Talk:J. K. Rowling
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Leveson op-ed, stance and weight (should be easy to clarify)
[edit]The article says In 2012, she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in response to Cameron's decision not to implement all the inquiry's recommendations.
Wouldn't it be more informative to say that she criticized his decision or said she felt duped, rather than merely wrote about it, particularly as the next sentence begins She reaffirmed her stance...
but it's unclear what stance that's calling back to? (Is "her stance" that she "has a difficult relationship with the press and has tried to influence the type of coverage she receives", is "too thin-skinned", "had taken more than 50 actions against the press", and/or "dislikes the British tabloid the Daily Mail"? Genuine question; those are the only conceivably stance-ish things I spot in the preceding parts of the section.) The end of the paragraph suggests that the stance we're saying she re-affirmed might be "[safeguard] the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable"
, but I find it confusing that this mention of her "re-affirming" it is the first mention of her having it at all: it makes the section awkward to parse. Can we improve this?
I also notice that the only source currently supporting that sentence seems to be the op-ed itself. Sure, the op-ed is reliable for the statement that the op-ed exists, and one sentence is not much, but don't we want secondary sources about the op-ed to establish that this, of all the things she has written, is one which is due inclusion in this FA which should adhere most highly to best practices about writing and sourcing? (Or am I mistaken?) I expect such secondary sources do exist: here is a CNN article covering the op-ed which could be added to the references for that sentence, and better/'weightier' sources may exist.
(Given the issues that various prior and ongoing discussions have identified with various sections of the article, I decided to spot-check whether other sections had issues or not, and this was the first section I scrolled to... which suggests it might indeed be prudent to check other sections for things that could be improved...) -sche (talk) 14:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- I would go for something like
"In 2012, she criticised Cameron's decision not to implement all the inquiry's recommendations and supported the Hacked Off campaign, pushing for further media reform."
It would be good to cite both the op-ed and the CNN piece. If we want to add a bit more detail, I think it'd better to focus on the content of her criticism—mainly that Cameron didn't pursue more legislative regulation—rather than the venue of her op-ed and the exact timing of the criticism. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)- It's been ten days, and no one has else has opined here; Firefangledfeathers might you have the time and inclination to take on this portion? A scholar.google.com search on "Leveson Rowling" reveals numerous scholarly sources that may prove useful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Probably soon. I inserted my proposal for now, and I'll look into better sourcing. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Thx! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Adding timestamp to prevent archival, as this is not yet done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- Probably soon. I inserted my proposal for now, and I'll look into better sourcing. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- It's been ten days, and no one has else has opined here; Firefangledfeathers might you have the time and inclination to take on this portion? A scholar.google.com search on "Leveson Rowling" reveals numerous scholarly sources that may prove useful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- That whole bit pre-dates the FAR, and IIRC, there was no specific discussion of that portion during the FAR, although several editors fiddled with it on copyedit (and in retrospect, it appears there was an attempt to shorten it all). Here is how it looked pre-FAR, if that's any help in the rewrite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Dumbledore
[edit]Loki, you wrote here about the Legacy section that
"There's a sentence ... which seems to confuse the underlying issue when it says her statements about characters – for instance, that Harry and Hermione could have been a couple, and that Dumbledore was gay – have complicated her relationship with readers: it makes it sound like fans object to Dumbledore being gay, when the actual fan objection is that Rowling only said that Dumbledore was gay after the fact and not in the books themselves."
I don't have access to those scholarly sources, so can't suggest repairs; can you access them? If not, who can access the sources and help rectify this passage? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Adding timestamp to prevent bot archival as this is not yet done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- I found this in Pugh -- will update as I find time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:27, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Religious debates
[edit]Re these concerns, my impression from reading Kirk and Smith is that the religious debates largely ended. Eventually? Vanamonde93 I seem to recall you reviewed the sources on Religious debates; can you do anything to clarify the timing per the concerns raised by TompaDompa? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- I'm afraid it will be until next week before I can engage deeply with sources on this page. I suspect there will not exist a satisfactory resolution to that concern, however. Unless someone studied the religious debates retrospectively - and I don't believe they have - sources covered the phenomenon when it happened, and when the debates petered out they stopped receiving attention. As such I'm confident the debate lost steam as the later books appeared, the Christian themes got more prominent, and the lack of any promotion of witchcraft and paganism more obvious; but that's my personal opinion. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:20, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps a re-phrasing will suffice ... IIRC, the main objection was to the word were .. would "have been" work? Doesn't seem so urgent that we can't wait a week or so. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
- Adding timestamp to prevent bot archival as this is not yet done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- I am fine with the suggested tweak, but fundamentally I think this is a case of us needing to be okay with not tying everything off neatly; sometimes the source material doesn't allow for it, and that's okay. I just re-read some of the material we use to talk about Christian themes, and AFAICS all they do is to say that those claiming the books promoted Satanism were wrong; there isn't a history of the debates, as such. At some point I imagine a scholar will pick this up for a paper, and we can tie it off when that happens. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:17, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Vanamonde93 I've been re-reading Pugh (do you have the Introduction?) and suggest we might solve this complaint by something like this. From:
- ... Rowling's writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. There were also religious debates over the Harry Potter series.
... to
- ... Rowling's writing as conventional; some regard her portrayal of gender and social division as regressive. Criticism of her writing from fundamental Christians also led to religious debates over the Harry Potter series.
That would make it not time-dependent, rather just another matter of literary analysis ... have a look at Pugh? I want to get this one off the To-Do list! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't have access to Pugh at the moment, regrettably; TWL does not appear to include it in their collection. If you have the introduction, perhaps you'd be kind enough to email it to me? I believe you have my address. I did re-read some of the other cited sources, Gupta in particular. I'm generally fine with your change, but there is some mention of Islamic fundamentalists too; so perhaps "religious fundamentalists, particularly evangelical Christians"? I wonder a little about length, but if it would address complaints about vagueness I'm okay with it. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:06, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Vanamonde93 ... I have only that one chapter ... will send as soon as I'm home on real computer. Methinks it a good source to have, as a spate of the deletions in recent months were probably DUE content per Pugh, and I think we need to revisit a lot of what got tossed in non-consensual edits. Your proposal seems fine, but need to make sure it's sourced in the body somewhere ... can I leave that all in your hands? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Anti-transgender activist in the first sentence
[edit]If you do a news search for Rowling, 100% of the results will be about her anti-trans activism. Currently, the top results include J.K. Rowling Misgenders Female Olympian as Boxing Controversy Unfolds in Paris, J.K. Rowling Misgenders Female Boxer Amid Olympics Controversy, J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk Criticize Olympics After Algeria’s Imane Khelif Wins Women’s Boxing Match Amid Gender Controversy: ‘A Misogynist Sporting Establishment’, Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is a woman and has always been a woman (no matter what JK Rowling says).
