Talk:Gloria Hemingway

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A fact from Gloria Hemingway appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 June 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the $7m (£4.2m) estate of Gregory Hemingway, the youngest son of Ernest Hemingway, could not be left to his wife because of the same-sex marriage laws in Florida?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/June.

Wikipedia

This article and talk page has been mentioned by a media organization:

Noam Cohen (January 22, 2023). "The Culture Wars Look Different on Wikipedia". The Atlantic.

Pronoun usage

This article should be rechecked for correct pronoun usage. I don't know enough about the individual involved, but of course it is quite innapropriate to refer to a transsexual by their birth pronoun; especially after transition. 68.161.185.76 02:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After transition I agree, but before transition Gregory Hemingway was a well-known public figure and published author who self-identified as a man, so it would be anachronistic and simply inaccurate to say that a woman named Gloria Hemingway published the 1976 book Papa: A Personal Memoir, for example. --Delirium 03:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. It may be difficult to get this right, but using "he/him/his" throughout the entire article is inappropriate, and the page should also moved to her later name (Gloria Hemingway), since that's who she was. -- Schneelocke 08:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I considered that while writing it, but the sources I worked from kept referring to the person using the male pronouns. I'm fine with it being either way. violet/riga (t) 08:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it works to say "as Gregory, she did whatever". The consensus in the medical profession seems to be that the gender dyshoria is due to the person being the other gender than the one they were identified as at birth. A male-to-female transsexual always was a she anyway, so referring to her as her while she was Gregory would not be inappropriate. I don't think it is overly confusing - it is more confusing to mix pronouns. However, I do feel it is important to make clear who you are talking about in some cases. For example, a sentence read that "Daughter wrote a book about her father" which I changed to "Gloria's daughter wrote a book about her father" as in the first example it could lead to confusion - Gloria being referred to as she and then having the term "father" in there without clarifying might be jarring - people would not automatically be aware that the father referred to was Gloria. Babooshka2002 (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This brings up a real complication with sex changes, if they are indeed legally recognized, they'd immediately nullify marriages if the latter are not recognized..

"Under state marriage laws, the validity of a marriage is determined at the time of marriage. If you were legally an

opposite-sex couple when you married, your marital status cannot be invalidated by subsequent events. For the same reason, the federal Defense of Marriage Act does not prohibit federal recognition of married couples in this situation. You should be able to file jointly as a married couple, and are not required to count a spouse’s employer-provided health benefits as taxable income" http://www.transequality.org/Resources/IRS_Factsheet_2012.pdf 50.8.34.255 (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hemingway was mostly presenting as a man to his death. I think that it would be correct to say that gender re-assignment was incomplete at his death. Most of the article refers to him using the male pronoun, but the end reverts to the female. That is surely wrong. It is one or the other.Royalcourtier (talk) 04:50, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough - I have fixed it by removing all pronouns in that paragraph. St Anselm (talk) 06:41, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it have to be "one or the other"? It seems Hemingway was never quite that clear on it, in the mind or in how they represented their person. Deciding the preference definitely for the person postmortem seems presumptuous. What about gender fluidity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2C4:C800:6F90:4451:3778:BCD8:BCD8 (talk) 09:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Transgender people should always be represented as their correct gender. To do otherwise is disrespectful and contributes to a culture of hate. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have studied this matter for academic purposes and also covered it as a journalist. You can look at the pages for trans people like Elliot Page, who previously had a rather substantial film career under his female name, and everything was retroactively converted top-to-bottom to conform with change to preferred pronouns. You can reference the style book created by GLAAD < https://www.glaad.org/reference/style> for confirmation of this. Stew312856 (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I wrote a thesis on Gregory/Gloria Hemingway and have studied this person extensively. It is inaccurate to portray Gregory only as a transgender woman named Gloria; while she sometimes presented as Gloria (and I do agree she should be referred to as female pronouns when presenting this way), Gregory never retired his male identity. I have come to view Gregory as having a dual gender identity: Gregory was their male identity, and Gloria was their female identity. To place Gregory in either the "male" or "female" camp is to diminish people who have valid, non-binary gender identities and implies that people have to be "one or the other." It is perhaps most accurate to refer to Gregory as bigender. Nonetheless, Gregory died in 2001 well before our modern concept of gender and never publicly came out with any pronoun preferences or gender identity labels beyond "transexual," and was actually embarrassed of public attention that his female identity received. Therefore, I have gone back and change his pronouns to he/him/his, which is what I believe he would want, though I have affirmed the validity of Gregory having a female identity named Gloria and that this wasn't "drag" or "cross-dressing," as some biographers/Hemingway scholars have referred to Greg. Nicholaslord (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for complicating this in a useful way. 2601:2C4:C800:6F90:7591:2955:79C9:1783 (talk) 03:25, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Page move

I moved the page to Gloria Hemingway, since that was her name. Gregory Hemingway remains as a redirect, of course! I'll now proceed to fix the pronouns. -- Captain Disdain 16:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And that's done, too. (I opted to go with feminine pronouns throughout the article and used her name where there was significant danger of confusion. Right now this is pretty much a stub, so I don't think it's all that complicated -- if the article is expanded, then I agree that making a distinction between the mascule and feminine pronouns is an issue, but right now? Not so much.) -- Captain Disdain 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by "that was her name". The person in question was named "Gregory Hemingway" for 64 years (1931-1995), and "Gloria Hemingway" for 6 years (1995-2001). Since most of his well-known work was done while self-identifying as a man and named "Gregory Hemingway", putting this entry at "Gloria Hemingway" contradicts the "use most common name" rule. See, for example, Cat Stevens, who isn't located at his preferred but less known name, Yusuf Islam. --Delirium 00:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, not that I don't understand where you're coming from, but I don't think these are comparable situations. I think there's a huge difference between Cat Stevens and Gregory (or Gloria, for that matter) Hemingway in terms of name recognition. Gregory Hemingway wasn't exactly a household name even in literary circles. Calling Cat Stevens primarily something other than Cat Stevens would be like calling Sting primarily Gordon Sumner or calling Elton John primarily Reginald Dwight -- it'd be pretty stupid, because relatively few people recognize those original names, and yet they are all international superstars that just about everyone in the Western world recognizes.

Hemingway's change of identity, on the other hand, wasn't as drastic (well, not in terms of her name, anyway), because she still retained her last name, which is far, far more recognizable in and of itself than her first name. And yes, she did most of her work as a man, but she certainly got her share of publicity precisely because she changed her identity as she did. -- Captain Disdain 11:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a check of Google confirms that Gregory Hemingway is the most common name this person is referred to by, as the first name pulls up 604 references while "Gloria Hemingway" draws only 220. Removing allusions to Wikipedia from the search pulls the references even more in "Gregory's" favor. Google Books and Google Scholar are more of the same, but even more drastically tilted towards the use of Greg. Gregory Hemingway was pretty well known in Hemingway circles, since he published a memoir of his father and edited things such as the widely read Finca Vigia edition of Ernest's short stories --- all of these things were (and are) published under the name of Gregory. This article cites 4 references that were used in putting together this article --- all of them refer to this individual as Gregory Hemingway. The material there says that "for the most part" he continued to dress and present himself publically as a man after his sex change operation, i.e. remarrying in 1997 while putting himself as "Gregory" on his marriage certificate or appearing at the opening of a Hemingway museum in 1999 as Gregory, dressed in male clothes. I don't think there's very good justification to depart from the rule Delirium cited. 69.226.74.4 19:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bold text

This is ridiculous. Facts are facts--stop trying to politicize this or turn this into some kind of LGBT issue. You are mixing up your agenda about trans-gender issues with the need to present to readers and researchers a clear, easy-to-understand article about the life of this person.

For the bulk Hemingway's life he was known as a "he." He was published under his male name. He had a penis, he legally-recognized marriages with women, he fathered children. I daresay his children do not look back nowadays and think of him as "Mother." And most people looking for information on him are going to look under "Gregory," because, if nothing else, that's what he's listed under in his father's biographies. The fact he got his penis chopped off and changed his name to Gloria does not change history retroactively.

I agree with the person who made the Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam comment. No matter what the artist is known as now, no one has gone back and changed the names on his albums from Stevens to Islam. Let's also look at Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. He did his most noteworthy work and gained his greatest fame under the latter name, and that is rightfully how he will be remembered. A person should be listed in an encyclopedia by the name he or she was best-known, not by what he or she preferred to be called. Whether the name change resulted from a religious conversion or sex-change doesn't matter.

Also, please consult any standard work on Ernest Hemingway's life--Gregory was his third and youngest son. He didn't have four children. He had one son by his first wife and two by his second. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caractacus63 (talk • contribs) 10:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"For the bulk Hemingway's life he was known as a "he." He was published under his male name. He had a penis, he legally-recognized marriages with women, he fathered children. I daresay his children do not look back nowadays and think of him as "Mother.""

I would just like to interject here and politely say that my father, who is 54, has been living and working as a woman for the last four years. She's never ever asked me to call her "Mother" and she most certainly did father my brother and I. She says it would be wrong for us to call her Mother, since she never gave birth to us and that's not how we know her. It would also make her transition much much harder for us to cope with. She's still our father - just a female father. We can cope with that. She's been published in research journals under both her male name and her female name, but for most of her life she's been identified as a he.

There is no logic in listing this under "Gloria" Hemingway. Gregory may have had a body mod in later years, but he lived as a man, and in fact married as one afterwards. No one has produced so much as a photograph of him as a woman. Confusing him with genuine transsexuals and intersexuals does no one any good. If you wish to list him as Gloria, please produce some evidence that he was indeed Gloria. Otherwise, this will be be returned to Gregory. Sallieparker (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If this bothers people, I have a suggestion. Why not give a list of works that were published under Gregory? Seems fair to me. Also, to those people who may potentially be dismissing gender reassignment, I can assure you that that kind of surgery is neither painless nor trivial, and people don't just go and get their meat and two veg turned into a vagina because they had a bad day at the office. Either Gloria was transsexual, or she was mentally quite unwell. Now, it's pretty clear that she WAS mentally quite unwell, having bipolar disorder and drug abuse problems. In the first citation - and it is unfortunate that it's a blog but this is evidently due to the interview not being available elsewhere - the interviewer describes Gregory as constantly having to deal with his dad's disappointment that he wasn't a girl. He is described in the interview as being a transvestite. Valerie, the wife, says that her boys "never saw him dressed up". Now, the fact that he had bipolar disorder, drug abuse problems, and apparently feeling like a failure for not being a girl - these do not preclude being a transsexual. It is known that people with gender dysphoria often go through a period of being transvestites, in that they dress, it feels right for them, and they go from there. Some stay there, because they cannot continue, other factors in their lives, family, maybe they are not out to people, many things can prevent someone with GD going further than that, and sometimes it isn't necessary, because like any medical condition, there are varying levels of treatment. For some people, dressing is enough to alleviate the dysphoria.

It appears a dead cert that Gloria had gender dyshoria and called herself Gloria. What caused the gender dysphoria, there is another question, whether it was an accident of the wrong gendered brain in her body, or her ongoing mental illness and the environment she was reaised in, or both? Nobody can say now. The evidence seems to be in favour of her being transgendered and suffering mental illness.Babooshka2002 (talk) 22:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pronoun usage

Please see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Identity before changing the pronouns in this article. Triona (talk) 05:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe they ought to be changed in accordance with MOS:GENDERID. 67.81.52.52 (talk) 10:31, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Him or her, she or he

