“We denounce Wikipedia’s treatment of trans, non-binary and intersex people”

Wikipedia’s notoriety is no longer to be proved. It is the reference encyclopedia on the Internet, visited by several hundred million people every month. Self-managed by its community, 80% of contributors they are men (1, 2). Articles about women, transgender people, as well as articles about gender, suffer from this monopolization by the majority of men (3).

The project of the Les sans PagEs group, initiated within the French-speaking Wikipedia, found in 2016 that over 85% of biographies in French were biographies of men (4). The Noircir Wikipedia group (5) also seeks to draw attention to Eurocentrism and the shortcomings of this medium regarding the African diaspora, colonialism and historical crimes, Afro-descendant personalities and racist stereotypes.

We, transgender public figures and their allies, today denounce Wikipedia’s treatment of trans, non-binary and intersex people. We have noticed in Wikipedia the repetition of stigmatizing behaviors, either out of ignorance or out of a real desire to do harm. These harmful behaviors target both public figures and trans people within the encyclopedic community.

Virginie Despentes, the writer who (almost) everyone agrees

We will not accept further humiliation

Spouses, dead names (6), maintenance of pre-transition photographic portraits, harassment of trans personalities to offer them assignments in order to “verify their identity”, intimidation of wikipedists who denounce moral violence against us, attempts to delete articles if moral relentlessness fails, temporary or permanent blocking of user accounts, removal of articles about us from certain portals, misuse of the legal term “birth name” to enforce the use of our deadnames, addition of discriminatory “gender criticism” theses, contemptuous speeches on the wikipedist forum (“the Bistro”) against trans people, denial of the existence of intersex people in writing articles about them … Here are some behind-the-scenes articles on Wikipedia.

We have listed the wikipedists who do this. Their interventions systematically address the issue of gender identity and the dead name to keep, which denotes repetitive harassment or even obsessions.

Trans people who contribute to Wikipedia also experience violence. It took little research effort to link the encyclopedia to Jeuxvideo.com’s forum 18-25, a well-known far-right radicalization site. Reports of openly transfeminist collaborators are shared publicly there to be chastised, even harassed.

One of a kind: the meeting between Maggie Nelson and Kae Tempest

It is clear that nothing is being done within this very influential society to help Wikipedians understand transgender issues in today’s world. Users are not offered any training pages or concluding recommendations. And while the encyclopedia claims to be apolitical, this void benefits reactionary movements.

Indeed, leaving a community in the dark about these issues, clearly detected by the far right (7) and religious fundamentalists (8, 9), only fuels the stereotypes and hatred of which we already are. target. We are therefore witnessing an anthology of discriminatory behaviors.

Our transience is not a modern fashion

Wanting to talk about trans lives without trans people is pathologizing and discriminating.

Contemporary society with a colonial tradition seems to realize that we have only recently existed, while we have always existed all over the world. Before being invaded, decimated or enslaved, many pre-colonial cultures included trans and non-binary subjects, most of whom had a social or even spiritual role, which remains in some cultures (10).

As Wikipedia is a media linked to a system of written and traditional sources, its elitist and white outlook does not do justice to cultures with an oral tradition.

The management of knowledge on the largest encyclopedia of the web is also affected by breaches and shortcomings within the fundamental principles of the site. This leads to bias, due to ignorance of problems or deliberate malice, and the lives of trans people are treated without dignity.

For the violence to stop

We believe active Wikipedia members discriminate against transgender and intersex people, going against our human rights. Today we are sending the content of our survey to interested journalists, the Defender of Rights and the Trust & Safety organization that monitors respect for human rights within Wikipedia.

Misgendering, deadnaming and the use of pre-transition photos are moral abuses and transphobic behaviors that Wikipedia must ban on its site (10). Many studies and testimonials around the world have proven this and it is available online.

We reaffirm that revealing the dead names of trans people against their will exposes them to plausible harassment, discrimination, physical and moral violence. Hundreds of trans people are killed or commit suicide every year, a direct consequence of a social, family or dogmatic environment that rejects their identity and their rights.

Paul B. Preciado, great feminist coup in psychoanalysis (1/3): “Jacques Lacan is not Angela Davis! “

Misuse of the dead name is a harassment technique to deny our identity or to find our trail. Wikipedia therefore facilitates access to private data for attackers and helps keep trans people concerned in constant state of alert for fear of violence.

We expect the entire French-speaking Wikipedia to take concrete steps so that no pre-transition photos and no dead names are used in public articles without the consent of the trans or intersex person concerned.