This has been the situation for over half a decade. She is never in the news for anything other than her anti-trans views. Given this, it's absurd that the first sentence doesn't mention what she is known for today – if we go by reliable sources. Instead, it includes the spurious claim that she is a philanthropist (as far as donations go, she is best known for giving money to anti-trans hate groups).
We should remove "philanthropist" and add anti-transgender activist. Not only has it been her main activity for years; she is literally the world's best known anti-transgender activist. The fact that she was famous before is immaterial; so was Graham Linehan, who we also describe as an anti-transgender activist. There is hardly any difference between them today, both spend their lives on Twitter spouting their anti-trans views all day. Perhaps the only difference is that she also gives money to anti-trans groups, so she is even more of an anti-trans activist than Linehan, if there is any difference between them.
Also, considering that this topic has its own paragraph in the lead – making up about a fourth of the lead excluding the opening paragraph – and is covered in depth in the body of the article as well as a separate article on her political views, it would be normal at this point to summarize it in the opening sentence too. The first sentence is supposed to be a concise summary of what she is known for, and this, today, includes anti-transgender activism much more than it includes any "philanthropy". --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 20:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
- Partial agree, many foreign language article pages include lengthy descriptors concerning her 'gender critical' activism, and it has made front-page news multiple times in the UK. Considering this effort seems to be what she has been devoting most of her public capital towards over the past six years, I see no reason to not include it at least within the first paragraph. I support keeping the "philanthropist" label though; she famously lost billionaire status for donating to charities (not limited to Doctors Without Borders and Comic Relief), including setting up her own charity that promotes the welfare of children.[1][2][3]
- As per WP:MOS I don't think there is any dispute that it is a key reason she is notable (especially in the Anglophonic world), nor that it is a noteworthy activity upon which she's undertaken. This also fulfils the reliably sourced material criterion and shouldn't be shied away from just because it's controversial. I also support this change to the opening sentence considering the equal due weight given to her status as a philanthropist and her role as a 'gender critical' activist in the rest of the lead. I refrain from using "anti-transgender" since the article also doesn't use that term.
- Propose possible change of "J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist." -> "J. K. Rowling, is a British author, philanthropist, and trans-exclusionary activist."? Not married to this, obviously. Plifal (talk) 02:08, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Definitely agree with this. I would second the emphasize she is the literal most well known and influential face of transphobia. The representation in the current lede is absolutely insufficient. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- The proposal does not establish a reason for this inclusion. Re the first line in the proposal, please see WP:NOTNEWS and notice that searching for recent news sources renders a faulty analysis; consider looking instead at scholar.google.com. Current leading news stories aren't a long-term reflection of the body of sources. Do you have high-quality sources that describe her as an "anti-transgender activist", much less the sources supplied that are of the quality of Huffington Post? Re the second paragraph of the proposal, I can't decipher what "a fourth of the lead" refers to. And finally, the wording in the lead hasn't even been settled, so trying to add something to the first para is premature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- RE. scholarly articles, would these suffice? [4][5][6]
- Wikipedia is not news, but news is a marker of notability. Nor do we determine these things by Google search results, but again it is a marker of notability. (Cursory results including "JK Rowling trans" and "JK Rowling transgender" yield between double and four times the number of results than "JK Rowling charity", "JK Rowling philanthropy", and "JK Rowling donation"; and this is providing for the most conservative estimation of "transgender" as opposed to the most lenient of "philanthropy"). The news articles quoted are all recent, but you know better than I that to provide a full backlog would be impossible, it's not "just" news now. Besides, if I found myself reducing all those cited by association with the Huffington Post, I would be the first to call myself disingenuous. Based on that objection I would like to ask which part in specific of the WP:NOTNEWS guidelines you take issue with. "Anti-transgender activist" may be unsupported, but a change ought to be made.
- Considering the contentiousness of the person and their political views I doubt any full compromise on the lead will ever be reached, I don't consider that a good excuse to discount the proposal. "A fourth of the lead" as I understood it, refers to the final paragraph of the lead which describes Rowling's 'gender critical' activism. The reason for the inclusion of this material is because Rowling is now widely known for her opposition to many of the sought rights of transgender people (most especially women). If @Amanda A. Brant disagrees with any of this interpretation, she is of course free to say so. Given your own length of tenure as an editor here though, I defer to you on matters of policy. Plifal (talk) 03:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- With tens of thousands of scholarly sources about Rowling, no, three aren't convincing. If "a fourth of the lead" refers to one out of five paragraphs, I'm still confused. On word count, the amount dedicated to transgender rights in the article and in the lead is proportionate to scholarly sources. I'm not seeing the "fourth of the lead" or the article. Her claim to notability on charity is that there is only one person in the UK who donates more than her -- Elton John -- and her bios give entire chapters to that aspect. Also, whether that should be removed would be more effective as a separate discussion. In general, the proposal raised here might have more traction if a broad overview of Rowling's entire work described her that way. In that sense, I suggest checking Pugh and Whited (2024); it's been a while since I looked at them so I can't recall with surety, but I don't think they do. Re your comment below on "political activist", that is likely more workable; her two bios (Smith and Kirk) do go in to that territory (that she used her wealth and fame from Potter to further her views and her philanthropy). Both of those bios were once available at archive.org, but no longer, so I can't help confirm wording, but they definitely went in to how she used her good fortune to further her political views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:57, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Understood. Those three articles were just a cursory glance at Google Scholar on your recommendation, I advise anyone interested in pursuing the label "anti-trans activist" in the first sentence to continue that work. I would concur with @Vanamonde93 below that the reason she's known for her philanthropy and views on trans rights is because of her work as an author, however my only reservation with the label "political activist" would be that she seems to have a large influence over trans rights discourse in particular. In agreement that more reliable sourcing needs to be found. Plifal (talk) 06:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- With tens of thousands of scholarly sources about Rowling, no, three aren't convincing. If "a fourth of the lead" refers to one out of five paragraphs, I'm still confused. On word count, the amount dedicated to transgender rights in the article and in the lead is proportionate to scholarly sources. I'm not seeing the "fourth of the lead" or the article. Her claim to notability on charity is that there is only one person in the UK who donates more than her -- Elton John -- and her bios give entire chapters to that aspect. Also, whether that should be removed would be more effective as a separate discussion. In general, the proposal raised here might have more traction if a broad overview of Rowling's entire work described her that way. In that sense, I suggest checking Pugh and Whited (2024); it's been a while since I looked at them so I can't recall with surety, but I don't think they do. Re your comment below on "political activist", that is likely more workable; her two bios (Smith and Kirk) do go in to that territory (that she used her wealth and fame from Potter to further her views and her philanthropy). Both of those bios were once available at archive.org, but no longer, so I can't help confirm wording, but they definitely went in to how she used her good fortune to further her political views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:57, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not opposed to revising the wording in principle, but at the moment the proposals above are not a summary of the sources. A lot of the news sources say that Rowling has attracted criticism and controversy; a lot say she has been called a TERF, or equivalent; very few RS actually go beyond reporting soundbytes from the twitterati and actually analyzing Rowling's stances. We're also forgetting that her authorship of HP is the only reason any of the rest is in the news; HP gave her the money that she donates, and HP is why anyone pays attention to her views on twitter. We need better sources to go so far as to call her an anti-trans activist in Wikipedia's voice. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:11, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Given this, perhaps a more general tone of "political activist" would suffice, given that she has made statements on every UK general election and referendum, and given that we already have a page dedicated to her political views. Her engagement in discourse and donations to political causes (with transgender issues being a part--albeit a currently large part of that) is undeniable. Plifal (talk) 03:45, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- I know Smith covered her political activism; I can't recall if Pugh did. If someone can produce wording on her political activism from those bios and broader sources, I could probably be convinced that plain "political activist" might be justifiable, as my recollection of both Kirk and Smith is entire chapters on that. But we need to look at these broader sources and bios first; the reasoning in the proposal above isn't how leads or FAs are written, and we are spending on the talk page of one of history's most successful and prolific authors too much time going over and over one issue in a very broad bio, most often without a thorough analysis of the preponderance of sources and always without first developing the sub-article on her political views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Plifal: I don't see where RS call her an activist, though. That's what I don't understand about a lot of the suggestions calling for rewording. Regardless of what your opinion of Rowling's views is, what has she done about those views besides express them on twitter and making donations? And how do those things make someone an activist? Every twitter user expresses their opinion on the platform; that's what it's for. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Right. I'm not saying this is occurring from Plifal, but we are forced to spend much too much time on this talk page on discussions of opinions that are presented without the level of sourcing required. Discussions here should be source-based ... else they are just WP:ADVOCACY breaching WP:NOTAFORUM, and the extent to which that is occurring is becoming disruptive (again, not saying that general comment applies to Plifal's input). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Plifal, having now re-read the biographical portions of Tison Pugh's book, I can't find anything there that justifies labeling her a "political activist". In contrast to Pugh's more-than-a-page on her "philanthropic endeavors", his paragraph about her political views is basically just a summary that "her political views run strongly to the left", but not positioning her as an activist. While re-reading Pugh, I did note that a lot of the recent rapid-fire, non-consensual deletions include well-sourced text, such as her stance on Israel and her use of social media ... a good bit of the content removed from here over the last few months, based on discussions that did not engage sources, needs to be revisited. For "political activist", we would need sources, and we might instead add back to the article wording about her active use of social media to promote her political views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:36, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Sandy, have spent some time yesterday looking through old articles and documentaries, also couldn't find any corroborating evidence to suggest the same. This discussion seems premature, support the re-introduction of material explaining that Rowling uses social media to expound her political views. Many thanks for your dilligency. Plifal (talk) 01:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Plifal, Do you happen to have access to Pugh ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:08, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Here's what the article had as the intro to her Views before relatively recent rapid-fire editing; I think we can do better now, based on this conversation, but those are the sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Sandy, I do not. Plifal (talk) 01:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Pugh has:
"Rowling frequently expresses her political views on her Twitter account, with sharp, sardonic, and sometimes snarky responses to political leaders and their pronouncements"
, but I don't have the other two scholarly sources (that content was developed among four of us). I know the Smith bio covers this territory well, but since archive.org was sued, that book is no longer freely available. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Pugh has:
- Plifal, Do you happen to have access to Pugh ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:08, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Sandy, have spent some time yesterday looking through old articles and documentaries, also couldn't find any corroborating evidence to suggest the same. This discussion seems premature, support the re-introduction of material explaining that Rowling uses social media to expound her political views. Many thanks for your dilligency. Plifal (talk) 01:01, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Plifal: I don't see where RS call her an activist, though. That's what I don't understand about a lot of the suggestions calling for rewording. Regardless of what your opinion of Rowling's views is, what has she done about those views besides express them on twitter and making donations? And how do those things make someone an activist? Every twitter user expresses their opinion on the platform; that's what it's for. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- I know Smith covered her political activism; I can't recall if Pugh did. If someone can produce wording on her political activism from those bios and broader sources, I could probably be convinced that plain "political activist" might be justifiable, as my recollection of both Kirk and Smith is entire chapters on that. But we need to look at these broader sources and bios first; the reasoning in the proposal above isn't how leads or FAs are written, and we are spending on the talk page of one of history's most successful and prolific authors too much time going over and over one issue in a very broad bio, most often without a thorough analysis of the preponderance of sources and always without first developing the sub-article on her political views. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Given this, perhaps a more general tone of "political activist" would suffice, given that she has made statements on every UK general election and referendum, and given that we already have a page dedicated to her political views. Her engagement in discourse and donations to political causes (with transgender issues being a part--albeit a currently large part of that) is undeniable. Plifal (talk) 03:45, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Disagree, as I concur with @Vanamonde93 that most WP:RS cover her statements in the context of her previous fame as an author, and do not analyse her opinions or describe her as an "activist". The wording of a lead description of her as "anti-trans" or an "activist" or something of the sort is also a serious WP:BLP issue. Her controversial statements are already covered in the article and forked articles.
- I suppose a central issue is at what point does voicing your opinions publicly translate into being an activist for something, but in any case we would need sources to label her as such in Wiki-voice.
- I am also vehemently against removing the "philantropist" label as there is abundant sourcing for it being true, and we must remember Wikipedia isn't the place for advocacy, or in this case, what I would consider to be sacrificing the factuality of the article to avoid cognitive dissonance
- However, as per @Plifal, editors interested in adding the "anti-trans activist" label are welcome to put in the research necessary to do so, with the caveat that, as this is a WP:BLP situation, the bar is set very high for such a contentious label to be added to the very first lines of the article. CVDX (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- "If you do a news search for Foo, 100% of the results will be about ...." is an absolutely terrible' way to decide the first sentence of almost all articles. Johnbod (talk) 21:12, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
- Disagree, i'm struggling to find any reasonably unbiased sources that explicitly report that she's anti-trans (or an activist on the subject for that matter). They all seem to suggest she "has been accused of being transphobic" (or words to that effect) but the sources cited for that typically seem to be random twitter posts. There are one or two op-eds in high quality publications that call her anti-trans or transphobic, but for the most part they seem to be so biased that they are likely encyclopedically useless.
