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LGBTQ+ studies B‑class

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Collected references

If you cite something. Place the main citation here and then a reference tag in the above. Keep this section the bottom. This way any references that are used can be easily found.

Section on religious views

The Bible verses cited are unclear on a number of levels. First, practically speaking, the links each lead to the first chapter of the cited book in the King James Version. That makes them effectively useless. When I went to edit the section, I saw the verse numbers are included in the source code, but apparently either the wrong Bible-citation template is being used, or it is being used incorrectly. I am not up-to-date on the current discussion on Bible citation templates but perhaps (for now at least) {{bibleverse}} should replace {{bibleref}}.

Second, the verses listed as potentially supportive of transgender need explanation. To those unfamiliar with whatever scholarship may have been done on this issue, they may seem vague at best to irrelevant at worst. It would be better to cite a secondary source from a theologian drawing support from those verses. I know there is a secondary article specifically for religion and transgender, but the summary present in this article should nevertheless be clear, if not detailed.

--Ginkgo100 14:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

POV in mental health section

This section starts by preaching treatment, then switches to lambasting those that aim to 'cure' the transgendered. Neither POV is properly attributed, and the statements about Zucker's motives only come from activist sites. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Christianity

The section on religion needs to reflect that Christianity as a faith generally condemns lady men and the like. There are some Protestant denominations that have probably decided to tolerate such behavior but they're not of comparable following with more traditional denominations. K. the Surveyor (talk) 05:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Published evidence showed, demonstrated, or what?

On the mainpage, there is discussion of how best describe scientific findings. The page, thus far, uses words such as "show" to describe findings, such as:

In 1997, J.N. Zhou, M.A. Hofman, L.J. Gooren and D.F. Swaab conducted tests on the brains of transgender individuals. Their tests showed that...

Their study was the first to show a female brain structure...

Their study shows male to female transsexuals are...

I am of the opinion that to maintain NPOV, one would also described Blanchard's original taxonomic finding as:

Blanchard showed that there were...

or similar.
I am sure that other acceptible phrases can be found for describing research findings accurately, but describing a desired finding as "shown" but undesired findings as dubious is pretty much the definition of failing NPOV. What other NPOV options for phrasing can folks suggest?
— James Cantor (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

James, as an academic, you should know the difference between observed phenomenon (such as the size of a brain structure) and the result of a correlation between self-reported factors that are used as a proxy for the operationalization of a concept. So, what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation. Hence, he has NOT demonstrated that there are two types, but only shown that it is possible to subdivide the group in two subgroups using his criteria suggesting that maybe his idea is correct. Furthermore, in line with your pledge not to edit autogynephilia and related articles, I am surprised to see you popping up here. -- Kim van der Linde 21:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Kim, 1. You appear to be addressing the wrong debate. Blanchard was making a taxonomic statement (i.e., what goes with what); he did not make and his data did not show either a correlation or a causation. He merely showed that the homosexual group was very distinct from all the other groups. As a postdoc, you should be able to recognize both correlations and their absence.

2. Blanchard did not take a group and divide it. Either you didn't read his papers or you are willfully ignoring their contents. Blanchard did the very opposite of dividing. He took what was then believed to be a multiplicity of phenomena and showed that they were reduceable to two. The lay literature usually gets this wrong, but the professional literature does a better job.

So, to get back to the mainpage: The discussion relevant here is how to describe Blanchard's (and any other) findings for readers in a way unpolluted from the views of the editor providing them. So, what exactly are you suggesting to use as text?

— James Cantor (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised you're surprised...Actually, I'm not surprised at all. Throughout our interactions, I have had the consistent impression that you react to what you think I am saying because I am a researcher, for example, rather than react to what I am actually writing. In fact, I have found myself wondering at your hostile tone towards me when your next edit was to express (to someone else) the very same idea I had just pointed out.

The pages I pledged not to edit were specifically to end a long series of edit wars with specific other editors (and my invitation that they join me in that self-imposed ban stands). This page was never wrapped up in the problem my pledge was meant to help solve. No mystery.

— James Cantor (talk) 21:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

"In order to prevent whatever COI I might be perceived to have from affecting Misplaced Pages, I pledge not to edit article space of the pages listed below, and I invite both Dicklyon, Jokestress to do the same.... Autogynephilia ... " User:James_Cantor#A_pledge

Your phrasing here appears to acknowledge the (arguable) existence of a COI which may lead to an appearance of impropriety, rather than a temporary truce in edit wars on certain topics... which you will resume on another front.

