Talk:Stephanie Hirst

Requested move 30 August 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: page moved. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

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Simon Hirst → Stephanie Hirst – We don't put a trans woman's article at her male birth name. Georgia guy (talk) 21:26, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment has it happened? The intro has not been changed to show that the change has occurred yet. (ie. do we have sources calling her by this name, aside from his announcement of becoming a her sometime in the future by this name) -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:10, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• Let's get something straight here - the article was renamed to Stephanie Hirst back in October 2014 by @TheCatalyst31: here, under the proviso of MOS:IDENTITY, which is even summarised in the header above, at the top of this page. Yesterday, (30th August 2015) 100Zuma202 moved it back to Simon Hirst with the argument of "This more accurately represents the history and reality of the person involved". I attempted a rollback, but it didn't work.

So, we are not discussing a potential move Simon Hirst -> Stephanie Hirst, but are in fact discussing whether Zuma's move of Stephanie -> Simon is to stay.

In reality it should be moved back to Stephanie while we discuss, as this is a controversial move, but I'm not sure how to do that without breaking other stuff - whcih I've unintentionally done in the past.

For the record then, Strong Support for the move back to Stephanie Hirst. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:52, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• Keep at Stephanie Hirst, and change the pronouns used in the article while we're at it (and for Pete's sake, get rid of the scare quotes around every mention of transition). MOS:IDENTITY is pretty clear on this one - I'm going to move it back for the interim, both because this was a single user going against an established policy and because there are BLP issues with leaving a trans woman's article at her former name for an extended period of time. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 12:12, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

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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.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Stephanie Hirst/CommentsTalk:Stephanie Hirst/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

it starts with him moving?? this cant be right, where did he start then move to?

Last edited at 12:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC). Substituted at 06:59, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

"Simon Hirst"

Hi, Shouldn't their previous name as well as their transition be added here ? .... Their previous name etc is heavily documented so these should surely deserve a mention ? .... Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 01:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Simon Hirst at birth

This is an encyclopedia article, and as such should include all relevant detail about a person. It's unfortunate that Stephanie wishes to distance herself and hide all evidence of her previous life before transition, but that's not appropriate for an encyclopedia.

It's not accurate to say that such a comment outs her, as this information is easily available on both the web, and in the article itself. Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:11, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi, of course the information is easily available on the net, but I do not like to bet 'outed' instantly within the first few lines of any article, and I must add that I am not choosing to distance myself from my past, I would just prefer people to know about me as a person before reading about my transition.

This maybe difficult to understand for you, and I get that - but all I ask is for my wishes to be respected.

Best

Steph

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 July 2019

No one has responded much since WanderingWanda analysis of consensus. A new conversation should be opened if so needed, but for now this matter can be considered fully resolved. (non-admin closure) –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:00, 1 August 2019 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed by MJL. Please do not modify it.

Hello,

I'm Stephanie Hirst,

This page is about me, my life and career.

My manager, and two friends have made several attempts to remove the line - 'Hirst was born Simon Hirst in 1975 and assigned male at birth'

I find this deeply offensive that this is included within this page, as it 'dead names' me, and also 'outs' me instantly to the reader without them making their own conclusion after reading more about my life and career. Of course you may find this difficult to understand having more than likely not been though the journey in life which I have, which I why I beg you not to keep replacing this line.

I'm happy about everything else, just the line 'Hirst was born Simon Hirst in 1975 and assigned male at birth' which also includes my year of birth. It deeply distresses me.

Best

Steph Stephanie Hirst (talk) 17:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Look, I'm sorry about how this is going to sound, but first let me assume good faith that you really are Stephanie Hirst - as per Wikipedia's WP:BLP and WP:USERNAME policies, there are fairly strict rules surrounding names. Also WP:COI and WP:OWN which covers a conflict of interest which your friends and manager (and indeed you yourself) need to be aware of. Anyway, you summarise it in your first sentence: "This page is about me, my life and career" Wikipedia is about your entire life and career, and that may include things that you aren't happy about. There are literally thousands of articles here that contain aspects that the subject may not be happy with, but it is the job of an encyclopedia to report, not to whitewash or be preferential.

It's inaccurate to say that this page, or the sentence in particular outs you - the name Simon Hirst is no secret, and redirects to Stephanie Hirst. All sources in the article make mention of the name Simon, as do the external links. In one of your own interviews you say "So, I came out during an interview with Stephen Nolan on 5 live. Stephen introduced me as Simon and then ended the interview as Stephanie which was nice."

Don't you think it would be more balanced to let the reader make their own conclusion knowing all the facts, rather than to present them with only a preferred part of your life?

Yes, you are Stephanie now, but the article also covers who you were. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi, it is me, feel free to email me: stephanie.hirst@bbc.co.uk and I'll happily email you back.

Why do you get to decide this? - when did someone I've never met get to decide what is written about me on this open source page? - All I am asking is that my previous name is removed from here and that I was assigned 'male' at birth.

Reading that stuff, sets it out in plain black and white and that is what causes such hatred for people like myself. Dating for instance....you meet someone, they google you....then read my Wiki page...and BOOM. OLD NAME and most of all 'MALE' is mentioned.

It's like a red hot poker being pushed through my heart....and you never hear from that person again.

I'm not in the game of whitewashing or being preferential about things, I'd just like the reader to have the chance to read about my career before my personal life - also, as more people transition in the public eye, this issue will be sure to arise many more times in the future.

Talking of hearts....please have one, as I'm not asking much, just one simple line to be removed please.

Steph.

Sorry again, but you are asking us to intentionally omit commonly available facts and details that are relevant to your entire life. Wikipedia is a serious attempt at an encyclopedia, and that includes aspects of a persons life that they may no longer wish to recognise. Personal bias is one of the reasons why involved people are advised not to edit articles about themselves or close friends/acquaintances - they're unable to be impersonal about it. It's because I don't know you that I can edit this article - and indeed anybody (with obvious exceptions) can edit it. Looking at it objectively, the details of your life here are valid, reasonable and pertinent to the biography of a highly successful and admired radio presenter.

The article also includes both the comment about your transition, and also the link to the Radio 5 interview where you came out - which also includes reference to Simon. Even without the sentence people will know. Spreading and increasing knowledge is what an encyclopedia does, we can't intentionally do otherwise.

This article is about you, but it's not necessarily for you. Chaheel Riens (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I think that not accepting this request would be at least bordering on violating WP:BLP. Most trans people don't want their former name in the public eye if they can help it, and once they've chosen a new name their old name is rarely still relevant for anything. I've heard multiple marginally notable trans people say that they actively don't want a Wikipedia article just because they know someone would put their old name in it. It's bad enough that we do this in general, but when the subject of an article specifically asks us to not include her deadname in the article because of how much pain it's causing her, I feel like we have an editorial obligation to leave it out. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 20:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you TheCatalyst31 - you are indeed correct and I would go as far as to say it is violating my human rights. I am not the first person to request this, and as I've asked several times today, whilst people close to me edited it without my knowledge, knowing the damage to me personally it can do, and in my day to day life as first impressions count.