- If there is sufficient (and reliable) mention in the literature of her being an anti-trans activist that I missed, i'm not fully opposed to some sort of wording change to the lead, but innuendo about google results is a terrible basis for changing an article.
- Also disagree re: removing philanthropist. You say "as far as donations go, she is best known for giving money to anti-trans hate groups", but do you have the relevant sources or this? There is extensive literature coverage of her charitable donations spanning decades (esp. Lumos, Volant, etc), so this change would require an extremely strong source-derived basis, which doesn't seem to exist at present. TBicks (talk) 02:55, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- At the very least we ought to remove "philanthropist" per the argument I made on WP:PHILANTHROPIST. It's not one of her primary, or even secondary, or even really one of her tertiary claims to fame; nor is it a defining part of her biography. In fact, glancing down to the related section, I think it probably needs to be retitled and the text edited to use more neutral words like "donations" instead - even most of the sources there, in the section notionally devoted to it, do not actually directly call her a philanthropist as required for a value-laden label; and since the term is non-neutral it needs to be used in the overwhelming majority of sources before we can use it in the article voice, let alone in a section header. A few sources using the term aren't enough; nor is stringing together a bunch of sources on donations and then describing a person using the glowingly positive term "philanthropist" appropriate. Not all donations are philanthropy; using the term implies a particular motivation that has to be overwhelmingly reflected in the sources before we can put it in the article voice ourselves, and applying the term to a person requires overwhelming sourcing that similarly applies it to them as a person. A lot of the other wording in the section is likewise non-neutral in ways that don't actually reflect the sourcing (eg.
second-most generous
cited to a source that has a much more dry numerical wording.) But at the very least, its presence in the first sentence of the lead is wildly WP:UNDUE. --Aquillion (talk) 05:07, 7 August 2024 (UTC)- The section is not "stringing together a bunch of sources"; please read the scholarly sources which devote considerable length to describing her philanthropy, and which explicitly list all of the individual ventures Rowling started and supports. The other sources/citations have been provided as a benefit to the reader, as Pugh, Smith, Kirk and other scholarly sources aren't always freely accessible. See discussion in a separate section below, as it's a separate matter from her views on transgender rights. The "hate"-based and inaccurate framing of the initial proposal here is outlandish. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:10, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- On the balance I'm inclined to agree that "philanthropist" shouldn't be in the first sentence. As I get tired of repeating, JKR's notability remains entirely a consequence of her writing; that is the defining feature of her career. Her philanthropy may have gotten some attention in biographical sources, but certainly it's gotten less than her twitter statements, and as I oppose describing her as an activist for that (or any other term that seeks to introduce that material in the first sentence) I must also support trimming "philanthropist". Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:47, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Amanda A. Brant. Rowling's in the news seemingly weekly for transphobic hate speech. She isn't in the news for writing novels anywhere near as often. ZoeB (talk) 14:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Strongly agree per (BBC), (The Guardian) and Post on (X) QalasQalas (talk) 02:25, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Philanthropy
[edit]User:Amanda A. Brant wrote at 20:46, 5 August 2024
"Instead, it includes the spurious claim that she is a philanthropist (as far as donations go, she is best known for giving money to anti-trans hate groups)."
This is an outlandish statement. It reflects not only that the writer has not studied the sources, but an extreme bias in the poster's range of familiarity with the topic and its sources. Please be familiar with the sources before proposing changes which sap community time; we have to repeatedly address biased comments here related to one topic, often in discussions that are based on faulty opinion, advocacy, and are not based on informed use of sources.
- The most recent, most scholarly, and most comprehensive view of her works that includes a full chapter introduction/bio of Rowling is Tison Pugh's book. Pugh says,
And it continues on the philanthropy description for more than a full page of a 19-page introduction to the book, including that some of her awards are because of her philanthropy rather than her writing."While pursuing her extraordinarily successful writing career, Rowling has energetically contributed to a range of philanthropic endeavors, primarily those dedicated to alleviating poverty and deprivation."
Followed by a paragraph about those awards. At the same time Pugh gives more than a page to her philanthropy, they give one paragraph to her views on transgender rights."In recognition both of her Harry Potter novels and of her charitable endeavors, Rowling has been honored with prestigious awards and commendations."
- Smith's biography of Rowling has an entire chapter on her philanthropy. I can't quote from it because archive.org no longer carries the full text, but you can go to Amazon and use "Look Inside".
- I can't recall if the Kirk biography has a chapter, but it also discusses philanthropy.
- Further, she was named to the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy.
Besides those main sources, anyone can go to scholar.google or books.google and find numerous scholarly references to Rowling as a philanthropist as well as an author. There are literally scores of them (although you have to sort out the Master's theses per WP:THESIS). Nonetheless, we have Pugh which is the most comprehensive and thorough. (Aside: while re-reading it, I found also that a lot of the spate of rapid-fire recent deletions included content that was well justified by Pugh and so needs to be revisited). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- WP:BLP applies to talk pages; I am wondering how Amanda's "she is best known for giving money to anti-trans hate groups" is not a BLP vio. It sounds defamatory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- I wrote WP:PHILANTHROPIST in part so I didn't have to repeat this argument every single time it comes up (because it comes up on the biography of almost anyone wealthy, especially if they are also high-profile and have heavy coverage for almost everything they do.) The issue is that
philanthropist
is a value-laden label; sources saying that someone has "contributed to philanthropic endeavors" is not the same as labeling them as a philanthropist in the first sentence of the lead, in the same way that coverage saying that someone has made racist remarks would not be sufficient to describe them asa racist
as a characterization in the article voice. Even if someone is convicted of a felony, we wouldn't usually describe them asand convicted felon
in the lead unless that's how they're generally described in sources discussing them after that. The fact thatphilanthropist
is a positive descriptor doesn't change this - that sort of value-laden characterization, especially in the first sentence of the lead, requires that it be one of the primary ways they're described and introduced in sources, or at the very least in ones that you'd expect to touch on the aspect in question. And the fact remains that the philanthropy section is still largely full of sources that don't use the wordphilanthorpist
, or evenphilanthropy
; if you want to argue for using those comparatively non-neutral words over a more neutral "donations" or the like, you need to argue not just that sources using the wordphilanthropist
to describe the subject as an individual exist, but that that is how their donations are characterized in most sources covering them. I simply don't think that that's the case here. We can pile up sources if you really want, but with the recognition that every significant source that doesn't use philanthropist would count against us using the term, do you actually think it would come in as the majority, or even anywhere close to a majority? More generally, as I wrote in WP:PHILANTHROPIST - if their philanthropy only has coverage because of who they are otherwise, then it likely isn't part of their defining notability and doesn't belong in the first sentence. That's clearly the case here. --Aquillion (talk) 01:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)- Your point was already made. (And rebutted.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
