Criticisms coming out of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre[edit]

Are going to need somewhere to go and just undoing peoples edits won;t help anything. There were many things that came up last week and many that will come up next week, quite likely Mridul's resignation over them. So get ready perhaps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetsugaku-San (talk • contribs) 18:51, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So context is the renaming of the Guilty Feminist podcast comments section to "Criticisms" by Tetsugaku-San, and the reversion of it by myself. Now I reverted this because criticism sections are inherently non-neutral in biographies of living people. Best practice in this content area is to naturally weave this sort of content into either more descriptive sections, or into contextually appropriate existing sections.
So get ready perhaps? Within the article itself, the short answer to this question is no. We don't write content speculatively based on what may happen in the future. We write content about what has happened in the past. We don't know what will happen in the coming week, or the weeks to come. Now if something happens we can look at adding a new section or subsection, as contextually appropriate based on what reliable sources state at that time. For example, if as you've suggested she might resign from her position at the ERCC, then we could add a new section with a neutral title like "Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre resignation", with the exact title and content depending on the context for her resignation and the sourcing available if it happens. But we do not need to pre-emptively need to rename any existing sections based on hypotheticals.
With regards to the last few days, as far as I can tell only one reliable source has published anything about the Wadhwa, an opinion column in the Scotsman. Opinion articles cannot be used for assertions of fact per policy. Maybe that will change over the next week, however we need to take great care when considering adding content based on sourcing, as both The Times and Herald have been noted by other reliable sources as perpetrating harassment against Wadhwa.
On a related note, I would like to ask you Tetsugaku-San to please self-revert this edit and this edit. Both of these are recent edits that I reverted, and per WP:BRD they should be discussed prior to reinsertion.
  • For the first edit I reverted, I said that this was both WP:UNDUE and violated MOS:GENDERID. An unreliable source (Legal Feminist), an opinion piece (The Critic), and an article by an RS that hve been party to the harassment campaign against Wadhwa (The Herald) do not demonstrate due weight. Describing Wadhwa as a "male without any kind of GRC" fundamentally violates MOS:GENDERID and per caselaw (AEA v EHRC) is wrong and irrelevant.
  • For the second edit I reverted, I said that this was not an improvement, and that the specificity of which election in 2021 was important. Reverting this also reintroduces a grammatical error as she announced her candidacy as an SNP MSP 2021 should at minimum include the word in eg she announced her candidacy as an SNP MSP in 2021. While you could argue that this is implied by the use of MSP, that is a term that would be unfamiliar to readers outside of the UK. By specifying we make it clear that Wadhwa was not standing as a candidate in a local or Westminster election.
Now if you have reasons for why those edits by Melissa Highton should be restored, then feel free to make them here. But per WP:BRD I again ask that you self-revert pending a consensus for their inclusion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note, another user has now reverted those edits. Justifications for the original removal still stand though, and this content should be discussed and consensus gained before being restored again. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Edit: Decided I'll just wait for someone with more patience to come along.Tetsugaku-San (talk) 19:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The edits[1] by Melissa Highton that falsely claim Wadhwa to be "male" and supposedly not a woman are blatant BLP violations that target the subject of this article solely on account of being transgender, the "sources" are low-quality, far-right, conspiracy theorist and transphobic websites (For Women Scotland, an extreme anti-trans group, "Legalfeminist", a well-known TERF website and associated Twitter account that promotes conspiracy theories and transphobia, Jean Hatchet, an anti-trans activist), and should be reverted on sight. Unfortunately, this article has a long history of harassment of the article subject, related to the very harassment described in the article and numerous RS. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 21:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still on wikibreak but I logged in to point out a possibly urgent BLP issue. The article currently includes the categories Indian transgender women, Scottish transgender women, Transgender women politicians, Indian LGBT politicians, Scottish LGBT politicians. As I understand it, the subject is a trans woman so she may belong in these categories.

But per WP:BLPCAT, "the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its verifiable reliable sources". I'd argue that "unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief (or lack of such) or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources" should also apply a gender identity although strictly speaking from the wording it doesn't.

Whatever the case, unless I'm missing something, the article doesn't say anywhere she is a trans woman nor imply it in some other way (e.g. that she was assigned male at birth), other than sort of imply by the headline of one RS. (There was an addition to the lead but this was removed.) While headlines are not RS, I'm fairly sure that the article itself which is an RS must mention some details of her gender identity, so I didn't consider this urgent enough for me to remove myself.

