with speculated gender identity. Ultimately there is no dispute, there are just alternating speculations, by lack of objective facts other than cross-dressing. Marcocapelle (talk) 05:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. "Disputed gender identity" is characterizing an opinion other people have about about a person, not a characteristic of that person. It will be helpful to quote WP:OPINIONCAT here: Avoid categorizing people by their personal opinions, even if a reliable source can be found for the opinions. This includes [...] opinions or allegations about the person by other people. It's fine that, as NekoKatsun said, we have "articles on plenty of historical figures with scholarly opinions on all sides of the gender debate", but we cannot categorize people by the fact that there are differing opinions on either side of a debate that exists about that person. What we should be looking for for a dead person (as CATLGBT describes) is a broad consensus of academic and/or biographical scholarship about the topic. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 06:29, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Volteer, I feel you are misreading the policy. OPCAT seems to be saying we can't, for example, take LeVar Burton and add an opinion category like Category:People who like books. Categorizing him under Category:Bibliophiles might also be suspect, even though the category exists. Or take an racial justice activist and add category saying Category:People who dislike racism or Category:People who think Black Lives Matter. Or take Machine Gun Kelly (musician) and tag him with Category:People who dislike Marshall Mathers. All those wouldn't fly.
I think for historical individuals for whom it is relevant, we can indeed categorize them by academic or reliable consensus of indeterminate gender. To add this category to an individual requires an WP:ONUS and shouldn't be done haphazardly. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 10:47, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The examples you gave are opinions people have, but I was concerned with opinions other people have about that person, which also falls under OPCAT (canonical examples: Category:Alleged criminals or Category:People accused of being racist). If there is academic or reliable consensus that a person is such and such (e.g. a woman crossdressing just to be able to serve in the military, or a transgender man, etc.), and that category is defining then it's fine to add. If there is no such consensus, and in fact a scholarly dispute about someone's gender identity, we are categorizing people based on the opinions other people have about them—Alice think it's likely they're just a woman crossdressing to fight in a war and Bob thinks it's likely they're a trans man—which there is existing community consensus against. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 11:02, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. A guideline about not using categories to claim that a person is gay or straight (etc) doesn't bar stating that a dispute exists about whether a historical person was a man or woman (etc). (A dispute is not an allegation that a person is anything, a dispute is what exists when RS disagree.) And in most of the cases this category addresses, the person's (disputed) gender is a defining characteristic (WP:CATDEF) central to their notability, important to categorize. This category allows them to be categorized, since using existing categories (categorizing e.g. James Barry just as a woman, or just as a trans man, or putting Barry in both categories for findability both ways) has not gotten consensus. (To lump the people from this category into the "crossdresser" categories would not be accurate or potentially even WP:CATV-verifiable for some (if RS only discuss whether they were men or women and don't consider them crossdressers). Indeed, misusing the crossdresser categories is what would violate the spirit of WP:CATLGBT, like if RS disputed whether someone was straight or gay and an editor proposed categorizing them as bisexual as a way of describing their behavior without 'taking a side'.) -sche (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Every entry in this category is "people who some scholars think might be/are trans, though others may disagree". To say that categorizing people by the existence of the differing opinions is entirely separate than categorizing them by those opinions themselves, is saying that if we were to rename Category:Alleged sex criminals to Category:People for whom dispute exists over whether they have committed sex crimes, or Category:Alleged gay men to Category:Men for whom dispute exists over whether they are gay, it would free the former categories of the guidelines they fail. Which I don't think is true. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 07:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, that someone was charged or convicted of a crime is a fact of the matter about a person. Categories about alleged crimes are explicitly disallowed. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 09:25, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mean this is a separate discussion. However that category Equivamp brought up seems like a BLPCRIME violation. The policy explicitly states that presumption of innocence is a requirement. Being charged isn't a conviction. Now I could understand it being used for deceased individuals for whom BLP does not apply, however. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 10:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am a bit uncomfortable with categories like "People charged with sex crimes", but as you said that's a separate discussion as the argument I was making doesn't apply to it. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 11:06, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per -sche, who expressed my opinion better than I could. