 Test yes Hi everyone So I'm very happy today to be introducing Pax on Misa get there. Did I say that right? Who is user fun crunch on Wikipedia and is a queer black trans vegan activist? Blogger and photographer Pax has been very active on the various projects, especially dealing with issues of trans representation And has also been particularly active recently Working on various areas on the projects including LGBT LGBT studies and the women in red wiki projects And also gave a talk at wiki conference North America on these topics last year So with that I will hand it over to Pax Thank you very much So I am Pax and if I could ask for people to please hold your questions if you have any to the end I've left plenty of time for Q&A at the end of this presentation So my presentation is living persons trans lives and Wikipedia representation and impact So as a transgender person myself I am going from the premise that transgender and non-binary lives are legitimate our identities are not up for debate and The well-being of trans people is affected by our representation on Wikipedia This applies to Wikipedia editors as well as readers And it applies to discussion that happens on article talk pages and policy pages as well as on the article itself some of this representation is positive and some is negative and Not all of the harm that is caused by a negative representation is due to malice. However, some of it is simply due to ignorance So to address the ignorance that does exist about transgender and non-binary people I'd like to start with some basic terminology This will be review to some of you So the terms gender and sex are often used Interchangeably many people think that basically if you're male And a man you have one set of body parts if you're female and a woman you have another set of body parts And that's all there is to it But what really matters especially when it comes to trans people for treating people with respect is our gender identity This is what trans author Julia Serrano has referred to as the subconscious sex your internal sense of who you are Which is not dependent on any surgeries or legal avenues. You might have gone to transition Gender identity can be expressed through a variety of ways through clothing and mannerisms Even language. These are different ways people can express their gender identity But gender identity and expression are separate and they are also separate from sexual orientation Sexual orientation means who you are attracted to so these three things gender identity Gender expression sexual orientation are all separate Some basics about gender identity a Transgender person is a person who does not identify with the sex that they were assigned at birth We like to use the word sex assignment rather than biologically or anatomically or genetically male or female because this this shows that we are honoring the person's own identity instead of one that was given to them without their consent A cisgender person on the other hand does identify with that sex male or female that they were assigned at birth There's a lot of misunderstanding about the term cisgender. It's not cis is not an acronym It's not a slur cisgender Cis the prefix is as opposed to trans cis is latin for on the same side of as opposed to trans on the other Side of so that's all it means It's just a way of describing people who do identify with that sex assignment without casting Certain people as normal and others as abnormal Now a non-binary person identifies as something other than male or man female or woman Non-binary people may be a gender like myself not having a gender. They might be bi gender pan gender There are a number of different gender identities Some non-binary people describe themselves as gender queer These terms are often used interchangeably including on wikipedia But non-binary I feel is a better umbrella term because not all people who do not identify with the gender binary prefer to use the term gender queer Now intersex people this is not a gender identity but intersex people face many of the same challenges as non-binary and trans people and some of them do identify as trans or non-binary themselves But what an intersex person is is a person who has physical sex characteristics that vary from typical binary expectations But an intersex person could be any of these identities transgender cisgender non-binary or gender queer Now when it comes to addressing trans people with respect It's important to be aware of our pronouns. You'll often hear people talk about preferred pronouns But unless someone specifically says that they prefer one set of pronouns or the other Assume that those pronouns are mandatory Singular they is gaining a lot of popularity for non-binary people Not all non-binary and gender queer people use singular they but it is available. It's Accepted in a number of style guides now. It's accepted on a number of social media sites as a personal pronoun So that and that is my pronoun as well Salutations like mr. And ms. Sir and ma'am are a little trickier especially in the u.s. We don't really have any widely recognized non-binary salutations of that sort right now, but in the uk mix or mux mx is gaining popularity and it's actually Accepted on some official forms in the uk now, so I'm hoping that will come to the us as well And the thing to do if you miss gender someone, you know, just apologize and move on don't you know make a huge deal of it Don't say oh, I'm the last person who would ever do that I'm so sorry because that just draws more attention to the person's gender Which is not what you want to do so it's best to just apologize and move on I have some examples here of trans people. These are all photos that are available on commons Laverne cox is an actress You might be familiar with her from orange is the new black and she's also on the tv show doubt She is a trans woman. So that means that she is a woman who was assigned male at birth Ryan cassata is a musician and activist. He is a trans man So he's a man that was assigned female at birth Then we have jamie shoup who is a non-binary person Notable for being the first person who was legally declared non-binary in the u.s And then the pigeon pagonis who is an activist Is intersex and also identifies as non-binary All of these people except jamie have articles on wikipedia and jamie is referenced in a number of wikipedia articles Because of the precedent that was set with the non-binary declaration And I want to talk a little bit about myself. So you know where I'm coming from I was born in 1970 I was assigned female again all that means is basically someone looked between my legs and said it's a girl And made the assumption that I would grow up into a woman which turned out to Be correct for a time. I was raised as a girl and lived as a woman I came out as bisexual in 1991 I was pretty active locally in the