Chaheel Riens I must stress, I am not trying to hide my past - not at all, BUT 'deadnaming' me and using a gender in public written form which I was wrongly assigned is deeply distressing for all people with a Trans past. I have no idea of the visits my Wiki page gets, but being in the public eye and on the air daily, I'm assuming it gets the odd visit, and some people may have no idea about my transition, which is kind of nice. It allows me to move on, and not be in the shadow of it constantly. As I said, some people may only read the career bit - I know I do not always read every word of each wiki page.

News articles about me are in the past, and yes an encyclopedia is also about past events, but it also gathers news and events as they happen, and 'dead/gender/naming is something which has evolved through my journey. Whilst transitioning you're in the 'bubble' so to speak - but once you're out of the other side, it is joy-us to move on a little and not be 'deadnamed' and have the public reminded of which gender I was wrongly assigned of at birth.

My birth certificate says 'Female' - that is as official as you can get!

It's not about looking at it objectively, it is about the effect it has on ones life.

Steph

Disagree. My previous points are valid - this is not esoteric or trivial information that we are being asked to suppress, but information that is reliably sourced and freely available in the world, is - and has been - in the article for many years.

We have an editorial obligation to provide accurate and relevant information about an articles subject, and the name (and gender) used by the article subject for the first 40 years of their life is by no means a small or minor detail. I accept about a birth date - there is plenty of precedent to remove this - but when there are articles in The Independent that say "Simon Hirst has changed her name to Stephanie and will live as a woman" it can not be argued that removing this info will have keep a secret, or in some way remove the past.

Incidentally, this is not deadnaming either, as the name and gender identity are used solely to refer to the past in the one sentence - the rest of the article is - as faras I can see - terminologically correct and appropriate.

Yes, BLP is and can be contentious, but as BLP itself says - on the very first line: "We must get the article right". Leaving out such basic information is not getting it right, again when such information is easily available - and well sourced. Chaheel Riens (talk) 22:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Stephanie Hirst, @Chaheel Riens: How about the mentioning of the birth name is moved down to the "Transition and activism" section (this section could even be renamed Personal life, potentially). The Early life section now only has the material which I suggest could be moved and an unsourced statement that should be removed altogether and therefore is lacking in enough content to justify its own section. Is this an okay compromise? Alduin2000 (talk) 23:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

@Chaheel Riens: Most transgender people, Stephanie presumably included based on her comments, refer to their pre-transition selves by their chosen name and pronouns. Even if you're only using their deadname to talk about their lives before they transitioned, it's still considered deadnaming. And at any rate, publicizing someone's deadname in a highly visible place like Wikipedia makes it more likely that transphobes will find it and weaponize it. (I realize it's mentioned in several of the sources in this case, but we still shouldn't be contributing to the problem.) TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 23:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I would not be averse to moving the sentence further down to "Transition and activism" section. Wikipedia is not most transgender people, but an encyclopedia whose job it is to report the facts as commonly and reliably available. This is the crux of the matter. Well intentioned or not, this is an attempt to suppress publicly and well known information simply because - when you get down to it - somebody doesn't like it, and it just happens that the person is the subject of the article. That does not in any way lessen or negate the validity of the information. Even in the case of BLP this is no reason for removal, and if anything a strong case could be made to expand the section stating that Stephanie has left her past completely behind to the extent that she wishes all reference to her previous status to be expunged. I certainly don't advocate such a Streisand effect, and would argue against such an inclusion, but this is an example of how trying to remove a fact draws attention to it.

• There is no outing - the information is commonly and previously available
• There is no deadnaming - the information is used as a single reference to who the subject used to be, and makes no attempt to push that persona onto the current status of the subject, indeed it makes it plain that this information is part of the past
• There is no violation of human rights - as per above arguments there is no inherent maliciousness or intent, nor is the information false

Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

For goodness sake have some sort of heart, all I am asking is a simple request for the top line removing. Just remove it and we can all get on with our lives, or I will have to look at other means to get this removed. You do not get to decide what is written about me. Yes of course the information is out there, if someone wants to find all the nitty gritty details, fine search out old news articles....but this is like walking into every room and shouting 'HI EVERYONE MY NAME USED TO BE SIMON AND MALE WAS WRITTEN ON MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE, BUT CAN YOU CALL ME STEPHANIE' - this has a negative effect on first impressions.

The internet is like one big room, and I just don't want it at the top of the page. It's the top search hit on Google, and I DO NOT WANT it there. Its like you're playing god with my life, and then locking the page from being edited, is taking away my human rights.

I'm appealing to your good nature to please remove it. I'm not objecting to the transition information being in the entry, but I just don't want that to be the opening statement about me. We both know that a lot of journalist simply cut and paste this statement about me, which of course happens with lazy journalism. Biographies which are written about me originate from this Wiki entry, and my old name is then used which I then have to constantly ask to be removed. This is the seed which sews the majority of deadnaming against me.

Please remove it as it is a constant reminder to the general public of my previous name and incorrect gender.

Steph

You do not get to decide what is written about you either. With regard to your statement of "or I will have to look at other means to get this removed" please have a read of WP:LEGAL, and the intent for a chilling effect, both of which will lead to speedy blocks.

I agree to the compromise of moving the statement to lower down in the article, but not to removing it altogether. Is that acceptable? My original statements all stand true - you are asking us to wilfully disregard the raison d'être of an encyclopedia and intentionally suppress commonly available, widely known and easily discovered & verified information just because you don't like it.

Do you want the section about transitioning removed as well? That's just a small step on from the original statement, so how about we remove that? If we allow you to control content of your article, how about every other BLP article - should content be cleared for publication by every article subject? You see how it starts. Where will it end?

You are advocating censorship, suppression of information and of handing article content control over to the people who they describe for oversight. Any reasonably comprehensive and respectable tome of knowledge cannot agree to those terms. Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Stephanie. I'm truly sorry this issue has caused you so much duress. Our aim as an encyclopedia is to aid in the betterment of mankind by the free dissemination of knowledge; when people are hurt as a result of our efforts, it is plainly contrary to our aims. Please bear with us patiently as we discuss this, and please feel free to continue to participate. At Wikipedia, we believe that when many persons gather to discuss an issue, all approaching a problem from different perspectives and backgrounds, the result is a better solution than any individual could have come up with alone. I understand that this is stressful for you know, while it is in limbo: but I hope you will have faith, as we do, that in the end we will be able to reach a better and mutually satisfying resolution.