- I wrote WP:PHILANTHROPIST in part so I didn't have to repeat this argument every single time it comes up (because it comes up on the biography of almost anyone wealthy, especially if they are also high-profile and have heavy coverage for almost everything they do.) The issue is that
RFC "anti-transgender activist" in the lead
[edit]- The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus towards rewording or restructuring the lead to put greater or earlier emphasis on Rowling’s anti-trans demeanour is much less obvious at this point, but that will not be decided under this banner. There is already a new section with that goal below, and I wish editors luck continuing there. Remember: these controversial questions on phrasing and structure are difficult to resolve. Wikipedia has a reputation for spending thousands of words on talk pages to decide on a handful of words in the article; this is not a bad thing. Your ongoing good faith and patience will be both productive and appreciated. — HTGS (talk) 02:04, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Should "anti-transgender activist" be added to the lead or the first sentence of the lead ? 15:05, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose as discussed above,[7] there are not sources to support adding this content to the lead nor is there a preponderance of sources or high-quality sources to support adding it to the lead of a Featured article. Those indicating support above have not engaged sources, and support for this controversial and BLP-breaching addition seems to be based on opinion rather than policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- With no prejudice to adding it should sources surface, but I'm fairly certain they won't for now, as we would have become aware of them already. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - see above discussion. Innuendo about google results and personal opinions are not sufficient basis for any edit, let alone a lead change on a Featured Article. The lead itself already acknowledges that opinion is divided as to if her statements are transphobic or not. There should be significant source material to apply such a label, and the references provided in the discussion so far haven't come close to reaching the threshold imo. TBicks (talk) 15:42, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- This strikes me as a little premature, Sandy, as we haven't really had substantive evidence introduced supporting this, and an RfC won't stop the drive-by demands...but since we're here, I guess I oppose because I do not see enough support for this in reliable sources. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Vanamonde93 I went ahead because the sourceless opinions continued after multiple requests to use source-based discussions (sample); in general, the trend on this talk page of complaints not backed by sources is disruptive simply on sheer volume. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:21, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose I'd say calling her an activist at all is a misnomer, and certainly not of primary importance.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:07, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Per MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE, Rowling isn't known or notable for being an activist. I'm not sure "philanthropist" belongs in the lead sentence either. Nemov (talk) 19:23, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain, I consider the RfC to be premature, both for the talk page discussion that spawned it and the article/subject issue it's about. There are several WP:RSP green sources that explicitly refer to the subject as anti-transgender, and several more that use phrasing others would consider euphemisms ("gender-critical activist"). Why do we have to wait until a scholarly source to say the exact same thing, especially when most scholarly sources are related to fiction and literature? The anti-transgender/gender-critical activism of the subject is largely online and self-published in nature, of course it's going to mainly be covered by news media. I fear any consensus reached in this RfC is going to be used as a stick to beat editors with. Umdlye (talk) 20:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- We don't have to wait until scholarly sources cover something to include it in the article. But we need heavyweight sourcing if we're to call JKR an anti-trans activist in the first sentence. If you have RS which have directly referred to JKR as an anti-trans activist, please provide them. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree. Would Variety or Entertainment Weekly count? Or CNN? John (talk) 21:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Neither of those publications say anything about her being an activist. Suffice to say those sources alone are, in all likelihood, insufficient for adding a contentious label to a first sentence. TBicks (talk) 21:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Those are more useful than the average source linked here, so thank you, John. I think these are not talking about "activism" at all - and so aren't enough for that label - but they do go so far as to say "anti-trans" in their own voice, which most media sources do not. Whether these are sufficient to change our usage in the body, I will need to mull over. Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:48, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- About to head off for the night, and I still don't feel like this RfC is the appropriate place for it considering it was started with barely anything for the community to gain consensus on, so will reluctantly provide a few off the top of my read pile here for the sake of discussion:
- "...from politicians and prominent anti-transgender voices, including former president Trump and author J.K. Rowling..." - Washington Post
- "Rowling is a prominent gender-critical campaigner and has faced a backlash over comments deemed as “anti-trans” by critics." - Reuters Fact Check team
- "Among its opponents is JK Rowling, author and prominent anti-trans activist." - The Independent
- "The author and anti-trans-rights activist is calling out celebrities she alleges have "used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors." - Entertainment Weekly
- Happy to do a more thorough review later if that is what is really needed, but this topic goes beyond a simple counting of headlines and mentions and I'd hate to see it devolve into a battle about individual sources. Umdlye (talk) 21:53, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for at least providing sources upon which we can base a discussion; most appreciated (srsly). But two sources that actually refer to her as an anti-trans activist (without getting in their own biases) are insufficient for labeling her as such in the first line of her bio; per TBicks, and as Vanamonde93 says, we'd need some heavy duty evidence that it's commonplace to label her as such if we are to do so in WikiVoice. When I searched, I found one source that labeled her that way (Pink News), along with scores of sources that talk about others as anti-trans activists within the same articles where they discuss JKR without using that label on her (samples [8] [9][10] [11]), so in your searches, remember to look for the absence of the label, too. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for these.
- As people keep asking for more sources:
- Rowling's increasingly extreme hate speech is noted and (often uncritically) published regularly by the UK media. Scholarly articles are harder to source, as the subject matter is only discussed in the context of children's literature or transphobia, the two things Rowling's noteworthy for. Some examples:
- "...the article analyses some of the transphobic elements of Rowling's essay published on June 10, 2020, originally titled “TERF Wars,” which prompted an online backlash and a subsequent cycle of negative legacy media coverage against trans people." -- K. Rowling and the Echo Chamber of Secrets
- "How could you think we'd care about what that—woman—wrote about you?": Harry Potter fans' reaction to J. K. Rowling's transphobic tweets
- "And while fans’ queer reading practices extend to gender nonnormative interpretations, Rowling’s personal, conservative views on sex and gender have recently been made abundantly clear through her repeated and escalating anti-trans commentary, posted between 2017 and 2020 (Jeni, 2017; Rowling, 2019, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, 2020d, 2020e, 2020f, 2020g, 2020h, 2020i, 2020j, 2020k)." -- Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling
- It's more commonly cited in popular culture articles:
- "Rowling has made her antagonistic position on trans issues clear through tweets, sound bites, actions, and even a 3,600-word blog post. By 2024, her transphobia has become so rampant and constant that it’s difficult to build a completely comprehensive timeline of it." -- J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself.