Do you believe that editing a section on Autogynephilia in the Transgender article is somehow not (by analogy) a part of the "article space" on Autogynephilia?

Also, with respect to my earlier edit which you reverted: when I stated "Autogynephilia - deleted ULTRA-controversial minority claim by Anne Lawrence of relationship to aptemnophilia - THIS DOESN'T BELONG AT THE TOP!" in my edit summary, I meant to imply: Transgender is at a higher level conceptually than Transsexualism, and again that is at a higher level than Autogynephilia or the subject of "Similarities postulated between transsexualism and apotemnophilia". I don't see why such (admittedly interesting, yet recondite) arguments have found their way to the "top level" relating to "transgenderism" in general.

Just to note: I find that the organization of gender-related topics in Misplaced Pages is a wretched mess, and the articles themselves foci of partisan contention, so this topic creep isn't really surprising to me.

— bonze blayk (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes.

1. I gave my pledge in response to a series of edit wars on the pages I listed. Of the three of editors involved, only I made such a pledge. It was to specific pages, not a topic. To insinuate that I am somehow at fault for not going farther, when no other editor would go as far as I, is a bit silly.

2. We are now going back years since I gave that pledge, and have held to it, without exception. To call that temporary in wikipedia time is, again, a bit silly.

3. I'm not the one who put "autogynephilia" here, nor am I the one who put the neurological data here. I merely updated it with more recent RS's.

4. I agree entirely with the poor state of this family of topics and that the articles themselves are a series of scars from edit wars with community activists who do not like the picture emerging from the research, and so scapegoat and discount the researchers. Indeed, the extent of the activists' war against science has itself become a notable topic.

— James Cantor (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

No. I address the right debate. No, Blanchard first made an artificial grouping using two continuous variables (degree of attraction to men and women) in a cluster analysis dividing them in four groups by using the four corners of the square as reference points. The data are quite uneven positioned across the square. Anyway, he then uses this artificial grouping to see how they scored on certain factors:

Fisher Exact tests were used to compare the frequency with which subjects in the four clusters reported a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. As predicted, there were no differences among the asexual, bisexual, and heterosexual transsexuals, and all three groups included a much higher proportion of fetishistic cases than the homosexual group (p .0001, two-tailed).

This is a correlation between sexual orientation group and whether or not they have a history of erotic arousal in association with cross-dressing. So, now that we have that issue out of the way, we can find proper words for the correlation he found on which he based his topology. Words like suggest. -- Kim van der Linde 22:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You're still not understanding your own point. You said "what Blanchard has done is showing a correlation, which is still not causation", meaning that Blanchard was not able to make any causal statements. You are entirely correct that one cannot draw a causal conclusion from correlational data, but what I seem to be having trouble getting across is that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!

More to the point (that you are arguing from WP:IDONTLIKEIT): The specific paper you are talking about above is Blanchard (1985), an RS which does not even appear on the mainpage. Rather, statements about it are in the secondary sources that are on the mainpage (specifically, Bailey, 2003 and Smith et al., 2005). That you happen todisagree with Blanchard (1985)'s typology doesn't mean you get to change what the RS's say.

Next, you expressed in the above that you take neurological evidence over self-report evidence. For the record (and as a person who has published both neurological and behavioral/self-report research), I believe it is a grave intellectual error to hold neurological evidence to be automatically superior. Nonetheless, the typological question has been answered neurologically as well as on the basis of self-report. (Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded.) I have added to the mainpage two recent neurological studies (entirely independent of Blanchard) that show exactly the typology Blanchard predicted.

Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gómez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Zubiarre-Elorza, L., Segovia, S., Gomez, Á, & Guillamon, A. (2011). The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 45, 199-204. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006

Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032

Next, we have two neurological articles showing that the Zhou finding, for which you express favor, was in error. (One demonstrated that the BNST difference doesn't emerge until adulthood, and the other showed that the BNST changes in response to the hormone therapy that transsexuals take, thus indicating that the BNST difference prevously reported was due to hormonal therapy, no due to being the cause transsexualism.

Chung. W., De Vries, G., & Swaab, D. (2002). Sexual differentiation of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in humans may extend into adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 1027–1033.