On the one hand, I believe your birth name is rather unimportant knowledge and do not believe this article would significantly harmed by the removal of it, especially in light of the fact that it is relatively low-quality anyway. On the other hand, I generally agree with Chaheel Riens that removing information from an article merely because the subject alleges personal distress or harm is bad precedent, regardless of how credible those allegations may be.

I suspect a large part of the reason this is an issue is that the lead contains practically no useful information about you, forcing interested persons to read the entire article, where the next thing they encounter is that sentence. Improving the lead would be my first choice here, although I probably lack the writing skills necessary to do that myself. Bolding the name is also part of the problem, and I am going to boldly remove that despite the discussion in progress, since I don't think that will be controversial.

I tried to look for some featured articles on transgender persons to use as precedent, but could not find any. I have asked for input at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies. Currently, I have no opinion on this issue, other than that I believe a compromise would be better than either the status quo or complete removal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:50, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment: My experience of Trans articles in general is somewhat limited, but those I am familiar with are The Wachowskis, Caitlyn Jenner, and Sophie Wilson. I admit this is a fairly narrow cross section, but all three articles make significant mention of their pre-trans naming - both Wachowski's and Jenner list it in the first sentence of the lede, and the Wilson article uses the birth_name parameter in the infobox to list Roger - including a hidden note not to change.

I have agreed to the compromise of moving the name to lower down in the article. I also agree that the lede should be expanded, but somewhat ironically the main content to expand with would be the LGBT activism, and this would surely draw attention to the trans aspect of Stephanie - and hence the Streisand effect again.

As further compromise - albeit going against my own comments of WP:OWN above - would Stephanie be content with an expansion of the lede to include a summary of her trans/LGBT activism and support, along with moving the sentence to the lower section of the article? I am uncomfortable with the concept of encouraging people to read less of an encyclopedia, but a compromise is all about meeting somewhere. Chaheel Riens (talk) 15:26, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Ugh. First of all, I think we can be a little more kind and understanding when people come to Wikipedia for the first time to make a small request. (Sorry that you got such a harsh welcome to Wikipedia, Steph)

Second of all, "You are advocating censorship" - you are being ridiculous. This is not the gestapo knocking at your door, this is the proverbial neighbor asking for a cup of sugar.

We know that not every fact about a person should be included in their Wikipedia article, we know that deadnaming is harmful. How about we just remove her deadname? --Wickedterrier (talk) 15:57, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I just thought I'd put this here in case anyone is unaware of policy for this. MOS:GENDERID states MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first. If there are sources that show Stephanie was notable under her former name then it should be included somewhere in the article but I agree that the fact it was bolded was inappropriate (I didn't change it because I didn't want to start an edit war or something). Stephanie Hirst, if you are okay with the inclusion of the information about your transition and activism then is it just the current crass/blunt wording that is also a major problem? I'm sure that it can be more seamlessly integrated into the LGBT activism section alongside information about your transition. Hopefully this will be resolved quickly. Alduin2000 (talk) 18:55, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

pinging Hirst - accidentally didn't ping before due to typo Alduin2000 (talk) 18:57, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Speaking as a trans editor, I would prefer that deadnames not be included in Wikipedia articles at all unless the subject was very well-known under that name prior to transition (such as Caitlyn Jenner as previously mentioned). However, the current policy as stated is above. Absolutely there is no need for including a deadname in the lead of this article or otherwise drawing undue attention to it. Funcrunch (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Admittedly, I am slightly confused by Stephanie's reasoning for what she wants. She has indicated that she does not mind, and to some degree even appreciates, the discussion of her transition in the article. Her initial comments on why she wants the removal are a bit unclear; I can't tell if I'm just failing to grasp the emotional implications of this that Stephanie has been eluding to, or if the reasoning is actually a bit muddied. (I will disclose that I have high-functioning Autism, so my empathy is somewhat stunted and the social implications of things tend to be lost on me. Emotionally loaded language and situations tend to lack that meaning for me, which may not translate at all or have greatly reduced impact, so I apologize in advance for my failure to understand, and please be patient as I try to reason my way through this.)

I can't tell if the name itself has negative associations for Stephanie. TheCatalyst31 has indicated that this is very common, and I am not surprised, because I would expect that transgender persons go through an extended period of time where they are consciously very dissatisfied with their assigned sex and corresponding gender, but not yet convinced that the high costs (financial, biological, social, etc.) of transitioning are worth it. Their name, which was chosen because of their assigned sex and is (typically) clearly gendered, thus serves during this time as a constant reminder of their agonizing predicament. Classical conditioning takes over, and the name that was associated with the pain of their predicament very quickly comes to elicit the emotional pain by itself. That's my guess, anyway, but I'm just pulling basic psychology principles out of my brain and applying them to the situation; someone who actually knows anything about this is welcome to correct me.

If my theory is more or less accurate, then I would expect that all transgender persons experience a greater or lesser aversion to their birth name, because (normal) humans don't make major life decisions like that without a significant impetus (e.g., enduring and/or severe stress) and a significant period of reflection and consideration. I would also expect the degree of aversion to vary substantially, according to the individual personality and the particular circumstances of his or her transition. Which brings me back to my point, that I cannot tell if simply knowing that her Wikipedia article contains her birth name is causing Stephanie enough stress that she is ruminating on it, which is causing more distress, and more rumination, and so on. I can see how this could happen for some people, but doubt it happens to everyone, and cannot tell from Stephanie's comments if this alone is her motivation.

The other possibility is what Stephanie seems to suggest more strongly in her later comments: that prominently highlighting her birth name and gender, without any context, is an unfair portrayal of her. I imagine that if this it the problem, it's because it implies that being assigned the wrong gender and subsequently transitioning is the most notable part of her life (which, in turn, implies either that this is her greatest accomplishment, which a glance at the rest of her article suggests is a very demeaning insinuation, or else that she has made this the most notable part of her life, which would mean she was making her personal life the source of drama, which is likely to draw negative attention). That, in turn, could be what's causing the stress and ruminative cycle I mentioned above.

I expect that Stephanie is sleeping right now, given where she lives. I hope tomorrow she will be able to tell us which one of these it is, or if it's something else, so that we can decide where we need to go from here. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Wickedterrier, your comments are unhelpful. Stephanie is not making a "small request" but wanting a fundamental change to the way the encyclopedia is presented - by the removal of publicly and commonly available information simply on the say so of the article subject. Your comments about removing the deadname as if it had never been suggested is unhelpful and patronising, as is the denial that suppression of information is not basic censorship, albeit non-malicious in intent.