- Rowling's transphobia controversy: A complete timeline
- Her transphobia's extensive enough that there are multiple articles merely summarising some of her hate speech over the last few years. It's even the subject of a play, TERF. ZoeB (talk) 09:24, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- None of those sources mention her being an activist either. The Vox article mentions that she is friends with anti-trans activists, but doesn't label her the same way. We're talking about changing the first sentence of the lead to "anti-trans activist". The bar has got to be that she is not only anti-trans in her views, but is actively engaging in *activism* about it, not just speech. I'm yet to see convincing source material of her "activism".
- Bear in mind, there's already a paragraph of the lead dedicated to her speech on gender issues, which states that many view her speech as transphobic, so it's not like the lead is crying out for a missing label here. TBicks (talk) 10:35, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Per TBicks, nothing to support the proposed addition.
"Scholarly articles are harder to source, as the subject matter is only discussed in the context of children's literature or transphobia, the two things Rowling's noteworthy for"
is untrue. Rowling's views on transgender rights are dealt with in scholarly articles on fandom, cancel culture, freedom of speech, academic freedom, language and linguistics, marketing, etc. As I said above re another post, this position indicates bias in the poster's range of familiarity with the topic and its sources; if one's focus is only one aspect of one of history's most prolific and successful authors, one's opinions on the overall notable aspects of that author are likely to be similarly skewed. I invited those posting cherry-picked source lists (most often of lower-quality sources) to go to scholar.google.com, enter "J. K. Rowling", restrict the search to "Since 2024" and have a look at the pages and pages of recent literature about Rowling for the unbiased view of sources and notable aspects of the author. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree. Would Variety or Entertainment Weekly count? Or CNN? John (talk) 21:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- We don't have to wait until scholarly sources cover something to include it in the article. But we need heavyweight sourcing if we're to call JKR an anti-trans activist in the first sentence. If you have RS which have directly referred to JKR as an anti-trans activist, please provide them. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. Being intensely hated by sources with a particular POV is not sufficient to insert contentious value-laden labels into the lead of a BLP. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:56, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose for now, reliably sourced evidence seems insufficient, but I do believe there may be cause for activist concern and that her activities on this front should be monitored closely. This opinion shouldn't be held against future attempts to change the lead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plifal (talk • contribs) 01:08, August 8, 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose an unencyclopedic and POV. Bon courage (talk) 08:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support. It is very clear from her social media that opposing trans rights is one of her main activities and this is well documented in reliable sources over several years[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] This feels like perhaps there's a difference in British vs American subtext on the term activist. In British English it's considered a neutral descriptor synonymous with campaigner or lobbyist, rather than a term with negative connotations. In that sense of being a neutral description is it clearly accurate; if the word activist is the problem then maybe the HuffPost formulation of "outspoken critic of the transgender community"[11] might be more acceptable? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 09:29, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per SandyG and discussion above. Even by the usual standards of discussions of Rowling this seems a particularly pointless RfC, with no attempt to demonstrate that this is the consensus view of the HQ RSs. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:17, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per above, but I do think the phrase we have in the lead at present (Her comments, described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors.) is weaselly. I suppose, by definition, those who describe her social media outpourings as transphobic become de facto her "critics", but I think this could be better worded. The "critics" include former collaborators like Radcliffe and mainstream media sources like CNN. There's got to be a better way to describe this. John (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- This, I agree with; and it's a point I've made before when we discussed the transgender views section, especially when we have pigeonholed her considerable number of "critics" - including prominent feminist scholars - with the handful of loonies who have delivered threats and insults. The transgender section is a little better than it was, but we did not carry over those changes to the lead paragraph. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks, I couldn't agree more. Perhaps this doesn't belong in the RfC which already seems doomed to fail, but let's talk in another section about deweaselling this part of the lead. Here's another CNN article meantime. John (talk) 18:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- The new transgender rights section was installed a bit prematurely, and the lead was never synced with the new body; in fact, there is now content in the lead which is not in the body. It would be grand if we could tame the dead-end proposals on this page that don't engage sources, and actually be able to focus on working on those sentences in the lead constructively. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- This, I agree with; and it's a point I've made before when we discussed the transgender views section, especially when we have pigeonholed her considerable number of "critics" - including prominent feminist scholars - with the handful of loonies who have delivered threats and insults. The transgender section is a little better than it was, but we did not carry over those changes to the lead paragraph. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Suppport in futility. The fact Wikipedia is so reluctant to label the most famous transphobe of our times as such is, to me, lunacy, but obviously beyond my power and patience to change. Still, I would rather cast some kind of dissenting voice than let this erasure of the reality of JK Rowling go without any opposition whatsoever. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Weak support - JK Rowling describes herself as gender critical. Due to this, I believe there are no contentious label or POV issues with this proposal.--Flounder fillet (talk) 21:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Given that she doesn't describe herself as an activist, i'm not sure this is sufficient. Holding gender-critical views doesn't make you an "anti-trans activist". TBicks (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, but almost every tweet being on the subject does. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 11:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that simple speech expressing views on twitter can make one an activist. TBicks (talk) 13:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, but almost every tweet being on the subject does. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 11:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- Given that she doesn't describe herself as an activist, i'm not sure this is sufficient. Holding gender-critical views doesn't make you an "anti-trans activist". TBicks (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support 100%. It's extremely disappointing to see an article with a lead that is in desperate need of being updated, continually and consistently being denied the tiniest improvement. So many critics have accused her of being transphobic or anti-trans, and she is one of the most high-profile people to campaign against acceptance for trans identities, and in recent years has become known for her outspokenness on transgender issues. But you certainly wouldn't know any of that from reading the lead paragraph, or the 2nd, 3rd or 4th paragraphs in the lead. It's casually mentioned in the 5th paragraph as if it was just trivial information. Just a basic search for the name "J. K. Rowling" brought up these search results on the first page, with many more reporting on her anti-trans rhetoric. She is just as notable for Harry Potter as she is for her hateful anti-trans remarks. It's truly sad to witness the decline in quality of this article. Isaidnoway (talk) 00:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose for now per SandyG's explanation and other arguments, but I do agree that the lead needs some work. As stated though, it was on the plan to get it synced to the updated transgender people section. I also suggest allowing the editors with extensive source knowledge more time to work effectively, rather than pressuring them with passive-aggressive remarks. Vestigium Leonis (talk) 10:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per