bisexual community here But eventually I came to realize that it was not just my sexuality but my gender identity that was queer And so in the year 2013 I eventually did change my name and pronouns I think part of what took it so long for me to realize my identity because you hear a lot of trans kids Might know as soon as age five sometimes even younger that they're transgender But you know, I grew up in west virginia in the 70s. I didn't have any role models Certainly no non-binary role models and not even trans men. I didn't know that these identities existed I didn't know it was an option It wasn't until much later that I was exposed to a wider diversity of trans people that I could really understand who I was So I did change my name. I having a kind of unusual name So I could explain it as pax is latin for peace hymsa is sanskrit for do no harm or non-violence And gethann is from a book by my favorite author or silica glenn called the left hand of darkness Which features the planet gethann which has all physically androgynous people who have no gender roles at all Which I think would be awesome So I changed my I changed my whole name not just my first like most trans folks do And then I made it legal in 2014. So I am now legally male But I really do identify as a gender not having a gender I feel that my subconscious sex as I described earlier is male So I describe myself as a transsexual male But it's important to realize that most trans people do not use the term transsexual anymore Transgender is a broader term. So that should always be used unless you're sure that someone identifies with the term transsexual And I also identify as queer rather than bisexual because I just feel that's a better description of my sexual orientation So a little bit about my experience on wikipedia I made my first edit back in 2008, but I didn't really become highly active until just the last couple of years I have a particular focus on gender related pages pages related to transgender issues I've also uploaded hundreds of photos to wikipedia commons A lot of photos of again transgender related events a lot of photos of rallies and protests and so forth Now I do have my full name and photo and a link to my website on my english wikipedia user page And that unfortunately has led to some harassment Last year I was stalked by an anonymous editor They hacked basically well not hacked because they were open to editing but edited my pages On english wikipedia and commons and met a dead naming basically putting my birth Assign name that I don't use anymore that really bothers me when I see it on there Calling me she and a female and it just escalated even once I got those pages protected They basically stalked all of my edits And it was very damaging and I eventually had to get the support and safety committee involved and Through some help with some helpful administrators eventually those attacks stopped Unfortunately it didn't end there and they started chasing me all over the internet on reddit on another wiki that I edited and On my blog until I finally turned off comments there This didn't stop me from contributing to wikipedia Fortunately in fact in a direct response to this I proposed in the last year's inspire campaign against harassment An initiative to prevent user pages from being edited by anonymous and new users So with the help of chris shilling from the foundation I started an rfc for this after the campaign and it did gain consensus And so we ended up instead of making user pages semi protected by default We ended up implementing this with an edit filter So the attempt to edit the user page is captured, but the edit is not actually made which is actually useful For gathering some statistics about how many of these attempted edits are made And people can now opt out of this with an unprotected user page template So if they really do want their user page to be open to everybody that is still an option And I also just got even more active editing pages on transgender people, especially biographies So, you know, this didn't stop me, but that doesn't mean it didn't bother me The impact of this harassment is still with me And there are some people that really would not recover from this and just basically leave the project and never return So I'm going to show you some potentially triggering language next Some examples of vandalism on gender related pages Just to see what, you know, people are faced with when they come to this project So these are just some examples that I've gathered just for this year The page sex and gender distinction Basically, people have been editing it to say man and woman, that's it, nothing else to it They are the same thing, although as I've shown you, they are not People are very invested in the idea that there are only two genders and they correspond with two sexes And there's been a lot of vandalism of that type For the pan-gender page, people say it's completely stupid and retarded And basically, if you think otherwise, if you think otherwise that there are otherwise than two genders You're mentally incapable and a disgrace to the human race And one of the most disturbing ones last, but not least, all of them should kill themselves because they are not human That's the kind of edit that I would think would be basically Basically retracted and not even available in the page history, but it's still there as of now And it's kind of interesting that this page was made on the gender binary page Which was not even specifically a page about transgender people that they felt needs to make that statement there So it's not, you know, just people that are looking at less visited pages that are exposed to this For example, the gender page, which is considered a level three vital article on Wikipedia So that's a very high ranking page was vandalized with this there only two genders crowd last year And it got it's strange because it didn't get cashed when you go it went to the cash of the page It showed the correct page But when you did a search in google for a period of time What came back was the hack that said there are only two genders and this Even though this was corrected several times this just kept coming back So I've been monitoring this and some other pages to see if this kind of thing is happening again Where they basically the text summary snippet that shows up in google says something other than the cash Because it's I don't know how that managed to get hacked that way But my point is basically that wikipedia Is a very high ranking site as we all know on the internet. So these What people are searching on google comes up with these vandalized pages that can give people a very negative Incorrect impression about gender identity So of course most of these Fan most of this vandalism is coming from anonymous and new users. So one remedy is to protect the page Unfortunately, some of the