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:55, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Tamzin, Ezlev and -sche. – Bangalamania (talk) 00:21, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'll echo here what Volteer1 said above about -sche's argument. There is zero meaningful difference between "people alleged to be trans" and "people for whom dispute exists over their gender identity". It would take WP:WIKILAWYERING to get around that. None of these contentless '+1' votes get around the fact that community consensus at WP:OPINIONCAT is against this. Crossroads-talk- 04:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OPINIONCAT is part of WP:Overcategorization, which lists types of categories to be generally avoided to prevent overcategorization. If a category describes an important defining characteristic that is not otherwise effectively captured, I don't see how it can be deleted on the ground of overcategorization. More specifically, I don't think OPINIONCAT was intended to prohibit categories that identify when there is a lack of historical consensus about some fundamental aspect of a subject (like their existence or gender identity). It is the fact that the information is unknown, rather than that various historians might have competing theories about it, that is of primary relevance. (I don't find trading accusations of WP:WIKILAWYERING to be particularly constructive to building consensus, but since the issue has been raised, I will say that essay invites us to look at the whole of a guideline and its overall intent, rather than applying specific wording literally in isolation of the rest of the guideline.)--Trystan (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Trystan that this is not what OPINIONCAT is designed to prevent, neither according to the spirit of the guideline nor, in fact, according to its actual letter (which is "categorizing people by opinions they hold," not "categorizing people by scholars' opinions about them"). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:16, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OPINIONCAT specifically also states "and opinions or allegations about the person by other people". Community consensus across these guideline pages is clearly against these sorts of allegations/opinion/debate categories. Such is an overcategorization no matter how much some editors may claim otherwise. Crossroads-talk- 23:54, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, for two reasons. First, because it appears to be tailor-made for the purpose of a single article, namely, James Barry (surgeon). The new category was created moments after the long-term Category:Transgender and transsexual men was inserted and then reverted in Barry's case, with a controversy erupting on the Talk page. CATDEF says that a defining characteristic "is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define the subject as having". Since Barry is speculated to have possibly been a trans man (in the current understanding of the word) by a small minority of sources, CATDEF therefore appears to exclude this category from the Barry article.
Secondly, it appears to be an end-run around the purpose of WP:CATDEF, in that it is a methodology capable of introducing a wormhole for including any category that is otherwise excluded by CATDEF by consensus. Did you try to add Category:Russian mathematicians to the article Sergey Vladimir Blagoyevich Rasputinovich but got rejected? No problemo: just create Category:Russians with disputed profession as mathematicians, and voila! Watch for the category count to double soon, and the Talk page controversies to erupt on biographies categorizing them as "Persons with disputed background as far-right extremists".... "...disputed Nazis", "...disputed Holocaust denialists".... Fasten your seat belts, and pass the popcorn. Mathglot (talk) 19:59, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathglot: If I may explain. The article was a launch point, but I create it because I felt it had merit beyond the scope of the article, and if you look into the category currently, it is being further populated. I was honestly surprised it didn't exist yet. I do see the point some are raising about the specific name of the category. I think it would be better served by splitting into two separate categories. One regular category Category:Gender-ambiguous historical figures and a hidden category for editorial use Category:Biographical articles with gender disputes. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 23:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This is WP:OR and WP:ADVOCACY, cloaked in anachronism and supposition, will end up as a shelter for WP:FRINGE views of certain historical subjects, and, yeah, it's WP:NONDEFINING. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 07:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say, I see it as a bit offensive that you and Crossroads (and, notably, only you and Crossroads) are leveling accusations of advocacy here. I'm a bit tired of seeing statements to that effect trotted out (primarily by the two of you) in every discussion of trans people, often directed at editors who happen to be trans. Can we maybe focus on the substance of people's arguments rather than cast aspersions?-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 07:43, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think either of us are particularly more prone than many others to point to the WP:NOTADVOCACY policy, whether directly or in an implied way. And it exists to be used. Saying that a particular edit or page is or will be a problem in regard to that policy is not a personal attack on an editor. Crossroads-talk- 05:10, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"I'm a bit tired of seeing statements to that effect trotted out ... in every discussion of trans people ...." – Except that there is no definitive and unequivocal documentation that a historical figure was "trans people" -- unless that historical figure stated as much in a personal journal or publicly, or privately said it to someone and that individual made a record of this information. Just because some editors want to find the existence of transgender in historical vagueness doesn't make their suppositions a reality. How many cross-dressing historical women were homosexual and cross-dressing was how they were able to navigate society and survive as homosexuals? Pyxis Solitary(yak). L not Q. 08:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I should have said "trans-related topics", not "trans people", since I agree that Barry and most others who would be covered by this category were not in fact trans. I don't really think that "trans people" was the core of my point, though. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 08:54, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The core of your point is to cast aspersions at two editors while claiming they are casting aspersions when they cite policies you don't like or don't want applied to you or a topic you lack neutral distance from. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish, to clarify, is it your position that trans editors in general lack neutral distance from the topic of trans issues? Or were you referring to Tamzin specifically for some reason other than her gender, or did you mean something else entirely and I’ve misunderstood you? ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 16:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, SMcCandlish, I'd really like to know what a topic you lack neutral distance from means if not "trans editors shouldn't edit articles about trans-related topics". -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 17:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I meant what I actually said. A particular editor shows a lack of neutral distance from this topic. That could be for any of a number of reasons, and no I don't think being trans or nonbinary equates to one, obviously. Let's not have straw man silliness, please. No one in this debate (any variant of it on WP, for years) has ever proposed that TG/NB persons should not be able to edit articles on connected subjects. There's not even a principle that professional activists on a particular subject have, at WP, an automatic PoV or CoI problem. It's all about whether you approach the topic, while editing here, encyclopedically or activistically. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 00:47, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: And why is it that you feel I lack neutral distance? It's strange to object to me saying that you're casting aspersions, and then immediately make this kind of accusation without any evidence (i.e. to cast aspersions). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 01:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What I said above already answers that question. And this is getting too circular to bother continuing with, nor is this the right venue for a detailed analysis of user behavior in a topic area. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: No, it doesn't remotely answer that question. You're accusing me of violating policy and are providing no evidence for that accusation—not for the first time either. If you're unwilling to make that case, please strike what you've said above. If you would like to discuss this in a more suitable venue, you're welcome to continue this on my talkpage, or at WP:NPOVN, WP:AE, or WP:ANI. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 20:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: a straightforward CATLGBT violation. The articles currently in the category are, I'm sure, uncontroversial in their placement, but we're opening a can of worms. Categories are, in any case, not really how the majority of readers navigate Wikipedia, and rather a fool's errand when they lead to protracted disputes like this for no clear benefit. Perhaps there's an article in, say, pre-1900 European figures who lived their life as a different gender to the one they were assigned at birth, where proper explanation can be given as to how "ambiguous" or "disputed" gender identities are treated by the academic community. (I specify location because other regions would have different concepts of gender, the most well-known of which is South Asia's hijra people.) — Bilorv (talk) 19:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't understand how any of those citing CATLGBT can attempt to apply that policy, as written, to this case. Even if we take the spirit of the policy, that spirit is to prevent people from trying to add LGBT-related categories as a form of outing, allegation, or such, in other words, spurious or bad-faith categorization, especially regarding BLP. Could you explain your reasoning a bit more, Bilorv? ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 22:59, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That would be one application of CATLGBT, but it shouldn't really be necessary to say that outing and unsubstantiated assertions are not appropriate. I see the policy as more broadly part of our conventions of needing very clear and concrete self-identification before labelling anybody in any LGBT group (and the same should apply to lots of very different identity-based categories: political ideology, religion, consumption/avoidance of animal products etc.). Categories are not appropriate where there are caveats or nuances, and here there are caveats in who thinks figures have ambiguous/disputed gender identity, and how much of a consensus there is among historians. — Bilorv (talk) 07:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but remove "ambiguous" and just keep "disputed". I do not believe this would violate WP:CATLGBT as this does not seem like an allegation about gender but a description of the factual situation regarding the reliable sources. If anything, it would seem to be the best way to avoid disputes that allege one view or the other. The arguments based on WP:FRINGE or WP:NPOV would be relevant to whether to include particular individuals, but I do not understand how they would apply to the creation of the category itself. Gender-related categories should have a high bar for inclusion on any particular page, but there are certainly historical individuals who have disputed genders, such as James Barry (surgeon). The dispute over Barry's gender is well-documented in reliable sources and seems pretty clearly WP:DUE. I think WP:SMALLCAT may be a concern, but it seems also important to consider that this category could serve an important purpose for an area that is not discussed much in general. I do not think this category would be appropriate on any historical figure who is already categorized by other gender-defining categories. For those who feel categories are an important navigation tool, what would they suggest for a person such as Barry where there has been a consistent lack of consensus for any gender-related categories? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I'm coming here from James Barry (surgeon), and my fundamental reason for keeping it has little to do with any of the existing category policies (although I don't, after looking at them, think this category violates any of them), but rather that regardless of policy this category clearly does improve the encyclopedia. No good alternative suggestion has been promoted, and I find the most common alternative (of categorizing them as crossdressers) to actually be a violation of WP:CATLGBT. A crossdresser is someone who wears clothes not intended for their gender; to call these people crossdressers would be tantamount to putting them in a category for cis people, which is exactly the dispute at issue. We have at least some reliable sources for all these people that assert they are trans, and if they are trans they are not crossdressers. Loki (talk) 19:31, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, per Tamzin and Loki. I'd prefer to see James Barry (surgeon) in a category that recognises what queer historians now describe as a likely transmasculine identity, but I suppose this is an adequate compromise for now. Categorising him as neither is clear erasure. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please ((ping)) me in replies) 13:00, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Plainly there are historical people whose gender identity is disputed or ambiguous. This is quite straightforward if you look at the sources on many of the articles in the category. There are no doubt some cases where applying this category could be NPOV or OR. But that doesn't mean there will be no such articles. The Land (talk) 13:15, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep some historical figures can hardly be classified and such a category would be useful Nattes à chat (talk) 20:26, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – Some people here seem to be missing the point of the category. We categorise most people on Wikipedia as male or female, but there are historical people for which we do not have accurate information to know if they were male or female. That doesn't necessarily mean they had a gender identity of something other than male or female, it just means we don't know which one it is. This is a useful category for those rare cases. MClay1 (talk) 12:51, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the spirit of the category, which I created, is sound, however the exact wording isn't the best and I can see some cases in which it would open up things. As such, I feel it should be Renamed and Split Here is what I propose, something along the lines of what I replied to Mathglot:
Renamed — the category is renamed from "Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity" to "Gender-ambiguous historical figures" or "Historical figures with ambiguous gender"
Split — the element of dispute is moved into a hidden category named something along the lines of "Biographical articles with disputed gender". That way it can be useful for editors to see and assess biographical articles with such disputes and we can categorize them for easy browsing and talk reference.
I feel that it's important we attempt to rework things like this through discussion before immediately attempting to delete them unless something emergent or grievous. So I feel this is an attempt to remedy some issues regarding various policies some have seen possible issues with. Pinging editors who have weighed-in above (as of now) for comment as well. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 01:31, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A rename won't address the fundamental problem. In fact, the rename seems worse, since it can be read as meaning they are of a non-binary gender itself called 'ambiguous gender'. As for making it a maintenance category, I think those are usually for very specific technical issues, or for known tags, not 'articles with similar topic-related issues'. Crossroads-talk- 03:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ambiguous is worse than disputed. The concept of transgender was not known at the time, we can all agree on that, so there is nothing ambiguous about the historical situation. The issue here is the later retrospective speculations, so if renamed instead of deleted, speculated would be best word to use. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:15, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the original is preferable to both of these versions. This should be a public category, not a hidden one for editor use only, and "gender-ambiguous" sounds like it's meant to be an identity in itself rather than to reflect a split in opinion. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:06, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Roscelese I mean the alternate spelling of "Historical figures with ambiguous gender" might suffice for you then. I'm saying two categories would resolve the fact we need something to categorize disputes for editorial purposes (as hidden cats are used for) and then a public category for descriptive purposes. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 16:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the current name could maybe use a little workshopping, but, like Roscelese, I think it's preferable to this alternate proposal.