--Dustfreeworld (talk) 23:21, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose-This is clearly not a matter of top importance for Rowling. Celebrities advocate for causes all of the time and it is rarely even mentioned in the lead at all, let alone the first sentence. Display name 99 (talk) 02:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
- I disagree about the relative importance; media interest over Rowling's views on this particular issue have dominated her coverage for a while now in a way that I cannot say I can recall non-political famous figures of her prominence doing in recent years. Time will probably need to tell if the cultural impact as retrospectively would elevate that controversy to top billing, and as of now I could concede might be too hasty for the first sentence, but it is definitely of fundamental interest in the lead for the convenience of most people that look her up in Wikipedia currently CloakedFerret (talk) 09:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
- I have no issue with her position on transgender issues being mentioned in the lead, and concur that it has attracted a lot of attention. My objection is to its inclusion in the first sentence or first paragraph. Display name 99 (talk) 17:38, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
- CloakedFerret, the technical term is "clickbait", and the media takes that bait every time Rowling hits X/Twitter. Wikipedia tries to be an encyclopedia, and we don't have to succumb; we can, do and should rely on better sourcing than every news outlet that garners traffic every time Rowling types. She gets that attention because of her Potter fame, as Vanamonde93 has pointed out several times. But agree with Display name 99-- not worthy of first sentence inclusion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Her anti-transgender views are not integral to her notability, and she is not an activist. LK (talk) 12:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support. It has been her main activity, the only reason she is in the news for half a decade. She literally talks about nothing else; even Elon Musk—who is far from an ally of trans people—suggested that she should consider expanding her interests beyond just trans people.[12] I entirely agree with the user who said, above, that
the fact Wikipedia is so reluctant to label the most famous transphobe of our times as such is, to me, lunacy
. The omission is blatantly political. We can discuss how we should phrase it, but something about her anti-trans views, writings or activities (whether we call it campaigning, activism or something else) belongs in the first sentence, unlike the laughable claim that she is a "philanthropist" for donating money to anti-trans groups like Beira's Place, a woman who was suing Stonewall, LGB Alliance if I'm not mistaken, and other anti-trans activities. The fact that she has donated money to groups she agrees with, especially anti-trans groups, can be mentioned further down. --Amanda A. Brant (talk) 06:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)- In the last 'half decade' JK Rowling has published three best selling crime novels, one of which she one three awards for, and been involved in the television adaptation of the same series. She has also published two works of children's fiction, one of which again she is involved in the adaptation of, as well as a screenplay for a Hollywood film. Her notability continues to be for the fact she is a highly successful writer. The last 'half decade' has also seen her continuing philanthropy noted, with the ongoing work of her charity Lumos, as well as a significant financial donation to save female lawyers and their families from Afghanistan. Twitter activity is not the sum of a person's existence. Daff22 (talk) 07:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately @Amanda A. Brant, you give away your bias (and unfamiliarity with the source material) on Rowling fairly readily.
- Take "the laughable claim that she is a "philanthropist" for donating money to anti-trans groups". There is significant source material for her philanthropy, which includes creating and self-funding a charitable trust (Volant) as well as founding the charity Lumos. She also funded a regenerative neurology clinic at the University Of Edinburgh. If you genuinely think that the word philanthropist is in the first sentence because she "donat[es] money to anti-trans groups", then you should really familiarize yourself with her source material before suggesting edits on her page. TBicks (talk) 13:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Per many of the arguments above, in particular WP:BLP, WP:NOT. Daff22 (talk) 08:24, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
- Weak support For the reasons outlined above, I think her frequent public expressions of her opinion are more notable than her philanthropy. However, I think "anti-trans" is too controversial; I would suggest "gender-critical activist" or something along those lines. EruFish (talk) 09:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per comments above. Her anti-trans comments are notable but I think they have appropriate weight at the end of the lead. JSwift49 23:49, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose p.o.v. and bias issues, improper and too controversial — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonkintorval (talk • contribs) 00:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- Weak Support for anti-trans activist: I think we should mention this early but this specific wording and this early I'm not attached to. I could easily be convinced to call her a gender-critical activist. (However, I do think that now she's self-identifying as gender-critical and this is a big source of her notability right now we should mention it somewhere in the first paragraph, or at least match the lead with the body). I'm more convinced, however, by WP:PHILANTHROPY/Aquillion that she shouldn't be described as a "philanthropist" in the first sentence. That is definitely not a major source of her notability and even to the extent it gets reported on, she is usually not described as "a philanthropist" in those words. Loki (talk) 05:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per several of the comments above. Johnbod (talk) 12:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support - anti-transgender activism is literally all that she has been in the media for, in the last couple of years. Oh - with the exception of her recent attacks on a cis Algerian woman for... *checks notes* looking too manly for Rowling's taste, or something? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 14:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per SandyGeorgia, TBicks, and John. Featured articles and BLPs are held to high standards and I don't think these proposals meet that standard. However, I do think that the very quick mention in the lead of her transphobic views doesn't do justice to the amount of criticism she has received for it. I think the lead should be slightly rewritten to discuss it in more depth. 〜 Askarion ✉ 18:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
Sources
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References
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Covering antitrans in the lead
[edit]- See also Talk:J. K. Rowling/Archive 11
Lot's of discussion and suggestions. I understand that we are describing Rowling's stance thus:
Rowling has gender-critical views, and she opposes many proposed laws that would make it simpler for transgender people to transition. These views have attracted widespread criticism and are often described as transphobic or anti-trans, though Rowling disputes this.
Friction over Rowling's gender-critical writings surged in 2019 when she defended Maya Forstater, whose employment contract was not renewed after she made anti-trans statements. Rowling wrote that transgender people should live in "peace and security" but said she opposed "forc[ing] women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real". According to Harry Potter scholar Lana Whited, in the next six months "Rowling herself fanned the flames as she became increasingly vocal". In June 2020, Rowling mocked the phrase "people who menstruate" and tweeted that women's rights and "lived reality" would be "erased" if "sex isn't real". In April 2024, responding to Scotland's Hate Crime and Public Order Act, she tweeted a list of trans women, writing that they are "men, every last one of them".
Rowling believes that making it simpler for transgender people to transition could impinge on access to female-only spaces and legal protections for women. She opposes legislation to advance gender self-recognition and enable transition without a medical diagnosis. On social media, Rowling suggests that children and cisgender women are threatened by trans women and trans-positive messages.
Rowling's views have fuelled debates on freedom of speech and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts and culture sectors. She has been the target of widespread condemnation for her comments on transgender people. This negative reaction has included insults and threats, including death threats. Criticism came from Harry Potter fansites, LGBT charities, leading actors of the Wizarding World, and Human Rights Campaign. After Kerry Kennedy expressed "profound disappointment" in her views, Rowling returned the Ripple of Hope Award given to her by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organisation. Despite the controversy, sales of Harry Potter books have been unaffected.