Hulshoff Pol, H. E., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Van Haren, N. E., Peper, J. S., Brans, R. G., Cahn, W., et al. (2006). Changing your sex changes your brain: Influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure. European Journal of Endocrinology, 155(Suppl. 1), S107-S114.

So, whether you use neurological vs. self-report as your criterion or independent replicability as your criterion (or anything else other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT) the same conclusion emerges. It is a pretty clear violation of WP:NPOV (and probably WP:OR) to say Blanchard's (repeatedly verified) finding suggests but Zhou's (repeatedly disproven) finding shows.

Perhaps you might bring this issue up at the neuroscience project for input?

— James Cantor (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry James, but your flood of words does not change things as they are. If someone finds a difference in the size of a specific part of the brain, that is a direct observation and the word show is appropriate. The interpretation of that is correlative, and show is not appropriate.

I am glad we agree that Blanchard didn't make a causal statement in the first place!. I agree. Hence, he has not shown that autogynephilia explains gynephilic transwomen. Therefore, the word is inappropriate. It is his inference of the data.

Contrary to your impression, I do not hold neuroanatomical evidence to a higher standard, to the contrary, I believe that they both have their value in the appropriate study. I find you statement Incidentally, very many transsexuals would not appreciate having their self-reports disregarded. curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy. But I guess I should read that as that you disagree with disregarding those self-reports.

Now for the suggested demolition of the Zhou et al papers. The Hulshoff Pol et al paper does not address the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST or BSTc) part at all, just general brain volume and hypothalamus volume. The latter, where the BSTc is located, incidentally changes in the same way between MtF subjects and female controls. ZHpou et al also looked at one MtF who had not yet started hormone theray, and that person was square in the middle of the other MtF's. If you hypothesis would be correct, that person whould have been an outlier among the MtF's. So, the Hulshoff Pol et al paper does NOT invalidate Zhou et al.

The Chung et al paper essentially demonstrates that the differentiation of the BSTc occurs in late puberty, but that does not invalidate Zhou et al, it just pinpoints when the differentiation occurs.

So, now that we have dismantled your 'evidence' that you molded in what was obvious original research, we can go back to fixing the unwarranted strong support that you want to give your boss' hypothesis. -- Kim van der Linde 16:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

(Outdenting)
1. It was never clear to me how or why you are so angry. Regardless of your emotions, I recommend replacing phrases such as "your flood of words" etc. with more AGF language.

2. It is still not clear why you are fighting against the idea that Blanchard said (or believes) that autogynephilia explains anything. He never provided it as an explanation. All Blanchard showed was that the multiple phenomena that were being described in those days could actually be described accurately as only two phenomena. There has not been an article in the many years since showing otherwise.

3. I never said you held neuro data to a higher standard.

4. There is nothing relevant to the mainpage about "curious, as self-reports of non-autogynephilic gynephilic transwoman and autogynephilic androphylic transwomen are routinely disregarded by proponents of the Blanchard dichotomy" and I have no need to join a war of sneers and to call it a discussion. I merely point out the danger, and what you "read" into what I say is not under my control. Your mind is clearly well made up.

5. I cannot describe Hulshoff Pol better than Hulshoff Pol, who directly addressed the Zhou data:

"The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis of the hypothalamus, larger in males than in females, was found to be of female size in six MFs and of male size in one FM. All these transsexuals had received cross-sex hormone treatment before their brains were studied. Therefore, the altered size of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis could have been due to the exposure of cross-sex hormones in adult life" (p. S108).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

6. Your interpretation of Chung is also incorrect. Zhou et al. wrote that "the small size of the BSTc in male-to-female transsexuals...is established during development by an organzing action of sex hormones" (p. 70). Because Chung found that the BSTc difference does not exist during development, it cannot be the cause. As Chung wrote:

"Late sexual differentiation of the human BSTc volume also affects our perception about the relationship between BSTs volume and transsexuality....Epidemiological studies show that the awareness of gender problems is generally present much earlier. Indeed, 67-78% of transsexuals in adulthood report having strong feelings of being born in the wrong body from childhood onward" (p. 1032).

You are free to your OR, but that's neither here nor there for the mainpage.

Clearly, we are not going to see eye-to-eye on this any time soon. So, I repeat my earlier suggestion that input be sought from folks, such as at the neuroscience project, who can readily read the neurological data but have no stake in the topic itself.

