Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality

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[edit] Occupation by religion categories

I propose that this be expanded to cover religion as well. It seems to me that there has recently been a proliferation of Occupation by religion categories where the religion has little or no relevence. See my recent nomination of Actors by religion as an example of this. I see such categorization as mostly divisive. -- ProveIt (talk) 18:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that occupation by religion (or religion by occuaption) categories are not helpful. The purpose of vcategories is navigation, to help readers find related or similar articles. I can't see why folks would want to find Methodist actors or Baptist architects. Having categories that are too-specific makes it harder to find entries, not easier. -Will Beback · † · 19:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Guess you've never heard of Religious architecture or Category:Religious media.--T. Anthony 07:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this should be rewritten as "Gender, race, sexuality, and personal beliefs". Personal beliefs should be defined as "Religion, peolitical views, philosophy or opinions". This seems like an obvious extension of this policy, but since it was not part of the original discussion, this should be widely publicized at central, cfd, categorization, village pump, etc... -- Samuel Wantman 20:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The main problem with personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, is that people may ascribe to a particular belief without it necessarily being an identity-defining issue. People will, for instance, never bother to leave the church of their childhood, so can be called "Catholics" even if they never practice, don't believe, etc. Whereas, gender, race, and sexuality are all pretty much universally significant identity markers to the individual. That's not to say that religious or political beliefs, disability, or any other kind of identity might not be an incredibly significant identity to one or many individuals; just that there will be people who fit into the identity category for whom it doesn't matter. (Of course, religion, like sexuality, race, nationality, gender, and a host of other attributes including height, weight, legitimacy, caste, skin color, class, disability, etc., can and do all have significant impacts on an individual's career & occupation & life.) --lquilter 00:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Thinking about these some more, it seems that "religious belief" is more akin to "political philosophy", ethical stance, strong beliefs of other sort, and so on: It may change over lifetime; and it can be the defining attribute to how a person views himself or how he is viewed by the world; but it is not necessarily a defining attribute -- it could be "in name only" or a casual belief, or an identity that appears to be taken by that person in defiance with everyone else's meaning of the word, or an identity that is taken by several different groups of people with different mutually exclusive meanings of the word. I'm thinking of: feminism, vegetarianism, anarchism, Christianity, Catholicism (Roman? denominational?), atheism, and so on. These are all states whose definition hinges to a significant extent on the individual's self-definition as well as to external referents. They seem different in kind than gender, ethnicity, and nationality, which are usually (not always) objectively determined. LGBT is a bit of a hybrid category, in more ways than one. --lquilter 13:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Race

I'd like to suggest that we replace the word "race" with "ethnicity" - in the page name, and in the content of the page. I presume the reasons are obvious? - jc37 10:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of heterosexual musicians

