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Androphilia and gynephilia

Androphilia and gynephilia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Non-notable and long unsourced, despite multiple searches; content belongs in Sexual orientation — James Cantor (talk) 15:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. I have just added sourcing. Jokestress (talk) 15:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Redirect to Sexual orientation (of course). "Androphilia" (the sexual attraction to men) and "gynephilia" (the sexual attraction to women) are both perfectly legitimate terms and are indeed used by RS's. The combination of the terms, however, is WP:OR, and the content is "sexual orientation." By analogy, Acid and Base are pages, but Acid and Base is a redirect to Ph. The cites Jokestress added are examples of uses of the individual words, which is not the issue. ("Acid" and "base" are used by experts, but do not establish "acid and base" as a topic independent of Ph.) Finally, Jokestress' edits also claim on that mainpage that I personally have been advocating for other terms, which is both demonstrably incorrect and a BLP violation, as I already indicated there.— James Cantor (talk) 15:58, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. This article is about a notable debate in psychology regarding terminology. For several decades, there has been a push to use androphilic and gynephilic as alternatives to homosexual and heterosexual, especially when discussing sex and gender minorities. As an example of the problem, some psychologists use the term "homosexual transsexual" to describe what others call a "heterosexual transsexual." To avoid this confusion, Ron Langevin proposed androphilia and gynephilia in the 1980s. Since then, many scholars have discontinued use of terms like "homosexual transsexual." One exception is the nominator of this AfD, User:James Cantor, who used the term in his most recent published work in Archives of Sexual Behavior (cited in the article). This article has been included in the transgender sidebar as a key topic for quite some time. The debate should certainly be covered at sexual orientation, but there is too much published on the debate to paste all this into that article. It should be mentioned in summary style with a pointer to the main article. Jokestress (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. If there actually were a notable debate, we would have RS's saying so instead of Jokestress' just saying so (again). Also, Jokestress would not have to be fabricating information about me (or anyone else). I have actually used both the heterosexual/homosexual terminology and the androphilia/gynephilic terminology in my writings. (If there's a better indicator of neutral, no one has described what it might be.) Nonetheless, the issue is what the RS's say, not what Jokestress' well-documented harassment of scientists she dislikes says, which includes, I repeat, BLP violations.— James Cantor (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. This is a well-sourced debate in psychology. As Anil Aggrawal writes (cited in the article), the terminology androphilia and gynephilia "is needed to overcome immense difficulties in characterizing the sexual orientation of transmen and transwomen. For instance, it is difficult to decide whether a transman erotically attracted to males is a heterosexual female or a homosexual male; or a transwoman erotically attracted to females is a heterosexual male or a lesbian female. Any attempt to classify them may not only cause confusion but arouse offense among the affected subjects. In such cases, while defining sexual attraction, it is best to focus on the object of their attraction rather than on the sex or gender of the subject." See the article for several other psychologists saying the same thing. Jokestress (talk) 16:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Aggrawal (who is a big fan of Blanchard, by the way), and you, and I are all entitled to use whichever terms we want. (That Blanchard prefers one set, and Aggrawal prefers another set, where I employ both, is neither here nor there.) Mention does not notability make. This requires input from the otherwise uninvolved.— James Cantor (talk) 17:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep. I worked on this article in it's beginning when it was a stub and in a much worse state than it is now. The issue is obviously well sourced and discussed by notable people in the field of human sexuality. If something as small as LiveJasmin is deemed notable enough to deserve having it's own article, I don't see why this discussion in the field of psychology/sexuality/linguistics which whole books have been written of should be deleted. Speedy keep because the nomination appears to be mostly an editing dispute, and also because the proposer wants the information moved rather than deleted and no one else so far wants the article deleted. James Cantor, please resolve your dispute over this article and don't propose the deletion of a valid wikipedia topic just to make a point (WP:POINT).Kyle112 (talk) 19:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. With all due respect for Kyle112 to have an opinion, that doesn't actually address the issue. Simply declaring an issue "well sourced" doesn't make it so. If there were indeed any reference that discussed "androphilia and gynephilia" at all, Klye would be citing it rather than telling readers what to think...effective only if no one actually checks. Regarding whether this is an editing dispute: Again, typing out a statement does not make it true. The talk page shows, quite clearly, that the issue has repeatedly been that there is not a single RS covering this topic, and the repeated failure of anyone to produce any, despite multiple requests over months. If this actually were over any particular edit(s), Kyle would be citing those edits rather than telling readers what to think...effective only if no one actually checks.— James Cantor (talk) 11:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. —Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.

