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The portrayal of her (named) colleagues' criticism as "sustained harassment and bullying" in Wikipedia's voice is a clear-cut example of WP:POV, and is not an objective fact. Furthermore, it's a BLP violation because it accuses Professor Louise Westmarland and other academics who are named here of wrongdoing ("sustained harassment and bullying"). In reality, this is merely a claim made by TERFs, not a fact. Her employment tribunal case (in a country with a very dubious LGBT+ record) was against her employer, not against the colleagues who criticized her, who have certainly not been convicted of any kind of "harassment and bullying" as they were not even party to this case. It's not appropriate to accuse Professor Louise Westmarland or any others in Wikipedia's voice of "harassment and bullying" merely for disagreeing with transphobia. Her colleagues have the right to express their political views too and criticize transphobia. The neutral way to phrase this is "her colleagues' criticism of her views" or something like that. An allegation that Westmarland or any others engaged in wrongdoing would have to be attributed to the person making the claim, in this case Phoenix. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 16:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The question is easily resolved by reference to the Guardian report and the Tribunal decision, which pointed explicitly to the term "racist uncle". As far as I can see, there is nothing in the article that exceeds the sources or gives any opinion on the merits or otherwise of the case. If you disagree, please point it out. When you make an assertion like "a claim made by TERFs", it is difficult to take you seriously as an arbiter on WP:NPOV. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but it's difficult to take you seriously here. It literally is an allegation that has been made by TERFs – which is a descriptive term for a certain movement – against Westmarland and other Open University academics who critized transphobia by an anti-trans fringe group based at Open University. It's not appropriate to make such a claim in Wikipedia's voice, when it expresses a fringe sentiment and is just an allegation against someone else who had nothing to do with the employment tribunal. Criticizing transphobia is certainly not commonly considered "sustained harassment and bullying", and the fact that 368 of her colleagues were among her critics just shows how this is really a fringe position, also at Open University. We can quote the racist uncle comment and her response to it, but we cannot accuse Westmarland or hundreds of academics who criticized transphobia of "sustained harassment and bullying", a grave allegation they have not been convicted of, in Wikipedia's voice. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 16:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
to AAB
1) Your comment about named people being accused in our article baffles me: it is the source which names Prof Westmarland, not our article. Westmarland is also mentioned in the judgment itself [1].
2) The tribunal determined that Phoenix’s claims for constructive dismissal, direct discrimination, harassment and victimisation were well founded. These decisions involve findings of fact by the tribunal relating to her colleagues’ behaviour. You seem to have misunderstood the tribunal process.
3) I accept the deletion of the textsubjected her to sustained harassment and bullying. because this is a partly a repetition of the previous text, and because the source does not mention bullying as such. (I had merely reinstated the previous wording in this respect.)
4) I would accept the deletion of the text fter it refused to act in response to her colleagues' criticism of her views.Alternatively, her colleagues’ criticism of her views should be changed to her colleagues’ behaviour towards her.
5) Regarding the quotes around ‘transphobic’: these are not ‘scare quotes’, but merely quotes around the word which was used. Our article on Scare quotes says these are quotation marks that writers place around a word or phrase to signal that they are using it in an ironic, referential, or otherwise non-standard sense. That is not the way I used the quote marks, and I don’t see how my use of the quotes could be interpreted in that way.
On the scare quotes issue, the Manual of Style guidance for this is MOS:SCAREQUOTES. While there's some overlap there, I can see how someone could in good faith interpret it as a scare quote. It's important to remember that while you may not have intended it to be a scare quote, readers and other editors won't ordinarily have insight into why an editor chose to use the punctuation that they did. They only have their perceptions of what has been written.
As it's factually true, and undisputed that the signatories of the open letter described the GCRN as transphobic, I really don't think we need quotation marks there. In that sentence of the lead, we're summarising what happened, but we're quite clearly attributing that label to the signatories of the open letter. It's not something that's in wikivoice, we are not saying that the GCRN is transphobic, we're simply stating that a large group of her colleagues did, so I think we're fine without the marks.
I've just copyedited this part and have re-added the quotes to distance us from what the colleagues said. I tried to make it better sound as it is what they said, not that the group truly is transphobic (which we cannot decide). But if you want the quotes removed I am happy to let you do that without dispute. —Panamitsu(talk)22:47, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Criticizing transphobia is certainly not commonly considered "sustained harassment and bullying",; yet another sheer absurdity. You are personally inferring that all her colleagues were doing were merely criticizing transphobia, and nothing else, which is incorrect, considering we have evidence of personal attacks as described in the article. Basically suggesting that her colleagues were scolded for just "critizing"; demonstrably false. Zilch-nada (talk) 14:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This comment is nothing but a shallow, inflammatory personal opinion. You say egregiously that this is merely a claim made by TERFs, not a fact in an article talk page about an incident were the tribunal ruled in her favour. Is the tribunal TERF? That assertion is completely unnecesary. "merely for disagreeing with transphobia"; likewise, this is entirely your own personal view; whether or not Phoenix's views are transphobic are entirely subjected to opinion, and you are using your own to basically say that treatment of her was justified. Zilch-nada (talk) 14:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Academic author" and description as gender-critical
"Academic author" is completely unncessary when someone is already described in an academic capacity—as a criminologist—as all academics are by definition "academic authors", it's really what academics do. The description "academic author" just sounds odd, and would sound odd in the biography of any academic. No academic would describe themselves or other academics in such a way. She is known for having founded the Gender Critical Research Network and describes her own research as gender-critical. The article on gender-critical feminism is clear that this tradition considers itself as a feminist tradition, but the word "feminism" alone is so vague that it can refer to many, opposing traditions—something GC's don't dispute—so gender-critical is simply more specific, and in line with how she describes her research and the Gender Critical Research Network she is known for having founded herself. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 18:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is better to specify that she is an academic author – there are many different kinds of authors, and being an academic does not prevent her, for instance, from writing detective stories. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:00, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue really is that the majority of her output - eg. decades of feminist criminology - is nothing whatsoever to do with "gender critical", which is a comparatively recent development. I think she's known for two things here: feminist research in criminology and, latterly, setting up the gender critical research network. Simply replacing "feminist research in criminology" with "gender critical research in criminology" is I think a revisionist conflation of the two. Void if removed (talk) 14:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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