As per previous notability - Simon Hirst was a notable person in his own right - the article existed as Simon Hirst prior to the move to Stephanie, and contains details of a career spanning nearly 19 years of radio journalism, which also includes several national shows (Hit40UK and assorted awards).

Again, I am not against the change of location of the detail, or even rewording, but it's the outright removal that I'm against, based on the concept of an encyclopedia collating and sharing common knowledge. Chaheel Riens (talk) 21:43, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Could you stop deadnaming and misgendering her? You've already had this explained to you ("Most transgender people, Stephanie presumably included based on her comments, refer to their pre-transition selves by their chosen name and pronouns.") and the fact that you're continuing to do this shows that you have a great callousness if not outright antipathy towards trans people. --Wickedterrier (talk) 22:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

The purpose of an encyclopedia is not to include all information about a subject regardless of appropriate editorial discretion, and that's especially true of BLPs. This is why we have privacy standards for including information in BLPs, and it's why we remove birthdates and in some cases even delete entire articles at the request of the subject of the biography. (We've been doing that for over a decade now, too; somehow it hasn't led to the slippery slope that you're worried about.) I see no reason why transgender people's deadnames, which are considered to be intensely private information, shouldn't be treated the same way. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 00:08, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, I second the request to please stop referring to her by her deadname in this conversation. We're not talking about two different people here, which is how some of your comments are coming across; we're talking about one person named Stephanie. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 00:08, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for posting on the talk page, Stephanie. Just a quick note—we end our messages by typing four tildes (~~~~) which magically produces our signature. I see a rough agreement here amongst editors that there's no reason to mention that you are trans in the first paragraph of the body of the article. I've tidied the article up a bit and it now has a "Transition and activism" section which mentions both that you are trans and contains your deadname.

I'm sorry your first contributions to Wikipedia have been on such a difficult subject and met with such resistance. You are more than welcome to continue commenting on talk pages and making edit requests, but I'd just like to note that you should avoid editing pages relating to you directly except in very obvious cases of vandalism or misinformation. We have quite strict policies about so-called "conflicts of interest", because maintaining a neutral point of view (NPOV) is a cornerstone of Wikipedia and so we can't let subjects decide what is or isn't written about them. I understand that your request isn't of this nature, but we need this rule as a hard-and-fast line to stop all our articles from becoming puff pieces about people, or from censoring all information about when people are criticised or legal action is taken against companies etc.

I understand that this is an upsetting subject but I'd like to address a couple of the comments you made earlier. You described the former article as "violating [your] human rights". This is incorrect. There is no human right to disallow people from saying true things about you. There is no human right to get text written about you changed. Just as I cannot stop you from saying what you want about me, you cannot stop us from saying things about you. Wikipedia has policies like NPOV and verifiability (all information must come from a reliable source) to ensure that what we write in articles is fair and truthful, but even these are not legal rights or human rights.

You also threatened that you "will have to look at other means to get this removed" if we did not comply. Wikipedia editors rarely respond well to legal threats, and in fact it's one of the quickest ways for you to get blocked from the website. Please bear in mind that everyone you've spoken to (myself included) is a volunteer who contributes to this site in their free time; it's unpaid labour. It's not kind to threaten legal action against us. It will also not get you anywhere, because again, there is no legal basis to censor truthful information.

As I said, the current article no longer mentions that you are trans in the first paragraph because this information fits better under the "Transition and activism" section of the article, but I'm afraid that as an encyclopedia, we discuss what reliable secondary sources discuss, and they have discussed both your transition and LGBT activism at length. Unfortunately the deadname is a name you had a significant profile under, so that makes it important encyclopedic information that your article would be incomplete without.

You are welcome to ask any questions you have on this talk page, or you can ask me directly on my talk page, or ask another volunteer at the Teahouse. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 00:03, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the core issue here is that people who were already notable under their old names before coming out as transgender, and in fact already had Wikipedia articles before coming out as transgender, have to be treated very differently than people who became notable after transitioning. The latter can claim WP:BLPPRIVACY rights over the information, especially if we can't actually find any reliable sources to verify what their dead name was in the first place — but in the case of a person who was already notable before coming out as trans, the problems are that (a) the information is already well-known on the record, so many readers already know it in the first place, (b) any sources that the article cites which were created prior to the transition will use the old name, so a reader who didn't already know it could easily find it out just by consulting those sources, and (c) even if we were to memory-hole the name from the article, a reader could still easily find it out just by reading through the article's past edit history. So we can't completely redact the old name in those circumstances: the rule in a case like this is that we do include the old name, because it's contextually necessary and unavoidable, but we do try our best to be careful not to overuse it any more than strictly necessary.

Accordingly, Bilorv's changes, which moved the content about your transition down to a later subsection and thus doesn't prioritize that aspect of your life over the content about your actual work, is about the best compromise we can offer between your wishes and the situation — because, again, even if we removed your former name from the article entirely, it would still be present in the article's history and thus not actually hidden at all. In order to actually get the name entirely eradicated from Wikipedia, we would have to delete the entire article and the redirect from the former name at which it was originally created, and then recreate the article from scratch while simultaneously disallowing the use of any reliable source coverage that predated your transition — and that last criterion would significantly hamper your ability to be considered notable at all anymore, because your ability to qualify for an article on here depends on having media coverage. Bearcat (talk) 17:19, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Wickedterrier, please give one single example of where I misgendered Stephanie, or where I unnecessarily used her previous identity once I had been asked not to. I have used references to her previous identity afterwards because in context it was necessary to do so - referring to the previous page name, and notability of the previous name. As a show of good faith, I'll not do so anymore - unless there is a specific need to use the name, which on occasion cannot be avoided.

As to my supposed callousness or antipathy, you'll note that on this very page in the section Requested move 30 August 2015 I was most forthright in insisting that the page was moved back to Stephanie when it was controversially moved to her previous identity. In that instance I made a mistake in trying to move the page back so pinged TheCatalyst31 who had done the original pagemove for assistance. Note the phrase Strong Support for the move back to Stephanie Hirst

Let's take a gander through the article history shall we?

19:57, 10 December 2018‎ - I restored the correct gender identity

15:41, 21 March 2017‎ - I had some horrific vandalism suppressed via oversight

21:56, 30 August 2015 - attempted to revert above mentioned pagemove, made a mistake and reverted that as well. Note my edit summary - "rv, pending controversial move discussion. BTW - "the reality" of a person? That's blinkered, and no mistake."

I have been supportive of Stephanie on this page since 2015 - and will continue to be so, provided the aims and goals of the encyclopedia are not transgressed.

Also with regard to my comments about referring to two different people - I happen to know just one trans person personally, and she considers her previous life to be very separate from her current life - nor does she care about mention of her previous identity, because it's a completely different life that has no bearing on her current one. Stephanie feels differently, but my previous behaviour was based on preferences of another trans person.

