Talk:World Professional Association for Transgender Health/Archive 1

Errors to be fixed with the page

1 its gender not sexuality they are different as sexuality is a whole different thing to someone's make up or identity. >> move this to the transgender porthole not sexuality —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saracoola (talk • contribs) 23:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

"Controversy" section breaks WP:NPOV

The "controversy" section seems biased towards anti-trans viewpoints. Both sources seem to have biases towards anti-trans views, and one of the citations is an anti-trans group (which was previously deceptively described as a feminist group). I'd propose removing it. TransfemLinuxUser (talk) 03:56, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

The text from the section should be incorporated into the main body of the article as per WP:CRITS. Version 8 of the Standards of Care has just been published and devotes all of Chapter Eight to eunuchs, which is certainly notable. JezGrove (talk) 08:53, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

IMO those details belong on Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People. We could then summarize criticism of the SoC on this article. Madeline (part of me) 20:24, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Re Maddy from Celeste, I absolutely agree. The SoC is a publication from WPATH -- and the criticism is mostly directed towards the WPATH SoC in of itself. Even then, I'm afraid that these viewpoints would be overly biased within the context of the article (very much fabricated, right-wing ideological fear), and would not fit in unless it's integrated within a more generalized Reception section. TransfemLinuxUser (talk) 03:11, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Another problem is that neither of the news articles actually identify the paper in question as the SOC8. While we can confirm that it is by comparing quotes against the pubished document, relying on that in article space would be OR. Unless we get some sort of follow-up confirming that it was the SOC8 and discussing the matter further, I'm on the side of just deleting it altogether as undue. Madeline (part of me) 10:24, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Just because the claims are biased does not mean we shouldn't feature them. All of the claims are from reliable sources and I'm concerned that your reasoning violates WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. There is nothing undue about mentioned a controversy documented in RS. X-Editor (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I agree with the way you incorporated it into Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People. Madeline (part of me) 19:24, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

@Maddy from Celeste: Thanks. It makes much more sense to be there instead. X-Editor (talk) 20:50, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

WPATH leaked emails

Michael Shellenberger's think tank published a report detailing pretty extensive criticism of the organisation, as well as releasing over 100 pages of WPATH members' communications in screenshots. The publication has dedicated articles in The Economist, [1], The Irish Independent [2], The National Post, [3], KABB (a San Antonio radio station) [4], and op-eds in The Guardian, [5] and The Washington Post, [6]. There are countless questionable right-wing outlets as well, but I omitted them for obvious reasons. This should be enough to include a sentence or two about the report, but I am not familiar enough with the topic to do it myself, other than know this needs a mention. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 08:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree this significant story should be in the article. Use the WaPo and Guardian articles as reference, I suggest. You should be aware though that the history of this page shows a record of deletions of anything that isn't sympathetic to WPATH, so any change will likely need to be defended. Fig (talk) 09:41, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend being very careful. Bare in mind Wikipedia:RSOPINION for the 2 op:ed sources. I would also mention that it might be worth waiting for some more high quality Sources to discuss on this topic first as they would if this was notable. LunaHasArrived (talk) 16:02, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this is DUE at this time, and a healthy pinch of WP:NOTNEWS applies. I've read the report, and it is full of misinformation, misleading presentation, and outright falsehoods. I think this is reflected in the fact that the only publications making any significant noise about this are all highly partisan in this topic and are considered either questionable or outright unreliable via discussions at RSN.

Of the four sources presented here (I'm excluding the two op-eds because of WP:RSOPINION): The Economist appears to be sceptical of the claims of Shellenberger's report. The non-profit group that published the files...claims that the documents reveal “widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults”. That claim is questionable. The Irish Independent is more to be about the situation of trans health care in Ireland, than any sort of substantial commentary on the report, and doesn't seem to be an substantial departure from what RTÉ said about the plans in January. KABB appears to be sceptical of the content of the report. Their article opens with A report released Monday alleges. Only the National Post seems to offer substantial content on it while taking it at face value.

