Talk:Trans man

Definition Error

The opening sentence contradicts what a man is, according to this site and how biology defines a man: "A trans man (short for transgender man) is a man who was assigned female at birth." This should read "A trans man is a person who was assigned female at birth, but who identifies as male." This will clear it up. EmeraldGander1999 (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Why "but"? EvergreenFir (talk) 05:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi all. The opening sentence currently reads as "Transgender men (often shortened to trans men) are men who were assigned male at birth." But why are they transgender; all men will be assigned males at birth. Thus the original assertion appears right [This should read "A trans man is a person who was assigned female at birth, but who identifies as male." ]. This becomes clearer, when we read a corresponding entry on Trans woman [Transgender women (often shortened to trans women) are women who were assigned male at birth. ].Neotaruntius (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Neotaruntius, and welcome to Wikipedia. This thread you are replying to is old, and in any case, some editors have found the opening comment offensive, and deleted the whole thread. I've restored it for now, but I don't really disagree with the editor who originally deleted it; also, it was moribund before you jumped in. It might be best to take this up in a new thread if you still have comments to make about it. Before you do, please have a look at the rest of this page, and then look at the box at the top that has Archives listed in it, and browse the discussions there. A lot of your questions are probably answered in previous discussions. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 05:20, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks sir. It is somewhat easier for me to understand the issue now, since I can see the talk. Initially I did think of starting a new thread, and as you say, I did have a look at the rest of the page. I did not want to commit an inadvertent mistake, as I am so new. And I did find the very same query asked about a year ago. I was a bit surprised that there was no response to the original suggestion by EmeraldGander1999. My query was exactly the same, so I thought starting a new thread for the "very same question" might be seen as disruptive. Now I vaguely understand that this issue is quite sensitive, and I would avoid asking any further questions - especially since I know/conceive this subject subject purely as a layman. What indeed surprises me that my suggestion has actually been carried out. Neotaruntius (talk) 05:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Neotaruntius, yes, the way you thought about whether or not to start a new thread for essentially the same question is just about how I would have considered the question, also. There is no right or wrong here, and just the fact that you thought about it makes me think you will be a good editor here. Don't worry about making mistakes; that is how we all learn. The fact that you are aware that it is a [very] sensitive topic is an excellent start. By the way, your suggestion wasn't exactly carried out—it was a coincidence of timing that made it seem like a long-planned change by a third party editor which happened to come right after your suggestion was in response to your suggestion; it was not. Had he been a faster typer, it might have come out just before your comment, but it didn't turn out that way.

Your instincts about the sensitivity of the topic are good, and I would tread very lightly around this whole topic, until you have read a bit, and gotten your bearings. You could start with articles like Sex and gender distinction, Gender identity, Gender role, Trans woman, and Transgender, and perhaps Intersex. Browse the Talk pages and the Archives on some of them, to get an idea of what the points of debate have been (and still are). Once you get through those articles and have browsed some of the discussions, you will be much better prepared to make suggestions on how to improve them. One last ting: no need to call me 'sir'—just 'Mathglot' is good enough. Mathglot (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Mathglot. I am truly "floored" by your kind words "just the fact that you thought about it makes me think you will be a good editor here," especially since I am aware you are a pro with almost 90,000 edits [I am not sure, if I read that right; appears so surreal to me, especially since I am at a measly 250]. Thanks again Mathglot, you are a true teacher, and I hope to keep learning from you. You are so kind too. Spending time with a newbie might not be the best way to spend time for a professional like you. Thanks again. Neotaruntius (talk) 06:46, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

You are very welcome, and I look forward to seeing and hearing more from you as you gain experience and develop as an editor here. In the meantime, best of luck, and feel free to contact me on my Talk page any time. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 07:34, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

"Transmasculine" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Transmasculine has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 December 15 § Transfem until a consensus is reached. --MikutoH ^talk! 02:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 January 2025

