Category talk:Female wartime crossdressers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	LGBT Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBT related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Category	This page is a category and does not require a rating on the quality scale.

	This article is part of WikiProject Gender Studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.
???	This article has not yet received a rating.

[edit] Discussion from withdrawn CfR

Category:Female wartime crossdressers'

Propose renaming Category:Female wartime crossdressers to Category:Women who crossdressed during wartime Nominator's rationale: Grouping articles in this category by the individual's biological sex rather than the individual's gender identity is causing confusion and has a potential for abuse. Recently, I removed this category from the Albert Cashier article, because Albert Cashier lived his entire life as a man. Cashier was not "crossdressing"; he was wearing his clothes. Almost immediately, another editor reinstated the category, claiming that since Cashier was biologically female, he belonged in the category. MOS:ID makes it clear that articles are to be written in respect to a person's chosen gender identity, and to use pronouns which relate to their most recent gendered self-identification. Some people do not agree that a person can choose a gender identity, as we see in the media with transmen being referred to as "women".

The problem with using the word "female" in this category name is that "female" can refer to biological sex. In this instance, this was used to justify referring to a man as a "female crossdresser". This is entirely inappropriate. The use of a gendered term is necessary in this instance: we must state that the people who were wearing men's clothes during war were women, not men as Cashier was. This will make a clear statement that what is important is an individual's self-identity, not their biological sex, and help to clear up any confusion. This applies to the subcategory as well. 66.30.20.71 (talk) 22:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose: I disagree. The article on cross-dressing states: states: The term cross-dressing denotes an action or a behavior without attributing or proposing causes for that behavior. Some people automatically connect cross-dressing behavior to transgender identity or sexual, fetishist, and homosexual behavior, but the term cross-dressing itself does not imply any motives. I would thus argue that the category title is a neutral one, it merely indicates people who were biologically female who presented themselves as men, it does not neccessarily imply that they were mentally female. Futhermore, Cashier is relevant to the category because he passed undetected as biologically female the way the female-identified soliders did, and thus his experience is relevant to the greater subject of female wartime crossdressing as whole. Finally, I would like to point that simply because Cashier lived as male outside of the context of war doesn't neccessarily mean that he truly self-identified as male. He may have simply valued his independence so much that he was willing to live as male regardless of whatever his true gender identity was. If you find that improbable, I would like to direct your attention the article on sworn virgins of the Balkans. These were women who willingly gave up marriage to live and work as men, either out of circumstance or for sake of personal independence. I have seen interviews with these sworn virgins, and although they live, dress, and work as men, they stated that they took the role because they valued their freedom, not out of self-identification as males. It is for these reasons that I do not believe that this category should be changed. Asarelah (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

You know, Asarelah? I can really see your point. We shouldn't be making any assumptions about anyone's gender identity, particularly when the social climate was so different. If all we have is evidence of gender expression, we should tread cautiously. Whistling42 (talk) 12:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Support Women who cross-dressed for temporary, undeniably socially-based reasons (such as to be able to fight in a war) and then revert back to their normal lives as women afterward are a very different category from biologically female individuals who live as men for issues of internal, identity-based reasons, whether these individuals happen to fight in a war at some point in their life or not. "Cross-dresser" may sound like a factual, neutral term, and the article on it may not currently fully address the nuances of when it is accurate to use and when it would be considered disrespectful, but to apply it to someone wearing the appropriate clothing for their long-term life and identity is one of those instances where it is disrespectful. Change the definition in the cross-dressing article to accurately represent its use, don't disrespect a person (however unintentionally) based on an incomplete definition. Cashier's experience is relevant, but that does not make this categorization fully accurate. Finally, both MOS:IDENTITY and WP:OR make it clear that such rampant complete speculation as to what may or may not have been this one person's motivation should be given no weight. What other people have said and done in their lives doesn't support or negate anything about this person. For this one person, we can only consider the evidence present for this one person's life. This discussion is about the category, not Cashier, but clearly the current name of the category raises this sort of dispute for individuals. Re-naming it would make it much clearer as to the actual scope of the category. If a broader umbrella category is required, it can be created with a truly neutral name and used for articles such as this. Either way, the current category should be re-named as suggested. --Icarus ^(Hi!) 02:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion How about this instead...rather than removing all mention of Cashier and the other two individuals (Enrique Favez and James Barry (surgeon)) who lived as men from the category and its articles entirely, we instead put mentions of them into the article Crossdressing during wartime, in seperate section listing them as transmen who happened to serve and emphasizing that they were different from the other individuals in that they were male-identified and lived as men outside of the circumstances of war. Does this sound like a reasonable compromise? Asarelah (talk) 05:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea that people who presented themselves consistently as male should be included in a category or article for "crossdressing". It implies that the person is simply trying on a gender expression, and therefore is disrespectful of people who consistently express(ed) themselves that way. Whistling42 (talk) 12:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but I disagree. I believe that they are still quite relevant to the subject of crossdressing in wartime itself, as they were able to pass in a wartime situation despite being biologically female. I believe I will list this discussion in requests for comment, as we seem to have reached a bit of a deadlock. Asarelah (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment

We have reached a deadlock on the issue of whether or not transmen should be included in this category or the main category article. See above for further details. Asarelah (talk) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)