I changed she to he because it makes sense...Modernist (talk) 16:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it back because your revisions did not make sense. Ms. Hemingway's lived identity was of a woman.204.51.84.210 (talk) 16:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And you explain this how? Hemingway fathered eight children...Modernist (talk) 16:53, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why not refer to him as male for everything before the surgery and as a female afterwards? Seems to me that you can't make everyone happy with either he or she but this seems to be a logical compromise, otherwise we'll have a non-stop editing war, which wastes everyones time. W4chris (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - please make those changes...Modernist (talk) 17:11, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The science currently indicates that people like Gloria Hemingway are born with brains not matching their assigned genders. If this is so, then Ms. Hemingway was always female. Just because her body was male is not germane to this conversation. Causes_of_transsexualism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.51.84.210 (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this is turning a molehill into a mountain. You could argue various points to infinity and still not be any further along than we are right now. My only dog in this fight is the waste of time and resources editing and reverting from male to female to male, etc, etc. W4chris (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we have to say "fathered" at all, given the issues with gender on this page? Why can't we simply say the gender-neutral "had eight children"? Giant Snowman 17:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Make the change then...Modernist (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now is not the time to be bold and make such changes; we need to get agreement and consensus from all parties involved to prevent stuff like this happening again. I have notified the IP about this discussion, let's see what they have to say. Giant Snowman 17:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay - that's why I opened the thread at ANI although I'd much rather have this discussion here. In my opinion Gregory was a he and then when he/she became Gloria we use her and she...Modernist (talk) 17:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, fair enough. Have you posted at any LGBT or related noticeboards/WikiProjects etc. for input? They're probably the best people to explain these kind of matters... Giant Snowman 18:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea, got a link?..Modernist (talk) 18:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Noticeboard. Cheers, Giant Snowman 18:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Using the prefered gender reference of any specific community is only going to fire up the other community. How about setteling for a totally gender-neutral tone and using the last name instead (i.e., she attended whatever shool becomes Hemingway attended whatever school) W4chris (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I like W4chris's proposal--which should be done across the board anyway. The IPs comments have some validity but not in editorial terms; if the argument is that plumbing determines nothing, then they practically call upon studying the brains of the subject of any biography. Drmies (talk) 18:20, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As it relates to fathering children, fact is that Hemingway fathered, that is to say, was the supplier of the sperm, rather than mothered, involving one's uterus and cervix. Using any gender neutral tone in this specific instance will cause confusion and cause this issue to fire up again. W4chris (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for input here: [1]...Modernist (talk) 18:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So how do we proceed? I think we should use he and him and then she and her after the change...Modernist (talk) 18:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know this can fast become a hot, emotionally charged topic and, personally, I appreciate the civility of these discussions. I would encourage others to comment but would perfer that we keep this very unemotional as, in my opinion, the issue at hand is really gramatics not a debate on transgender. Thanks all! W4chris (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that we should keep this as civil as possible; we're simply trying to be as accurate & respectful as possible. Now that it's been suggested above, I'd be happiest with absolutely general-neutral language - use of surname instead of he/she, and use 'had 8 children' (or similar) rather than 'fathered 8 children.' Giant Snowman 18:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

hows bout " Hemingway was the biological parent of 8 children." W4chris (talk) 18:57, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds a bit...clinical...but it works, I suppose! Giant Snowman 19:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Making any pronoun moves here yet is premature because it's still too tricky - was it his wife or her wife?...Modernist (talk) 19:25, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, nothing wrong with "Hemingway's wife" IMO. Giant Snowman 19:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article looks right now...Modernist (talk) 20:11, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At first I found the entry unreadable, not only because of the pronoun confusion, but because of the lack of flow. I've tried to shuffle its contents into something that closely approximates chronological order. And I've added some details, quotes, and citations along the way. I have much more to add. I think discussing GH's gender issues in some detail would be helpful. It's not just a question of a physical change but, as I explain a bit more below, GH's complex shifting of identities in the course of a day. There's much more to be mined in the various memoirs and Gregory/Gloria's own writing if someone is seriously interested in GH and not just the syntax issue.

I had to make pronoun choices along the way, but I wasn't trying to "take a position". The Manual of Style with respect to identity says: "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to using the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification." Gregory was born male. He had surgery and took the name Gloria. But apparently GH presented as a man once more when remarrying Ida. Obituaries say "known as Gloria" and "often dressed as a woman" and GH clearly died in the Women's Detention Center. Just before death, one obit says: "He gave [arresting officers] the name Greg Hemingway, then later changed it to Gloria, the report added." Yet the Chicago Tribune says: "For the most part, Hemingway lived as a man after his sex change." And says he had his one breast implant removed. Also: "Hemingway mostly went by the name Greg or Gregory in the Grove, where he frequented the Taurus Ale House, a neighborhood bar and restaurant, in men's attire." A drinking buddy says: "And he was just one of the guys."

It would be hard to create a more complex scenario. One of the sources, actually a compilation of obituaries, calls it (somewhat argumentatively) a case of "transition failure." It was certainly incomplete. I've tried to use (I hope consistently) he/him/his until the surgery and she/her after as Modernist suggested. I think that works for the reader. I hope it helps to have the children produced before the gender reassignment surgery. And to avoid pronouns as much as possible. I hope we can respect GH and not shrink from describing GH's troubled history. And avoid creating comprehension issues for the reader. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So far you've done a terrific job in a very complicated biography...Modernist (talk) 21:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have broken the article down into a few more sections on the basis that the whole thing is a biography so having a "Biography" section is redundant. I also moved the marriage details to later in the article just before the details of his children. Hope I didn't screw up Bmclaughlin9's excellent work on the pronouns. – ukexpat (talk) 13:20, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved one sentence that the sectioning makes clear was misplaced. Other than that...

You've undone the chronology, which was fundamental to what I was doing. In a proper chronological account, we can say "he" and then switch as needed to "she" at the time of surgery. By putting GH's marriages way at the end, you now shift back to "he", which is just the kind of thing I was trying to avoid.

Some sectioning makes sense, but a one-sentence section for "Medical practice" suggests we haven't got it right. The separate sections for "Gender dysphoria and health issues" and "Transition" really make no sense to me at all. They tell a continuous story, interrupted by a sentence about bipolar disorder that might just as easily be batched with the difficulties that caused the suspension of GH's medical license. As for the heading "Transition" itself, a heading should be comprehensible at first glance. One shouldn't have to read what follows to make sense of the section head. And for all the fussing about pronouns, we now have a pronoun in a heading, "Relationship with his father", which is a highlighting of "he" I was trying to avoid. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My advise is for you to trust your judgment; put the chronology right and try to integrate as many headings as you can...Modernist (talk) 17:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the absence of a reply from ukexpat I'll give it a shot. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 20:21, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Time

So, why did Time magazine have it in for this guy/gal? I think there's a story in that and it would be good to have this expanded upon. 75.48.8.163 (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear use of last name as identifier

There are several paragraphs which use the last name "Hemingway" alone as an identifier. Since so much of this article is about Gregory's relationship with Ernest, it become very unclear who is the subject and who the object of many sentences. TraceySwans (talk) 19:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

74.132.73.137 (talk) 01:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pronouns revisited

An IP editor has sought to change all the occurrences of "he" to "she", and "Gregory" to "Gloria". I think this needs to be discussed here. Reading through the article, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of consistency in Hemingway's own mind and actions, and since he is discussed in secondary sources primarily as a male, that seems the most reasonable way for this article to go. St Anselm (talk) 05:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This page must be changed to reflect their preferred pronouns and name change. As a trans woman, this is really upsetting to see a few ignorant cisgender people strong arming any attempts to rectify this wack situation.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE* see other Wikipedia articles of (even recently transitioned) trans people such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Jane_Grace

That page was able make the necessary changes (including discography) so it can be done here too. If this doesn't make sense to you you need to educate yourself or step aside and let others fix this mess. You need to listen to what trans people are saying because you are ignorant on this subject. If news agencies such as AP can update their policy regarding pronouns/preferred name, so can Wikipedia. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.214.2 (talk) 17:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the situation here is the same, especially since there is doubt as to what extent a transition was made. We need to rely on what is stated in reliable sources. One thing you might consider is to post a request for comment, so that we can get some other opinions on the matter. In any case, thank you for discussing the matter here. St Anselm (talk) 20:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just a further comment, MOS:IDENTITY says "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification." The thing is, it is not totally clear about the "latest expressed gender self-identification" in this case, according to the reliable sources. St Anselm (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Her latest expressed gender self-identification was certainly as a woman. She identified as such to the police who arrested her, and died in the women's prison. For example, despite consistently mis-gendering her, this article makes it clear that she considered herself to be a woman when she died. Cite it, if you need to. I'd like to point out that it's extraordinarily dis-respectful both to Gloria and to the trans* community at large for this article to mis-gender her in this way, and if it were somehow called for in Wikipedia's policy (it's clear to me that it's not) then the policy would be what needs to change.74.132.73.137 (talk) 01:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There have been discussion about changing the policy at MOS:IDENTITY, but that has been more in the line of including a reference to "reliable sources". Wikipedia is not a place to right great wrongs. St Anselm (talk) 02:41, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As it is, the policy is pretty clear. She identified as a woman later in life and underwent surgery. Since there doesn't seem to be any evidence otherwise, the the page should be changed to comply with MOS:IDENTITY. 216.15.5.163 (talk) 05:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And the surgery was reversed. There isn't a clear, uniform gender self-identification, even at the end of life. St Anselm (talk) 05:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What? The genital surgery was never reversed (which is impossible anyway with current technology), and I see no indication of regret. Only an implant in one breast was removed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What name/pronoun secondary sources use is irrelevant. MOS:IDENTITY makes it clear that name and pronoun usage should be based on self-identification. In this case it looks like female pronouns are appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.5.163 (talk) 05:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, see: "When he was arrested just days before his death, he first gave the police the name Greg Hemingway, then changed it to Gloria." Hemingway clearly desired to be seen as female, but likely struggled with practical issues and adaptation (the usual reasons for full or partial detransition). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 29 January 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 12:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gregory Hemingway → Gloria Hemingway – Wikipedia's MOS says a trans woman's article should never be under her male birth name Georgia guy (talk) 15:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Firstly, "Gregory" is far and away the most common name in reliable sources. Secondly, I don't think the exception in MOS:IDENTITY applies, since it is very difficult to work out what Hemingway's "latest expressed gender self-identification" was - there has been considerable controversy over this, as outlined in the article. And the MOS does not say that the birth name should never be used; in this situation, it seems that Hemingway generally preferred "Gregory". St Anselm (talk) 19:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You mean, there's dispute as to whether this person actually is a trans woman?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And in response to your "Firstly..." sentence, do you think WP:POVNAMING takes priority over MOS:IDENTITY?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is dispute about that. It was the subject of a court case, but there was an out-of-court settlement. Valerie is quoted in the article as saying he developed an "alternate persona". In regards to WP:POVNAMING, I don't think "Gregory" is any more POV than "Gloria", but yes, it certainly takes precedence, since WP:POVNAMING is policy, and MOS:IDENTITY is a guideline. St Anselm (talk) 20:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You mean, you support that a trans woman should be referred to by her male birth name if at least 90% of reliable sources continue to use it?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:24, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that. What I mean that if there is a dispute about whether a person is really a trans woman, and that person generally used his or her birth name, AND the birth name is used in the vast majority of reliable sources, THEN the article can use the birth name. St Anselm (talk) 20:38, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Although StAnselm is correct in saying that policy (e.g., WP:TITLE) generally trumps guidelines (e.g., MOS:IDENTITY) to the extent of any inconsistency, the inconsistency should be resolved (see WP:POLCON: "one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice"). It is obvious that MOS:IDENTITY was written with WP:TITLE in mind as it specifically refers to it. If the policy-over-guidelines rule were strictly enforced, the exception in the second bullet point of MOS:IDENTITY would be completely ineffective, so common sense dictates that the exception should apply. The inconsistency should be reconciled by making reference to the exception in MOS:IDENTITY at WP:TITLE (and any other affected policies).

That is not to say that I support the proposed move in this case, particularly as it seems Gregory is still the most recognised name by a significant margin and the subject was less than equivocal in self-identifying as exclusively female at the time of their death based on the content of the article. —sroc 💬 17:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Most sources use "Gregory" and what little notability s/he has is for "Gregory Hemingway". — AjaxSmack 02:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I read WP:MOS and found nothing regarding this. Oppose I guess Red Slash 04:34, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose this person is dead. The BLP issue and MOSIDENTITY based on BLP issues does not apply. Being dead, use WP:UCN to determine the name, from recent sources. -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 11:39, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You mean, when Chelsea Manning dies, it will start to make sense to move her article back to Bradley?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, but not necessarily... what we would do once a subject dies depends on what the sources written after her death do... if sources written after the subject's death revert to using "Bradley" then so would we (per COMMONNAME)... but if they continue to refer to her as "Chelsea" then we would do so as well. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would be interested to see the name recorded on death records. I also question how applicable MOS "bureaucracies" (as I sometimes see them) are in this. "Gloria Hemingway" gets significant hits and it was her name in the end. Gender is generated by a 2% difference in chromosomes and I would argue that gender identity is a more relevant factor. Greg Kaye 13:55, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Since the subject has died, I agree that self-identification is no longer an issue. However, we do have to account for the historical fact that there was a name change. As with any situation where there is a change of name, the solution here is to examine what the sources written after the subject's death use. If those sources continue to use Gloria then so should we. However, if those sources reject the change of name, and revert to using Gregory, then so should we. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. To quote from the article: "Hemingway's public persona remained male. As Gregory, he gave occasional interviews about his father as late as 1999." Not generally known as Gloria. Spent 64 years living as a man and only six as a woman, and even then often used his male name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Drugs

I changed the hippie-style He experimented with drugs to He took drugs. Vmavanti changed this to Problems with illegal drugs eventually led to his arrest. (i.e. back to hippie-speak). Why not just He was arrested for taking illegal drugs.? Valetude (talk) 16:37, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hippie-speak?? Keep your bias in check. There's nothing wrong with the phrasings you don't like; they are much less colloquial than your preferred phrasings, and much more likely to be found in the mainstream press. What you describe as "hippie-speak" is simply literary English. --Florian Blaschke (talk)

Brevity is the key to good reporting. I don't think any newspaper editor would object to Illegal drug-taking eventually led to his arrest, which I have substituted today. Valetude (talk) 17:03, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization

Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex. He or She adopted feminine gender expression at sometimes. So I think we should add Category:Transgender and transsexual people to this article. --Jesamsex (talk) 01:50, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. -- irn (talk) 04:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that it is not universally recognised. As noted in the article, Time's obituary spoke in these terms, but others did not. St Anselm (talk) 19:23, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Journalism in 2020

Hi Everyone,

I'm a trans reporter doing a story for Gizmodo about how pronouns get changed on pages like this one and the discussions that go into it. If anyone would like to talk, I'd love to set up an interview. Please reach out to me at henry.giardina@gmail.com for more info, and thanks,

Henry — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hgiardina (talk • contribs) 21:12, 26 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

2021: Time to change Gregory Hemingway to Gloria Hemingway.