Finally, returning to the actual topic of the talk page - I support the current status, with a little bit of ce for grammar. Chaheel Riens (talk) 19:10, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi everyone, apologies for taking a few days to reply - busy weekend work wise, and needed some distance away from this discussion, as I was starting not to be able to see the wood for the trees so to speak.

I guess a lot of the frustration came from the fact I felt I was not getting anywhere, and was dealing with complete strangers who present themselves under usernames, whilst I'm being totally transparent and visible. There's no 'official' Wiki body to contact. This caused me some mental anguish due to the the way my I am portrayed on the very top search result on Google, being from the view of people who are completely unknown to me. I hope you understand & I don't want to offend by saying that, but it's worrying to me that this is the seed which grows all perceptions if you want to find out more about me, and causes me to have to ask people to edit biographies which are put together about me, along with any news stories which are written. I hope you can see where I am coming from.

Thank you to Bilorv for getting things presented a little better. I want to apologise if I came across angry during this conversation last week to any of you, it was built up of huge frustration. Regarding the use for my former name, I've been looking into the GDPR's 'Right to be forgotten' claim - this could be an avenue to explore - now I do not want to erase my past, but I do want some control about how my former name is used and where. Yes, it is in former news articles and I had a 20+ year career using that name, so to think I could erase it would be ridiculous to even think that.

What I would like is for it not to be as 'present' - front of house, so to speak, and yes moving it further down this page is somewhat of a start.

Does it need to be there though? - realistically? - Yes this is an encyclopaedia and detail like that is rather important, I get that, but when it has a knock on effect to ones day to day life and mental health, that is another thing.

I do feel uncomfortable at being referred to as a 'trans-woman' - this labels me and puts me in 'a box' - to quote the 'trans-woman' wiki page "Some trans women who feel that their gender transition is complete prefer to be called simply women, considering trans woman or male-to-female transsexual to be terms that should only be used for people who are not fully transitioned. Likewise, many may not want to be seen as a "trans woman," often owing to the societal otherization of trans individuals.

I would like this to be respected please.

Again thank you to those who helped to get this to the point where we are at currently, and I understand that Wikipedia is a huge passion for you all.

Best

StephStephanie Hirst (talk) 20:44, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Stephanie. Don't worry about the delay responding: we're all volunteers here, and we understand that people become busy. Things here take time, and this is why. Also don't worry about having come across as angry: we editors put a lot of effort into the articles we write, and we often become worked up over them and other things. Suffice it to say we've all probably seen people far angrier than you; I know I have many times. And we all understand that this is far more important to you than any of the things we're used to seeing people angry about.

Regarding whether the name needs to be there at all, the answer is, unfortunately, yes, due to your notable pre-transition career. People who read a 15-year-old article (it does happen) that mentions Simon Hirst and want to know more about him may search Wikipedia for "Simon Hirst", and they'll be redirected here; without already knowing that you've transitioned, they are likely to be confused about why they landed here, and may think it an error. We can't just erase your birth name from our article: if we did, the connection between your pre- and post-transition careers would be lost, along with most detail about your pre-transition career. Then your post-transition career would be difficult to understand, because you would suddenly be in the middle of a stunning career that apparently came from nowhere. That would be doing a disservice to our readers.

(Probably. All content on Wikipedia, especially about living persons, must be reliably sourced. If we scrubbed your birth name entirely from our article, we would need to remove all sources that include it in their title, which would prevent us from including the information in those sources. Consequently, if we were unable to find reliable sources discussing your pre-transition career in detail that didn't include your pre-transition name in the title, your career section would lose most of its detail. Currently, we have no way of telling how much detail would be lost, given that most of your career is unsourced.

[On that note: @Chaheel Riens, TheCatalyst31, Alduin2000, Funcrunch, WickedTerrier, Bilorv, and Bearcat: most of the information currently in section "Career" was added when the page was created in 2006 and has never been sourced. The style of those paragraphs, particularly the tone, suggests it was written by a fan. Most of it is probably unverifiable. I also searched the article's current sources for some of the content added later and found no mentions. I'm thus challenging the entire section. Per our biographies of living persons policy, I ought to remove the content now, but that would probably inflame this discussion. I will thus wait a few days; anybody who can find sources for any of this is invited to do so.])

So now that I've explored the issue some more, the answer to whether we can't do more depends on whether we can find sources to verify what's currently in your article. If we can't, you might not actually be notable (well-covered in reliable sources) prior to your transition. If this is the case, obscuring your name even further or perhaps removing it altogether would be acceptable. But if you are independently notable prior to your transition, we would need to remove key information about you and risk confusing readers in order to bury your prior name. That's doing readers a great disservice, and ultimately, this an encyclopedia. While we try to accommodate reasonable requests by article subjects, we cannot both comply with every request and continue to be an effective project. Removing private details of marginal importance about a relatively unknown subject is within reason; removing a prominent identity of a notable person is not. Which of these two cases your request falls under is still unclear.

Regarding your gender identity: our relevant style guideline states, "Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources". If you don't want to be referred to as transgender, your best recourse is to have someone interview you and tell them that you prefer not to be identified as transgender (or if such a source already exists, you can point us to it). That way, we all have something hard we can point to in order to justify not referring to you as that. After all, while we accept in good faith that you are Stephanie Hirst, we don't have any way of demonstrating that you actually are.

One final point: you stated earlier that "people close to me edited [my article] without my knowledge". Just now, you stated that you "have to ask people to edit" it. Soliciting people to edit Wikipedia or advance a specific viewpoint in its discussions is known as meatpuppetry and is forbidden. I assume the former is what actually happened, and that you were trying to imply that if we didn't remove your name, you might be forced to resort to the latter. Just beware that if you "lose" this discussion, and suddenly random accounts or IP addresses show up to make the edits that you wanted, we are likely to disable those accounts' and addresses' abilities to edit as well as yours and (re)protect this article.

Likewise, you have again referred to legal recourse (the GDPR), and followed the suggestion that you might "explore" that "avenue" with a presentation of your desired outcome. Please read our policy on legal threats. Making legal threats is one of the fastest ways of losing your editing privileges on this site. You have not been blocked so far only because we're a generally compassionate bunch, and we still believe you are attempting to discuss this with us in good faith. Don't assume you can get away with a third threat, nor with anything that we might interpret as one, because you almost certainly can't—most people don't even get this much slack.

If I were you, I would avoid mentioning anything related to the law again. Rest assured that we are all familiar with all the laws relevant to our work here. You do not have a legal right to suppress truthful information about you, nor does the GDPR purport to give you such a right. The "right to be forgotten" you refer to, actually a right to erasure, is a limited right to have personal data erased from the servers of websites you have submitted it to. It is completely inapplicable to this situation. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:03, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

1. I support removing Stephanie Hirst's birth name from the article. WP:BLP says to be mindful of people's dignity and says there is a Presumption in favor of privacy, especially for people who are not well known.