Rowling denies being transphobic. In an essay posted on her website in June 2020 – which left transgender people feeling betrayed – Rowling said her views on women's rights sprang from her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault. While affirming that "the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable ... transgender people need and deserve protection", she wrote that it would be unsafe to allow "any man who believes or feels he's a woman" into bathrooms or changing rooms. Writing of her own experiences with misogyny, she wondered if the "allure of escaping womanhood" would have led her to transition if she had been born later, and she said that trans activism was "seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class". Whited asserted in 2024 that Rowling's sometimes "flippant" and "simplistic understanding of gender identity" had permanently changed her "relationship not only with fans, readers, and scholars ... but also with her works themselves".
The relevant part of the lead reads like this:
Rowling has been vocal about her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017. Her comments, described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors.
The latter is supposed to fairly summarise the former. As I said above, I don't think that it currently does. I'd pick on the term "critics" as being the weakest point in the current wording. Others may feel it needs a complete rewrite. I also note that the first passage tells us twice that Rowling denies being anti-trans. I feel once would be enough, or even zero times (she's hardly likely to admit to it, is she?!) So that's another thing to think about.
Thoughts? John (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
- Agree that it should be expanded a bit, to more thoroughly summarize the section. I wouldn't remove her denial that she is transphobic entirely though, as that would like be skating the line with regards to WP:NPOV. TBicks (talk) 01:00, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- I noted the redundancy (and others) in emphasizing anti-trans weeks ago, but that got no attention; the rewrite of the transgender section was installed before it was polished. The current lead, written during the FAR, was constrained by a very recent (then) but very well attended RFC: see Talk:J. K. Rowling/Archive 11. I think a complete rewrite now is in order, but please be aware it may not be an easy undertaking (see the volume of commentary in the linked RFC). It would be ideal to finish cleaning up the transgender section rewrite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'd support a rewrite, the current consensus for the lead made sense in an attempt to characterize her that follows WP:NPOV considerations, but the increasing outspoken support definitely makes the hedged statement of the lead seem increasingly outdated. I am unsure about how important the part of dividing feminists should be, as it is is described in her article on political positions but is not mentioned at all in this section of the main page, and I wonder if it would serve to instead be a bit more explicit about the general view of that section that her views attract "widespread condemnation" and "criticism", changing her relationship with her works, that I feel is alluded to in the current lead but more through the framing of "debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture", which feels currently too narrow for the current section (of course, with special care given to NPOV) CloakedFerret (talk) 09:46, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Rowling and Musk named in cyber-bullying case
[edit]This is interesting. It probably already merits inclusion in the article. We'll need to keep an eye on how it develops. John (talk) 15:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- Also here (BBC). As you say, WP:NOTNEWS means there's no hurry to include until more details are available in reliable sources. Bazza 7 (talk) 15:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- Agree that we should wait to see how it develops. It was added to the article, incorrectly stating Rowling was being sued, but I removed it. As of now, a criminal complaint has been made against X, with Rowling mentioned in the narrative of the complaint. As I understand it the whole process may take sometime. Unless Rowling is actually directly charged with something, it is WP:UNDUE for now. Daff22 (talk) 15:26, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- So, even though the BBC says it is unlikely that anything will come of this, as happens with this article, everything about JKR is news, and must go in right away ... if history serves, it will be continually added even though it's UNDUE. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:33, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see how we can avoid covering this in some form; there's a lot of coverage out already, it's only going to increase in volume, and it can't simply be covered as an example of her views on transgender people - Khelif isn't a transwoman. But the sources used in recent edits aren't good enough, and I don't see how the lawsuit is due weight at the moment. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
J.K.Rowling and Imane Khelif
[edit]I would like to suggest updating the information on Rowling including her reference to this 2024 olymnpic gold medallist woman and Khelif's wish to sue her. TG talk 12:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- Please look up. #Rowling and Musk named in cyber-bullying case. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Reverted edit by LokitheLiar
[edit]Forgive me, @LokiTheLiar, what is wrong, under the "transgender views" section, with the short but heavily - and I mean extremely heavily cited quotation, taken from the Political views of J. K. Rowling - "Some performers and feminists have supported Rowling and condemned comments against her."
Seriously, with all those citations, and being already mentioned in the relevant article, how is this not relevant? Zilch-nada (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Likewise, the pretty fundamental phrase. -i.e. a clearly relevant thing to mention - from the other article, "even as she has received support from other feminists", was formerly in this article but now it is strangely eschewed.
- Do you think ALL notable reception of Rowling's views are negative? Seriously? Does even the slightest mention of the well-sourced defenses by SOME in the performing arts and feminism, strike you as irrelevant? Zilch-nada (talk) 15:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I also don't see what is wrong with "Her comments, described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors" in the lede: it was changed only a few weeks ago with very little comment (if you see above); hardly the consensus you describe. Zilch-nada (talk) 15:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Every aspect of this situation is heavily cited. But not every aspect is WP:DUE. The point of this article isn't to recapitulate every detail of the political views article. That article exists exactly to avoid this article being swamped with every detail of the situation.
- The performers who support her are not the main characters, for one, and we agreed to giving only a gist because if we got into specifics we'd be here all day. The feminists who support her are gender-critical feminists, so their support is unsurprising for one, and also firmly in the minority internationally for two.
- Like it or not, most responses to JKR are critical, and increasingly so more recently. Loki (talk) 15:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- Why is it in the other article but not this one? It certainly used to be in this article. And it's more than just GCFs coming to defence, e.g. Eddie Izard, Hirsi Ali, and noted feminists in general like Julie Bindel. Why on Earth would you not see that as due. Zilch-nada (talk) 15:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- " most responses to JKR are critical"; so not all, right? Zilch-nada (talk) 15:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- BTW, "even as she has received support from other feminists" is said in the short LEDE of the other article describing all her political views, but there is purge of it mentioned here. That is wholly and entirely uncalled for. Zilch-nada (talk) 15:38, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- The other article hasn't been updated in a long time, so it probably could also use some updating. The transgender views section of this article was just updated recently.
- Also, politely, you don't need to reply to me three times every time. :P Loki (talk) 16:06, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- " most responses to JKR are critical"; so not all, right? Zilch-nada (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I have restored at least the uncontroversial lede which actually effectively summarises the topic more:
"Since 2017, Rowling has been vocal about her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights since 2017. Her comments, described as transphobic by critics and LGBT rights organisations, have divided feminists, fuelled debates on freedom of speech and cancel culture, and prompted declarations of support for transgender people from the literary, arts, and culture sectors."
- The other ending to the lede describes little of the discourse surrounding Rowling (which is probably the currently most relevant thing), whereas this very much describes proclamations of support, reactions of LGBT rights orgs, and culture wars, etc. That is most certainly - at least - something to include. Zilch-nada (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't object to that revert as much since I admit that edit was WP:BOLD. But some edit like that has consensus over the status quo; see above discussions including the recent RFC for details. Loki (talk) 04:55, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
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