Because Wikipedia tends to err on the side of respecting the wishes of the subject. For a less political example, CPG Grey's page doesn't have his legal name or photo despite them being pretty easy to find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGP_Grey

If someone legally changes their name, that would indicate to me that the subject wishes to be known by the new name. Yet Wikipedia will still list the birth name.

People change their names all the time when they get married or immigrate and have no problem with their birth name's being available. I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement about this.

And some trans people "have no problem with their birth name being available," even if they have stopped using it. "Blanket statement," and all that...

>Because Wikipedia tends to err on the side of respecting the wishes of the subject.

Unless that subject is right wing.

Wolf Blitzer:

>Wolf Isaac Blitzer (born March 22, 1948) is an American journalist, television news anchor, and author who has been a CNN reporter since 1990, and who currently serves as one of the principal anchors at the network.[1] He is the host of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and until 2021, served as the network's lead political anchor.

Seems fine, right?

Tucker Carlson:

>Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson[5] (born May 16, 1969) is an American television host, conservative political commentator and author who has hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News since 2016.

But Tucker is labelled conservative.

Founder Larry Sanger: "Wikipedia is Badly Biased" https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

And you don't have to be right wing to see this. I'm a registered Pacific Green.

You've confused Tucker Carlson for a journalist. It's a mistake sufficiently common that his lawyers have had to explain in court that he is an entertainer and his words are to be taken as opinion. Journalists and entertainers are generally held to different standards, especially in court. A better comparison would be to Rachel Maddow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Maddow

>Rachel Anne Maddow (/ˈmædoʊ/ (listen), MAD-oh; born April 1, 1973) is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator.

Maddow has used the same defense against litigation as Carlson. The 'conservative/liberal' tag is applied when a person is described as a political commentator.

I've got no problem with your characterization of Carlson, but do you honestly believe Blitzer is an objective arbiter of truth?

I don't, and I think this myth among so many in "news" media has done more to misinform people than any of the pundits who are honest about their biases. See also, Dan Rather and Brian Williams.

I never said anything about believing the news. Wikipedia labels the political leanings of people they identify as political commentators, and they don't label the political leanings of people they identify as journalists.

In this case, both Maddow and Carlson have used the argument in court that a reasonable person would not take what they say as fact. Regardless of our personal opinions about him or his employers, Blitzer has not made that claim.

If we're trying to ascertain whether Wikipedia is biased in how it describes people on television, comparing a political commentator to a journalist is not going to be a very instructive example. Comparing to another political commentator is going to be more useful. I'm not making any assertions about how I feel regarding these people.

>You've confused Tucker Carlson for a journalist.

Having the same bias as Wikipedia isn't evidence of their impartiality.

I'm sorry if that sentence made you think you had enough information to assess my political leanings, and I'm even more sorry if I gave the impression that I care about the politics of TV personalities. I'm strictly speaking in terms of how Wikipedia describes people on television. I may as well have said "You've confused Wolf Blitzer for a political commentator," as Wikipedia doesn't classify him that way, and he's never represented himself that way in court.

Actors don't change their name because they're changing their identity, actors often act under a different name because they are required to have a unique name to participate in certain organisations (e.g: screen actors guild). An actor may be known as Natalie Portman but who knows what's on her passport? Transgender people are typically changing their identity, which is a different process.

In some cases, it is only a professional identity, and their legal name is unchanged. But others do change their legal name, and Wikipedia still mentions the birth name. Same with married women who take a spouse's name.

> Transgender people are typically changing their identity

This is not a thing that is possible, although the idea that it could be has lead to at least a few transgender women claiming in court that they are innocent of the crimes they committed before their new name and presentation.

Wikipedia's editing policy is to only include the birthname in the article if the individual was famous/well-known with it prior to changing it -- otherwise it's considered a privacy issue.

Rachel Levine is listed as an explicit example of this in their guidelines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gend...

Because deadnaming someone is nearly always hateful, but not using a stage name generally isn't.

If society changes such that actors and actresses routinely got incredible amount of societal hate for their original names, we'd probably start protecting those too.

If the editorial process bothers you, why not just head on over to Conservapedia:

https://www.conservapedia.com/Rachel_Levine

This is true, being respectful to other people and not deadnaming them, or compromising their privacy unnecessarily is a left-wing bias.

The whole idea of “deadnaming being bad” is an ultra-woke thing.

Why is it offensive to say that my celebrity crush used to be Ellen Page (until she came out as lesbian)?

It isn't offensive, and no (reasonable) people are claiming it is.

What's not appropriate, is referring to the person that exists today, as Ellen Page.

She’s the same person!

They don't think so. Some claims that they were born with the wrong body, so their deadname was a mistake. This is why they call it deadname.