Chaheel Riens brought up the Caitlyn Jenner article earlier. Yes, Jenner's article does list her birth name, but I want to point out what a massive difference there is between someone like Jenner and Hirst. Jenner is an extremely well known celebrity, her past and present names are very public knowledge, and her article has over two hundred references. Stephanie Hirst, with all due respect, is not anywhere near that well known. Her article literally only has five references, and she teeters right on the brink of our notability guidelines. We should, in a case like this, adopt an "if in doubt, toss it out" policy.

Furthermore, I am very dubious that Hirst met our notability guidelines before she came out. It is very hard to find reliable sources that talk about her prior to transition.

(Also, a note that I'm just advocating for the removal of the name itself. I'm not necessarily advocating removing all sources that mention the name.)

2. Stephanie Hirst: Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. You asked us to not refer to you as a "trans woman". Are you asking us not to address your gender transition at all, or just not to use that specific phrase? For example, would you be comfortable with the paragraph saying something like Hirst came out as a woman in an interview where she talked about her gender transition? Personally, I'm perfectly comfortable working with you to try and find alternate wording. But if you don't want the article to talk about your transition at all, that puts us in a difficult position. Wikipedia articles are built out of reliable sources, and the vast majority of reliable sources about you that I can find are focused specifically on your transition. I said that I support removing your birth name, and I hope enough people agree with me that we'll be able to do that. But if you want us to go farther and remove any more information than that, I think it would be better, instead, to ask us to delete the article entirely. There is precedent for us deleting the article of a living person because the subject requested it. WanderingWanda (talk) 20:43, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi all,

I haven’t got time to construct a hugely lengthy reply here right now as it’s late and I’m up early for work tomorrow.

I can guarantee you it is indeed me, if you want to email me feel free to do so and I’ll email you straight back. I stated my email earlier in this discussion for verification.

stephanie.hirst@bbc.co.uk - although I’m doubtful anyone will actually email me!

As for asking people to edit the Wiki entry on my behalf, this never happened, I was told about it recently, as people close to me were offended on my behalf, and this caused me to keep an eye on the page. I did delete it a couple of times myself.

All I want to do is to lessen my old name coming up in written articles about me. It’s deadnaming and it’s hurtful.

As for validating my career, 30 years, 21 awards (14 radio), biggest breakfast show outside of London for over a decade, host of national Top 40 etc etc. The career part is correct detail wise. Yes, there’s more that could be added, but I’m happy with it.

Is this going to come down to submitting audience figures, photos of awards, scans of fix term contracts etc to validate my career as they are not in news stories? I’m sure every page on Wiki doesn’t have a verified weblink to it? And who says that the weblink is true and validated?

I’m still aghast that I don’t know who I’m actually speaking to and you all have some kind of say how I’m portrayed right at the top of a Google search.

Sorry if it sounds firm, but to be told ‘Don't assume you can get away with a third threat, nor with anything that we might interpret as one, because you almost certainly can't—most people don't even get this much slack‘ - can somewhat be hurtful. I told you, I’m not seeking legal advice, I was just researching any available options. You would do the same.

Ok, so if one of you who supports me, can change ‘Trans-Woman’ to ‘Woman with a trans history’ - I’ll go away and we can all get on with our lives.

Best

StephStephanie Hirst (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh, also...I’m happy with the transition information being there! - that I don’t have an issue with either.

StephStephanie Hirst (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Steph: I commented earlier in this discussion, but just wanted to reply to this point that you made: I’m still aghast that I don’t know who I’m actually speaking to and you all have some kind of say how I’m portrayed right at the top of a Google search. As I mentioned I'm a fellow trans person (agender/trans male in my case), and really hate being deadnamed so I can imagine how traumatic this must be for you. Most Wikipedia editors are indeed pseudonymous, and for good reason in most cases. But just so you know the real-life identity of at least one person in this discussion, my full name, photo, and link to my web site are on my user page, which also contains links to presentations I've made specifically about trans people and Wikipedia. Funcrunch (talk) 19:36, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

A look at the sources and guidelines

To help settle the question of whether we should include Hirst's birth name in the article, I've compiled a list of all the sources talking about Hirst that I could find:

Extended content

Sources that just mention Stephanie Hirst's current name:

1. Radio Presenter Stephanie Hirst Talks Gender Reassignment Surgery
2. My Money… Stephanie Hirst
3. ‘It was either tits or death’: Transgender BBC radio presenter Stephanie Hirst...
4. Transgender broadcaster Stephanie Hirst...
5. Barnsley College Launches New Online Radio Station: The Vibe
6. Radio professionals head to Student Radio event in Swansea
7. Out trans DJ Stephanie Hirst set to take to BBC Radio 2
8. Stephanie Hirst will be the voice of Channel 4 to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility
9. “We don’t need to lose another life” – Stephanie Hirst speaks out on Trans Visibility Day
10. DJ Stephanie Hirst talks leading UK on trans issues...
11. 2 Leeds women who champion everything great about the city
12. Mark Radcliffe: Radio 2 Folk Show host shares 'cancerous tongue and lymph nodes' diagnosis
13. BBC Radio Leeds Launches New Thursday Night Show Aimed at LGBTQ+ Community
14. Rainbow Plaque Trail unveiled ahead of Leeds Pride 2018 to celebrate city's LGBT+ history
15. VIDEO: BBC Fierce Women in Media event champions International Women’s Day
16. Radio Sheffield’s Naked Podcast returns.. with men!
17. I was the UK’s first trans newsreader...
18. Transgender DJ Stephanie Hirst returns to airwaves with Radio Leeds
19. Stephanie Hirst on Facebook

Sources that mention both current and past names:

1. Stephanie Hirst: 'Why I'm returning to radio...
2. Sex change DJ...
3. Stephen Nolan interviews...
4. Radio star and transgender icon Stephanie Hirst
5. Rainbow List 2014, 1 to 101
6. DJ Stephanie Hirst returns to air after gender change
7. Stephanie Hirst: 'Now I'm openly transgender, men wolf whistle me'
8. ...Radio DJ reveals he (sic) is to become a woman called Stephanie
9. Stephanie Hirst: Campaign urging radio DJ to be reinstated...
10. BBC Radio Leeds DJ speaks of "utter hell" before undergoing gender reassignment
11. Tony Blackburn and Stephanie Hirst on their special relationship
12. Stephanie Hirst: How I became my true self
13. Leeds Beckett University honour for transgender Capital Radio star Stephanie Hirst
14. The police having transgender training
15. Capital FM axe Adam and JoJo's Yorkshire breakfast show
16. Stephanie Hirst: Announcing my transition from male to female....
17. BBC hires its first full-time transgender radio presenter...
18. Mother's Day: My mum died before seeing me transition from a man to a woman
19. Stephanie Hirst set for return to radio
20. Transgender patients forced to wait 'up to 4 years' for sex change operations on NHS

Pre-transition sources:

1. ...Hirst joins Gold for weekend show
2. ...Hirst leaves Capital FM Yorkshire (dead link)
3. Interview with...Hirst (dead link)

As you can see, pre-transition sources seem scant. And of the sources that talk about her since she came out, about half mention her birth name and half don't.