There is a new documentary coming out about Hemingway, called Hemingway, already released in the US, with a focus on gender issues in the Hemingway family so a lot more interest is going to come to this page soon. There’s going to be a lot of angry trans people about the way this article on GH is worded. Wikipedia has been fluffing about on this issue for fourteen years. Good to see a lot of engagement; incredibly disappointing that the transphobic views have 'won' so far. I am a transgender woman and I am appalled by the present wording for this article. I guarantee you that many others will feel the same.

I recently made significant changes to this article to make it less transphobic and more inclusive but those changes aren't there now. There is more than enough evidence that Gloria Hemingway was a transgender woman, albeit struggling with her issues and more appropriate pronouns and use of her preferred name should be given a much higher priority, to respect her situation.

There's an article or 4000 in the media that could/should come from this. Time for Wikipedia to get on the right side of this issue. Please help me. Someone gave me some advice that two 'new bits' in the recent re-write I did were too 'editorial'. Happy to get rid of them, of course. But have a look at them again, anyway. I thought they helped the reader make sense of the issues. best regards

Jesica Ward Not Snow Man or some other silly name. A real person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessica T Ward (talk • contribs) 00:09, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that you mention the documentary, because that has provoked some reporting on Gregory Hemingway in the last few weeks. The thing is, almost all the news sources call him "Gregory" and refer to him as "he". E.g. the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The second son, Gregory, led to vicious arguments after his parents’ own divorce." St Anselm (talk) 03:47, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple of issues that merit discussion. First, the article is in poor shape, to some extent because of an abundance of editing and poor sourcing. It's important to understand that Gregory/Gloria's notability (as with Ernest Hemingway's wives, lovers, other sons, friends, etc. etc. etc.) derives from the author. Because there are good scholarly biographies of Ernest Hemingway we know a fair amount about Gregory/Gloria until his father's death and it would be best to source this article to those biographies. For his later years it's trickier but again, it's best to avoid tabloids, or even newspapers that derive material directly from the Ernest Hemingway biographies, i.e the one above (I've cited that incident to Michael Reynolds, a respected Hemingway biographer).

In terms of pronouns, it's tricky. Like all Hemingways, it's difficult to discern the truth - for which we need to search for good sources. If they don't exist then we can only say what we can find, no more no less. If indeed she thought of herself as Gloria and we can reliably cite that with strong RS then we should consider changing the pronouns. When I worked on this article 10 years or so ago it seemed that Gregory/Gloria's life was a bit murky and hard to source. Ten years later it seems the same to me. What we shouldn't be doing is edit warring re pronouns. It's a tragic, somewhat ambiguous, and very Hemingway-esqe life. Victoria (tk) 23:54, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there was a scholarly article published just last year focusing on the latter part of his life: Jeffrey Meyers, "Gregory Hemingway: Transgender Tragedy," American Imago 77.2 (2020). And yes - it does use masculine pronouns. St Anselm (talk) 10:06, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks StAnselm for finding that. It's a really strong source and probably that and the articles it references can be used to rewrite our article. That's some tough reading! Have you read it and do you have access? If not, I'd be happy to send it on to you or anyone else who wants. Also there's a WaPo piece referenced that I've downloaded (haven't read it yet) that can be shared too. Obviously Gregory was a transvestite from an early age; I'm still processing the rest. Victoria (tk) 20:12, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, I just read the abstract and the first page. St Anselm (talk) 20:19, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I had thought about going through in the index in Meyer's biography of Ernest to pick out bits about Gregory, and had hoped that one of the biographers would write about Gregory, which would be more focused and easier research - which Meyers has done here. Meyers was meticulous in meeting everyone in preparation for his bio of Ernest, so this adds a lot of info. It's worth reading. I've created a "Further reading" section and added it and a WaPo piece. Meyers's piece has a fair number of references so will see if I can find others. Victoria (tk) 20:51, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've never used the talk pages so bear with me, but I was the one who made the recent pronoun changes and linked the wiki policy on gender identity. I made those changes after watching the new Hemingway documentary and listening to actual people who knew Gloria talk about her and her life. It might be murky because of the times she lived in, but they literally discuss her wanting to wear women's clothes as a small child and throughout her life. In that documentary they state that the fight which killed Pauline was actually after Gloria was arrested while wearing women's clothes, against what was reported here. I also based my edit's on Wikipedia's own stated policy, that that person's most recent preferred pronouns be respected. I'm not sure you'll see this, but I think that article sounds very interesting especially considering that policy and how its seemingly often disregarded.

I do think there should be some balance considering she was a figure known as a man throughout her life, but the bottom line is respecting her identity. And if you're at all familiar with stories like this, it's obvious that she was a trans woman, living in a time that was not kind to trans women. It was safer to live as a man even considering who her father was, not that recently was much better. Some of the stuff on this talk page has not aged well to say the least. She admitted to having dysphoria and went through the trouble of medically transitioning. Those aren't just "body mods" as a previous user called them. And I know the documentary isn't a perfect source considering they still refer to her using Gregory and he/him, but its very likely they had the same issues we're having here.

My point here is just that considering Wiki's own policies and respect for her preferences in life, she/her pronouns should at the very least be used more frequently here. With he/him pronouns only used when absolutely necessary for clarity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:300:1EC0:60E3:5D1E:370D:A398 (talk) 07:42, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for posting here, and your civil tone. It's hard to have a discussion when accusations of transphobia are being thrown around. Now, let's look at MOS:GENDERID: "Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources."

First of all, this is a guideline, not a policy. Secondly, we don't actually know Hemingway's "preferred pronouns" at any stage of life. Thirdly, both the name usage and clothing were inconsistent throughout life. Fourthly, we are really pushing the boundaries of "latest expressed gender self-identification" if we rely on Hemingway changing his name for the police file, especially since eye-witness reports suggest he was not in his right mind that night ("intoxicated or mentally impaired"). Fifthly, the most recent reliable sources (such as the journal article cited above) do indeed use "Gregory" and "he". St Anselm (talk) 11:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, according to the Meyers source cited above, the police arrested G. Hemingway for indecent exposure "while walking naked and carrying women's clothing." Meyers goes on to say that in the mug shot G. looks like a man wearing a messy wig, and that the police classified Hemingway "as a female and was held for five days in the Women's Detention Center". Gregory Hemingway: Transgender Tragedy Meyers, p. 414. Meyers also explains that Gloria was a name commonly used after undergoing sex change surgery in Colorado in 1994. He goes on the say that "he regretted his confused and irreversible decision. But even after his sex change, he showed no sexual interest in men, but tried to pick them up in bars only to see if he could attract them as a woman." p. 412 This is where all the ambiguities come in. It's unclear what he considered his identity to be.

Yes, the Meyers' piece uses male pronouns throughout and from what I can find it's the most recently published piece - and by a respected Hemingway scholar who knew the family. Victoria (tk) 20:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Updating Hemingway's Photo and Discussion of Name/Pronoun Updates

At the moment, the main picture for the article is from when Hemingway was approximately 10 years old. However, MOS:IDINFO states we should "Avoid using an out-of-date, pre-coming-out photo of a transgender subject as a lead image. If no other photos are available, it is generally better to have no lead image at all." The fact Hemingway was a child in the photo only adds to the fact we should update it. I've been able to find only two images in which Gloria was presenting as herself, both from the night of her arrest, one of which is accessible here: https://turtledove.fandom.com/wiki/Gregory_Hemingway?file=GregoryHemingway-1-.jpg under a license that suggests we can use it. Given the fact that Hemingway was presenting as a woman at the time of her death, gave the name Gloria and was detained in the women's prison, the picture should reflect her most final identification.

Also, while I've seen the fact she was intoxicated that night raised, whether that influences her ability to state her name is subjective, and one could easily say "in vino veritas." Furthermore, the night before she had gone to a party as a woman and been sober, happy, and comfortable in herself. Once imprisoned, there is no evidence suggesting she changed her name from Gloria. Though many reports use her birth name, it's worth noting that there's no evidence she condoned that, many trans people are misgendered before and after death, even by family. The reports also tend to pathologize her gender, noting her use of Gloria but portraying it as evidence of a split persona or caused by trauma rather than simply a request to be referred to by another name. Other published sources have noted and condemned this fact.

I've also updated the page to include more reports of her gender exploration during childhood. She referred to herself as an "obsessive transvestite" and recalled that conversion therapy didn't work. While transvestite may mean when translated literally cross-dresser, at the time it was the DSM diagnosis for trans women who were attracted to women while transsexual was the diagnosis for trans women attracted to men, a distinction which has been criticized and removed from more modern editions of the DSM for homophobia (it was often linked to denying trans lesbians treatments on the basis trans women should exclusively be interested in men). She stated her father's initial reaction to discovering her "cross-dressing" left an imprint on her for years and that she hid it struggled with acceptance. She talked about how ashamed and scared she was people would reject her for it. The fact she occasionally had to present as a man doesn't discount her being a trans women.

The assessment that her transition was incomplete at the time of her death is also subjective and one only she can make. Furthermore, it assumes that transition follows solely one linear track by which it can by valid. On another note, she had SRS (which means that she would have had to be prescribed some kind of sex hormone after, most likely estrogen), which would explain the appearance of breast growth in the second (and topless) police photo. We can't know considering the medical records from her death were closed, but it's something I felt needed to be pointed out. Some family members have also claimed she died due to not having access to her medication, and considering the effects of lack of sex hormones include increased blood pressure and risk of heart attacks it's very possible that lack could have contributed to her death.

In short, she recognized she had clinically significant gender dysphoria, attempted conversion therapy to no avail, and had explored her gender since childhood. Though she continued to present as a man in public on occasions, she also cited her fear of being rejected for being herself. The night before her death she appeared as a woman to friends she'd been closeted with and was reported as being happy. The night of her arrest, she gave the name Gloria and called herself a woman, and no evidence suggests she changed her identification after.

In order to give the most accurate portrayal of her life, and also honor her in death, we should at the very least update her picture, and should re-open discussions on changing the article name and pronouns.

TheTranarchist (talk) 20:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Your point about "transvestite" no longer used as a category is a good one - the thing is, calling Hemingway a "transgender woman" would be anachronistic, because there is no evidence that he called himself, or even thought of himself, in those terms. As far as the photo goes, there are a number of problems with the one you're suggesting, including the license. St Anselm (talk) 15:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1) Hemingway did not identify as a "transgender woman" specifically, she described herself as a "transsexual" and, as said, "transvestite", which was the DSM diagnosis for transgender woman who were attracted to women. She attempted to "cure" herself to no avail (conversion therapy isn't recognized as effective or ethical by nearly all health organizations) but remained, in her words, "an obsessive transvestite". While she didn't explicitly use the term "transgender", she used the terms which now fall under the transgender umbrella and current DSM definition (which removed sexuality based modifiers for gender dysphoria). In addition, she was diagnosed with gender dysphoria (at the time, "Gender Identity Disorder") by a doctor to receive her treatments. Part of the reason for the name change has been attempts to de-stigmatize being transgender and make clear that it is not a mental illness. Thus, she recognized she had clinically significant dysphoria and was diagnosed as such by a doctor. The fact "transgender" now means what "transsexual" and "transvestite" used to doesn't mean we can't use it.

2) To that effect, the fact many sources continued to use her legal name speaks more to bias than to Gloria's own wishes. In most of the material surrounding her, the name Gloria is used in an offhand way. Phrases like, "Gregory called himself Gloria", from others diminish her right to her own identity by presuming the authors wish to call her Gregory supersedes her wish to be known as Gloria. Many sources, such as Meyers piece, explicitly frame being trans as a result of trauma or confusion (which is rightly critiqued in other papers).

From Meyers: "But his more serious surgical operations distorted rather than clarified his personality. Greg would do anything spectacular, no matter how self-destructive to call attention to himself, rather than to his role as Ernest’s son. He thought he could escape from his overwhelming problems as a man by becoming a woman. But suspended precariously between two genders, he did not fully belong to either one. His sex change not only rejected his father’s super-masculine values, but also the very concept of masculinity. By assuming a female identity, Greg also killed an essential part of himself."