Even if you are not transgender, just imagine changing your name, telling everyone about it, and someone would come along insisting on calling you using your former name, practicly mocking, belittling you and your choice. Now imagine them doing the same to your entire identity.

Similarly, a woman who exits a bitter and acrimonious divorce may change her name back to her maiden name, and hates it when people refer to her as "Mrs. Ex-Name".

Or a daughter who dislikes her father so much that, upon reaching adulthood, changes her surname because she wants to be completely disassociated from him. (In the case I'm thinking of, she said something along the lines "he wasn't my father, he was the sperm donor" - he left when she was a few years old.)

Personally, I understood the idea first through Malcolm X, who rejected "the white slavemaster name of 'Little'" he was given at birth. And the respect Howard Cosell had to refer to Muhammad Ali by Ali's chosen name, while most others used and even taunted him with his old one.

Same ghost, different machine. Their identity is now Eliot. Probably wouldn't even be an issue to call them Ellen if we lived in a world where people weren't deliberate with their mis-identification to troll trans people, but here we are.

If I change my name from John to Jack and people keep calling me John, I'm probably going to be annoyed. Moreso if they're clearly doing it to try and get under my skin.

> Why is it offensive to say that my celebrity crush used to be Ellen Page (until she came out as lesbian)?

It isn't.

Talking about someone's dead name is not offensive.

Referring to someone using their deadname today is. For example, saying "Ellen Page was really good in the latest season of The Umbrella Academy" is offensive because at that point, they were identifying as Elliot.

In the case of someone not being notable before a transition, talk of their deadname is offensive because it is clearly being done in bad faith. If they were transitioned before they became a notable person, why the obsession with knowing their deadname? There's really only one reason: Because you want to call them that as an "own" against transgender people.

No one is getting offended for you saying your crush was Ellen Page.

I'm confused, are you saying that you don't understand the concept of being offensive, or you believe the concept of something being 'offensive' is an "ultra-woke thing"?

how many times has he been called "Kanye West" in headlines and news stories in the past couple weeks? nobody gives a shit about deadnaming him, because he's a Bad Guy Saying Bad Things, which proves that there actually is a political conditional on the supposed core moral value of "deadnaming is an utterly terrible thing to do, always, and there's never any excuse for it".

I've tried repeatedly to bring this up online and nobody even attempts to explain this obvious moral contradiction away. I genuinely want to know how someone can hold both "deadnaming is reprehensible and should never be done ever" and "it's okay to just call him 'Kanye West' lol" in their head at the same time without imploding in a poof of self-contradiction.

Not using a vanity name of a celebrity is not exactly the same as deadnaming. If Ye would have chosen John as his first name I could see it being similar, he obviously had a reason to change it, maybe he hates Kanye, but he choose Ye, because it sounds cool. People should still respect his decision, but it's still not the same.

> Not using a vanity name of a celebrity is not exactly the same as deadnaming. If Ye would have chosen John as his first name I could see it being similar

ok, so I don't have to respect trans peoples' "vanity" name changes if it's not something equivalent to "John", as per my own judgement? like I get to make my own internal judgement as to whether or not the name that someone asks to be referred to as is a "vanity" name or not??

or, I don't get to do this, because trans people are somehow special in this regard compared to everyone else???

you don't get to make rules like that. you can say, "if someone legally changes their name, then you should respect that and use their preferred, legal name." you can even extend that and say, "if someone wants to be referred to as some name other than their legal name, then this, too, should be respected, you should refer to them as their non-legal, yet still preferred name." that's fine too.

but you don't get to claim that someone legally changing their name and asking everyone to use their new legal name and not use their old "slave name" (their own words), is just a "celebrity" with a "vanity name", and therefore "deadnaming" rules no longer apply, somehow! this destroys your entire moral framework about identity and the right to self-determination thereof.

no, its his legal name.

Unless he's transgender, he can't be deadnamed.

There isn't a moral contradiction to explain. The entire point of deadnaming someone is to cause them harm. Full stop. No one is trying to cause Ye harm by clarifying that he used to be called Kayne West.

If you want a non-trans equivalent, old racists used to insist on calling Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Muhammad Ali by names they had rejected to make a point about how little they thought of them. Just like people deadname Elliot Page solely to hateful and offensive.

Can you really not tell the difference?

> If you want a non-trans equivalent, old racists used to insist on calling Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Muhammad Ali by names they had rejected to make a point about how little they thought of them.

exactly, so how is this any different? a black man legally changes his name because he considers his old name to be his "slave name", and almost every headline about him refuses to acknowledge this change. how is this different from Muhammad Ali?

> Unless he's transgender, he can't be deadnamed.

this is the crux of my question: why is "right to not be deadnamed" exclusively a trans "right"? what would make you think that?