I understand how a writer who writes about "LGBT" themes can be classified as a gay/lesbian/bisexual author. But what about people who write normal literature but just happen to not be heterosexual? If I were to write a novel, it would totally not be LGBT literature even if I'm bi myself (See this userbox!) :p And I wouldn't categorize Wendy Carlos as a "transsexual musician" because her music isn't transsexual (what an absurd idea) and because she herself would rather nobody gave a shit. I understand there's a lot of "LGBT" people who seek validation by pointing out famous people who are yadda yadda but that isn't grounds for categorizing people in a totally insensitive way that makes no sense whatsoever. - ∅ (∅), 04:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A writer or musician who is LGBT exists in a particular cultural context regardless of what genre labels one would or wouldn't apply to their work, or who the intended audience is. A writer who is LGBT, for instance, doesn't have to write about LGBT-specific themes or restrict themselves to LGBT readers to qualify as a writer of gay literature; it simply isn't possible for the person's themes and cultural context to be entirely uninfluenced by their sexuality. Similarly, music doesn't have a sexual orientation in and of itself, but music by LGBT people does have a particular cultural context that applies regardless of whether their music specifically addresses LGBT lyrical themes or not. It's not what the work is about that makes it LGBT literature or LGBT music; it's the fact that it was created by an LGBT artist.
Here's a parallel example that might illustrate what I'm talking about: Dionne Brand's most recent novel focused on a Vietnamese Canadian family. But even though it wasn't about black characters, it's still Black Canadian literature, because as a black writer, Brand is coming from a black cultural context and a black thematic and literary perspective. No matter what she writes about, it's not possible for her work to be entirely divorced from the cultural influences that made her the type of writer she is. Bearcat 23:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I've never seen the inside of a gay bar, and I don't intend to. Would my crappy writings qualify as "LGBT?" Because I haven't been exposed to "LGBT culture" in the least. Being black is different because if you are black, your parents are/were likely black too; whereas the parents who raised me are heterosexual and both of them still very much the sex they were born as. I have zero cultural influence from "the LGBT community," because it's not a community you get born into, you have to actively seek it, which I haven't and won't. See what I mean? - ∅ (∅), 03:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
To be honest, no, I don't really see what you mean. More than anything else, the core experience that defines the LGBT identity is the experience of growing up as something of an "outsider" or "alien", precisely because of one's sexuality, within the culture that one was originally born into. Everything else in gay culture is a reaction to that basic formative experience, and not everybody reacts the same way to it. Some people throw themselves into institutionalized gay culture. Others (like me, for instance) find that not all of the conventional norms of gay culture really speak to who we are, and try with varying degrees of success to strike a balance between the multiple communities that we have to fit into. Still others shun the LGBT community completely, and twist themselves into knots trying to fit into their birth culture more successfully. And others reject the whole thing and define their primary identity around other subcultures altogether. But if you're a writer who is LGBT, no matter which of those approaches you take your writing couldn't possibly not be somehow influenced by the sense of having been an outsider in one's own birth culture. Thus, it would still exist within the corpus of LGBT literature, because whether you participate in the conventions of institutionalized gay culture or not, you still share the basic formative experience that defines the core of LGBT identity. Bearcat 17:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I really think that we should distinguish between Category:Writers of LGBT literature and Category:LGBT writers; the one treats a genre or thematic matter, and the other is a personal identity category. Not all LGBT writers write about LGBT issues; not all LGBT-themed literature is written by LGBT people. --lquilter 20:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] gay literature != literature by LGBT writers

You know, the example on the front page of "gay literature" is a real category so "LGBT writers" is an okay intersection makes no sense. "Gay literature" is not all written by gay people (see, e.g., Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Catch Trap); and not all LGBT writers write "gay literature". We need to change the example, at least. --lquilter 05:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Ha, well, right, see also the commenter above. I don't agree regarding the usefulness of the categories, but I do agree that if they are used to represent only those instances where the intersection is somehow particularly notable to that person, then that's not a very helpful guideline. --lquilter 05:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Almost a year later and nobody has worked on this problem. Here's the original language:

For example, gay literature is a distinct literary genre, and therefore an LGBT writers category is valid.

Here's my proposed re-write:

For example, LGBT writers are a well-studied biographical category with secondary sources discussing the personal experiences of LGBT writers as a class (unique publishing houses, awards, censorship, a distinctive literary contribution (LGBT literature), and other professional concerns and therefore an LGBT writers category is valid.

--lquilter 18:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That sounds better to me, although I think that the further stage of distinguishing in categories between LGBT writers and "Cat:Writers of gay literature", though fine in logic, might well be impractical, involving two largely identical casts and all sorts of definitional problems. Johnbod (talk) 13:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to stick this in the guideline. I didn't see it until now, and it is a very good rewrite. Bearcat 09:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sexuality by inference?

We've had a little disagreement at Billie Piper over whether she should be included in Category:Bisexual English actors or not. She's never used the word "bisexual" in describing herself, and her known relationship history is exclusively with males; however, she once told an interviewer "I fancy women big time... I check them out more than I check men out. Maybe I would want to sleep with a woman." Does this justify identifying her as bisexual?

I know that sexuality consists of sexual behavior, sexual orientation and sexual identity. As far as I can tell, this statement by Piper classifies her as bisexual by orientation, but she hasn't shown any evidence of bisexual behavior or identity (i.e., she's never dated a woman or identified herself using the term "bisexual"). Is there a guideline or precedent for ambiguous cases like this? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Second-guessing people's sexuality could get Wikipedia in a lot of trouble. Unless she flat-out states it, we shouldn't use it as a categorization method. --Hemlock Martinis 23:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

(undent) I generally agree with this statement. However, I see an area where this could become problematic: in the case of historical LGBT figures. Mary Anne Yates was an English actor who lived from 1728 to 1787 and engaged in sexual relationships with men and with women. She is categorized under Category:Bisexual English actors. However, Yates never made a public statement of bisexuality. The reason for this is that the term was not in use until around 1900, and did not become popularly known until 1950. Does the fact that a certain society did not give a name to a human behavior mean that that behavior did not exist? No. Should we remove Mary Anne Yates from Category:Bisexual English actors on the grounds that she made no public statement of bisexuality? I don't think so. I think that in the case of historical figures, it is more accurate to take their behavior into account, rather than obscuring them on the grounds that they did not use terms that did not exist in their society. I think that documentation of historical LGBT figures is important and that they should not be obscured on a technicality.