I agree with LunaHasArrived, we should wait to see how high quality, non-partisan sources cover this, if they do at all. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:13, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with most of the points here, the notability seems debatable at best and most sources just talk about it in the context of, “this is what an activist group is saying”. If we included this, by this logic we’d have to include everything that groups like Genspect and SEGM say. Snokalok (talk) 18:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I just read through the report and listed sources here and agree this is undue; I want to note that Shellenberger is famous for his climate change denialism and that this report misgenders every trans person it discusses (A Florida non-binary counselor with they/them pronouns replied, offering her services. She told... she added. (p30) was impressively egregious), it goes in for ridiculous fearmongering and misinformation (autogynophilia, the false claim "most trans people grow out of it", saying that transition is unethical since people won't be attracted to you anymore (repeatedly...) and plenty of citations to the Society for "it's not conversion therapy if we do it to trans people"-Based Gender Medicine & co), and it was in fact made in collaboration with Genspect, who *checks notes* run a forum to help parents put their kids through conversion therapy and think there's a connection between anime and transition ...[7]

WP:FRINGE/WP:ONEWAY: Fringe views, products, or those who promote them, may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. However, meeting this standard indicates only that the idea may be discussed in other articles, not that it must be discussed in a specific article. If mentioning a fringe theory in another article gives undue weight to the fringe theory, discussion of the fringe theory may be limited, or even omitted altogether. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Sideswipe9th, this immediately follows your excerpt from the Economist article:

But wpath’s standards of care have been cited by other medical organisations, particularly in America. wpath’s president, Marci Bowers, said in response that “wpath is and has always been a science- and evidence-based organisation.” Yet the discussions show that the provision of so-called gender-affirming care is riddled with far more doubt than wpath’s message that such treatments are “not considered experimental”.

Though skeptical of the explicit claims made in the report, they clearly think its revelations notable and aspects of them to be troubling.

They later state

The conversation ventures into the absurd—and sounds more ideological than clinical—when talking about unusual requests for body modifications.

and

But a doctor in Canada says that after joining the forum her “expectations of scientific discourse were soon dashed”. Her posts were met with “emotional, political or social reactions rather than clinical ones”.

The article has a strictly informative tone throughout, and does not pronounce any final judgement on the matter. But that such statements from a reputable, nonbiased source concerning a medical association that offers professional guidance concerning irreversible, profoundly life-altering surgeries on psychologically vulnerable adults and children alike should arouse concern and suspicion about said organization, is obvious. DestroyerOfSense (talk) 12:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I was not the one making the quote from the economist. Also given another week has passed I think unless there's more high quality non partisan sources that have been published it might be fair to say this shouldn't be included. LunaHasArrived (talk) 14:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

You're right. My apologies. I've edited my comment accordingly. DestroyerOfSense (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

From the preface to the report: The WPATH Files are semi-private conversations inside WPATH's internal online forum for discussing specific medical cases. In other words, they dumped some stuff from an online forum in which clinicians were discussing topics about treating patients. Not sure why that would merit inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Hist9600 (talk) 22:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Whether something merits inclusion is determined by coverage in reliable sources. Here, it seems that several reliable sources find it to have at least some notability, although I can see a case being made to reduce coverage on WP:RECENTISM grounds. Zylostr (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposed paragraph

I recently added this paragraph to the page; it was reverted and I was directed to this talk page for discussion.

Proposed coverage of WPATH Files

In March 2024, leaked internal messages and video footage from WPATH were published by Environmental Progress, an advocacy group founded by Michael Shellenberger. In the leaked exhanges, some medical professionals expressed concerns about the ability of minors and patients with mental health conditions to consent to hormone replacement and puberty blocker treatments recommended by WPATH guidelines. They also discussed complications produced by gender-affirming care and requests from some patients for "non-standard" body modification surgeries. Shellenberger contends that the documents show that gender-affirming care is "neither science nor medicine". Several experts indicated that the link between hormone therapy and cancer presented in Environmental Progress's report on the leaks is oversimplified and misleading, and transgender journalist Erin Reed indicated that she identified 216 instances of errors and misrepresentations in the report.

One reason provided for rejecting this change was that the paragraph primarily relies on the National Post, which is not a reliable source. I disagree with this rationale for several reasons:

• The paragraph does not rely on the National Post. Every sentence except the first that is sourced to the National Post is also sourced to a source recognized as reliable on WP:RSP. The first sentence deals with basic factual claims, and its attribution could easily be switched to the Economist source.
• Although the National Post is not in WP:RSP, I believe it should be considered a reliable source per WP:NEWSORG, as it is a major Canadian newspaper.