As should be apparent, this is incredibly biased and entirely opinion. The consideration that being trans is natural human variation is missing from the piece; it frames being trans as running away from masculinity/Gloria's role as Ernest's son, refers to a surgery she referred to as one of the best things she'd done as "self-destructive", and says that calling herself a woman was killing part of herself. This is not only incredibly biased, shoving the author's pathologizing interpretation of why she was trans and how that was bad down people's throats as fact, but completely medically unsupported (as mentioned, she had a diagnosis of dysphoria, which nearly all medical orgs say is best treated with hormones and affirmation of identity). If this author is an expert, I eagerly await his paper concerning causes (apparently running away from being a man or transitioning medically for attention/spectacle) and treatment (apparently invalidating identity and refusing medical transition) of gender dysphoria. Until then, I'll stick with the definition as defined by scientific consensus (which luckily long ago abandoned such theories).

From Valerie: "All his life Greg fought a losing battle against this crippling illness. He lacked critical early help because his parents were unable or unwilling to accept his condition nor could he come to terms with it himself for a long time, taking up the study of medicine in the hope that he would find a cure, or at least a solace. Failing that, he developed an alternate persona, a character into which he could retreat from the unbearable responsibilities of being, among other things, his father's son, and of never ever measuring up to what was expected of him, or to what he expected of himself."

Here we see an acknowledgement that Gloria suffered from gender dysphoria her whole life. That her parents didn't accept it and she tried and failed to find a cure. However, it then refers to her living as a woman as an "alternate persona" caused by failing to measure up to her father's expectations. Had us in the first half, not gonna lie. However, once again her saying she's a woman and wants to be called Gloria is pathologized. Instead of taking her request at face value, it's said to be an escape and a fake persona. This is not a position supported by any medical organization.

On a personal note, as a trans person myself, I can attest for many trans people the idea of our family continuing to refuse to use our names in death terrifies us but happens often. Being buried with the wrong grave and your identity written away isn't neutral. Pathologization of trans people is rampant, and if I had a dime for every friend who's family considers them mentally ill, hurting themselves, or lying for living freely as themselves I'd be rich. Or richer by a few dollars, but still. On a scientific note, pathologizing being trans is generally regarded as the wrong move by medical consensus based on large scale studies of it's effects.

2) She did state her preferred name and pronouns. First, going by Valerie Hemingway's Running With the Bulls: "I hoped that the change would give Greg—or Gloria, as he called himself—the peace and contentment he was looking for." (Note again, a begrudging acceptance by others Gloria called herself Gloria coupled with continued use of Gregory). If we are going by her last identification, the night before her arrest she presented as a woman and was said to be happy and confident, and called her sex-change the best thing to happen to her. The night of her arrest, she was dressed as a woman, spoke about being transsexual with her arresting officer (not on WP but in strange tribe), and was detained/died in the women's facility. The [last photograph of her] taken when she was arrested notes that she went by Gloria.

3) I agree about the photo, and am trying to find one with an appropriate license. I'm also seeing what I can do about licensing them myself. If I do, I'll upload it.

4) To conclude, Gloria Hemingway was a transgender woman. She suffered from gender dysphoria her whole life. "Transvestite" and "Transsexual" were medical diagnoses that were later collapsed into the transgender umbrella due to needlessly differentiating between gay and straight trans people. They were replaced with the diagnosis Gender Dysphoria to refer to the suffering that trans people experience not being able to live as themselves rather than pathologizing being transgender itself. She was diagnosed with dysphoria and was able to get gender confirming surgery (at a time when the protocols for doing so were stricter). Considering she had medically recognizable dysphoria, spoke about it often and her futile attempts to rid herself of it, called herself Gloria (and even those who call her Gregory acknowledge she called herself Gloria), spent her last night free as a woman and was happy about her decision, and was arrested under the name Gloria in a women's detention center, it's hard to say she didn't want to be known as Gloria. Finally, other Wikipedia pages don't split such hairs about whether historical figures are transgender (Lili Elbe) if they didn't explicitly use that label, when the evidence is so clear that they were.

TheTranarchist (talk) 20:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

TheTranarchist, you are providing an historian's evaluation. In the case of Hemingway, however, other historians disagree with you. I had a look at the Lili Elbe article and it's terrible: it says "She was a successful painter under her birth name" but doesn't say what that birth name was. This is taking modern sensibilities about deadnaming and applying it to people 100 years ago. This has nothing to do with the subject's wishes. In any case, even if we establish that Hemingway preferred "Gloria" (and I don't think we have), we still haven't established a preference for feminine pronouns. St Anselm (talk) 02:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

StAnselm, which part is a historian's evaluation? These are all facts corroborated by multiple sources.

1) Gloria Hemingway spoke about how she was an "obsessive transvestite " and "transsexual."

2) She tried desperately to cure herself but no methods worked. Not so coincidentally, conversion therapy to change gender identity is not recognized as ethical or effective.

3) She was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. "This piece of paper means that if I’m picked up in drag, I’m covered because the doctor will vouch that I’m a patient in the preliminary stages of becoming a transsexual" - Gloria Hemingway (1974), speaking about being Harry Benjamin's patient (Running with the Bulls p 295)

4) According to more recent changes to the DSM, the diagnostic terms transvestite and transsexual as disorders in themselves has been replaced with gender dysphoria as something transgender people experience.

5) The night before her arrest, she went to a party presenting as a women, was regarded as being sober and in good spirits by others, and spoke about how good the sex-change was for her.

6) Gloria was arrested wearing (or more accurately carrying) women's clothes, spoke about being a transsexual, used the name Gloria, and died in the Women's detention center.

7) Sources that refer to her as Gregory still acknowledge she called herself Gloria but pathologize being trans.

8) While male pronouns are generally used, this has been critiqued for pathologizing trans people. In addition, here's a quote from Strange Tribe (p 179) acknowledging she used "she" even if other's didn't "Unsettling, if only for a second, to look at this person with the lipstrick and the wig, who was grinning and whispering to you through the window, and to think that he (or, rather, she) was your father"

In terms of what other historians disagree about specifically (since I've raised a few points and don't believe all are false), please cite them for the general discussion rather than just referring to them. In addition, please cite sources that back their conjectures about what caused her to be trans or how being trans was a split persona or somehow in itself a bad thing or not deserving of recognition. Until then, I think the the following facts aren't merely matters of historical opinion:

1) Medical professionals at the time (such as those who treated her) recognized she was trans and that medical intervention was best for her, and she was open about that.

2) The current medical consensus is that being transgender is not a symptom or pathology or caused by Freudian theories but rather normal variation in humans.

3) Both past and modern consensus was that trans people deserve medical treatment and to be called by their chosen names and pronouns.

I wasn't referring to the fact Lili Elbe's deadname is missing, I was referring to the fact that transgender is used to encompass older definitions which meant the same thing but pathologized being trans. In terms of modern sensibilities, I added a reference to The Advocate which published an article a month after her death. In it, transgender organizations speak out about the coverage, how she was mistreated, and how her daughter Lorian sympathizes and is partly glad Gloria died in a women's detention center since she died as herself. I don't believe Gloria's deadname should be completely removed, since she was very prominent as Gregory. However, as per MOS:GENDERID Gloria should be the main name used. It should be mentioned she was born Gregory, and when she first started using the name Gloria. Apart from that, using Gregory throughout the article is completely unnecessary.

In short, we should at a minimum update the name because there is clear evidence she preferred it. The fact others refused to respect does not reflect on the validity of her identity. The pronouns are a but more difficult, however given she referred to herself as a woman and had a certificate of her gender identity it can assumed she preferred "she" (the DSM both then and now defends proper pronoun and name usage). That is in addition to the Strange tribe reference. While there is a lot of evidence she preferred to be recognized as a woman, there is no statement where she unequivocally said she prefers to be called "he". She grew up being called "he" and Gregory most of her life. That would be the default if she had been cisgender. However, she suffered from gender dysphoria (Not feeling aligned with your assigned gender at birth) and in her final years she called herself Gloria and a woman, which was supported by her doctors as well (medical consensus then and now). As per MOS:IDINFO, if we can't reach consensus and aren't sure about pronouns, we should be using "they/them". "They" is most neutral to settle this debate, while "she" affirms her identity (not only her lifelong experience as a closeted then uncloseted trans woman but also her most final identifications) and is most likely what she would prefer. Insisting on "he" is purely POV, very unlikely what she would have preferred (according to medical consensus both then and now, the vast majority of trans people don't appreciate being misgendered), and is against Wikipedia policy.

TheTranarchist (talk) 20:36, 2 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

I agree with you that the article name is a different issue to that of the pronouns (though they are related). And informing both of those is the issue of whether Hemingway was a trans woman. But that should not be included in the article without a reliable source: all we have is Meyer saying that Hemingway "remained an obsessive transvestite" and Time describing Hemingway as "transsexual". (I note in passing that the Transsexual article says "some transsexual people reject the label of transgender.") The The New Hemingway Studies (published 2020) also calls Hemingway "transsexual". So I understand your argument, but I don't think it's quite as clear as you make out. Just because these words are not used today, it doesn't mean we should revise all previous uses of them. As far as historians go, I was thinking of Meyers (whom you quoted yourself) saying, "suspended precariously between two genders, he did not fully belong to either one". You may reject that evaluation, but you should realize that you are substituting your own evaluation in its place. As far as the name goes, I think you are misreading the nature of the shift from Gregory to Gloria. It was by no means uniform. A police officer from the jail is quoted as saying, "Sometimes he'd be Greg, sometimes we'd have him as Gloria". Paul Hendrickson calls him, at the time of his death, "Vanessa or Gloria or Greg or Gigi or whoever he was at that moment". In other words, Hemingway himself was not consistent, and did not have a clearly expressed preference for his first name. St Anselm (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, she received a diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (was recognized as a trans woman by her doctor), received the surgery, appreciated it, often went by Gloria, and stated that she was a woman. She called herself an obsessive transvestite in an interview, and spoke about her attempts to cure it. Also, I am not substituting my evaluation, I am referring to the facts and the medical diagnoses Gloria was given which run completely contrary to Meyer's unfounded conjectures about the cause of being trans and the damage it was. Why is his opinion that she would have been better off without surgery somehow more valid than 1) The doctors who diagnosed her 2) the consensus of the medical community and 3) her own statements on the matter?

I would like to thank you for the addition of that source, to expand on it:

What preceded the "or whoever" quote was "“Hello, Greg,” Myers said, trying to be casual. “No, it’s Vanessa,” Gigi said evenly. “Oh, right, okay, Vanessa,” Myers said." In short, clear evidence that she didn't want to be called Greg/Gregory. Furthermore, the quote, "Vanessa or Gloria or Greg or Gigi or whoever he was at that moment" is trivializing and not evidence. Gigi is a childhood nickname, not a preferred name (evidence of Gloria using it herself or asking for it to be used does not exist, or at least is completely un-sourced in the book). For some reason it's used throughout the book. Vanessa was used only few times, and was her daughter's name. Gloria was consistently reported as used for years and Greg was the name she was born which people call you no matter what you try, trust me. This kind of phrase is something my own family has repeated many times and has been repeated by the family's of friends. When we say please refer to us as X, they're often quick to say "fine X OR deadname OR childhood nickname OR name you chose before settling on this one OR transformers OR whatever" etc. It's a dismissive statement about the validity of our names rather than reflection of actual validity.

In terms of the prison experience: ""“A lot of the guards would still remember him,” said Janelle Hall, a public affairs officer from the corrections department, when I visited the jail. “Very interesting case. We had him in here several times. People liked him. Highly intelligent. He didn’t cause us trouble. He went by this other name—” “Gloria,” I said. “That’s right. Sometimes he’d be Greg, sometimes we’d have him as Gloria.”" (532) Clear evidence that while in holding she went by Gloria. A bit more ambiguity does come in with the "sometimes he'd be Greg" part. Most likely that refers to her previous stints in there. In addition, in prison they often use your legal name without regards to your preferences.

A few nights ago before her final arrest she was arrested on a bus for indecent exposure: "“Let me show you that I’m a woman,” he yelled at the officers. “Are you going to make me put down my skirt? You can get hurt that way.” It took three policemen to subdue him. (They hit him in the shin with an ASP baton, but not before he’d gotten one of them in the groin with the spike of his high heel and had put another on the ground with a bloody mouth.) They booked him as John Doe; later, he told them to put down Gloria Hemingway" (524)

In addition, we should remove the opinion "Hemingway's transition from male to female was a long process left incomplete at his death." Part of that is that whether or not transition is a success does not depend on surgery, medical treatment, or final appearance, but rather a person's comfort with themselves (which is often tied to those things). In addition, according to the police report/her final picture, she had breasts. According to Autopsy report Case No. 01-2325, Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department: "There is slight female breast development, with the left breast larger than the right. The abdomen is flat. The back has a normal contour and the anus is without lesions. The external genitalia are phenotypically female with labia, urethra and vagina. The extremities are symmetric and the joints are not deformed. All digits are present. The fingernails are long and painted pink. The toenails are thick and painted pink." (463)

If anything, according to this source we have more evidence that

1) She did not like being called Gregory, in increasing likelihood of preference we have Gigi, Vanessa, Gloria.