people who still want to have their say just go on to make their statements on the talk pages I have some examples here from the gender queer page, which eventually I got argued to have semi protected So people posted on the talk page instead may lord protect us from all this kind of depravity and none of this shit exists The cisgender page Another page that has been indefinitely semi protected in this case since january Someone wrote this is a article of is a violation of everything we know about biology Do appease people who believe and make believe Where's the article about people believing they're attack helicopters? That's a big meme Trying to associate transgender identity with attack helicopters. I've seen that vandalism in a number of places And again for the pan gender article says there's only two genders only primitive superstitious people believe otherwise or people with severe mental disorders So basically some of this Is blatant and obvious vandalism, but some of it is more subtle and uh, I'll have some more examples From the biography pages of trans people for example, chelsea manning Most of you probably know as a trans woman soldier imprisoned for leaking documents from the u.s. Army Her sentence was commuted by obama and she was just released in may And a lot of people really don't like that She is referred to as a woman on the page and would prefer to use Male pronouns and her previous name. So they've saying They're saying things like enabling a mentally disordered person in his clinical delusion is not objective rational or credible Comparing identifying as female to identifying as a german shepherd Saying that uh, chelsea is delusional And saying that we should disregard anything that wikipedia says otherwise about gender identity because it's all written for By people with a far left extremist biased or gender identities disorder Some more examples from a non-binary person in this case asia kate dillon is a non-binary actor Uses singular they pronouns and people Really don't like in some cases using the singular they pronouns and have continually made their case on the page this saying that this person is Biologically defined as a woman. So it should be referred to as a she and this is a desecration of the english language So in response to continual disruption of this type on non-binary binary pages specifically I eventually decided to create a template Moss which stands for manual of style nb Which mirrors the existing templates moss tw for trans women and moss tm for trans men This doesn't actually prevent this kind of disruption and editing In fact, I just refer to it for about the 10th time and edit of another non-binary Persons page that changed the singular they pronouns that they prefer to she But at least this way people can't say they weren't informed So this talk page template is available. I've put it on the number of talk pages for non-binary folks The language in it isn't perfect because right now it mirrors the language in the templates for trans men and women, which Is not entirely perfect, but I feel I didn't feel like I wanted to change it without having consensus from some other editors Basically, it goes from the manual of style The manual of style says that the guideline for gender identity is to give precedence to self designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources Even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources. So that part is good But that says when talking about trans people and other articles articles, they're not the main biographical article It says use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis So that's where this that part came in in the template for non-binary people trans men and women But I feel like that language needs to be edited to make it clear that that's talking about Referring to the person in other articles not in their main biographical article. So that's an improvement that I'm hoping to get the consensus to make Now another problematic thing For my opinion in the manual of style as it says in the case of transgender and non-binary people Birth names should be included in the late sentence only when the person was notable prior to coming out So that's good as far as it goes But as far as I'm concerned the birth name or what we call dead name should not be in there at all If the person transitioned prior to becoming notable, there's no reason to put that in the article It's not about giving special treatment to trans people and it's not historical revisionism It's just treating the people with respect I don't feel that the curiosity of the encyclopedia readers is enough justification to put that dead name which can cause real harm Into the article if nobody knew about this person and they didn't become notable before they transitioned to using a new name So a couple more recent initiatives We had an rfc a request for comment To put gender neutral style into our policy guidelines and health pages This wasn't specifically an initiative to help transgender people It was just the idea that we don't need to use Specific pronouns when unnecessary and again, this is just for guideline policy and health pages This was not saying that editors could not use Gendered pronouns or other gendered language on talk pages or elsewhere in the encyclopedia So there was a very lengthy heated debate on this and not surprisingly it did not pass But what or did not gain consensus for implementation But what really bothered me more than the fact that it did not gain consensus was reading some of the comments on the page For example, I do not support altering our text to the proposed double think new language at the behest of a small minority of nonconformers who perceive microaggressions from standard wording The day I am required to use the repulsive singular they will be the day I exit stage left from this project We already focused too much energy into political correctness and new speak We are here to build an encyclopedia not promote some new world order version of language You know, so I was very interested in the outcome of this rfc But I just had to stop following it after a while because it was really bothering me that people were referring to You know, my pronouns is repulsive and gender neutral language is some kind of new world order And then someone's happened to say wikipedia is already a welcoming environment for all genders including non-binary or gender fluids And I would have to say This was yeah kind of odd phrasing there and probably not coming from someone who has actually lived the life of a non-binary person So I would have to disagree with that There was another rfc recently To alter the manual style when referring to gender queer people And basically this person said that since some people are uncomfortable with the singular they But they don't want to miss gender people either Why don't