The contrast to this is how we choose to categorize contemporary pornographic actors who perform sexually with same-sex partners. I think that a different set of requirements apply here. I believe that someone who profits financially from sexual performances should be categorized based on public statements of sexual identification, or possibly publicised romantic relationships in the absence of statements. I don't think that performing in pornography with someone of the same sex is a substitute for a statement of sexual identification: see Gay-for-pay. Financially-motivated sexual behavior in contemporary persons should not be used as the litmus for categorization.

Can we strike a balance? I would like to see behaviorally-based categorization for historical figures who lived in a society which had not created language to describe them. I would like to see categorization based on verbal statements or possibly publicised romantic relationships for contemporary figures who are financially compensated for sexual performance. Thoughts? Joie de Vivre 19:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Identification with a label rather than the fact

Someone is going through the list of bisexual people and removing any entry where the person does not explicitly identify with the label "bisexual", even though they may be entirely open about their attraction and activity. Is that correct? The editor is very intolerant of any other view and keeps reverting. PerfectPolly (talk) 21:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In general, it's a very tough issue, on a lot of levels. For example: As best we can tell from the written record, Abe Lincoln avoided women and shared a bed with various men for many years. Obviously gay or bi, right? Well, no, not obvious, because people simply weren't as willing to share details that stated or implied sexuality in the 19th century. For all we know, he was having wild sex with women all the time. So it's very important to know historical details about the time period, have access to relevant records, etc. Check with the folks at WP:GAY, they generally know how to handle this. The guideline you're looking for to get the editor in trouble, if they need to be in trouble, is the sentence from WP:POINT that says "impose one's own view of 'standards to apply' rather than those of the community". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Complete rewrite

I suggest a through rewrite of the guideline. At the current stage it is highly adapted to contemporary US political debate, which creates innumerable problems when applied to socities divided along different lines. IMHO, racial/ethnic/religious categorization of individuals should be minimized, and substituted with 'by country' categories. --Soman 08:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not adverse to changes to make the guideline more broadly applicable, but think the general thrust of the guideline is on target and that many of these categories are important. As two examples, "national" categories for countries that are overwhelmingly Arabic language are often too narrow to be useful (e.g., the difference between literature of Egypt and Syria historically is not a terribly useful division). On the other hand, a category for all of India has some utility, but would not easily separate out Tamil, Bengal, Urdu, Sanskrit and other traditions, or separate out the Hindi and Islamic traditions, for example. A Musing 13:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I think both options create deliniation problems when it comes to relating to historical characters (see for example similar discussion on 'Ancient Pakistan'). Neither state border nor ethnic border are static, are there are a lot of potential POV disputes over how to categorize historical figures. My general suggestion would be to use common sense to the degree that is possible (for example an artist born and dead on Ukrainian SSR would be possible to categorize in a category like 'Artists from Ukraine' whereas one should not fall to the temptation to categorize an artist living in 10th century al-Andalus as an 'artist from Spain'). When it is not feasible to utilize categories of existing nation states, separate categories should be formed for historical countries. In cases were it is not possible to identify a clear equivalent of a 'country', a broader regional categorization could be used, also included as a 'by country' subcat.