• Comment. That's a weird article history: Two-thirds of it has been repeatedly removed on BLP grounds, and repeatedly restored, with the (claimed) BLP problems basically being brushed aside. Doubtless the restoration is a strategically useful response to the threat of deletion, because, in practice, AFD almost never deletes articles that names a couple of dozen sources, even if the sources don't say anything significant—or even at all—about the subject (so few editors bother to find out what the sources actually say), but it might be worth looking at both of the versions.
  I have not formed an opinion on what we should do with this page; it will require spending some time with the sources, to see how much of this might be a string of tiny, passing mentions or sources substantiating tangential points vs the significant, in-depth, independent, secondary sources that GNG requires. As a general point, however, I'd like to call the existence of WP:Proposed mergers to the attention of the nom: Merge-and-redirect discussions do not need to take place at AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. The alleged BLP issues have not been described. Once they are, they can be addressed if needed. It's certainly no reason to remove dozens of sources and quotations that have nothing to do with the alleged BLP issue (whatever it may be). Jokestress (talk) 19:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Jokestress' above description does not accurately reflect the discussion, which is available to the interested editor on the article's talkpage. Indeed, this subthread would be more appropriate to the article's talkpage than here. (And what, exactly, did I write in 1989?)— James Cantor (talk) 19:45, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. The terms are used in a number of reliable sources and are notable individually; combining the discussion of these parallel terms in an article discussing their origins, application, and context is not novel in Misplaced Pages articles on sexuality.

Here are examples of two similar pairs of parallel terms used in sexology; these terms are addressed in parallel in just one Misplaced Pages article for each pair:

Autoandrophilia and Autogynephilia are both redirected to Blanchard's_transsexualism_typology#Autogynephilia

and

Andromimetophilia and Gynemimetophilia are both redirected to Transfan.

Moreover, these articles address the overall context in which those terms have been used... as this one does. (Neither one of those articles is currently Wikilinked in Sexual orientation, as this article is). -- bonze blayk (talk) 02:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Although Bonze clearly did it unwittingly, Bonze is strongly agreeing with me. (!) As Bonze pointed out: Autoandrophilia and Autogynephilia are both redirects to an article that covers them both. That is, there is no page for Autoandrophilia and autogynephilia ! Similarly, there is no such page as Andromimetophilia and gynemimetophilia; there is instead a redirect to the article that covers them both. I am suggesting doing exactly the analogous thing. There ought be no page for androphilia and gynephilia; they should be redirects to the article that covers them both, Sexual orientation...exactly the way the above terms and acid and base and everything else is set up on WP.— James Cantor (talk) 11:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. User:James Cantor, I could not disagree with you more strongly. The actual content of those articles, as opposed to their mere titles, deal almost solely with the terms which I noted as having been redirected towards them. If one reviews the history of those pages, one can see that as they evolved they were merged from originally separate articles, with titles based on each of the formal diagnostic labels, into one article with a new title.

Is the article title "Blanchard's Transsexualism Typology" - Google Scholar a term supported by any reliable sources as a phrase in and of itself? I see none.

And as far as I can tell, Transfan is not exactly what one might prefer as a WP:RS sourced title for a Misplaced Pages article... especially since the slang word "transfan" has ZERO citations provided in the entire article? (Do check out transfan - Google Scholar... I personally find the results for "trans-fan" most droll w/r/t the predominant results interpreted w/r/t "Sexual orientation" .-) -- bonze blayk (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Bonze continues to prove my points for me:

1. Those articles (Autoandrophilia, etc.) are redirects to the broader pages, exactly as I am saying should be done with redirecting androphilia and gynephilia to sexual orientation. (Incidentally, redirect pages don't really have any content of their own; they exist essentially only as their titles.)

2. Bonze is exactly correct that "Blanchard's Transsexualism Typology" is not supported by any reliable sources. I disagree with that page name for exactly that reason. I suggest instead using "Blanchard typology of male-to-female transsexualism," which does indeed appear in RS's.

3. I agree with Bonze also that transfan is merely another slang neologism, whereas WP should instead use the scientific/formal terms, in this case being gynandromorphophile.

It is unfortunate that Bonze's reflex to disagree causes so much, if hollow and unfocused, dissent. We're actually in tune on very much.