2) In prison when asked about "Greg", an officer said "[she] went by this other name", Gloria.

3) She considered herself a woman and was willing to fight over it

TheTranarchist (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

You may well be right, but I hope you realize that what you're doing is original synthesis. St Anselm (talk) 02:29, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Original synthesis may very well apply to some parts of what I wrote. Not bad syntheses if I say so myself. Unfortunately, as a general rule people don't tend to have essays proving whether or not they're really trans (and unless written by the person in question, they're merely speculation not fact). In any situation regarding someone's name and pronouns, it's best to listen to the person's own thoughts on the matter. Here they are:

1) Multiple sources corroborated Gloria said she was a women, preferred "she" pronouns, and described herself as a transsexual and/or transvestite .

2) Multiple sources corroborated that Gloria received a certificate of "Gender Identity Disorder" (the medical diagnosis applied to trans women at the time).

In other words, she and her doctor seemed to think she was trans. More than that, the treatment considered most helpful was sex-change surgery and respect/validation of her identity. In addition, gender dysphoria (previously GID) is not recognized as curable by any means other than affirmation according to the DSM. But I'm sure we know better.

3) The sources which used the name Greg or "he" acknowledged she used Gloria and she, even if they didn't use it themselves. They reported the fact she was trans, layered with their opinion that that was in itself a bad thing.

Immediately after her death an article was published calling her a trans woman and critiquing the coverage which pathologized trans people and didn't use her name/pronouns (handily backed by the DSM-5).

If a source said person X wasn't really gay, they were really straight and only thought they were attracted to men because of trauma or mental health issues, we would not accept that as a valid evidence person X was straight and not gay. Especially if person X stated they were gay. We would accept that as evidence they were gay and other's didn't believe it. Same principle applies.

5) Multiple sources corroborated she was arrested under the name Gloria Hemingway, and was detained/died in a women's detention center.

6) In her arrest photo, the name Gloria is used as her alias (AKA the name she answered too) in between her legal names. When asked about "Greg", guards said she went by another name, Gloria.

In short, it's not original synthesis to point out that across sources a person repeatedly labelled themselves trans and used the name Gloria and then conclude they probably considered themselves trans and went by Gloria. Nor is it original synthesis to point out that those same sources said she died in a women's prison and used the name Gloria. For your benefit, if anything, original synthesis is more along the lines of concluding that though her doctor said she was trans, she said she was trans (publicly and privately), and she died in a women's detention center she wasn't really trans because she may have been intoxicated when arrested. To quickly look at our MOS:GENDERID and MOS:IDINFO requirements:

1) "Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise. "

Unless very much mistaken, we have plenty of evidence she went by Gloria and considered herself a women in her final days (latest expressed gender self-identification). In addition, the fact others refer to her as a man doesn't mean anything compared to her own statements on the matter.

2) "Specific guidelines apply to any person whose gender might be questioned, and any living transgender or non-binary person. In summary: Use gendered words only if they reflect the person's latest self-identification as reported in recent sources."

Once again, unless very much mistaken, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that her latest self-identification was as a man. However, there is plenty she considered herself a woman. Therefore, at best we should be using "she/her", failing that a compromise of "they/them." There is no justification to preserve the articles usage of "he".

If you have evidence of later identifications (bit difficult considering she was going by Gloria and in a women's detention center when she died (and was revealed to have died in women's clothes)), please share them. Til then I think we've established the name and pronouns should be changed.

TheTranarchist (talk) 01:14, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Hi there,

As I wrote above, I wrote a thesis on Gregory/Gloria Hemingway and have studied this person for about eight years. I've interviewed people close to them and read just about everything written about Hemingway's third child. I will also say that I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community and a trans advocate, which is why I was drawn to Gregory/Gloria's story. Here is my opinion.

It is inaccurate to portray Gregory only as a transgender woman named Gloria, and it is equally inaccurate to label Gregory a cisgender man who was "cross-dressing" or anything similar. Though she sometimes presented as Gloria (and I do agree she should be referred to with female pronouns when presenting this way), Gregory never retired his male identity. This was true despite his surgeries and despite the circumstances surrounding his death. I actually interviewed one of his best friends, to whom Greg dedicated his memoir, who shared with me that Greg would tape down his breast implant when meeting his old friend, to keep his female identity concealed.

I have come to view Gregory as having a dual gender identity: Gregory was their male identity, and Gloria was their female identity. To place Gregory in either the "male" or "female" camp is to diminish people who have valid, non-binary gender identities and implies that people have to be "one or the other." It is perhaps most accurate to refer to Gregory as bigender. Nonetheless, Gregory died in 2001 well before our modern concept of gender and never publicly came out with any pronoun preferences or gender identity labels beyond "transexual," and was actually embarrassed of public attention that his female identity received. He had told some people (including Valerie Hemingway) that he wanted to live as Gloria permanently, but he backtracked on this decision later in life. Therefore, I have gone back and change his pronouns to he/him/his, which is what I believe he would want, though I have used she/her/hers when referring to Gloria. Nicholaslord (talk) 23:26, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

Thank you for your contribution, if you could share the thesis I'd love to read it! I've very drawn as well but only for the past 3 years. Please don't take my rollback of your edit personally, but that is something that would require consensus on this talk page first.

For what it's worth, from my own experiences, those of my friends, and research into transgender historical figures and history I'd suggest it's more accurate to describe that "male identity" as a facade rather than her own choice.

For example, that she hid her identity from a friend and taped down her breast doesn't diminish her identity. Trans people often have to present as their AGAB with old friends and family, and coming out can be an individual and person to person affair rather than a full grand declaration to the world.

While I agree that bigender and nonbinary individuals can be written out of history, this seems much more the case of being closeted in some situations rather than having two separate/fluid gender identities. Especially because the of 1) her own use of the term transsexual and 2) The fact she wanted to live as Gloria permanently points. Similarly, if a gay man had confessed to being gay and wanting to come out permanently, but had presented as straight publicly, to certain friends, and had a beard wife, we would not say they were bisexual due to ambiguity. TheTranarchist (talk) 00:32, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response! Yes, I can see how it shouldn't solely be up to me to decide how Wikipedia portrays this person's pronouns or gender identity. I can revisit my research and provide some more factual info about why I reached my conclusion, but I also value and respect your expertise. I would love for an informed group consensus to reach that decision about how we portray Gregory/Gloria Hemingway on Wikipedia.

In the meantime, I've just checked out your page and have such a deep respect for what you do - plus, I almost never get to have a conversation with someone who's informed about Gregory/Gloria Hemingway. Do you think we could chat offline? I'd love to hear more of your thoughts. nicholaslord7@gmail.com :) Nicholaslord (talk) 03:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Essay

I would like to know if anyone has thoughts on an essay for this article titled Wikipedia:Gregory or Gloria Hemingway. The essay should talk about why this article is titled Gregory Hemingway and not Gloria Hemingway despite apparently violating Wikipedia:Gender identity. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:56, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably a little pointy. There was a move discussion in 2015. It might be better to try another or an RfC. Victoria (tk) 21:04, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean MOS:GENDERID, since Wikipedia:Gender identity is another essay. St Anselm (talk) 15:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That essay says we treat transgender people by their identified gender. But I'm talking about an essay on why this is an purposely an exception. Georgia guy (talk) 16:02, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography explicitly states that "occasional exceptions may apply". On the other hand, if you look at the arguments on this talk page, many editors argued that it wasn't going against the guidelines in the first place. St Anselm (talk) 16:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pronouns & Name

It's absolutely absurd that after 15 years of discussion, Gloria Hemingway has not had her name & pronouns updated on this page despite violating Wikipedia's policy on Gender Identity. Absolutely ridiculous.

Logan Sheppard (talk) 14:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but you actually have to get consensus for that change here on the talk page. St Anselm (talk) 15:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It violates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gender_identity, & thus it must be corrected. Logan Sheppard (talk) 16:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop your edit warring. In fact, the page you link to is an essay. St Anselm (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I got the wrong page. Here is the right one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Gender_identity Logan Sheppard (talk) 17:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, said MOS section was linked in the essay. Quit being obtuse. Logan Sheppard (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are we going to have this 'discussion', then? Or are you going to continue stonewalling me? Logan Sheppard (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Page moves

The many page moves are annoying and clogging up the watchlist. Looking at the logs, the page was moved to Gloria Hemingway in 2007. I've had this page on watch since 2010. Looking at the article at the end of that year it looked like this. According to the Gloria Hemingway logs the page was moved back to Gregory in 2012. Now there's edit warring which needs to stop and there should be a Wikipedia:Requested moves with a discussion to gain consensus. Then there should be an RfC regarding the pronouns to gain consensus. In the meantime, it's nice to see all the work that's happened here. Victoria (tk) 21:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What consensus is there to gain? At the moment, this article violates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Gender_identity, & must be corrected. I'm being stonewalled by StAnselm in particular, & considering their redirect of 'birthing parent' to 'mother', I think their reluctance may in fact be tied to bad-faith editing. Logan Sheppard (talk) 16:06, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Moving Page to Gloria Hemingway and Updating Pronouns

Requested move 4 February 2022

This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 11 February 2022. The result of the move review was No consensus to overturn..

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. The only relevant point in this discussion, really, is whether Hemingway was transgender or not. This is not some case like the Chevalier d'Éon, where the issue of transgender identity is a matter of historical debate; as the article goes into detail, Hemingway struggled with crippling gender dysphoria for over three decades, and both contemporary sources and more recent sources corroborate, for the most part, her trans identity. Hence, MOS:GENDERID is the overriding policy, not WP:COMMONNAME.

It may not be readily apparent to cisgender editors, but having one's gender identity recognised is one of those sensitivities that, even if the legal principles of the BLP policy are vitiated by death, the moral principles remain, especially for people who remain in living memory (indeed, one of the etymologies for the term "deadname" relates to fears that transphobic relatives would bury a trans person under their pre-transition name). It's from that principle that GENDERID has been formulated over the past decade or so.

GENDERID applies even if sources are split on how to refer to a trans person; the Manual of Style says that we defer to the latest preference of the person themselves even if reliable sources use different terms. One should remember that around the time of Hemingway's death (especially in the Southern US), press treatment of trans issues was sensationalist at best, and also that in 2001, homosexuality was still illegal in Florida (indeed, the state's sodomy law still remains the books nearly twenty years on from Lawrence).

In all honestly, there isn't any real conflict between COMMONNAME and GENDERID. As Jayron32 points out, COMMONNAME explicitly allows for us to choose a less common article title if more commonly used names in RSes are inaccurate or problematic, and I don't think it's arguable that deadnames have such problems. And even if COMMONNAME did not have such an explicit exemption, we can always fall back to WP:IAR. In cases where we have the choice between being a stickler for the letter of the law, or bending the letter to conform to the spirit, then we should take the latter choice every day of the week.

