WikiProject LGBT studies

One of Wikipedia's greatest strengths as a non-paper encyclopedia is that it is better equipped to "roll with the times"—that is, to cover current issues as they unfold. Few wikiprojects demonstrate this capacity better than WikiProject LGBT studies, which has more than 250 members and more than 50 pieces of Featured Content. Here to discuss more about the project is Benjiboi, who has started, rescued, and expanded various LGBT-related articles, such as Dykes on Bikes and Diverse Harmony.

1. Recently, the fight for LGBT rights has endured both victories, such as the successful election of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, and long, drawn-out defeats, such as the continued implementation of Don't ask, don't tell. How do these current events affect the project and its members, many of whom are LGBT?

I think you have to see lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities and movements through inter-related yet wildly different filters. Like a government's official recognition or criminalizing being gay. Or the filter of someone who is closeted at work but open in some social situations. Likewise how these filters impact the project and members varies considerably. The United States, in particular, has entrenched and politicized culture wars where discrimination against sexuality and gender minorities remain solid undercurrents. The path towards what many LGBTI people and supporters consider basic human rights; to love and marry who you wish, for equal opportunities and protection in employment, to protect and keep your families safe in regards to parental and medical coverage, etc. continues to be a steady source of news. Every time these issues arise public support has grown, often in tandem with someone they know coming out as being LGBTI. Meanwhile the harm discrimination does to LGBTI people themselves is also being more understood. Similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, LGBTI communities have suffered from issues of institutionalized homophobia and transphobia on a profound level. We know that our members get stressed and generally I think we try to support each other when we get frustrated and have to step back. It is also common to have someone trying to delete content, or even an article, or add some rather shockingly biased information. You simply have to disassociate enough to not take it personally. As members have energy for any project things progress; we have an astonishing range and volume of articles across all subject areas. Personally I believe part of the strength of both LGBTI communities and our project is that we are quite diverse. As Wikipedians we each have unique skills and I think we find ways to work with and support one another.

2. When you say that the project's members "try to support each other when [they] get frustrated", do you mean emotional support or collaborative efforts? Or both? How does one affect the other?

I think support in almost every form one can imagine and that certainly has led to offline friendships as well. I think at the end of it all Wikipedians look to a level of trust from each other. Members of LGBTI communities often go through extra stress because their lives are officially discounted in various ways. Although my experience may not match yours it is similar enough so we share that commonality. That might not translate into better collaborating but I believe it is shared enough that when someone is expressing frustration others do try to step in and see if there is some equitable resolution. We also disagree among ourselves at times so we each have our own projects and when someone asks for help we try to pitch in as time allows.

3. Biographies of LGBTI individuals are prone to very harmful vandalism. Do you think the project's biographies would benefit from the implementation of flagged or sighted revisions?

I can see some benefits in flagging article revisions and supported a trial implementation. On one hand this can curb a lot of nonsense vandalism, to me the downside is not being the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Some of the worst vandalism is when subtle slander is woven in and not caught or is otherwise masked as credible content. Our project's biggest issues tend to be editors removing content and context of a subject's sexuality and gender. We have to strike a balance based not just on truth but on reliable sources. With some biographies their sexuality is just another aspect of who they are, like if they grew up in a large family. It obviously plays some role but perhaps not as significant as an artist or activist whose career is focused on these issues. Often LGBTI people lead parallel lives to their non-LGBTI counterparts. They can be completely invisible to mainstream society unless they purposely are visible like at a pride parade and other community events. Similarly there exists entire media and entertainment structures for LGBTI communities including gay bars, newspapers and magazines. These were born out of necessity and remain an integral resource. In trying to source biographies these are invaluable for verification but most are not online and most small publishing businesses succomb to economic downturns closing them down. In the future I fully expect archives of these to be digitized and transcribed but until then we rely on researchers who do the unglamourous work of digging up these histories. To me the best way to counteract vandalism is to overwhelm with reliable sources and better writing. Ultimately this improves those articles.

4. Wikipedia's coverage of LGBTI-related topics seems to be expanding. So far in 2009, the number of articles tagged with the project's banner has risen by more than 300. Do you attribute this expansion to increased activity and progress within the LGBTI community or to Wikipedia's poor coverage of this area?