— James Cantor (talk) 16:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I agree, I think most of the arguments for deletion amount to WP:RUBBISH. Kyle112 (talk) 09:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Acknowledging once again that you are entitled to your opinion (especially as the page's creator someone who has "worked on this article in it's beginning"), can you be a little more specific than WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Indeed, repeated declarations in the absence of any specifics suggests there are no specifics to be had.— James Cantor (talk) 11:53, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. The page was not started by Kyle112. User:Ntennis created it in 2006 as a combined article. Separate articles for each term would have significant duplication, and the words are almost always used in tandem, as promoted by Ron Langevin at the same facility that's employed User:James Cantor, and like the Modified Androphilia-Gynephilia Index developed by User:James Cantor's coworker Ray Blanchard.

And since this seems unclear, using a term like homosexual transsexual that will "arouse offense" (per Aggrawal above) and using a preferred term in equal measure is not being "neutral." Someone who uses a racial slur half the time (or even once) would not be considered "neutral" in their utterances about race. Ask Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, etc. This terminology is a well-sourced concept that experts in sexuality have discussed for decades. It's clear from the sources it's not considered neutral to use "archaic" and "confusing" terms any more. When people are expressing regret for having used homosexual transsexual and what-not, as Kinsey Institute former head John Bancroft has (see article), those who continue to use such problematic language "have completely failed to appreciate the implications of alternative ways of framing sexual orientation" (Jordan-Young, cited in article). It didn't take long to find dozens of experts who discussed the concept, the terminology, the debate, and the handful of holdouts in their published works, all cited in the article. Jokestress (talk) 13:48, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. (1) These words are used "almost always in tandem"??? Jokestress is so far off in her claims about the terms, I can only give the numbers themselves. These are the hits from the obvious google searches:

androphilia OR gynephilia: 777,000 hits

androphilia AND gynephilia: 16,800 hits

androphilia WITHOUT gynephilia: 747,000 hits

gynephilia WITHOUT androphilia: 14,200 hits

That is, depite Jokestress declaring (on the basis of what, she didn't say...) that these words are "almost always" used in tandem, they are actually used in tandem about 2.2% of the time: 16,800/(747,000+14,200+16,800). That is, they are used alone 97.8% of the time. "Androphilia" has long been used almost exclusively with regard to male homosexuality, and "gynephilia" was used almost exclusively to differentiate attraction to adults from attraction to children (that such attractions would be to females was usually assumed). There have, of course, been multiple other uses, always with regard to sexual orientation, not gender identity, as the frankly extreme WP:UNDUE of the mainpage revealingly suggests. Morevoer, Jokestress' own cites also make my point for me: For example, Androphilia, A Manifesto: Rejecting the Gay Identity, is about androphilia, not androphilia and gynephilia and is itself a counterexample that the topics are joined.

(2) That Jokestress, or any other self-proclaimed activist, has a clear preference for what should be deemed politically correct does not an RS or a revision of history make. As for Ron Langevin or Blanchard, or anyone else, what exactly is the argument here? If Langevin and Blanchard disagreed over this (which is fine), how does saying I am linked to both suggest I am biased? Indeed, since I am the only one in the bunch (including Jokestress) who has used both terminologies (and others), it would seem that I would be the least likely to have a bias. (Activists, by definition, are the ones who push for a specific agenda. Scientists are the ones who typically adjust language according to whether they are addressing the public or other scientists.)

(3) Jokestress' emphasis on what she finds offensive is, of course, the real issue. The page is very clearly not about either androphilia or gynephilia or their combination. It is about what terms Jokestress and some other activists (on and off WP) want to be accepted as the politically correct ones (and to misrepresent and defame with any means available folks who disagree).

(4) There is no shortage of debates and controversies in sexology, and they are easy to recognize. There are letters-to-editors of journals about such issues, but there are none for this issue. There are debates held at scholarly conferences, but there are none for this issue. Various experts respond directly to each others' statements (not merely source terms to them), but not for this issue. No evidence has any been cited that this is an issue at all. Cited references do not contain the information they are used to justify, and the off-hand descriptions of the state of the literature are easily shown to be wild fabrications. Jokestress' various insinuations about me (consisting of what scholars of rhetoric call "the association fallacy") are obvious distractions from the repeated failure to answer what I have said from the beginning: There are no RS's to support this combination of terms as a topic unto itself. It is a WP:SYNTH, consisting of WP:OR (and misinformation) to use WP for WP:ADVOCACY, trying to apply passing mentions somehow as "significant coverage".

For emphasis, I don't at all oppose the terms themselves (despite Jokestress' inability or unwillingness to guess my views accurately). While I'm on my own views, Jokestress has, on her own, already changed the page from erroneously saying that I have been "promoting" terms since 1989 to erroneously saying that I have been "using" the term since 1989. A cite for that, please? Jokestress claim on this is no more accurate than her other fabrications. (I hadn't even started psychology in 1989, never mind wrote on sexuality issues.)