As an aside, I'd also like to express grave concern with the glib opposition to the move that cited WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Such comments are incredibly insensitive at the best of times. Even if you disagree with the move, it should be at least recognised that TheTranarchist made a well-enough reasoned move request that deserved to be given due regard and not just dismissed out of hand. RGW should not be used as a snarl word. Sceptre (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a further elaboration on the above, I'd like to include the following reply to StAnselm from my talk page here:

The mention of BLP does not make it into a supervote; its presence is to explain the historical importance and application of MOS:GENDERID. As I mentioned, BLP doesn't apply in the case of Hemingway — she died over 20 years ago — but the ethical and moral considerations that underpin BLP are wide-ranging, and GENDERID is just a consequence of the idea that biographies should not needlessly cause grief.
The colour of a tick on a Wikipedia policy/guideline does not imply, and has never implied, precedence. The only policies that have automatic precedence over anything else are the legal policies. GENDERID is a part of the Manual of Style and arguing for the disapplication of the MoS because "it's just a guideline" is just silly. Rather, policies and guidelines are complementary to each other and have overlapping, but not completely coterminous, areas of application.
When closing discussions, the closer needs to weigh up the arguments and the application of standard practice. Specifically, one can not make a lasting closure in contradiction with policies and guidelines, because local consensus cannot override a wider consensus the they enjoy. As pointed out by Jayron32 (inter alia), there is no conflict with COMMONNAME and GENDERID, because COMMONNAME has, by necessity, exceptions wide enough to drive a bus through them, whereas GENDERID does not.
Like I said in the close, this is not some case of a historical figure where the trans identity is a matter of scholarly debate (e.g., the Chevalier d'Éon). 2001 is not so long ago that the concept of transsexuality is too alien to our modern understanding, and sources from the time talk about Hemingway's transsexuality at length, although the style of coverage may not be up to the standards we expect these days (indeed, I recall, as a teenager, the rather lurid tabloid coverage of Nadia Almada, and as a young adult, the more respectful coverage of Luke Anderson nearly ten years later.). GENDERID allows us to not be beholden to lurid sensationalism of old, instead preferring the contemporary practice of sympathy to trans identity.
And indeed, historically, GENDERID has had precedence over COMMONNAME. Bruce Jenner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was moved to Caitlyn Jenner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) sixteen minutes after she publicly came out, and in the case of Ellen Page (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to Elliot Page (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), it took seventeen minutes after he came out. Both moves were done unilaterally, without the need of an RM. Under an absolutist reading of the phrase "use the common name", that wouldn't fly, but instead, a modicum of common sense prevailed, and although some gnashing of teeth and rules-lawyering occurred, the moves rightfully stuck.
Once GENDERID is engaged, one cannot, in fair application, disregard it without disregarding the person's trans identity. Easy to do and academically justifiable in the case of the Chevalier; not so much for someone who only died twenty years ago. And even if by a numerical advantage, editors decide that COMMONNAME is overriding, the appropriate close is to follow the wider consensus that GENDERID is overriding instead. There isn't even a numerical advantage in this case; the headcount, by my reckoning, is 7–7. But polling is not a substitute for consensus. The strength of the GENDERID argument, along with the wider and lasting consensus, is such that it tips the balance of the scale strongly towards moving.
One final point: Urve made a rather interesting point regarding the Hemingway's use of "Vanessa" in the party she attended a week before her death. But sources indicate that her use of "Gloria" was much more consistent, and in any case, she was arrested under the name one day after. Although I their argument – and Paul Preciado's view on deadnames — is interesting and food for thought, it's not the path that we, as a community, have decided to go down in general.
Nothing about the move discussion, of course, precludes the use of "Gregory" (and masculine pronouns) in context. But such use should be done with common sense in mind. Overbearing the article with those would definitely violate the spirit of the standards of practice we, as contributors to the encyclopedia, have formulated and agreed to. Whilst my view is that the running text should use feminine pronouns where appropriate and necessary, I'm personally somewhat relaxed regarding situations where people are quoted (as long as, once again, people don't take the proverbial mickey with it). I believe that something near this view is also a natural consequence of the move discussion, but if anyone takes a slightly different view, further civil discussion is not a bad word.

Sceptre (talk) 21:54, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gregory Hemingway → Gloria Hemingway – I propose we move the page to Gloria Hemingway, part of this is changing the pronouns to match since those fall under the category of her gender identity. I've spent a lot of time updating the article, please feel free to look through. In addition, if you look at the section Updating Hemingway's Photo and Discussion of Name/Pronoun Updates, I've presented a lot of evidence regarding Hemingway's gender identity. Here, I summarize the main points.

1) Multiple sources corroborated Gloria said she was a women, preferred "she" pronouns, and described herself as a transsexual and/or transvestite(proposed medical sub type of trans woman at the time, ie those attracted to women).

2) Multiple sources corroborated that Gloria received a certificate of "Gender Identity Disorder" (the medical diagnosis applied to trans women at the time).

In other words, she and her doctor seemed to think she was trans. More than that, the treatment considered most was respect/validation of her identity (in the form of an ID saying she was a trans woman and shouldn't be arrested). She then went on to get gender confirming surgery.

3) The sources which used the name Greg or "he" acknowledged she used Gloria and she, even if they didn't use it themselves. They reported the fact she was trans, layered with their opinion that that was in itself a bad thing. Even then, immediately after her death an article was published saying her a trans woman and critiquing the coverage which pathologized trans people and didn't use her name/pronouns. The statements were backed by a transgender rights org and Gloria's daughter Lorian.

4) The nights leading up to her death, multiple sources corroborated she was arrested under the name Gloria Hemingway and detained in a women's detention center. In her arrest photo, the name Gloria is used as her alias (AKA the name she answered too) in between her legal names. When asked about "Greg", guards said she went by another name, Gloria.

6) On a penultimate note, according to Hemingway's Boat p 351, she died putting on women's panties getting dressed for a court hearing.

To quickly look at our WP guides and policies (Note, this part was updated after the original post, emphases added are mine):

MOS:GENDERID: "Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise. "

MOS:IDINFO: "Specific guidelines apply to any person whose gender might be questioned, and any living transgender or non-binary person. In summary: Use gendered words only if they reflect the person's latest self-identification as reported in recent sources."

WP:COMMONNAME: "inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." AND "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." For more information, see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Transgender_people_and_COMMONNAME

WP:NAMECHANGES: "Sometimes the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match"

We have plenty of evidence she went by Gloria and considered herself a women at various points through her life but especially in her final days (latest expressed gender self-identification). There is no evidence whatsoever that her latest self-identification was as a man. In addition, the fact others refer to her as a man doesn't mean anything compared to her own statements on the matter (and while per mention most sources refer to her as Greg, they acknowledge she went by Gloria so per reference they're equivalent in terms of usage). I think the fact she was a trans woman was fairly obvious, but if it's not, the fact we've questioned her gender this much means we revert to this rule, her latest self-identification. Since there is evidence she used "she" and pronouns are gendered, we have evidence we should be using those pronouns to refer to her.

Therefore, to recap, the page should be moved (back) to Gloria Hemingway and we should use "she/her". TheTranarchist (talk) 18:49, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This is another tough case, because we basically have to try to guess what someone who died over 20 years ago would have wanted us to do in this case. Unfortunately, s(he) isn't around to tell us. According to our article, her/his transition was never completed and s(he) continued to present as both a man and a woman right up to her/his death. And I see no evidence that s(he) exclusively went by the female name at any point up to death. Since there is no clear evidence either way on what his/her preferences were, I think we just have to default to our usual WP:COMMONNAME policies based on what most sources use. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned earlier, a complete transition is a subjective term. A person being transgender is not dependent on the extent of medical intervention they've received. Also, when she was around at the time she asked to be known as Gloria, most importantly in her final days. Even if it is a tough case, by Wikipedia guidelines WP:COMMONNAME does not apply since we can't base it off prevalence in sources and what we MUST refer to is their LATEST IDENTIFICATION. This is to prevent situations where a person's identification is different than prevailing sources. Even according to COMMONNAME: "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." (While per mention most sources refer to her as Greg, they acknowledge she went by Gloria so per reference they're functionally equivalent). To summarize, the latest preferences were clear and as per MOS:GENDERID and MOS:IDINFO that is what we should be basing this off, especially in unclear cases.

TheTranarchist (talk) 19:45, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

It's pretty obvious what Gloria's preferences were. It is specified in multiple sources what her preferences were, even as said sources continued to misgender her! To argue otherwise is to be deliberately obtuse, & such a blatant disregard of MOS:GENDERID is bad-faith editing. Logan Sheppard (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so obvious to me, based on what I've read in the article. S(he) seemed to go back and forth on name and gender right up until death. S(he) also appeared to struggle with exactly what his/her identity was and what s(he) wanted it to be. I'm actually trying very hard to do my best to think about what the subject of this article would want the title of their article to be. And to me it's very muddled. Just make sure that you are focused on what the subject of this article would want their article title to be and not what you want it to be. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. MOS:GID. Also support using they/them pronouns to be ambiguous about their gender. Showiecz (talk) 19:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I was the person who re-ignited this edit war, & I'll just reiterate that it is to bring this page in line with MOS:GENDERID. It's extremely obvious that Gloria was a woman, & anyone who tries to feign uncertainty is being either ignorant or downright deliberately obtuse. Logan Sheppard (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith. I actually read over the article and gave this question considerable thought before I made my decision on which way this should go. Rreagan007 (talk) 20:38, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Rreagan007 I assumed good faith, if unfamiliarity with the Wikipedia guidelines in place regarding gender identity. There does seem to be a lot of ambiguity in this case (as a trans woman I'll admit I don't see ambiguity as much as a fairly standard case of closeting), but considering the response I left can we agree:

1) In situations where the gender is ambiguous, WP says we should rely on their latest ID and not common sources.

2) If too ambiguous, a gender neutral they can be used.

3) While she changed presentation, that doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't transgender. On a personal note I know many trans people who are not out publicly (for safety, job security, etc) or with their family (or if they are, they present as their AGAB since there family will only accept that and brush their identity under the rug).

4) If there is no evidence of preference, we have no clear evidence she preferred male pronouns or Gregory. Therefore there is no reason why it should be the default, and Gloria Hemingway has equal weight (the page was under Gloria Hemingway for years).

5) She was recognized as trans medically speaking, and according to the current scientific consensus gender identity can't be changed. As per her medical diagnosis, it was recognized she was trans, considered her name Gloria, and wanted to live as a woman. Considering that, even without her mostly clear final identification, we have evidence from a medical standpoint shared by her and her doctor living as a woman was best for her. That is to say, it was recognized that being regarded as a man caused her clinically significant distress.

With those points in mind, has your position changed?

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

TheTranarchist (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Oppose - the article conforms to the usage in even the most modern references. This move proposal is unsubstantiated WP:OR and/or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. -- Netoholic @ 21:49, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Netoholic To be clear, the manual of style does not say "most modern reference" it says "latest self-identification"/"self-designation".

WP:GENDERID: "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources. "

MOS:GENDERID: "Refer to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words (e.g. pronouns, "man/woman", "waiter/waitress") that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. This holds for any phase of the person's life, unless they have indicated a preference otherwise."

MOS:IDINFO: "Specific guidelines apply to any person whose gender might be questioned, and any living transgender or non-binary person. In summary: Use gendered words only if they reflect the person's latest self-identification as reported in recent sources."

And in reference to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS: "We can record the righting of great wrongs, but we can't ride the crest of the wave because we can only report what is verifiable from reliable and secondary sources, giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion: even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." (What part of what I said wasn't verifiable?)

Also, "Making accusations of tendentious editing can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if tendentious editing is alleged without clear evidence that the other's action meets the criteria set forth on this page, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment if done repeatedly. Rather than accuse another editor of tendentious editing, it may be wiser to point out behaviours which are contrary to Wikipedia policies such as WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and the 3RR rule." ("clear evidence" does not mean saying WP:OR suffices, and regarding the information present it's hard to say this is completely unsubstantiated)

I'll assume good faith, which part is original research? Please point to the specific point I highlighted at the start of this move request. I would say quoting multiple sources saying she went by Gloria and was diagnosed with GID, isn't exactly original, is completely verifiable, and completely in line with WP policy. The facts regarding her death are also agreed upon by all sources (died in a women's prison using the name Gloria). In addition, as per WP policy, please provide sources that provide a clear "latest self-designation" as a man named Gregory who we should refer to as "he".

TheTranarchist (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

OR is applying our own standards on topics with little or no support from mainstream, reliable resources. That is the case here, where "latest self-designation" may be appropriate for living persons, cannot logically be extended to historical figures where contemporaneous sources does not use modern descriptions, and present sources are mixed (especially when predominantly refer to Gregory as a male). On the topic of assuming good faith, I think that its hard to extend such to an account named TheTranarchist that started editing only a month and a half ago in Dec 2021 with the explicitly stated single purpose of being an activist editor in the subject area of trans topics. -- Netoholic @ 03:32, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is not what WP:OR is, to clarify OR is when source A says A, source B says B, and I say based on A and B then C. It does not apply when source A says something about C, source B says something about C, and the fact they both say C is mentioned in a talk page discussion of whether C. To say someone in 2001 who went by the name Gloria, got a sex-change, and stated they were a women cannot possibly have wanted to be referred to as woman named Gloria is incorrect on every level. Present sources are not mixed in regards to her identity, merely mixed in their presumptions of it's validity. Her latest self-identification based on nearly all the sources was as a woman, though many don't respect her. However, and most importantly, WP policy is to respect her identity. To reiterate, the fact many sources refer to her as male means absolutely nothing when compared to her own identification. These manuals do not say ignore gender identity guidelines if the person is dead, unless I'm very much mistaken they say "any" person who's gender may be questioned. These are also applied to historical trans figures often.

In addition, I'm sorry the fact I'm openly a trans girl and anarchist interested in the huge field of trans history (which covers politics, individuals, organizations, medical rights, medicine, laws, etc) somehow scares you, but my user page explicitly states I'm interested in many topics with a specialty considering my education on the topic (which other identity combinations do you accuse of bad faith by the way? Genuinely interested, which part was too much, the trans or anarchist bit? Since personal attacks based on gender or politics instead of content is a WP no-no). I also point out that before accusing me of being overly political you should ask yourself where you're coming from (since it isn't perfectly objective). I never describe myself as an activist, not on that page and definitely not in real life since I personally find it overused. I'm sorry for the overly activist political statement WP is not completely up to date in regards to trans topics and people are helped by up to date information. I also speak about my commitment to maintaining a NPOV and desire to improve WP as a collaborative human encyclopedia since verifiable sources speak for themselves. My edits across this site have only been verifiable and I've updated pages that were years out of date. Funny you quoted single purpose, since it says:

"Existing editors must assume good faith concerning the user account, act fairly and civilly, and not bite newcomers. Remember that every editor on Wikipedia was new at some point. Care is needed if addressing single-purpose accounts on their edits."