we just not use any pronouns and enforce using no pronouns for gender queer people whatsoever? Fortunately this failed overwhelmingly because I thought this was a bit ridiculous and fortunately people agreed with me on that Perhaps for different reasons than I would but It's just another example of how people are thinking about gender and gender identity on wikipedia So as I was saying some comments on talk pages and uh, and such are more blatantly Transantagonistic than others There are some things that are just more subtle that kind of get by that still really bother me as a trans person For example, we're having a discussion On one talk page where one editor really doesn't think that wikipedia should be referring to trans women as women Because he doesn't consider that to be a settled issue And when people pushed back on this he said do I really need to provide evidence that there are enormous numbers of people Organizations politicians ideologies, etc that do not accept the transgender women are women And it seems to me based on how most people on the street would define the word woman It would be more defensible for the article to say they were not women Not women and also refer to the fact that this is a recent thing Which I disagree with because transgender people have been around since the beginning of civilization but Well, you can see my opinion there from that photo I took in the bride parade on sunday I think that trans women certainly are women, but it just bothers me that this is up for debate at all What editors like this are saying is that we need to have a neutral point of view because that's wikipedia policy But what i'm saying is that a neutral point of view at least on the english wikipedia Especially when it comes to the usa is the viewpoint of a straight cisgender white male That's all there is to it And as far as charges that i'm an activist. Yes, you know guilty, but i'm an activist for survival That's what it takes as an openly transgender person to survive And it's not a matter of political correctness to refer to our genders the way that we want them to be It's a matter of treating people with respect and it's not writing great wrongs Which is another wikipedia policy of something not to do It's just basically treating people with respect and understanding what it means to be a transgender or non-binary person The fact is That there is a lot of harm done to trans people and our population is marginalized and vulnerable There was a study that said 41 of transgender and gender non-conforming adults have attempted suicide 54 of trans youth that's over half have considered suicide and a third of them have attempted it And last year there were 27 known murders just ones that we know about of trans people and this year there have been 13 And almost overwhelmingly these are women of color We actually have an event every year in november the transgender day of remembrance to commemorate the people who have been lost to violence This is a photo i took the day of remembrance two years ago of cc mcdonald trans woman who is fortunately still living But she was jailed in a men's prison for defending herself against a violent attack But it's not all about mourning the dead. We should be celebrating the living as well That's why I named my talk here living persons partly that was a reference to our biographies of living persons policy But also a reference to the fact that transgender people are alive and should be celebrated We have an international transgender day of visibility. It's held every year on march 31st And I have some photos from that Here's tita aida Photo I took a trans woman at last year's celebration. She's a activist advocate for people with hiv and aids We have gg gorgeous. I took this photo at this year's transgender day of visibility YouTube celebrity who I just found out this morning was listed by time magazine as one of the 25 most influential people on the internet That just just got published yesterday. So I had to alter my slideshow real quick to throw that photo in And uh, Brianna Sinclair a trans woman who is an opera singer and she was the first transgender person to Sing at a major league sporting event. She did that at an oakland a's baseball game We also have the trans march just happened on friday and I went as I've done for the last four years It's in a number of cities not just san francisco, but it's been held here in san francisco since 2004 In this photo from last year's trans march. I've got a janetta johnson She works at the tgi Justice project which helps transgender people who are in prison or at risk of imprisonment And she is surrounded by people from helo para trans latinas, which is an organization to help Transgender latinas specifically And I've got a few photos from this year's trans march, uh, susan striker. She's a professor and author of books on gender theory She had a Wikipedia article, but no photo photo had been requested a year ago So I got it got that photo in there just a couple days ago uh, alex you in local activist and drag king was the uh, one of the community grand marshals for our pride grade on fri on sunday and was also at the trans march on friday And me at burn a musician, uh, who's performed in another venues throughout the country. She was also a performer at the trans march And of course as some of you are probably familiar with we've got our annual wiki loves pride initiative So I've been trying to contribute a bunch of articles to that Uh, so far. I've still got a couple days left in the month So I might add a few more but so far. I've created three biographies of transgender people who weren't on the encyclopedia previously Uh, Nevo Zeeson is a non-binary australian writer and activist Chase Strangio is a lawyer with the american civil liberties union. He was a lead attorney on chelsea manning's case So I definitely think he should be notable enough for an article And megan roar first openly transgender minister to be ordained by the lutheran church And uh, megan also uses a single or they non-binary pronouns and this photo is Of them from a rally we had uh, to immortalize the victims of the pulse nightclub shooting which happened a year ago in orlando We actually had a one-year Memorial in the Castro for that So there's some more good news for non-binary folks. We are starting to gain legal recognition Uh, I mentioned jamey shoup, uh, was the first uh, non-binary person in the us to gain this recognition that happened a year ago in june In a couple months later than intersex, uh, california resident, uh, sarah kelly keenan also got legal non-binary status And then this month orgon and washington dc Started to allow an x marker on drivers licenses and state ids for non-binary folks with no doctor's note or any kind of medical certification required And there are bills pending in california and new york to do the same