We expect Wikipedia to concretely align itself with the values ​​claimed by its community: writing biographies of living people without harming them. Given its influence, the way the Wikipedia community discusses trans people without them – and without appealing to trans associations – has an impact on our entire society. Like it or not, this community participates in the destruction of lives by persisting in its aforementioned discriminatory actions. Sharing knowledge cannot be done at the expense of respecting our life.

We therefore express the hope that this community will make ethical decisions, doing an encyclopedic work that does not play the game of the far right. We want this encyclopedic work to be done without interfering with the lives of trans and intersex people. The right to human dignity is neither a point of view nor an option.

The Magnificent Losers: Magnus Hirschfeld, “The Einstein of Sex”Sources
(1) https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2016/01/11/wikipedia-la-connaissance-en-mutation_4845347_1650684.html(2) https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/01/15/rencontre-avec-les-petites-mains-anonymes-qui-font-wikipedia_4847756_4408996.html(3) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Les_sans_pages(4) https://www.telerama.fr/medias/pourquoi-les-femmes-sont-elles-si-peu-presentes-sur-wikipedia-et-comment-y-remedier, n5778910.php(5) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Noircir_Wikip%C3%A9dia(6) https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/morinom(7) https://www.leparisien.fr/societe/transphobie-le-planning-familial-denonce-des-attaques-en-ligne-de-militants-dextreme-droite-19-08-2022-MG7IXSG3CFELVN7PD47QGSZRAY.php(8) https://www.liberation.fr/idees-et-debats/pour-le-droit-daccompagner-son-enfant-dans-son-identite-de-genre-20220721_WQ3Z6KSAJJBARFIOTC3HMVHYGA/(9) https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/170522/mineurs-trans-des-groupuscules-conservateurs-passent-l-offensive(10) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1802901/bispirituel-queer-sexualite-lgbtq-fierteeAdditional sources showing that the use of the dead name is a form of transphobia, leading to serious, even irreversible or fatal consequences:
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/deadnaming#government–issued-idshttps://juridique.defenseurdesdroits.fr/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=33016https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Executive-Summary-Dec17.pdfhttps://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X (18) 30085-5 / pdfhttps://tetu.com/2018/11/26/twitter-sengage-personnes-trans/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/deadnaming-a-trans-person-is-violenceso-why-does_b_58cc58cce4b0e0d348b3434bhttps://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/transgender-person-s-deadname-nobody-s-business-not-even-reporter-ncna1206721

This forum is signed by about thirty figures and organizations of the transfeminist environment, both personalities affected by the violence described and allied personalities:

July Maro (artist and activist), Paolo B Preciado (philosopher, author, curator), sabrina calva (writer and visual artist), Stefania Nicot (essayist, literary critic, activist), Ocean (director and actor), blacksmith (visual artist and photographer), Olivia Chaumont (author), the ANT (National Transgender Association), Virginie Despentes (writer, director), Celine Sciamma (movie director), Rokhaya Diallo (author, journalist, director), Alice Bara (Councilor of Paris, author, lesbian and feminist activist), Silvia Yuri Casalino (Executive Co-Director of Eurocentralasian Lesbian Community), Amanda Gay (director and author), Giovanna added (songwriter), Melissa Laveaux (Author, queer afrofem singer-songwriter), Fatima Benomar (feminist activist), Lauren Bastide (Journalist), Wendy Delorme (author), Axel Lenoir (author), Laurier the Fox (author and illustrator of comics), Olga Volfson (LGBTQI + and anti-fatphobia activist journalist), Daisy Letourneur (author), Lexi (activist author and founder of @aggressively_trans), Morgan Luca (therapist, sensitivity reader and trainer on gender and sexuality issues), Sasha Yaropolskaya (activist and journalist), Maryse Rizza (president of the Grandir Trans association), Adeline Rapon (photographer, content creator and feminist), Giovanna Folliveli (artist and author), VIKKEN (artist and DJ), Sebastian Delage (singer), Franky Gogo (musician), Charlie Genmor (artist), Agata Berriot (developer and creator of Funkwhale software), Nicoz Balboa (artist), Tahnee (actress, humorist, columnist), Eva (co-manager of the LGBT + bookshop “Les mots à la bouche”), Good Portenseigne (strange Wikipedia contributor), Writing (strange Wikipedia contributor), Nileane Dorffer (community manager of Wiki Trans)