-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 07:18, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That wouldn't be a bad idea to be honest, but as I said above, if the category had more than one entry in it (and perhaps multiple entries), then I'd definitely support it, because there are definitely cases of articles with disputed gender. And again, the guidelines for such a category should be rigorous so that people don't add the category to articles that don't need it or it is is spurious to do so. As such, I have to agree with Tamzin on this, as well as Roscelese, although I think Marcocapelle has a good point when it comes to using the word "speculated." I have to disagree with Crossroads here. --Historyday01 (talk) 12:57, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Historyday01: It already does have multiple entries added since this discussion began. Currently 7 biographical articles. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 15:59, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support Gwennie's proposal, or something similar. We can debate what the title should be, but the new proposed title is a step in the right direction because it would remove the possibility of adding everyone who has ever been "disputed", which would open the flood gates for practically every single historical person. A title with a tighter litmus test is a big improvement, even if some people don't like the suggested title (I think we can work out one that's acceptable to most people). A hidden category for internal use would help resolve the main problem that this category was created to solve. GBRV (talk) 19:32, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this alternative. The key is in the word "disputed". Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Gwennie's proposal, the only category that would retain the word "disputed" would be a hidden category for internal use only. That will avoid the main problems. GBRV (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree. Dispute might be useful for an internal hidden category but an ambiguous gender would much better suit DEFINING-style wording. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 23:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose "ambiguous" per Marcocapelle. I'll remain neutral for now on a "disputed" category that's a hidden maint. category. Laurel Lodged is correct that this will be the key term. As a maint. category, it will only apply to articles tagged with a relevant dispute template. That sounds reasonable enough, but I think what we'll end up with the all the same OR being applied, and the dispute category manually misused to mean the same as the category now up for deletion. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. "Gender-ambiguous" or "ambiguous gender" is still guesswork. Wikipedia is not a scrapbook for conjectures, speculations, theories, and presumptions. Pyxis Solitary(yak). L not Q. 23:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think "disputed" is more appropriate than "ambiguous". To me, "ambiguous" implies that a person does not identify with any particular gender, while "disputed" describes a factual situation regarding the available reliable sources. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Wallyfromdilbert: while "ambiguous" implies that a person does not identify with any particular gender, we have no information whether the person concerned would agree with the Wiki label of "ambiguous". In most cases they are dead and cannot dispute the label. It is not for Wiki to posthumously label people. Laurel Lodged (talk) 09:52, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Laurel Lodged, we definitely do label people posthumously. It depends on the situation and available reliable sources. "Ambiguous" may also be appropriate for some people. However, I also said that I do not agree with combining "ambiguous" and "disputed", and only favor keeping "disputed" regarding this discussion. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
All Wiki categisations of dead people are, by definition, posthumous. What I meant, as you probably well know, is the attribution of labels to dead people with which they might not have agreed while still alive. If there are sources that can definitively and without dispute label a dead person that's fine; allocate him to the appropriate category, otherwise leave the doubtful label without a category. The article space is the appropriate place to tease out the "he says" / "but she says the opposite"; the category space is not nuanced enough for that task and should not be forced into a clumsy attempt to make it so. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:25, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's complicated. We're an encyclopedic project. The understanding of the past is continually progressing into the modern day. And, as society marches forward, the axiomic knives we use to slice and dice terminology often becomes varied, and we adapt so that, for the purposes of education and communication, the language used reflects both a comprehensive factual basis and respectful modern method of wording it. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 16:34, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like the first draft of a new Wiki policy paper. You should write it and see how much support it garners. I'm looking forward to reading the paragraph that says that lack of sources should not spoil a good story. Laurel Lodged (talk) 13:52, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your sarcastic aspersions are not appreciated and are not constructive to this discussion, so it would be appreciated if they were either retracted or discontinued. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬📋｠ 20:25, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the use of sarcasm is unconstructive; while it may not be pleasant for the person at whom it is directed, nevertheless the use of humour is a legitimate tool in highlighting the folly of an argument. It is not the same thing as an ad hominem attack, though to a bruised ego, the distinction may not be immediately obvious. Laurel Lodged (talk) 17:24, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the alternative proposal. It seems to make things even less clear. MarioGom (talk) 10:09, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the category's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.