(7. Blanchard is not my boss. In fact, he's retired.)
— James Cantor (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Blatant violation of WP:RS

James Cantor has now tried multiple times to insert a self-published piece by Anne Lawrence in conflict with WP:RS:

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database, Cracked.com, CBDB.com, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users.

Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources.

As far as I have seen, Anne Lawrence has NOTHING published on neuroanatomy. Furthermore, she is a well recognized activist with a obvious agenda regarding autogynephilia. As such, claiming that this self-published critique is RS is absurd. -- Kim van der Linde 01:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Anne Lawrence is an internationally recognized expert on transsexuality as well as an M.D. She is entirely able to provide an expert opinion on the biological basis of transsexuality. In fact, I can think of only a few other people in the world better qualified. (And I have published in neuroanatomy.) But...an activist? Really? Lawrence has published several papers expressing her agreement with the concept of autogynephilia, but an activist? This isn't about any activism on her part, this is about WP:IDONTLIKEIT on your part.

Obviously, outside opinion would be helpful here. I have already posted at RS/N, asking for input .

— James Cantor (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Lawrence did her internship and practiced as an anesthesiologist; I personally don't believe that anesthesiologists are especially well-qualified to assess the nature of neurological syndromes may (or may not) be relevant to gender identity and may (or may not) be related to the development of endocrinological systems, either one of which is a subject of specialized study in its own right.

Dr. Lawrence is indubitably an activist... she has chosen, as the form of her activism, to specialize in sexology, to publish articles in support of "autogynephilia", and advocate for the acceptance by trans women of the concepts related to autogynephilia.

As you yourself wrote, she is a "an openly autogynephilic transsexual": a public proponent of this theory, with a prominent website (no longer maintained) where she has published numerous testimonies sent to her of trans women's personal perceptions on the subject. (I should also note: I greatly appreciate the fact that Dr. Lawrence made the information on her website available, and has also made her published research papers available on it.)

My take on this particular citation is: it's a WP:SPS from a source who is not an expert in this specialty: as was commented regarding Madeline Wyndzen's WP:SPS writings: if this is really worthwhile work, why has she not had it published? And in Dr. Lawrence's case, there is obviously no felt need to preserve her anonymity!

And finally: any out transsexual person is an activist... in some sense or another. If you are confronted with The Bathroom Problem... either way you choose... you're an activist .-)

— bonze blayk (talk) 02:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Since I've been asked to weigh in as an editor with a neuroscience background, I have to agree with Kim and Bonze about this. If, instead, there is a peer-reviewed scholarly paper that mentions and assesses this hypothesis, then that would be the way to go. Absent that, I think the most that one could do would be to present it as part of a discussion of a controversy, not as part of the scientific knowledge base on the topic, and present it from both sides of the controversy; however, I'm not convinced that such a treatment would pass WP:UNDUE in this particular case. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I can't say I agree, but I am happy to follow the consensus.— James Cantor (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's OK to cite her for her opinion, but not in a context where it pretends to be science. In a similar vein, I just removed a "prediction" attributed to Blanchard; it was from an opinion paper, but Cantor had stuck it into a science section. And I add a few words and a source in the bit about Blanchard's typology, which again was mostly opinion masquerading as science, and sourced to a controversial book that has science in the title but which nobody actually claims is scientific, if I remember correctly. Some more POV balancing in this area is probably in order. Dicklyon (talk) 18:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

1. Gaughan, Sharon (Saturday, 19 August 2006). "What About Non-op Transsexuals? A No-op Notion" (HTML). TS-SI. Retrieved Septemer 302008. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
2. Conway, Lynn (2003), The Strange Saga of Gregory Hemmingway {{citation}}: Check |author-link= value (help); External link in |author-link= (help)
3. Schoenberg, Nara (November 19), "The Son Also Falls From elephant hunter to bejeweled exhibitionist, the tortured life of Gregory Hemingway.", CHICAGO TRIBUNE {{citation}}: Check |author-link= value (help); Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); External link in |author-link= (help)
4. Miriam Rivera. Excerpt of "There's Something About Miriam". Miriam a known non-op transsexual talks about how she see's her self, her history, and transsexuality. Compare to Gregory Hemingway then tell me Hemingway is the real post op woman (Television Via Youtube). Filmed in Ibiza, Spain Produced in England.: Edemol & Brighter picture via various Newscorp properties. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |year2= ignored (help)
5. Female to Male

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