I believe there may be a case to reduce or omit coverage of this incident on WP:RECENTISM grounds. However, the presence of in-depth coverage in multiple RS sources indicates to me that some coverage is called for. Zylostr (talk) 21:35, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

No, there are plenty of newspapers that are not considered reliable sources as they often produce biased content. That is the whole reason why we have Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources which lists which newspaper and media has consensus on being reliable or not. The National Post appears to be categorized and discussed as biased even in their main page article, so they is unlikely to qualify as a reliable source - if you think it was, you could raise it at the WP:RS notice board first.

As was discussed further up already, the Economist article is skeptical on the claims, so that leads credence to non inclusion.

And so all we are left with is skepticism and no sources that discussed the original revelation after March 5th. Per above already cited, Wikipedia is wP:NOTNEWS, so this leak seem to not have had lasting notable effects as we are now a month past with no further coverage on it (other than from fringe or unreliable sources). Raladic (talk) 22:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I have to question why this would be considered news, or even especially attributable to WPATH as an organization. This just looks like some forum members were discussing some cases, and then someone dumped some of that data. What does it tell us about WPATH as an organization? Basically nothing, because it's just some forum members having a few discussions. The report itself is also not a reliable source (fringe), and the author of the report is amateur, not a credible expert in the field. Hist9600 (talk) 00:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

While the Economist article appears to cast doubts on some of the claims made by Environmental Progress, it also implies that the leaks may point to legitimate concerns. For instance, it states that the discussions show that the provision of so-called gender-affirming care is riddled with far more doubt than wpath’s message that such treatments are “not considered experimental”. The due weight for this content comes not from the seemingly WP:FRINGE group Environmental Progress itself, but rather the credence lent to it by the Economist and the Telegraph. Zylostr (talk) 16:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I have to say by this point if there isn't any more recent articles on the leaks that Wikipedia:NOTNEWS. Would be a very good reason to not include it. These "leaks" seem to have had no mainstay presence and based on current sources I don't think in 2 years time someone would be shocked to see the "leaks" missing on this page. LunaHasArrived (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Zylostr Wholeheartedly agreed. As a long-time reader of The Economist, its weight and quality as a source is about as close to unimpeachable as it gets. DestroyerOfSense (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

In the telegraph again today. This won’t go away and not putting it in the article simply makes us look ridiculous. Springnuts (talk) 20:35, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you mind listing the telegraph article here. And honestly most of the stuff I've seen on WPATH recently has been to do with their condemning of the Cass report. LunaHasArrived (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

[[8]]. An opinion piece about a massive elephant in the room. We lose all credibility if we close our eyes to it. Springnuts (talk) 07:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, unfortunately an opinion piece doesn't do much on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:RSOPINION LunaHasArrived (talk) 08:09, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Opinion pieces cannot be used to establish facts about a subject on Wikipedia. Hist9600 (talk) 03:03, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The Telegraph is not a reliable source on trans issues. Like The Times, it has been printing scaremongering culture-war vitriol pretty much every day for years. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 22:34, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, no elephants here. Springnuts (talk) 09:06, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be insistent on PUSHing this perspective, claiming that not including it damages our credibility. Even without considering that including it might be what damages Wikipedia's credibility, we should remember, there is no deadline here. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 08:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Springnuts and others that these developments merit inclusion in Wikipedia. Al83tito (talk) 20:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

User:OwenBlacker: You said that both The Telegraph and The Times are not reliable sources when it comes specifically to trans issues. What would be a few sources that are questioning or even critical of transgender issues, that you would deem to be reliable sources and non-vitriolic?

We should be open to articles that are critical or make public new knowledge that is contrary to any views, established orthodoxies, or understandings of fact. If any articles that are questioning or critical on transgender issues are by default non-reliable and vitriolic, that means that we are doing the work in reverse: first deciding what the conclusions should be in Wikipedia, and then only accepting as reliable sources those confirm that conclusion. This approach entrenches one view, insulating it from any critiques and from new knowledge as it comes to light that could update our understanding of any given topic. And that is not the way Wikipedia is meant to work.Al83tito (talk) 22:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I made some review of the press up to today, and here's what I got:

• There's a much-belated article on Rzeczpospolita about the files, by Tomasz Witkowski. In Polish, but basically he's shocked and calling WPATH assholes for entertaining such discussionswithout using the word. (paywalled and in Polish, but will send raw text by wikimail on demand)
• The North State Journal, based in North Carolina, says that the disclosures may impact litigation over state minor transitioning ban that is pending in federal court.
• Media Matters had this article published early this month saying that some mainstream media "took the bait".

Other than these articles, there is basically no new coverage of the files. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)