But if there is insufficient sourcing to establish that we should mention she is a trans woman (or whatever) somewhere in the article, perhaps because as mentioned above most sources which delve into this are from op-eds, critics and those harassing her, then the categories transgender categories need to be removed ASAP.

Likewise unless I've missed something there is no mention of her sexual orientation other than a mention of a husband, so since there's also no mention of her being a trans woman, the LGBT categories also don't belong. Indeed strictly speaking until the issue is resolved all the categories should be removed.

Related, I think if we do lack sufficient sourcing to mention that she's a trans woman, we have to consider whether to remove or at least reword the part about her leaving due to objections over her being listed on an all-woman candidates list as I feel this part is hard to understand without such knowledge.

I'd even go as far as to suggest we should consider removing the part about her being misgendered. While people are frequently subject to misgendering even when they gender identity matches that assigned at birth for a variety of reasons, I feel that it's an important aspect of understanding one of the reasons this happened. I'm fairly surprised that sources that mention this harassment don't mention her being a trans woman, my only guess is the sourcing mentioning this harassment is fairly limited.

(To be clear, I'm not in any way suggesting it makes it okay. But just like the info about her being born in India and a immigrant to Scotland helps to inform on her being subject to racist attacks without excusing it, the knowledge she is a trans woman helps to inform on her being subject to misgendering without excusing it.)

On a mostly unrelated note, IMO the section on her leaving the SNP doesn't flow very well. It first mentions she quit the partly due to attacks on her motivated by both her leadership ambitions and transphobia. It then says she will still vote for Scottish independence. It then mentions she left after an amendment to the law the SNP allowed. I assume both of these are true, she left both due to the attacks and the law change they allowed but the way it's worded just seems confusing. At the very least, I feel the independence thing should be moved after both reasons but perhaps the section can just be reworded to make it clearer that these are among the reasons.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. If she didn't ascribe the law change as a reason for her leaving but the source did mention it came after that, perhaps a better option would be to move the part about the law change to be first, so we say she left after this happened, and we then explain the reasons she gave for her leaving. Nil Einne (talk) 12:42, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S. I don't want to go too far in to this, but even putting aside the misgendering, reading the section on harassment more careful I'm actually really surprised sources which discuss the harassment don't mention in some way that she's a trans woman. It just seems to me it's a very significant aspect of this, as it's extremely likely the harassment is not just because of her advocating for trans rights etc, but in fact is primarily due to transphobia directed at a trans woman. A bizarre situation all around IMO if I understand what was said above correctly and it's primarily only sources harassing her etc which mention she's a trans woman and other sources have largely ignored it. Nil Einne (talk) 13:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nil Einne: Mridul Wadwha is definitely a trans woman – see this Guardian article of 12 December 2022 [2], which includes In line with a longstanding policy of trans inclusion by the country’s official network, Edinburgh rape crisis centre has been run by a trans woman, Mridul Wadhwa, since May 2021. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:28, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just a question of whether you can find a source that says she is a trans woman, there is also a question of WP:DUE, whether it is a defining characteristic, BLP concerns related to mentioning someone's sexuality or gender identity etc. For example, does she publicly identify in this way? It seems to me that this has mainly been made into an issue in connection with the racist and transphobic harassment of her that the article describes.
In particular, describing her as a trans woman in the lead is as absurd as starting an article about a gay man in this way: "John Doe is an actor and a gay man." Normally, sexuality etc. is something that would be mentioned briefly way down in the article, not in the lead. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 23:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to neutral sources (ie not The Times and Herald), very few actually mention that Wadhwa is trans. For them it doesn't seem that pertinent when discussing her or her work. I think the Guardian source could warrant a brief mention in the background section however, and that would satisfy the WP:BLPCAT and WP:CATV issues. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:15, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What wording are you thinking of? Just She is transgender? Or something else? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've no specific wording in mind right now, other than something simple like She is a trans woman because that's pretty much the depth that source goes into. Is there maybe an about self or interview source that we could use? I know she's spoken in the past before with LGBT History Month Scotland about some of her history in India, is there anything similar in her own words that we could use here from another interview or podcast source? Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I did a search for MW being transgender, the Guardian was the only RS that came up. I would be happy with She is a trans woman. in the Background section. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have now added the statement 'She is a trans woman.' Sweet6970 (talk) 11:59, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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