"However, a user who edits appropriately and makes good points that align with Wikipedia's communal norms, policies and guidelines should have their comments be given full weight regardless of any tag placed on them."

"Evidence that the user seems to be editing appropriately and collaboratively to add knowledge in a niche area may suggest that the user is likely to be an editor with a preferred focus, and is therefore not a SPA."

"If a user only edits within a broad topic (such as "spiders"), this does not mean the user is an SPA (though only editing the page Latrodectus might). Some very broad but specialized academic topics may seem narrow to editors with little or no knowledge of the field-- if you are unsure what constitutes a specialized topic, then it may be best to mention this fact when claiming a certain account is an SPA or to not place such a label in the first place. "

I don't believe I need to explain how you failed to uphold any of those.

In short, please refer to the content of my arguments rather than resorting to ad hominen attacks. Please refrain from unfounded accusations and, for your own benefit, read up on wiki policy, such as no personal attacks and assume good faith (not to mention the various guides about gender identity). In the spirit of WP, I'll continue to assume good faith on your part, as long as you refrain from further personal attacks against me and actually stick to the points in question (you've yet to point out which part is actually original research, you just incorrectly claimed an attempt to follow WP gender guidelines using verifiable information counts as such), which I think is more than fair. TheTranarchist (talk) 05:09, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Oppose. While my initial reaction is to definitively say the subject was a woman and should be referred to as such in the WP article, it isn't so clear. This seems to be a case of righting great wrongs and OR. I'll address the points made above by the nominator:

"Multiple sources corroborated Gloria said she was a women, preferred "she" pronouns" - I don't actually see that in the 'Gender identity' section. What I actually see is a lot of ambivalence and more of a "double life" going on (for lack of a better term).
A diagnosis of "Gender Identity Disorder" does not automatically mean the subject was trans, nor does it automatically mean the subject identified as female. That seems like OR to make that connection.
Points 4 and 6 are neither here nor there. Being put in a woman's jail has nothing to do with the subject's internal identity, nor does their wearing "women's panties". The same argument could be made for the opposite. In the article, Hemingway was still presenting as male and wearing male clothing in public until the end of their lives.

Overall, my conclusion is that the article should be left as is. Applying a "transgender" designation on a historical figure who did not identify as that term is problematic, as is ascribing their gender identity from OR when the situation was much more nuanced. A final reiteration: we are not here to right the great wrongs of the past. --Kbabej (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kbabej Thank you for your explanation! To reply to your points:

1) A quick note, a better term would be being closeted or not fully out, but I digress. In regards to the sources there is more information in the section Updating Hemingway's Photo and Discussion of Name/Pronoun Updates which isn't in the article. Since last SELF-IDENTIFICATION is what we're supposed to use I've relisted some quotes here:

From Meyers (the most recent source; also labelled Hemingway transgender): "But his more serious surgical operations distorted rather than clarified his personality. Greg would do anything spectacular, no matter how self-destructive to call attention to himself, rather than to his role as Ernest’s son. He thought he could escape from his overwhelming problems as a man by becoming a woman. But suspended precariously between two genders, he did not fully belong to either one. His sex change not only rejected his father’s super-masculine values, but also the very concept of masculinity. By assuming a female identity, Greg also killed an essential part of himself." Key words "by assuming a female identity". The final words in this article literally say she identified as female (POV value judgements surrounding it notwithstanding). If anything, those value judgements add a little more, he sure spends a lot of time talking about how she rejected masculinity and a male identity.

From Valerie Hemingway's Running With the Bulls: "I hoped that the change would give Greg—or Gloria, as he called himself—the peace and contentment he was looking for." Pretty simple, what she called herself

From Paul Hendrickson and an interview with a prison guard, "“A lot of the guards would still remember him,” said Janelle Hall, a public affairs officer from the corrections department, when I visited the jail. “Very interesting case. We had him in here several times. People liked him. Highly intelligent. He didn’t cause us trouble. He went by this other name—” “Gloria,” I said" Misgendering aside, when asked about "Greg", the guard says she went by Gloria.

From the same source, p 524, a few nights ago before her final arrest she was arrested on a bus for indecent exposure: "“Let me show you that I’m a woman,” he yelled at the officers. “Are you going to make me put down my skirt? You can get hurt that way.” It took three policemen to subdue him. (They hit him in the shin with an ASP baton, but not before he’d gotten one of them in the groin with the spike of his high heel and had put another on the ground with a bloody mouth.) They booked him as John Doe; later, he told them to put down Gloria Hemingway"

From John Hemingway's Strange Tribe p 179, "Unsettling, if only for a second, to look at this person with the lipstick and the wig, who was grinning and whispering to you through the window, and to think that he (or, rather, she) was your father"

Same source, p 535, from her last night free: ""“Hello, Greg,” Myers said, trying to be casual. “No, it’s Vanessa,” Gigi said evenly. “Oh, right, okay, Vanessa,” Myers said"" May not be evidence for Gloria but certainly evidence against Gregory. As mentioned in the article, she spoke about how the sex-change was the best thing to happen to her.

2) That is true, I was originally against bringing up the medical diagnosis since I believe trans people are more than a diagnosis, however this is relevant because:

From Running With the Bulls p 294 "This piece of paper means that if I’m picked up in drag, I’m covered because the doctor will vouch that I’m a patient in the preliminary stages of becoming a transsexual.” The point is not so much the diagnosis so much as the fact she was open about it and the reasons why. She also went on to get gender confirming surgery. While not all trans women get it, I'd wager a fairly high percentage of those who do are trans.

3) That is more in relation to the fact she used the name Gloria and stated she was a woman. I also didn't want to use the clothing, however others have made her clothing/presentation a contentious point. If we are to assign her clothing significance, what she wore last takes more precedence than what she wore most commonly publicly. If clothing doesn't matter, it's a mute point on both sides.

The figure labelled themselves a transsexual/obsessive transvestite, including in a medical way. It doesn't matter either way if we label her transsexual or transgender, that doesn't have relevance to the validity of her name, identity, or pronouns. This was also not righting a great wrong, a month after her death that name was used, the term transgender was applied, and coverage was critiqued for pathologizing trans identities. In the same article, Gloria's daughter sympathized and said "if there was anything good about those last hours, it was that he was in the women's cell, where he would have chosen to be." In the most recent article (Meyers) which people keep mentioning uses "he/him" as proof we should, he ends it by saying she assumed a female identity.

TheTranarchist (talk) 00:22, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Thank you for responding and for the explanations. In response:

1. The "...assuming a female identity" quote is clearer than the article makes it sound as it's currently written. I'm not trying to be intentionally obtuse or combative. What I'm trying to do with my assessment is honor what the subject identified as (as I know you are as well). Our interpretations are different (at least at this point; I haven't written my position in stone per se). I think the subject had a lot of turmoil about their identity in their life, and the code switching is what I'm hung up on. The article states they lived publicly as a male until the end of the life, and it seems as if their jailing was when they got "caught" while performing a more female role. Thoughts? (Again, not trying to inflame.)

2. "Gender Identity Disorder" and "transsexual" ≠ trans. They can, in some situations, but the subject didn't identity as trans. We can't take historical terms and suddenly update them to today's identities.

3. Yes, the clothing is a moot point, especially since the subject referred to it as "drag" (which, at that time, almost meant exclusively men dressing as women). But that's neither here nor there. I think editors focusing on the clothing are missing the point of the identity, which is independent of clothing. --Kbabej (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No problem! I apologize, wires got a little crossed and I responded to another comment you made before I saw this one.

1) I also know you're trying to respect her wishes, and thank you for considering her wishes as the ones of primary importance. I hope to help shed some insight on what they might have been. As a trans girl, reading about 4 biographies about Gloria left me with an overwhelming impression she was trans but I can understand where that outside looking in ambiguity comes in. I would say a large part of their turmoil stemmed from not being respected as herself (the Advocate pointed this out too) and according to the current scientific consensus not being accepted indeed leads to worth mental health outcomes. In Valerie's memoir, Gloria asks if she were to get a sex-change, would they still be friends or girlfriends, to which she responds no. I believe it was Hemingway's boat (not entirely sure) that discussed how she tried to retract her original interview confession since she was worried of losing her medical license. With the "code switching", I got into a bit more in the other comment (I apologize if it came out somewhat inflammatory), but basically Gregory and "he" was the default way to address her from birth. If she had never came out or spoken about her identity, this would have been applied to her. She gave a lot of thought to her gender identity, but often in terms of other's acceptance rather than her own. The very fact she called herself was Gloria, sought/got medical transition, and said she was a woman, leads one to think she preferred that to what would have been the default had she never said otherwise. I'm sure you can sympathize if not as deeply emphasize per se about the bravery necessary to come out as a trans woman and seek medical transition despite knowing you won't be accepted and may lose your job. The fact as a public figure she was in the spotlight only adds to that pressure. Lived publicly as male hides the fact that locally she was known to dress as a woman, her family knew she preferred to be regarded as a woman, she had publicly said she was an obsessive transvestite and she was unable to cure it, and there was evidence of her cross-gender behavior for decades before her death.

2) I agree they are not a strict 1-1, but I am not the only one to use that term. As I said articles published at the time used "transgender" and the most recent article used "transgender" to describe her. I am not the one updating the historical terms, the DSM did because it recognized labeling trans people as having GID pathologized trans people. Forcing modern definitions is the last thing on my mind, I'm more worried about applying modern definitions over how she described herself. For example, as mentioned transvestite now means cross-dresser but used to be a diagnosis for trans women who were attracted to women. Terminology shifts, but it seems fairly obvious she considered herself most comfortable in a women's body with the name Gloria. Whether she called herself transsexual or transgender is irrelevant (which is partly why I'm using trans to signify the larger point that her gender identity didn't match that assigned at birth). For example: we list those who historically labelled themselves as a homosexual under gay/LGBT historical figures. While they didn't use that precise term, that's what's commonly used today and is widely regarded as having the same meaning. Similarly, while she didn't consider herself transgender, she considered herself transsexual, and since transgender now encompasses transsexual there's grounds to use it. Really, the only place we'd be labeling her as transgender in the article would be sections like see also or categories since a bit of leeway is allowed there since terms like transsexual aren't often used categories. Apart from the precise terms she applied to herself, the main issue is what she considered herself to be, a woman.

3) I thank you very much for that, while clothing is an expression of identity and can be used as such, it's not the identity in and of itself, and I'm glad to see that recognized (part of why I fully assumed good faith was you saw through the flawed argument I felt forced to make). A fun historical side note while "drag" now refers to people dressed as a different gender, it originally included trans people (those we would call trans, ie those seeking medical transition), especially in regards to ball culture and shifts in LGBT community dividing lines (IE trans women/drag queens used to be considered part of the homosexual community and trans men/drag kings part of the lesbian community). Even today it's not so clear cut, on a personal note I know trans women who're drag queens (and put on even more spectacular outfits than usual for their shows). Circling back, I appreciate the care you pay to the shifting of categorizations (since that's certainly very relevant to the discussion)!

You've helped me refine my arguments and I appreciated your feedback and the chance to add more perspective! Looking forward to hearing back from you!

