Statement on the Chelsea Manning situation; moved from[1]

Responses to claims made by TParis

I think any reasonable person examining my comments that User:TParis cites above will find that almost all of those comments are misrepresented and cited out of context, and that they are reasonable responses to, inter alia, an array of comments on Talk:Chelsea Manning comparing transgendered people to dogs, calling the subject of a BLP psychotic, ridiculing and mocking transgendered people, and otherwise being completely unnacceptable. And there were not just a few of these comments, as multiple editors have pointed out on Talk:Chelsea Manning and elsewhere. They were also not dealt with, hardly any of them removed (despite violating BLP) and none of those making them sanctioned to my knowledge.

Using the word transphobia is relation to clearly transphobic commentary (even without discussing specific users), as I and probably a dozen or more editors did, or explaining what is generally regarded as transphobic according to the accepted definition, is not a personal attack. I have made no personal attacks at all in the debate. Typical of how TParis misrepresents me is the very first quote cited by him, which omits the first words of the sentence that make make it clear that I'm talking about the general idea, not any Wikipedia users, when I explained another editor's usage of the term transphobia, an explanation that was consistent with the overwhelming opinion in scholarship on and among those knowledgable of this matter. I already pointed this out to him in the last debate (see below), but then he finds another forum to repeat the exact same misleading accusation. The idea that the comment "I said no" is "hostile", when it was a response to repeated requests that I rehash a debate that I had already explained was addressed in other sections and indicated I was not interested in rehashing (as it was a very large and complicated debate that many users had participated in), is laughable. These are just examples, and I don't intend to waste any more time on these matters that are already discussed ad nauseum in other appropriate venues.

I also note that this, viz., the claims regarding my comments, is a clear case of Wikipedia:Forum shopping by User:TParis, as he is merely repeating the exact same misleading claims made by himself that were just rejected on the WP:ANI Manning page where no administrator saw any need to sanction them. The attempt to rehash a debate that we just had on WP:ANI is disruptive and indicative of battleground behaviour. I would also like to point out the onesidedness of that editor's statement above, that points to a disturbing bias by unfairly singling out me for responding to commentary that many editors agree was transphobic, although I have said nothing that a fairly large number of editors, many of whom administrators, have not also said in that debate (many using stronger words than I did), that is reasonable, policy-compliant and a widely held perception among editors and in the outside world. In addition to all those editors making comments that degraded the subject of the BLP in question and transgendered people in general, editors on the opposing side have been engaging in actual incivility, such as calling me "sick, sick" or "hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite," (per the ANI Manning page) or using terms like "arrogance", "disgusting", "manipulation" and "collusion" in regard to other editors on the Chelsea Manning talk page, as eg. User:Tariqabjotu did.[2][3]

On the broader issue

I think the way we allowed the talk page of a BLP to be filled with commentary that many editors have called hate speech, without doing anything about that situation, needs to be addressed. There were dozens of editors whose comments were extremely degrading to transgendered people and the BLP subject. I do not think there have been unreasonable comments made by editors calling this out and despairing seeing such blatant BLP violations being given a free pass, especially not in light of that situation.

I entirely agree with Sue Gardner that the current title is not in compliance with BLP, and I'd like to note that there is no consensus in favour of it. Even so, subjecting transgendered people to a de facto vote over whether to recognise their gender identity is in itself degrading and unusual; BLP and more specific policies need to dictate the solution in such cases. I've raised the issue of the overall treatment of transgendered people's biographies on Jimbo's talk page,[4] eg. in light of feedback like this[5] (the author is a digital media ethics scholar). Josh Gorand (talk) 00:22, 1 September 2013 (UTC)