— James Cantor (talk) 15:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. First, androphilia has multiple uses; hence its more frequent use. Also, gynephilia has three major spelling variants, so the statistics above are quite misleading. Second, the article is replete with published work where the controversy is acknowledged, where scientists have shifted from the older terms, and where academic peers criticize the holdouts who refuse to follow suit. Just because James Cantor and friends continue to use a less scientific term like "homosexual transsexual," which is deprecated among colleagues and widely considered offensive among the communities they are paid to serve, doesn't mean Misplaced Pages should suppress an article discussing this controversy to appease him. The article obviously stands on its own merits. This single-handed attempt to suppress this article on Misplaced Pages five years after it was created is part of a pattern of long-term WP:COI edits to promote the work and ideas of James Cantor and friends over those of his academic rivals. That's why he's been blocked in the past for editing the biography of a rival. Jokestress (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Having already shown multiple, very large errors on Jokestress' part, it's hard to take seriously any continued claims, all still lacking any evidence beyond Jokestress' own keyboard: The problem is spelling variants? So, where are her data using other spelling variants? My friends and I all use what, exactly? Any refs for who my friends are, other than more "fallacy by association"? Next, still no response to the illogic that I am somehow biased even though "my friends" are disagreeing with each other? Next, I am paid to serve someone? Really? Any evidence for that one? Next, I was blocked...why? So, this discussion doesn't exist? (You know, the discussion that pretty uniformly indicated the admin was in error for blocking me, that I had no COI problem, and that the admin instituted the block at your personal instigation.) LOL So, any more half-truths to share? Remember, the sky's the limit when you're making things up and hoping no one checks. Still, so where is this reference about what I allegedly wrote in 1989?— James Cantor (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Jokestress says: "It didn't take long to find dozens of experts who discussed the concept, the terminology, the debate, and the handful of holdouts in their published works". But google says:

"heterosexual transsexual" 6,870 hits

"homosexual transsexual" 17,900 hits

"gynephilic transsexual" 75 hits (Interestingly, "autogynephilic transsexual" gets 1,570 hits.)

"androphilic transsexual" 236 hits

That is, despite Jokestress' best efforts to convince readers that her preference is the dominant preference, anyone who bothers to check her claims can find exactly the opposite of what she says: The phrase gynephilic/androphilic transsexual is used about 1.2% as often as the phrase heterosexual/homosexual transsexual. This is not to say that there is any problem with using gynephilic/androphilic, but the state of affairs is simply the exact opposite of what Jokestress is telling us. Again.
— James Cantor (talk) 18:16, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Redirect to Sexual_orientation - as per User:James Cantor. Off2riorob (talk) 20:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Okay, so I performed the same searches as before, using the other two spelling variants, which Jokestress said was the reason my aformentioned results were "quite misleading." Well, instead of Jokestress' use being a 2.2% minority when using “gynephilia”, it worked out to be a 0.95% minority when using "gynophilia," and 0.029% minority when using "gynecophilia":

androphilia OR gynophilia 782,000 hits

androphilia AND gynophilia 7,500 hits

androphilia WITHOUT gynophilia 758,000 hits

gynophilia WITHOUT androphilia 24,800 hits

7,500 / (7,500 + 758,000 + 24,800) = 0.0095

androphilia OR gynecophilia 795,000 hits

androphilia AND gynecophilia 224 hits

androphilia WITHOUT gynecophilia 760,000 hits

gynecophilia WITHOUT androphilia 475 hits

224 / (224 + 760,000 + 475 ) = 0.000294

So, Jokestress, since the alternate spellings were even less in your favor than the original ones, why did you say that the alternate spellings made my statement “quite misleading”? I mean, you either checked for the real answer before you said anything, or you didn't. If you checked, then why did you say otherwise here? If you didn't check first, then you just...what, made up a fact? Jokestress, I’m sure you have a better explanation: On what basis did you tell people that the alternative spellings made my results "quite misleading"? Clerical error, maybe?

— James Cantor (talk) 21:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. 39 refs at the moment, so neither unsourced nor (as indicated by the presence of RS's) non-notable. (And please don't bicker about the count - they are clearly numbered.) BitterGrey (talk) 21:53, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

1. http://www.amazon.com/Androphilia-Rejecting-Identity-Reclaiming-Masculinity/dp/0976403587

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