Both. LGBTI people are a fascinating minority worldwide and interest and news will continue to focus on issues of sexuality and gender variance. As such I anticipate more current events to be promulgated. Meanwhile there are quite a few museums and archives with impressive swaths of subject areas completely untouched by Wikipedia. Countering systemic bias on Wikipedia is also something we have to look to as more fringe communities and those whose work is in smaller communities where published LGBTI media are less likely can be overlooked. One of the real joys of Wikipedia is writing good articles that share information with people who are usually looking to be better informed. With LGBTI cultures Wikipedia has an abundance of stereotypical content and generally negative aspects like reducing transgender and intersex people to their body parts and LGB people in context of sexual practices. This is improving and someday sexuality and gender issues will simply not be a big deal anymore as much as a variance like the colour of one's eyes. On Wikipedia there are many articles that should be tagged but haven't been yet. For editors curious on adding {{LGBTProject}} to an article's talkpage my suggestion is to go ahead and add it as we can always remove it if our project has no involvement. We strive to be a resource to assist all Wikipedians so feel free to ask for help and clarification.

5. You have worked also on articles that are not related to LGBT culture. What do you find to be different or challenging about writing LGBT-related articles? What skills have you learned from your work in this subject area?

Like most non-mainstream subjects the challenge is sourcing. Wikipedia has plenty of subject areas that are outside the mainstream so finding reliable sourcing that will withstand the test of time seems to be the biggest challenge. A large part of that as well is that much of the LGBTI history is never a part of mainstream history books due to various research bias and cultural taboos. If LGBTI people are discussed it is often in less than positive context. In some cultures we know about numbers of men arrested for crimes related to sexual acts with other men and in some cases this is the extent of what is known about LGBTI culture in that place at that time. Likely this was not the extent of LGBTI culture. Transgender and intersex people are sometimes identified as such only when they die or are brutally murdered and then it is reported, often sensationalized, in the media. So we have to dig to find sourcing to fill in the context of their lives as the most mainstream sourcing focuses on their death which is often a hate crime. There is also a patriarchal cultural chasm that the sexuality of men who have sex with men is routinely criminalized, analyzed and discussed whereas women who have sex with women would seem nearly non-existent as though women's sexuality was not considered a matter of importance or consequence. Bisexual erasure is also at play that unless someone is specifically identified as bisexual they are presumed to be straight or gay. Like many people I feel there is a continuum of sexuality not just a eithor/or; issues of sexuality and gender are obviously very personal and can be intrinsicly tied to a person's outlook and world perspective. To go back to the Don't Ask Don't Tell aka "gays in the military" issue - when talking with actual military personel the men tend to be extremely worried that a gay guy would see them naked whereas the women tend to not be that concerned. When we get neutral research about these issues as well as what happens when you look at gender minorities in these context we see there are differences but they can align more to gender than sexuality or even be a mix of the two. These are all issues that compound the challenges of good writing and are recurring issues for the project.

I think some of the skills I've learned working in this subject area are a heightened awareness of dealing with vandalism, applying manual of style and policies to BLPs, dealing with point of view issues and navigating the issues of what and how we delete content. In particular I feel I've helped the encyclopedia by my contributions at the Article Rescue Squadron Wikiproject where I've learned to assess a bit more when content should be listified, merged or even deleted if it shows little promise of becoming a good article. I wouldn't have know about that project had it not been for several LGBTI articles being tagged for deletion. I think because of the subject area and the volume of articles watched by the project we almost always have several items slated for deletion.

6. Finally, how can inexperienced but eager editors help out with WikiProject LGBT studies?

I think visiting our project talkpage and posting a hello would be a good start. Every editor is different, whereas I do a little bit of everything. We have Moni3 who has recently overhauled lesbian, Harvey Milk, and Stonewall riots, among others to featured article status - she rocks! Other editors specialize on reverting vandalism, building historical and queer theory subjects, cleaning up our extensive categories, adding images, etc. Usually our work spills into all areas of the encyclopedia and likewise when we find a problem or solution that can benefit anyone else we are happy to collaborate and share. Personally I have some learning disabilities so I have to rely on others to do work I feel less than qualified for. We each can contribute significantly to the encyclopedia as we are able and we each have unique perspectives that indeed make the whole better as we build quality content. For any newer editor the starting step, in my opinion, is to help clean-up and do some "easy" fixing just to get the feel for editing here. Then as your comfort level increases, look at articles on which you feel well-informed, look to fixing any glaring mistakes. Not sure what to do? Learning how and where to ask for help is also part of the process. We were all new at one point and generally Wikipedians are quite friendly and helpful.

Correction: lesbian has indeed been rewritten but is presently at "good" article status in hopes that it will soon be a featured article.

Reader comments