Here are the two guidelines that seem most relevant to me:

MOS:IDINFO: [mention] the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name.

Was Hirst notable under their former name? Considering the lack of sources that talked about her before she came out, one could argue she wasn't.

WP:BLPPRIVACY: ...people increasingly regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public.

Is Hirst's birth name "widely published"? Well, it's published, but I don't know about widely. Compare Hirst to Caitlyn Jenner: doing a search on Google News for Caitlyn Jenner's old name in quotes, plus the word "Olympics", gave me over ten thousand results. By comparison, Hirst's old name is 'out there', but not anywhere near to the same extent.

All this is to say that I think you could make a policy-based case for removing the name. And even if you disagree, it's worth remembering, of course, that we're not a bureaucracy and that sometimes it's best to ignore the rules. I'll also point to my own essay, Wikipedia:Wikicratic Oath: First, do no harm. If following a policy or guideline would be wrong because of the harm it would cause, don't follow it.

Wikipedia's a hungry beast: it wants to lap up every single scrap of information it can find. But sometimes the beast needs to be reigned in: we don't have to, and shouldn't, publish everything.

As this is a BLP matter I'll remove the name while this is being discussed. WanderingWanda (talk) 17:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

if you do that, you'll be rapidly reverted. There is nowhere near any kind of consensus or interpretation of policy that supports removal as yet. Policy and discussion so far has been to include the name, but lower down in the article and therefore visibility. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:57, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Crikey, I've opened a can of worms here haven't I.

Just to pick up on: 'Was Hirst notable under their former name? Considering the lack of sources that talked about her before she came out, one could argue she wasn't.'

This isn't my ego talking here, or maybe it is. I don't know. National Chart Show - 5 Million listeners each Sunday, weekday breakfast show (biggest outside of London) with 1.2 Million listeners daily. 30 years in the business.

I've gone from asking a simple request for my former name to be removed due to deadnaming, to now getting into if my mark on UK radio is notable enough to actually have a Wiki page in the first place. Speak to industry specialist and listeners to make your mind up if that is true or not. Remember everything I've done, didn't necessarily make the internet!

This is exhausting!

Also, thank you Funcrunch

Steph— Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephanie Hirst (talk • contribs) 19:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Look, I appreciate that I'm constantly coming across as the bad guy here, but there's another important consideration - and that's that despite many attempts to help and explain, Stephenie still has no real idea how Wikipedia operates. Until that shortcoming is addressed it will be very difficult to appease or meet compromise. Despite multiple clarifications Stephanie is still making claims of GDPR /human rights and oblique legal threats. Stephanie - in all honesty - has been cut a lot more slack than she could have been, but in order to maintain good faith readout needs to understand the environment she has dipped her toe into. Also - I'm on holiday and accessing via a tiny Android phone, so excuse formatting, delays in response and the ubiquitous auto correct. Chaheel Riens (talk) 21:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Additional: I have no doubt that Stephanie is a notable person,and I fully agree that too go from discussing the removal of a name to questioning the very notability of the article subject is just silly. Thus speaks one of the former nine listeners. Chaheel Riens (talk) 21:33, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Nobody questioned that Stephanie is a notable person, and I apologize for making that confusing. I raised two separate issues at the same time: 1) whether or not Stephanie was notable as Simon and 2) whether or not it was possible to verify the content currently in Stephanie's career section. Thank you WanderingWanda for compiling all of those sources. They make it quite clear that Stephanie was not notable prior to her transition, and thus we need not keep her former name. I no longer object to removing it. As for whether we can verify what is currently in her career section, that remains undetermined; I'll pour through those sources this weekend. Depending on what I find, most of that section may disappear, or I may end up sourcing all of it. We'll find out when we get there.

I agree with Chaheel Riens that part of the problem here is that Stephanie does not understand Wikipedia policy or culture, which is definitely not her fault. I disagree that she should take the time to learn it unless she intends to stick around after this discussion. Most editors here spend a long time learning the ins and outs; for Stephanie, this isn't going to be worth the opportunity cost. Steph, here's the crash course: on Wikipedia, the word "notability" is jargon. Instead of meaning that a subject is worthy of notice, as it does in most contexts, on Wikipedia it means that the subject has actually received that attention. Therefore, when we were discussing whether or not you were notable prior to your transition, we were discussing whether or not you had received coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of you. What we call "notability" is the standard we use to determine whether or not a subject merits an article, which you seem to have picked up on. The reason is that, for all of its problems, it's objective. We can spend years arguing about whether or not a random pokémon is important due to the fact that tens, if not hundreds, of millions of children see it regularly on television and in video games—in fact, we did spend years arguing about this—but we cannot argue about whether or not the reliable, independent coverage exists: it either does or does not. So, when we say that you aren't notable prior to your transition, we aren't saying that you weren't important or any other such value judgment. We are simply observing that you did not generate extensive media coverage back then. I will also repeat that in this particular case, we weren't actually discussing whether or not you deserve a Wikipedia article, just whether or not our policies say it is necessary to include your birth name: an extremely niche use of our notability guidelines.

Regarding legal threats, we can't, and won't, tell you that you can't explore the legal details of things involving Wikipedia, or hire a lawyer, or even file a lawsuit against individual editors. We can, and do, insist that you not mention any of these things anywhere on Wikipedia. The reason is quite simple: when you tell us that you are looking into legal options for having your name removed from Wikipedia, you are, in effect, threatening to employ those legal options if we don't do so. This is intimidation, whether you actually meant it that way or not, and the effect of that intimidation is to discourage editors who disagree with you from participating in this discussion, lest they make themselves vulnerable to being named as a party in whatever legal action you take. That reduces the quality of the discussion and skews it in your favor. On Wikipedia, honest, open discussion between many editors, who all have their unique knowledge and perspectives, is our primary and best tool for improving articles. Legal threats severely subvert our ability to engage in open discussions, and we therefore have a zero-tolerance policy towards them. Usually, if someone says something that could reasonably be interpreted as a legal threat, we revoke their ability to edit until they retract their threat. To give you an idea of how seriously we take this, the only two behaviors which receive a harsher response are threatening violence against others and advocating paedophilia (or claiming to be a paedophile), both of which earn immediate blocks without any prospect of being unblocked. In short, that you have made two statements which could reasonably be interpreted as legal threats and have not been blocked is extremely unusual. I do not intend this as a threat or to cause any offense: it is a simple observation of fact.