Because even though jamey and sarah got declared as non-binary, they still don't have their driver's license stating that so this is the next step So hopefully this will snowball and just be available in more and more states after this So there's some things that I suggest uh, to raise awareness of non-binary folks if you're having gatherings like this or events I would suggest avoiding dividing up into men's versus women's groups if you're having activities Not only because that leaves out people who are neither men or women, but because it also probably makes some very untrue assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman Um, if you're breeding a group, I would try saying something gender neutral like hello everyone instead of ladies and gentlemen You could also if you want to be more formal say honored guests or distinguished guests Or if you want to be less formal you could say just friends folks or comrades although that has some implications that people don't really like I hope I kind of like the word but I can understand some people might want to avoid it Now this is a big one you guys now guys is seeing this gender neutral by just about everybody but think about it If a guy were a gender neutral term then gal should be as well And how many of you have gone up to a mixed gender group of people and said hey gals you know you could get slapped in the face for that in certain places So I don't think that guys is any more gender neutral than gals but I screw up on this all the time so you know no huge harm done But just something to think about maybe say you all instead of you guys And if you're referring to someone's partner and you don't necessarily know their gender you're just referring to partners in the abstract You could use the term partner or spouse if the couple is actually married instead of saying husband or wife or girl or boyfriend Because that again is more gender inclusive Now if you're taking a survey on gender which can be very helpful for assessing you know gender imbalances Which as we know there's a huge gender gap on Wikipedia so we do want to know the genders of people who are editing and using it But think about for your survey why you are asking for this and don't assume that everybody is either a man or a woman Don't assume that gender is binary And if you want to survey for transgender people keep in mind that transgender is not itself a gender Very few trans people identify simply as trans They'll identify as a trans man or a trans woman or genderqueer or agender or some other description So I wouldn't put three check boxes that say male female and transgender because that's not really accurate The best thing to do is just have all this stuff fill in the blank That's the best case scenario it's not always possible but if you can put you know pronouns gender You know what do you prefer to be called rather than assuming a finite list that's the best way to go about it And if you do want to survey to see how many transgender people are using this whatever project you're surveying for Then you could list that separately as an optional question I have a couple of good examples from the Wikimedia Foundation For last year's Wiki Conference North America it says with what gender do you identify Female male other prefer not to say This is exactly what I recommend when you can't do fill in the blank because your software won't allow it Or otherwise you don't have access to hack it this is I think the best you can do in that regard And then for the Inspire campaign that I mentioned they did have a fill in the blank option in addition to female male or rather not say So this is definitely improvement because when I got the annual fundraising survey in 2014 after I made my little annual donation to Wikimedia It only had male and female options on that survey so I actually wrote in and said hey wait a minute Could you maybe open this up a little bit the next year they did add another option so very good So another thing to keep in mind if you want to be inclusive of more gender identities is privacy and making spaces safer for trans and non-binary people It's important to honor a person's name regardless of what it says on their identity documents Because a lot of trans people can't necessarily afford to change their IDs right away I've gone through it it was a very expensive and time-consuming process If someone's under 18 they might even not legally be able to do it yet There's all kinds of reasons that someone's official identity might differ from what they personally identify as either in name or gender And it can be very embarrassing if that name is spoken out loud for example at security I remember going to a bar once after I had socially transitioned but still had my old name on my driver's license And the person read the name out loud in front of everybody horrible you know don't ever do that Tell your security folks not to do that and if you think about it you know some cis people don't use the names that are on their IDs either I've known a lot of people that go by a middle name or a nickname that never use the official name on their license So I think it's just a good practice in general If you're having a women specific event like an editathon that you want to encourage women of all kinds to come to And show that you are aware of transgender women It's best not to say transgender women identified or use identified language Because that kind of stigmatizes transgender people as being people who identify as opposed to cisgender people who don't From my perspective everybody identifies you either identify with the sex you were assigned at birth or you don't So I feel that a better way to do this is saying trans and cis women welcome That says explicitly that you acknowledge that trans and cis women are both women and you are understanding the language It's transgender identity and you are welcoming everyone So that's just I'm not a woman so but I've talked with trans women and read trans women about this And I would say the same for a men's event but I really don't think there's a need for a men's only event personally But I would say the same for that Gender-neutral restroom sillies this is huge There are so many traumatic bathroom bills going around Popping up in different places in the country now it's really distressing I mean ideally no one should be harassed for going into a restroom no matter what they look like But we all know that that's not the case Fortunately in California there is a new law that all single occupancy restrooms must be gender-neutral So that's a start but it's not enough because there sometimes there are only a men's and women's room and that's it So consider if you're having an event just labeling the rooms you know every all genders welcome Or otherwise making it clear that people who are not a binary gender identity are welcome to use