That said, there are categories were language is more important (or equally important). Writers is an obvious case. But the stress here is that the categorization is based on the languages used by the writer in his/her works, not an ethnic marker. --Soman 14:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's look at some of the tough calls and try to think through them. There are several ethnicities that have lacked a sustained nation-state for any persiod of time, but still have strong identificiation. Some examples would be the Jewish, Kurdish and Armenian people - would you effectively elimiate these categories as "ethnic"? Others have had extensive empires that incorporated other countries - for example, should Tagore be under England as a result of writing in the English empire (perhaps in a subcategory identifying British India)? Still others may have nation-states but also have a large diaspora (Chinese and Greek are good examples here). The Russian Empire/Soviet Union/former Soviet Republics are another problematic case you raise: would you not class the person who was born and died in the Ukranian SSR as a "Soviet" rather than "Ukranian", or would you put "Ukranian SSR" as a subcat under "Soviet" (and perhaps also under "Ukraine")? These are hard cases and may be exceptions to the guidelines (every guideline needs exceptions), but to get an idea of what you are proposing, perhaps you could address a few of them?A Musing 15:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there are many cases which are not so easy, but many times they remain even when using ethnic-based categories. One example is Saladin, who both Kurdish and Arab nationalist will claim as their own. One option, although it would require a lot of work, would be to include a rather extensive listing in guideline of how to deal with a variety of nationalities. Certainly POV issues would emerge in such a process, but someone a collective consensus could be worked out. For example I consider than '..from India' categories would include individuals from colonial India and the modern state of India, even though they lived in territories presently in Bangladesh or Pakistan (...and I'm aware that could be controversial). I think '..from Soviet Union' categories could exist parallel to '..from Russia/Ukraine/etc.' categories, leading to extensive double categorization. And so forth a guideline on who to deal with different historical identities could be carved out.

Another component to this as a de facto separation, to the limit that it is practical, between modern and historical individuals. This does exist already today, Kings of ancient Greece are not included in 'Greek politicians'. The point would be that nationalist identities are a rather modern concept, and identifactions of ancient or historical characters are often based on ideological post-constructs rather than real facts. --Soman 16:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Men

Hi everyone,

I am doing maintenance on Category:Men.

For each article directly in Category:Men,
If the article is about an individual,
I remove the article from Category:Men.

Comments are welcome.

--Kevinkor2 16:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

To: Wikipedia talk:Translation; Hans555 (talk · contribs)

Cc: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality

From: Kevinkor2 (talk · contribs)

Hi everyone,

Since the middle of May, I have been removing articles about individual people from Category:Men. So far, I haven't had opposition to this.

What do other wikipedias contain in their equivalent Category:Men?

--Kevinkor2 12:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Generally, the Men category should be for general topics relating to masculinity and male roles, such as stay at home dad, gentleman and father. You're correct that no individual man should be appearing in the parent category. Where a gender-specific occupational category such as Category:Kings or Category:Male porn stars exists, that is as high up the tree as should ever be applied to a specific biographical article. Bearcat 03:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abolish the lot

These sorts of categories are only used in ways that focus on left-wing bug-bears. They contain a systemic bias to the left that undermines the credibility of Wikipedia. The also breach neutrality by not treating everyone equally. They should all be abolished. Æthelwold 19:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The guideline specifically states that there must be published research supporting a category-defining article. If you think there is bias, then find some published research that supports category-defining articles for other categories that would redress any imbalance. --lquilter 21:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Iranian women

What do you folks think about the current state of this cat (i.e. full of unsubcategorized people extracted from list of Iranian women) ? Kappa 11:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

As with the other women by nationality subcats, this should not contain individual women; it should only contain gender-specific subcategories such as Category:Iranian women writers or Category:Iranian female singers. Bearcat 15:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Input requested at a CfD; and req. for guideline clarity improvement

I have taken a highly unusual Thoreauvian (i.e. essayist, what some would call longwinded) approach in a CfD, that in this case seems highly relevant to the entire purpose and validity of the CATGRS guideline. I don't think it's even controversial in any way; it's just about whether there should or should not be a Category:Female pool players. I've chosen the wordy tactic because I believe that most XfD processes on WP are, in operation, far too summary and flippant, and even sometimes willy-nilly, and I wanted this to be as cogent and fully-explicated as possible, even at the cost of being accused of tendentiousness. Clarity is worth it, and I care more about WP working fluidly than I do about my personal esteem or pride here. Further input at the CfD in question, from people who think about the gendered category issue a lot, would be much appreciated. (For the record, I would like it noted that this request is entirely neutral; if the CfD is shot down, that is just fine by me - I have no axe to grind, I just want the whole "gendered categories" theme to have some semblance of precedential reason behind it that can be relied upon, and I will adhere to that whichever way it goes.)

PS: This is also an implicit request for CATGRS regulars to tighten this guideline up, so that these endless CfD debates can be avoided in the future. They pop up constantly, and it is a huge waste of WP human resources to continue with them any longer. What is and is not a valid gendered category split very much needs to be clearer than it presently is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)