TheTranarchist (talk) 02:20, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Oppose move. The issue of pronoun usage is related but distinct, and should not be part of an RM; as another editor suggested above, an RfC may be appropriate. The relevant policy for this discussion is WP:COMMONNAME. By far and away, the vast majority of reliable sources use the name "Gregory", including those published very recently. That may be because of their bias, but we are not to take the lead in correcting that. Note that MOS:GENDERID is a guideline, to which "occasional exceptions may apply." But I don't think we necessarily have to claim an exception: throughout his life, Hemingway's "expressed gender self-identification" was deeply ambiguous, and that ambiguity was still present in Hemingway's final days, including a significant amount of switching between "Gregory" and "Gloria" (and, it seems, using different names in different contexts). St Anselm (talk) 23:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As per the the MOS's gender guidelines, since pronouns are gendered words if we establish a female gender identity we establish the pronouns should match. Her identity includes her name and pronouns. If WP:COMMONNAME applied in these cases, MOS:GENDERID and MOS:IDINFO would be worthless and nearly every article about a trans person would have to use their birth name. As this is not the case, I believe WP MOS overrides it. This is not an exception, the repeated claim the case was ambiguous only further strengthens the argument latest self-id is to be used to clear up confusion. If it is too ambigious for that, we should be using "they/them" instead of male pronouns. Not to mention, even according to COMMONNAME: "When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." (While per mention most sources refer to her as Greg, they acknowledge she went by Gloria so per reference they're equivalent). To summarize, the latest self-id was clear and as per MOS:GENDERID and MOS:IDINFO that is what we should be basing this off. As per WP:COMMONNAME Gloria has just as much weight as Gregory and can be used. TheTranarchist (talk) 00:43, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Support. The sources point to the preferred name as Gloria, rather than Gregory. Seems like an open and shut case to me. And considering Wikipedia's issues in the past with bias, with this article having the incorrect name compounds the damage, making Wikipedia a less inclusive place and less welcoming for LGBTQ editors. Otherwise, I'd say that TheTranarchist, Logan Sheppard, and Showiecz make more convincing arguments on this issue rather than Rreagan007, Anselm, Kbabej and Netoholic. I support the name to Gloria Hemingway. Historyday01 (talk) 23:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised you'd consider this "open and shut" given the obvious ambiguity of the subject's identity. The fact the subject used both female and gender presentations until the end of their lives show this isn't as clear cut as some editors are making it out to be, which is rewriting history IMO. --Kbabej (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to say that from a trans perspective there isn't much ambiguity. She seems an almost textbook case of being trans and closeted. That's not just me saying that, that was the Advocate and trans rights organizations a month after her death. She considered herself happiest as a woman and suffered from gender dysphoria to the extent she felt more comfortable with female genitalia. There is evidence throughout her life of her fearing rejection and hiding herself, and in her final days there is ample evidence she considered herself a woman named Gloria and very little to the contrary. To clarify the presentations issue, she secretly wore women's clothes for decades while presenting as a man. Which one takes more precedence, her public face or private one where should be herself? Are trans people not trans when closeted? Do they suddenly stop being trans if they have to present as their AGAB temporarily? To be frank, from my perspective rewriting history is saying we don't have enough evidence she considered herself a woman (her statements to that effect (literally saying "I'm a woman"), her sex-change, her public description of herself as a transvestite and transsexual, the name she was arrested with, the fact she lived as a women when not in public, etc all don't count), but assuming we have have evidence she clearly wanted to be known as a man and not a woman. (We actually do, the conversion therapy attempts on herself. However, key point, she failed and ended up medically transitioning instead). It is rewriting history to look at this and say yeah there's not enough evidence they preferred Gloria so we have to default to Gregory. If there is such overwhelming ambiguity, yet you believe Gregory fits best, what evidence is there that she preferred Gregory over Gloria? (Most importantly, in her final days) TheTranarchist (talk) 01:12, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

The reality is that there is no way for us to ever truly know, because s(he) is deceased and can't tell us. But as you point out s(he) clearly struggled with gender identity and both made efforts to transition to a female as well as made efforts to continue to present as a male, at least at times. If s(he) wanted to remain a closeted transgender woman, then we certainly have no right to force a public female persona on him/her postmortem. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, we could see what she said about it (especially in her last moments)? Just a thought. I refer you to my latest response to Kbabej. This isn't a huge bottomless mystery she was open about being trans in certain contexts and less so in others. Presenting as a man and considering herself a man are two VERY different situations, and as mentioned she acknowledged her attempts to be a cisgender man failed (I don't see how an article publicly labeling yourself a clinically obsessive transvestite counts as being fully in the closet). An analogy: if a gay man spoke about how he tried and failed to be straight, many verifiable sources concurred he'd been attracted to men from an early age, concurred he'd privately had relations with many men over his life, concurred he'd attempted to keep it a secret for fear of repercussion but failed, and he was arrested in a gay bar and said he was gay, we wouldn't argue about whether the label of gay applies or say we're forcing a gay identity. Similarly, this is not a forced persona, she was never forced to be Gloria by any external party, she chose to be and if anything she was forced to be called Greg. What right do we have to force a male identity when she didn't want it (there is a lot more evidence she preferred being a woman named Gloria to a man named Greg)? TheTranarchist (talk) 03:08, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

Weak oppose move, but update pronouns to she per WP:ABOUTSELF. It seems clear that the subject preferred feminine pronouns, but - at least as currently phrased in the article - it does not appear entirely clear that "Gloria" was the subject's new name. Rather, it seems that it was one name that the subject used when she wished to present as female, since apparently she only "occasionally" used it and also used Vanessa at times. Also, per the article, the obituaries at the time generally did not use "Gloria" either; while surely many of these can be discounted as being a less enlightened time, it seems at least possible that some of the obituaries referred to her as a woman, but simply weren't sure Gloria was the correct name to use. I don't have access to the JSTOR link on the obituaries unfortunately to check, so I reserve the right to be wrong on this. SnowFire (talk) 19:06, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your input! You're right that while her desire to be a woman is evident if not precisely what she chose her name to be (apart from most likely not Greg as per her gender). Between Gloria and Vanessa, Gloria was one she was reported to use for years and the one she went by in her final days. There are far fewer references to her calling herself Vanessa and it seemed more linked to the fact it was her daughter's name (she'd borrowed IDs and posed as female family members before). In regards to obituaries(if you still can't access it Sci-hub may be an option) at the time, while they did label her Greg, the fact she went by Gloria was often mentioned as well but simply not used. If you see my reply to Kbabej's post, I listed some instances of her self-identification from biographies and later paper's as well, which seem to mostly corroborate she chose Gloria (their value judgements on whether she should've notwithstanding). While some sources say she occasionally went by Gloria, and others such as mentioned say she went by it more frequently, the accounts are fairly standard she was arrested as Gloria. Personal/family accounts tend to use "Greg" with mentions of "remembering him how he was" or similar sentiments while acknowledging she called herself Gloria. I got more into the specific guidelines regarding gender in my reply to Netoholic, but the TLDR is in cases of ambiguity, we're to resort to their latest self identification as reported overall. Hope this helps! TheTranarchist (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

@TheTranarchist: A friendly reminder to not WP:BLUDGEON the process. It is not required, or even expected, that you reply to every !vote in this process. You've made your positions quite clear above; at some point it is necessary to sit back and let the process play out. --Kbabej (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Because she had female body by her wish, we should use feminine name and pronouns. Sharouser (talk) 07:32, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per WP:NAMECHANGE which tells us that we should give extra weight to independent, reliable English-language sources ("reliable sources") written after the name change; per ngrams, reliable sources continue to prefer "Gregory". I would also note the ambiguity in their expressed preference, using both "Greg" and "Gloria" in the week before they died, which raises questions about whether a name change occurred. In regards to pronouns, an RM is the wrong discussion to determine that, but given the ambiguity I would support using gender neutral pronouns. BilledMammal (talk) 18:27, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I combined the pronoun request with the name change since per WP:GENDERID they fall into the same category of respecting a person's gender, though "they/them" could be a good compromise if we fail to reach consensus. I also added the full relevant NAMECHANGE quote to the top of the discussion right before your response. Don't wish to bludgeon but do wish to raise the point that ngrams are a flawed measurement in this circumstance. 1) They neglect works published after 2019. 2) There is no way to accurately search on n-grams (at least google's implementation, I'd be interested in seeing more advanced n-gram results) for "Gloria Hemingway" (you can't search for co-occurrences of Gregory Hemingway and Gloria in the same text). For example, a text saying "Gloria, born Gregory, Hemingway" or "Gregory, who called himself Gloria" would show up under Gregory Hemingway but not Gloria Hemingway, skewing the results. However, as mentioned in earlier comments most of the texts referenced use this type of format (acknowledging her choice of Gloria without using it themselves), which means that per notability/use Gloria is as common or nearly as common as Gregory. TheTranarchist (talk) 19:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

You are bludgeoning at this point. If my skimming of the topic is correct, you have responded to every opposing !vote and some of the supporting ones as well. For each !vote on this page (11), there is a corresponding response from you (also 11). I am trying to help you, as a new editor, and not unduly criticize. My message: you've made your positions very clear. Other editors need the space to weigh in as well. Please let this process play out. --Kbabej (talk) 19:49, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if it comes across that way, I don't wish to seem as if I'm forcing my opinions, I'm simply verbose by nature. Since your original comment (thanks for bringing the policy to my attention btw!) I've been taking a step back to let things play out but thought simply addressing a new source/metric was alright, since bludgeoning seemed to refer to repetitive arguments (as opposed to positions) and n-grams haven't been mentioned before. When looking at the n-gram link the results were confusing and didn't seem to represent the sources (the Advocate article used Gloria Hemingway but the ngram doesn't show any uses of Gloria for example). As I stated, I'm not against the use of n-grams as a metric in and of themselves, as they're useful and relevant to the discussion, but wished to clarify that google's implementation has flaws. Regardless, I'll stay further away until the end of the deadline (as per BLUDGEON). TheTranarchist (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist[reply]

I believe the scale of the preference in ngrams for "Gregory Hemingway" addresses your concerns about overlooking some uses of "Gloria" due to unusual format. Regarding the NAMECHANGE quote, that is why I oppose the move; Gloria is not routinely used by reliable sources, as can be seen in the Ngrams, and can be seen in these Google Scholar searches, which show 188 results for "Gregory Hemingway" (170 if we exclude the results that also mention "Gloria") compared to 11 results for "Gloria Hemingway". BilledMammal (talk) 19:57, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support WP:COMMONNAME, which is cited above, contains clear exceptions to using the commonly used name, such as "inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources...When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others. )(bold mine). Clearly, UCN allows for choosing a less common name when it is "inaccurate" and "has problems". In this case, we clearly have a problem because of WP:GENDERID, which is why we have that supplement. Per GENDERID, "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources.". That is clearly referencing the text from WP:COMMONNAME cited above as a clearly pre-established exception here. We should go with Gloria in this case. --Jayron 32 19:06, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Except that WP:GENDERID is an essay. Even MOS:GENDERID is only a guideline. In any case, while it may be true to say that "Gregory" is problematic, it is a stretch to call it "inaccurate". It certainly hasn't been determined to be inaccurate in reliable sources as required by WP:COMMONNAME. St Anselm (talk) 19:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So say you. I say differently. --Jayron 32 19:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. More respectful. Pipenswick (talk) 03:30, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I retract my support vote because of arguments put forth by BilledMammal and Urve. I hadn't read the policies at the time of my vote. I hadn't digested everything worth considering. Pipenswick (talk) 22:21, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Pipenswick: It might make it easier for the closing editor to read if you strike your vote above. --Kbabej (talk) 22:58, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip, Kbabej! Done! Pipenswick (talk) 23:04, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Pipenswick: My pleasure, and welcome to WP! --Kbabej (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. For context: I've followed this since the request was opened and have kept an open mind; I've written about trans topics extensively privately and occasionally on Wikipedia (example and example). I didn't expect to be here, but per above, there is considerable ambiguity about what she actually wanted her name to be, such as using both names in the week prior to her death. We can devise any number of reasons for this based on our personal experiences and expectations -- for example, maybe she didn't want to be hurt by cops (and who could blame her?) -- but the important point is that we don't know why she did this, and sadly we can't know. The ambiguity around the name Vanessa is similarly concerning; is it right to pin the name Gloria on someone who may very well have wanted her name to be Vanessa, but never made this quite clear? I think changing the article title is an unworkable solution for such a complicated case, where the subject's preferences are legitimately unclear. We should respect our article's subjects by presenting their whole life's work in context, with due weight, as reported reliably, and most importantly, in a way that preserves their dignity -- always. But here, we simply cannot parse their wishes; as a fallback, I would look to the common name in reliable sources, which is Gregory. The nominator points to the most recent source, saying "... by assuming a female identity ..." -- but that's not informative on the naming dispute. (NB: I appreciate and follow the Preciado tradition when it comes to name changes and pronouns, which may impact how I view this dispute.) Urve (talk) 08:43, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Per WP:GID, we should use terms that reflect the person's latest expressed gender self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Basically, it overrides most other considerations. Here, we have clear evidence, reliably sourced, that Gloria identified as Gloria, literally 5 days before they died (we rarely get more "latest" than that) and in a legal context (jail, . Gloria was even detained in a women's detention center. Their specific gender identity is another question, but what we can demonstrate is that their gender identity aligned best with the name Gloria. --Xurizuri (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Was this page moved??

User:Sceptre closed the RM with the result being move, but it wasn't moved. Georgia guy (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And I cannot move the page myself. Somebody please fix the mistake. Georgia guy (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's move-protected, so I can't do it myself because I'm not an admin (that non-admin page movers can't move move-protected pages is a pain, especially given the amount RMs that are closed by us). I've listed it at WP:RMTM. Sceptre (talk) 20:02, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please be patient. The discussion has closed with the rationale laid out. Sometimes a few extra steps are necessary. -2pou (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Atlantic article

To note that The Atlantic has a January 2023 article about this talk page at https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/01/wikipedia-gender-identity-pronouns-guidelines/672806 which may drive traffic 2A00:23C6:148A:9B01:D31:4F58:1E99:70A (talk) 14:37, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]