the restroom of their choice And if you're booking an event with an overnight stay for a hotel do recognize that not everybody is straight and not everybody is cisgender So this would certainly affect roommate preferences in different ways than you might expect Now I am choosing to freely offer this information because I have the privilege to do so and I feel that it's important But it really is exhausting being a trans person and being questioned all the time So there are some questions that are really off limits And if you think about it these questions would not be appropriate to ask to anyone whether they're transgender or cisgender Questioning whether somebody is actually male or female Asking about somebody's sex life Asking about someone's genitals Asking someone if they've had the surgery Which is ridiculous because there's more than one surgery and you're not You know your transness is not dependent on whether you have had or ever will have surgery So that's an especially offensive question And as I feel that I've pointed out substantially asking someone what their previous name was Which is a particular trigger to me I mean it might seem like a perfectly innocent question You know a number of cisgender people change their name and don't have a problem saying what their previous name was But for transgender people it can be seriously hurtful even to hear or read it at least from my perspective And just for the purposes of this Q&A I also ask people not to ask any questions about my immediate family So I've gone through a lot I have a lot more on my blog I have the link up there I'm going to put this presentation up on Wikimedia Commons later today so people can access it And people are welcome to email me or contact me through English Wikipedia at the address there And thank you very much for listening Hello Hello First of all thank you very much for coming and for this incredible lecture So I have a bit of a weird question but I'm sure I'm not alone in it So I'm a foreigner and my original language is Hebrew And much like any a lot of other languages I think French follows that Spanish for the most part My language is completely gendered and not only that it's binary gendered Everything has a gender including the chair and the table It's impossible for me to say anything with a neutral gender The neutral gender is considered male gender which is not neutral And we have a lot of issues with that also when we have you know in Israel or something with events Enough that you have a couple of men in the room then the neutral form comes when it's male And all that kind of stuff it's really And there's a lot of movement out to try and balance it But the balancing comes in a binary term So you start you know using all female pronouns or verbs and stuff like that Instead of all male like the neutral stuff like that But what I find that happens to me when I speak English Is that it's really hard for me to use the term they Just because it slips out because I can't Get myself to think neutral It just automatically gets assigned to either Even when you say a verb as they walked It's either they male or they female in my language So I'm fascinatedly looking at how my language is evolving But it is a big problem And I'm wondering like do you have any advice for that Like what happens when I slip up what happened do I You know because it happens and it's very very embarrassing Yeah if you like I said if you slip up you know it's not a huge deal I mean you're not I mean in your case you're coming from a language that is very binary And I've heard you know that complain in a number of languages I mean I don't know a word of Hebrew but I know some Spanish I know that's a heavily gendered language But there are non-binary activists who are working to do things Like replace O which is a masculine ending And A feminine ending with E for example Or replace it with an at sign in written language I don't know if that's possible in Hebrew but that's not your job But you know to rewrite the language I think that you know folks that use pronouns other than he or she Recognize that there are people who legitimately have difficulty adopting Gender-neutral language for a variety of reasons And that's part of actually why that I'm really hopeful that Single or they becomes sort of the default And I feel that it almost has come to default rather than the somewhat more Unusual pronouns that can take even more difficulty for people Coming from different backgrounds to adopt to And I think some people you know back when I spent time on Tumblr I mean I don't go to Tumblr anymore because I'm like Literally three times the average age of the Tumblr user I swear But you know there are people using all kinds of I don't want to say wacky pronouns because I don't want to be you know Ablest or anything but pronouns that I don't think anyone outside of Tumblr would ever use but I think they realize that Look we have to accommodate people that really cannot wrap their head Around it so I don't feel that you should feel bad or apologetic about it But just you know try you know if you screw up like I said Apologize and move on you don't have to beat yourself up over it Just realize that if someone gets angry about it It's probably not that they're angry at you they're just angry at The collected microaggressions that they've been experiencing And you're just the target of that That's what I would say It's not a question I'm just telling you that that Vandalism with they should kill themselves I've hidden it now Sorry I missed the last part of that vandalism Oh thank you very much I was really trying to avoid canvassing so I wasn't I wasn't specific about where some of these edits were But I appreciate that Thank you Thank you so much Pax I think three slides ago you used the example of how to be Inclusive for events oriented oh one Yep where you say for women's events be inclusive by saying Trans and cis women welcome That This has been a question I've had for a while What if you want to invite people to an event And be actively inclusive for people who are Agender or do not identify as a woman How would you I start to struggle with what that inclusive language looks like That isn't just non cis male Maybe trans feminine is the word you're looking for So people that are not women But they are not men either I mean I'm not sure exactly what you're going for Or if someone is agender and doesn't identify Like me Right right I'm curious how I struggle you said no men's events okay that makes sense What about everyone but men how do you Without everyone but men I have seen some of those events basically everybody but cis men And I understand the thought behind it I'm not a huge fan of it Because I think of some of the assumptions that that makes So I don't know if I have a really good answer for that I mean because that's basically what you're