Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-08-21/News and notes

Wikipedia's Manual of Style marches into Manning's coming out as transgender

In one of the more surprising turns of events surrounding the WikiLeaks saga, after receiving a 35-year jail sentence for her role in disseminating classified documents to the organization, last Thursday U.S. soldier Bradley Manning announced a change in her sexual identity with a statement read by their attorney on the Today show:

“

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).

”

As soon as the statement was read, the interviewer seamlessly referred to Manning as "she". "A few moments later," writes a Los Angeles Times reporter, "I looked up 'Bradley Manning' in Wikipedia, and was redirected to a page called 'Chelsea Manning'. All the pronouns had already been switched." Her Wikipedia entry now begins, "Chelsea E. Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier ..."

The media was quick to note Wikipedia's actions: Slate Wikipedia beats major news organizations, perfectly reflects Chelsea Manning's new gender, Buzzfeed, Truthdig ("How Wikipedia edited Pvt. Manning's gender without spectacle", New Statesman "Behind the Wikipedia wars: what happened when Bradley Manning became Chelsea", the Daily Dot, Market Watch ("Bradley Manning: 'I am a female'")—all took note of Wikipedia's lead.

Wikipedia's use of gender pronouns is straightforward. The choice of pronouns is governed by the identity section of Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MOS): "the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself", and specifically, "pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification".

After Manning's declaration, there was rapid editing on both the related article and the MOS. At the MOS, one editor tried to insert the same change four times and was reverted. A formal warning was threatened on the editor's talk page; but in the end, the page was merely protected, which allows editing only by administrators. The Manning article itself was moved from Chelsea Manning back to Bradley Manning, and then back again, after a cordial talk-page discussion revealed that the editor moving the article was not aware of the announcement. Eventually, that page was also protected.