>exactly, so how is this any different? a black man legally changes his name because he considers his old name to be his "slave name", and almost every headline about him refuses to acknowledge this change. how is this different from Muhammad Ali?

I'm not sure what this paragraph is trying to convey. Are you under the impression that Ye changed his name because it was his 'slave name'?

>this is the crux of my question: why is "right to not be deadnamed" exclusively a trans "right"? what would make you think that?

I'm not sure why the word "right" is being used here, but I "think that' because words having meaning in the English language and deadnaming by definition is when you "call (a transgender person) by their birth name when they have changed their name as part of their gender transition."

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=deadnam...

a kid down the street from the house I grew up in moved to Hollywood to get involved in acting and changed his name but not his gender. he asked everyone to refer to him by his new name instead of his old one. how is this functionally different from someone changing their gender and their name at the same time, with regards to the name change? it doesn't matter why someone wants to change their name, they want to change their name, you should respect that.

you don't have to, of course, you can do whatever you want. but the idea that trans people get a special when-I-change-my-name-you-have-to-respect-it privilege that people who don't want to change their gender don't get access to, is completely nonsensical. you should respect the right to identity self-determination innate to all people, for whatever reason they choose, or else your moral framework is not actually cohesive at all and in fact permits granting special privileges to certain classes of people over others, which is generally understood to be bigoted, by definition.

every headline and social media post I see that contains the string "Kanye" or "Kanye West", outside of those who couch it in the context of some variation of "Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West", proves that, despite all pretenses to the contrary, there is in fact a brazen double standard when it comes to asserting one's own identity in terms of LEGALLY changing their name, and having everyone else respect it, such that trans people are supposed to get special consideration in this regard compared to everyone else, somehow.

only extremely convoluted contemporary political pseudo-logic could explain how this actually makes perfect sense, how it's okay to call him Kanye West but it's not okay to call him Ellen Page, and how those two things are Actually Completely Different Situations instead of Exactly The Same Thing.

> Are you under the impression that Ye changed his name because it was his 'slave name'?

the man has openly said as much; does his own position on his own identity not have any value to you? is that not the entire idea behind the concept of "deadnaming" to begin with?

I'm not the person you replied to, but of course people should respect Ye's name change. I expect in many cases it's simply laziness, though I do think there's some slack to be granted where a reporter may use "Ye, formerly known as Kanye West", because people may not know or understand what happened, and the point is to clarify. If a news source were to say "Elliot Page, formerly Ellen Page", I think that's fine too. (Only sorta related, but a while back Cardi B amused people, including me, by noting how much Donald Glover and Childish Gambino looked alike.)

Anyhoo, the Bee wasn't accidentally calling someone by the wrong name; they were intentionally doing it to bother the person, which is asshole behavior. It is also when people do it to Ye, and if the kid in your neighborhood had changed his name to from Karl to Brett, and some other kid always ran around saying, "Hey look, it's Karl. Where are you going, Karl?" I'd say that also qualifies as asshole behavior.

Even so, asshole behavior should be allowed, if discouraged. The problem is that the Bee was using their reach and audience to blast a specific trans person, publicly, with the goal of belittling and ostracizing all trans people, who generally already face harassment from society. This would be problematic beyond the simple question of manners whether the target is trans people, Kanye, or Brett.

>a kid down the street from the house I grew up in moved to Hollywood to get involved in acting and changed his name but not his gender. he asked everyone to refer to him by his new name instead of his old one. how is this functionally different from someone changing their gender and their name at the same time, with regards to the name change? it doesn't matter why someone wants to change their name, they want to change their name, you should respect that.

I mean, are you arguing with yourself? I certainly never said you shouldn't respect peoples preferences.

>every headline and social media post I see that contains the string "Kanye" or "Kanye West", outside of those who couch it in the context of some variation of "Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West", proves that, despite all pretenses to the contrary, there is in fact a brazen double standard when it comes to asserting one's own identity in terms of LEGALLY changing their name, and having everyone else respect it, such that trans people are supposed to get special consideration in this regard compared to everyone else, somehow.

And when Elliot Page or Caitlyn Jenner publicly transitioned, the media did the same thing because using their former name provides utility.

You still seem really confused about what the issue is. People aren't being banned on twitter because they slipped up once and deadnamed someone, they are being banned because there is a coordinated campaign by conservatives to deadname trans folks in an attempt to bully and offend them. They are banned because the intent behind the action is to hurt.

>only extremely convoluted contemporary political pseudo-logic could explain how this actually makes perfect sense, how it's okay to call him Kanye West but it's not okay to call him Ellen Page, and how those two things are Actually Completely Different Situations instead of Exactly The Same Thing.

Again, you seem to be arguing with yourself. But you also seem to not understand the difference between accidentally using someones former name and purposefully using it as a tool to try and hurt them.

>the man has openly said as much; does his own position on his own identity not have any value to you?