going for Everybody who is not a cis man is invited So you could just say that and deal with the pushback But you know it's better to be explicit if that's what you're going for Whoops Sorry Thank you No I appreciate you wanting to include non-binary people I mean but I think if you're looking for a women's event I mean I've heard some of this people want to have an event For trans and cis women but also for people that Are on the women's side of the sub-spectrum Basically even if they don't identify fully as women So the word for that is trans feminine So you could do that I just I guess my trouble is I feel that there's the assumption That trans men and trans masculine people And agender people who are female assigned Are somehow not going to be pros or whatever Not going to be you know and that's I can tell you is not true There are some trans men that are horribly sexist You know there are some non-binary trans men Gender people that are really problematic So don't expect if you're just going to allow everybody But cis men that that's going to address those issues That's all that's what I would say They're really fair point thank you very much Is anyone monitoring IRC? I don't know if there's any questions on there too But um okay I'd be happy to answer digital questions too Because we got plenty of time Anything else? Well I'd be happy to talk with folks one on one If you're more comfortable with that Or talk offline or email If there are any more questions here So um We got a question on YouTube apparently Just notice the screen here Yeah there's the IRC feed there Um And it was that the subject of Wikipedia articles Often request article updates Like self promotional job updates And personal information Like family details Or hobbies I'm not entirely sure what the question is there But What's the question? I mean that's not appropriate whether Oh I see Oh without providing sources Well I would say that When it comes to gender identity It doesn't have to be you know To what extent are they different I mean with gender identity If it's someone puts it on their social media I think that's acceptable It doesn't have to be published in What we would normally require Like you know a reliable source It doesn't have to be published in you know Newspaper or TV show In order to honor their gender identity If it's like a verified social media account Twitter, Facebook etc Then I think it's acceptable to update The gender identity based on that Um I do think Let's see what the rest of this question is Not made these updates until Third party sources Yeah I'm pretty sure I don't have The exact um policy On the tip of my brain But I'm pretty sure that when it comes to Gender identity we do allow First person sources for that Because really that's the only person who can know Their gender identity for sure So I don't think that's comparable to Being self promotional And talking about job updates and such I would trust somebody's verified Twitter or Facebook account saying What their gender pronouns are More than I would trust a third party honestly I think a similar sort of related question That some people might have Relating to um something you mentioned earlier About how if a trans person Only becomes um Only gains notoriety after they have They've started using a name Different from their birth name That their birth name shouldn't appear On the article at all And I guess the question is like How does that Should the same that same rule apply To someone has like a stage name That they adopted and they didn't Become famous until after they Stopped using their stage name And they never used their birth name Or they a lot of people when they Enter show business especially Will change their name if they have A name that that may be Unusual or hard to pronounce And is there a distinction to be drawn Between that and people Changing their name for gender identity reasons Yeah I think there's definitely a distinction I mean if someone you know adopts A show business name but doesn't change Their gender I mean I don't think They're going to be offended and Physically you know I shouldn't say Physically harm but I mean it's more Mental but I mean I can't tell you How bothersome it is for me to read You know my previous name in conjunction With myself I mean I still get You know sent to my house and my old name on it And just that can be triggering I don't think that generally happens For someone who adopted a name for Show business like it's just It's a very different thing Gender dysphoria is basically What it's called it's a feeling Of unease when Your gender that You were assigned does not match The gender that you live as And dead naming is a part of that And I don't think that celebrities There may be a privacy issue If there's a little known celebrity That someone was able to only find Their you know legal name By searching some obscure site But then that wouldn't be allowed On Wikipedia anyway it needs to be You know promoted or Published better than that In order for it to meet the standards So I think there's definitely a difference there Cool answer oh Lane Hey thanks for that question Hi Hi I'm Alex I think that historically Or That when people talk about the gender gap On Wikipedia most people assume It's talking About female participation And content about women And you know Also there's lots of women's only Events we have an upcoming wiki women's Camp that is supposed to be more inclusive But really there hasn't been that much communication Around that to make people Understand that it is open to trans women as well And so I'm wondering how To start to address this Like if you have ideas I think that on our team And at the foundation we're trying to be More gender inclusive and expansive And the way that we think about gender And communicate about the gender gap But it's difficult when This is pretty ingrained in News and the culture and everything And so I'm wondering if you have Advice on how to try to Start to be To expand that term and that idea Of gender gap etc Yeah sure I mean like I said A lot of issues these issues Are simply out of ignorance I mean ignorance doesn't have to be a negative term It's just people really not knowing And my presentation that I gave At wiki conference North America Last October was specifically on the transgender Gap that was the title But I emphasize that In goal as the male-female Gender gap I'm not trying to get the same number Of transgender editors As cisgender editors because there's only Like maybe half a percent of us in the country So that would be ridiculous I'm not trying to get an equal number Of articles about transgender people As about cisgender people So it's a slightly different issue When it comes to including trans women However as I said in a previous slide Trans women are women So I would just make it clear That trans women are understood And