The rest of this isn't too important, so you can skip it if you want: I know I write walls of text. But regarding how we are all pseudonymous, that isn't entirely true: most of us write things about ourselves on our user pages (which you can usually access by clicking our username in our signatures), and some of us include our real names. Funcrunch mentioned that they include their real name on their user page. I once did so too, but I was fourteen years old at the time and this resulted in it being deleted and my ability to edit it disabled until I agreed to never do that again. But I can tell you more about myself, since you've expressed interest. I'm seventeen years old now (I'll turn eighteen this Friday) and a sophomore at a liberal arts college; I'm interested in political economy, among (many) other things. My name is Jacob Freeland, although that obviously doesn't mean anything to you because I'm not anyone of any importance. A lot of us aren't willing to speak so openly of our lives on Wikipedia, though: it's very hard to make such information go away, and there's a risk of it coming back to haunt you. People become rather agitated about some petty things, as I'm sure you are aware, and politics is perhaps the most needlessly irritating thing out there. Unsurprisngly, Wikipedia attacts swarms of people hellbent on ensuring their partisan version of the Arab-Israeli conflict, United States politics, or whatever other issue is the one on Wikipedia. Some of those people are rather brutish types, and what's worse, some have the same motivations but enough refinement to be truly threatening, even if normally not actually dangerous. For editors active in areas that attract such persons, long-term harassment is a serious and common problem, and one that becomes many times worse if those people can determine your real life identity. So while I understand it's frustrating that your quality of life is being negatively impacted by how much information we have about you and that you feel like you're powerless to do anything about it, please know that those of us who choose to hide behind our usernames aren't incapable of understanding how you feel—some of us are all too familiar with problems that have the same cause as yours.

As for this being exhausting… well, yes. Most things aren't this controversial and don't require nearly this much time, but I can easily point you to dozens of discussions happening right now that have taken up far more manhours than this. It's a small wonder this project works at all, but all of us here do this because we find the end product immensely rewarding. Thank you for tolerating our foibles as we attempt to continue improving the Internet's most popular source, even if you really didn't want to. We appreciate it. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:34, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Also, I added a connected contributor template so that editors can keep track of conflicts of interest. Please don't take it as implying that you've misbehaved: it is merely for our information, so that we know who is who if something like this ever happens again (hopefully not). Anyway, can you confirm that the information I wrote is correct, namely that you are indeed the owner of account Simonhirst and, more importantly, that you are not the owner of Jono1440? If the account progression is actually Simonhirst to Jono1440 to Stephanie Hirst, I should clarify that. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Alright, this discussion has stalled. Stephanie Hirst and I have traded a few emails in which she responsed to my last comment, and I interpret the fact that she has not posted on-wiki to mean she has nothing else she wishes to say about this. Not many have participated recently, but personally, I think that because we have now established that Hirst does not, in fact, meet notability prior to her transition, there is now a rough consensus that we should remove Hirst's name altogether. However, I recognize that my involvement in this discussion makes me biased. Chaheel Riens, are you willing to accept this outcome, or should we move to an RfC? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, if it's accepted that prior to transition Stephanie did not meet notability then all mention of activity prior to transition needs to be removed - as has been pointed out, the entire section (post-trans included) is currently unsourced. I maintain that there is notability, but also that I haven't looked for it yet. Also, confusingly Stephanie herself agrees that her pre-2014 activities are notable, which would support inclusion of the name. It comes down to the decision that if any pre-transition activities are to be kept in, then the name should also stay. If the name is to be removed then all pre-2014 activities need to go as well. The phrase "you can't have your cake and eat it" comes to mind. Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:03, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

References

We don't apply that standard to other articles, though; even if someone doesn't cross the threshold of being Wikipedia notable until later in their life, we still discuss their early life and career as long as it's relevant to the article. Removing one particularly sensitive bit of information doesn't require us to remove all of the other non-sensitive information about Stephanie's early career. (I also don't agree that she wasn't notable prior to her transition, but in any case there's a significant difference between removing her deadname and removing non-sensitive information.) TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 20:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Stephanie: if you're reading this comment, it's a bit technical and more about Wikipedia policy then it is about you. I know that's confusing but I'll do my best not to say anything inconsiderate. Looking at WanderingWanda's arguments, I believe that Stephanie wasn't notable prior to transition. (Stephanie: no-one is arguing that you shouldn't have a page now, and there's no risk of it being deleted—this is just about whether you had a certain level of secondary source media coverage prior to your transition, because if so then our policies suggest that we should mention your deadname. I believe you didn't, which would mean we don't have to.) What Chaheel Riens says (if it's accepted that prior to transition Stephanie did not meet notability then all mention of activity prior to transition needs to be removed) is not correct (c.f. almost any Early life section of a celebrity). I don't believe that we need to mention Stephanie's deadname per WanderingWanda, but I do believe the transition/activism section needs to remain as reliable secondary sources have covered it in detail. However, per MOS:GENDERID we can use whatever description of her gender identity that she wants—WanderingWanda's suggestion of Hirst came out as a woman in an interview where she talked about her gender transition sounds good to me, as long as Stephanie doesn't object. — Bilorv (// W A K E U P //) 21:04, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Earlier in the discussion I said "If there are sources that show Stephanie was notable under her former name then it should be included somewhere in the article". Given the discussion since then, I'd just like to say that if there isn't wide coverage under the former name then I don't oppose removing it. I just thought I'd comment so it is clear that my previous statement isn't indicative of my support of the name staying (I wasn't sure if there was notability established under that name by widespread coverage - the comment was simply my position on the WP policies). I also agree with what Bilorv says, GENDERID says the name is only necessary if they were notable under that name - this doesn't mean other information from this time is not relevant to the article. This policy refers specifically to former names of transgender people not any other information. Alduin2000 (talk) 21:26, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Here's my count: If I've made any errors please let me know:

1. Alduin2000, 2. Bilorv, 3. Compassionate727, 4. WanderingWanda, 5. WickedTerrier, 6. TheCatalyst31 (and of course 7. Stephanie Hirst herself): Seem OK with removal

1. Funcrunch, 2. Bearcat: I'm not sure

1. Chaheel Riens: Opposed

WanderingWanda (talk) 22:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

If it were up to me we wouldn't have deadnames in any trans bios, so you can put me in the removal column. Funcrunch (talk) 23:27, 29 July 2019 (UTC)