At this point I'm pretty convinced you aren't actually reading anything, and instead are just responding with canned response.

> is that not the entire idea behind the concept of "deadnaming" to begin with?

No, and you don't seem to be familiar with what deadnaming is. If you follow that google link you can read some information on it so you understand it better.

you're stating that "conservatives" on twitter are deadnaming trans people "because the intent behind the action is to hurt." I'm stating that the media is doing the same thing to Ye. the only difference is that he's not trans, which you seem to think confers special privileges with regards to correct name use that nobody else has access to, and that "deadnaming" is an exclusively anti-trans phenomenon. you are the one who is not reading my posts: I specifically said that using "Kanye West" in the context of "formerly known as" makes plenty of sense. however this is not what has been happening in many, many headlines, all easily findable on news.google.com. I am pointing out this contradiction, and you are saying it's not a contradiction at all, because Ye is not trans, and people using his previous name are not intentionally trying to hurt him, but are just lazy or ignorant or whatever excuses you have. you're just talking past me without actually addressing anything I'm saying at this point, so there's no real use in continuing this discussion.

>I'm stating that the media is doing the same thing to Ye

That's fine, you should probably find something to support that. I haven't seen anything that indicates Ye is offended by being called 'Kayne West'. His official website is www.kaynewest.com. Could you post some examples where it's obvious that they are refusing to call him Ye?

>the only difference is that he's not trans, which you seem to think confers special privileges with regards to correct name use that nobody else has access to

Look, I'm happy to continue this conversation, but you are either failing to grasp basic concepts or pretending you don't. I've never said people shouldn't use his chosen name.

> I am pointing out this contradiction, and you are saying it's not a contradiction at all, because Ye is not trans, and people using his previous name are not intentionally trying to hurt him, but are just lazy or ignorant or whatever excuses you have. you're just talking past me without actually addressing anything I'm saying at this point, so there's no real use in continuing this discussion.

This is really embarrassing for you. I'm sorry for you if you can't read a basic definition, and I'm even more sorry for you if you can't tell the difference between using the wrong on accident and using it to hurt someone. It sounds like you have a lot of growing to do as a person. I agree that there is no point to this discussion.

How about Prince, rarely called formerly any longer.

Wikipedia's name policy is to include names that someone was notable under.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...

This includes trans individuals, such as Chelsea Manning or Elliot Page, who have their birth name in their respective articles. For some reason, these Wikipedia editorial decisions are extra controversial around trans people, so Wikipedia has a MOS section to explicitly address this in the case of biographies of trans people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...

Elton John was notable as Reginald Kenneth Dwight?

His career started in 1962 as RD and he legally changed his name to EJ in 1972. I think 10 years of being a reasonably famous musician under a name is notable, no?

By that logic, this is a rather impressive and notable CV, the majority of which was pre-transition:

https://www.hhs.gov/about/leadership/rachel-levine.html

ADM Levine was a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. Her previous posts included: Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Pediatrics, and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

The notability requirement is specifically for transgender and non-binary individuals.

This is not true either. The "Presumption in favor of privacy" section, especially the "Privacy of names" part might interest you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...

There's two separate concerns:

1. Privacy of names in general

2. Treatment of people who have changed their names.

For #2 there is a specific rule dealing with deadnaming:

> If a living transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname), it should not be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc.), even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name.

Ah yes, I think I misunderstood what you meant by the notability requirement. AFAIK there are no cis people with pre-notability name changes covered under the privacy interest guidelines.

Isn't that, itself, bias? Why wouldn't Muhammad Ali receive the same consideration, given that he considered his birth name representative of racial oppression?

1. Ali specifically is moot since he won an Olympic Gold Medal (and his first professional world championship) under his birth name.

2. If calling black Muslims by their birth names were currently used as a way of signalling racism, then I suspect WP would adopt a policy for that as well.

As has been noted, Admiral Levine had significant accomplishments under her birth name. The point is, Ali isn't even granted the possiblity of having his birth name unexposed, because ONLY transgender and non-binary individuals are eligible for non-exposure.

> For some reason, these Wikipedia editorial decisions are extra controversial

Because there is a significant group of people who will insist on using a trans person's birth name even if it's no longer correct, being deliberately hostile but trying to hide behind a thin veil of plausible deniability.

Because "Wikipedia Is Badly Biased" according to founder Larry Sanger: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

He thinks Wikipedia is biased because it describes (correctly) that "alternative medicine" is bullshit? And also he is a climate change denier? Why is he not complaining that there is bias against the flat earth people on wikipedia? Sorry, "scientific minorities". This article proves nothing other than the author is useless.

I read the article and I must have missed where it's stated that he is a climate denier or that alternative medicine is or is not bullshit. Those are just two of several examples where he tries to show the lack of neutrality.