trans women are encouraged To submit and be featured In articles as much as cis women are When it comes to non-binary people We are a minority within a minority So I think just having awareness Like as Catherine said Trying to have awareness about There are agender people And there are people who are neither male or woman Just that's a start And if you just want to include it Just look at that language At any time that you are using A gendered word think that Is there a good reason for this? Is this really necessary? That's what I would ask But again, these are steps This isn't going to happen all at once That's why I'm giving this talk today Just to try to educate people Hello Most of the examples that you gave Of policy debates surrounding gender issues Were from English Wikipedia I was wondering if you had any familiarity Or related debates that had happened On other language wikis Or multi-language wikis like comments I do not personally But that's a great question And I'd love input from people Who have had that experience I haven't participated in Any kind of policy discussions On comments at all Even though I've used it heavily It's mostly just been for uploading photos That I took myself and adding categories I have used wiki data And categorization of genders On there, for example But I really haven't been involved In other wikipedia As far as the policy discussion But that's a great question These discussions need to be happening everywhere And I realize different countries And different cultures will have Different experiences with gender identity And there can be some friction Where it seems like we're dictating An American standard or a western standard On other people That can be referred to as third gender People from indigenous cultures Who are outside of the gender binary But I don't think any of them refer to themselves As either third gender or transgender So that can be seriously Problematic But I don't personally have that experience I don't want to speak to it Another question And this is something where There may be policies But I don't personally know What they are One thing that's interesting And I think this goes beyond gender identity And it also has to do with Sexual orientation And terminology has changed a lot And our understanding of these concepts Have changed a lot, especially in the past 100 years or so But obviously a lot of articles On wikipedia are about historical figures About whom We may know some things about their personal lives But certainly someone You know 400 years ago Was unlikely to identify as bisexual For example, right Because that concept just wasn't Didn't exist so much But there are categories on wikipedia Perhaps like famous bisexual people What thoughts do you have Or policies do you know about For categorizing Articles about people Like historical figures And placing them in these categories Using terminology That they might not have Identity terminology That they might not have Used themselves in part Because it wasn't available to them Yeah, that's a great question I don't have a complete answer for it But it's important to recognize that Terminology in the transgender community Has shifted quite a bit in the last 50 years As I mentioned transsexual That term has really fallen out of favor But it was used very heavily in the past And some people, primarily older trans people Still identify with that term Even the term genderqueer Like I mentioned, I really feel that Non-binary would be more inclusive But there's ongoing debate over Whether to include that as a category Or as an article title And I feel that we should at least Not categorize people incorrectly But there isn't consensus necessarily For the change So again, I don't have a complete answer to that Because it's difficult When we don't have Enough historical documents To confirm someone's gender identity Or what terms they would have chosen For themselves That's part of why, you know, Titled this living persons and focused on Living trans people, but that doesn't mean That our ancestors aren't important As well, they very much are So, good question So, another thing that I'm personally Struggling with and I see a lot of Actually good changes around I'm curious about what else we can do about So, in the attempt To respect people's Pronouns, a lot of times It's a little, so if you have Meetings and something like that That we know in advance that that's what we're going to do We start out with, you know Maybe when you introduce yourselves Also say what your preferred pronoun is And that's great, but when you have Events either that are not Catering to that specific thing That this is not happening So, do you bring this up Like how do you respect someone's pronouns Because if you bring it up I feel like Maybe you're antagonizing someone On the other hand if you don't bring it up You might get it wrong and that So how do you deal with that? Yeah, there are a couple of different fields of thought on this One is that we should just ask everyone Their pronouns and normalize it Because if you only ask people that you're not sure of That can be stigmatizing because then the person thinks Oh, my gender is not obvious This can especially be hurtful to trans women In a very feminine way And you ask, you know, what pronouns Then they think they're not, you know They don't look like a woman and that could Really be harmful So I don't think we're at a place At least in US society yet Where we can just straight up ask everybody's pronouns But if you have an event Then use a name tag Have a place on the name tag To explicitly put what the pronouns are I've been ordering these stickers That have a place that say Pre-filled pronouns, he, she They, them, a couple others And then a fill in the blank page And the funny thing is the first time That I brought these to an event I saw people that I knew weren't transgender And were binary gendered wearing the ones that said they Because they were a different color And they didn't notice that they had the pronouns on them They just thought, oh, I want a green one I want a red one, you know Because they just take it and that's okay I mean, I wasn't offended by it I was just like, hey, when did you start using You know, so it's not In the culture yet and some people just say Well, let's make that be the culture And I think that's very appropriate In social justice spaces And progressive spaces But it's just not there yet for everyone So I would just say, you know Again, if you've got an event where everyone's wearing A name tag anyway Put that space in there Lead by example cisgender people should put their pronouns on There right away so it's known Just for trans and non-binary folks Any other questions? Any more on YouTuber IRC? Going once Going twice Okay, thanks everyone And again, I'll hang around as long as you want to talk And thanks very much for listening