There is a mention of film representations of trans men showing people binding with tape or cloth without mentioning that this is a harmful practice and is condemned in the community. So, more mentions of safe binding practices. Also, I believe it would be good where there is mention of trans men in gay communities and acceptance of gay men to mention Gottmik's runs on rupaul's drag race, and how grindr had him on their talk show and had the drag queen Katya interviewing him. The section on discrimination against trans men linking to another page seems like a bad idea, in addition to the page seeming to have a multitude of problems. Abigail Shryer's book Irreversible Damage and the impact it had on the people mentioned and used in the book against their will, such as Ty Turner and Ash Hardell, along with J.K. Rowlings transphobia, and the BBC's support of jk rowlings transphobia and then apparent back tracking without taking responsibility should be mentioned. Maybe not in so many words. Simply: The BBC were going to give her the Russel Brand award for the article, which was sighted by politicians when making bills against trans male rights. The paper has now been removed, without any apologies from the BBC." Something like that. Also, an explanation of the ableism involved in discrimination against trans men would be good. Since there are so many trans AFAB people who are also trans men. Also, the addition of Buck angel when he's said so many horrible things about people who choose not to medically transition, without including his own discriminatory comments is disingenuous. He also has a youtube channel where he routinely bullies non binary children. A mention of Kalvin Garrah and perhaps Arielle Scarcella. So, maybe a section on transphobia within the community, or a brief discussion of it. Not just the LGBTQ community at large, but also all of the infighting about "tru-scum," trans medicalism and Trans exclusionary radical feminists. In the most objective way possible. Also, a mention of trans drag kings might be relevant when talking about the lesbian and butch identities section. A section of Trans male activists like Jammy dodger aka Jamie Raines would be great. Possibly a list of books written by trans men would be good? Including Gottmik and Gigi gorgeous' book The T guide. When mentioning trans men dating trans men, I think perhaps a line or two on trans men dating trans women, aka the t4t movement or, dating pool I guess, would be good. Also, a section on trans male musicians would be great. The two off of the top of my head are Noah Finnce and Billy Tipton. A section on historical trans men would be great, such as the first trans man to take hormone therapy, Michael Dillon. Or stuff about Billy Tipton's posthumous outing, or Willmer Broadnax who was also outed posthumously. Basically, I would love the ability to edit this page. If that's not possible, I'm willing to clean up all of my suggestions and post them in a bunch of separate posts for different sections. Thanks! 216.171.60.21 (talk) 02:42, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

These are all really good points. Buck Angel has specifically called himself a "female that lives as a man"- I think it's in his Instagram bio- and has shifted into that Blair White sort of thinking. Butch-FTM identity crossover could also include references to Feinberg and zir writings.

The tape thing is difficult because Wikipedia is not a great source for "how to do something safely" in any respect and could be an overreach. Joeei101 (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Whoops, I meant since there are so many trans men who are autistic

I do have a wikipedia account now, its Ratifriedfoodforthought 216.171.60.21 (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: Extended confirmed rights are not manually given to users unless they have a a legitimate alternative account with EC rights. (and rights can't be given to IPs due to technical limitations) Also, if you want to suggest a edit request, you need to mention it in the format "please change X to Y", because otherwise we don't know what to change. Replicative Cloverleaf (talk) 13:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Major lead edit reverted

A major edit attempted to bring the lead more into alignment with that of Trans woman. I have reverted this, but the idea might well be worth pursuing, but it was carried out abruptly and (afaict) without examining whether the references brought over also mention trans men at all, as well as having content that fails to capture nuances like the asymmetric nature of job discrimination against trans women and trans men, for example. There was also a MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE issue. The goal is worth discussing to see whether a more considered, stepwise approach might be fruitful, where this was not. Mathglot (talk) 11:14, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot I totally agree that the third paragraph of my new lead doesn't reflect the body. That seems to be an issue that the body section on that doesn't reflect the very long sub-article on point. I also do realize that the citations for the various treatments might be off, so am fine with us trying to find better citations. But I don't see any issue with the first or last paragraph? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I am sort of torn, because on the one hand, wouldn't it be nice to be able to somehow avoid the seemingly endless discussion that ensues at sex and gender topics just to change two words or move a comma, and somehow skip all that by pressing the hyperspace button (WP:TNT, in wikispeak) and just get there in one go? (By this questionable analogy, instead of taking years and years to get home, we go through the wormhole and get there nearly instantly. The problem is, those wormholes have a way of sometimes turning you inside out.)

Do I by any chance read your motivation in that edit, at least partly, because I understand the temptation to just get there, believe me. There is something to be said for WP:TNT (kind of the zero-based budgeting of editing) even when it applies just to the lead, but it's not for nothing that this article is a designated contentious topic, so that seems a tricky approach at best, as the edit was a whole lot more than two words and a comma. But who knows, maybe others as fed up as we all are at revisiting the same arguments ad infinitum every time an eager new editor shows up with a bright new/old idea will find sympathy in your approach.

My other issue with your change is that I think a good deal more respect is due to the asymmetric nature of the topics Trans woman and Trans man. (It's interesting to note that we have twelve archives for Trans woman, but only three for Trans man; perhaps a reflection of that asymmetricity?) Simply copy-pasting a good part of the lead of one into the other (in either direction) seems reductive and too gross of a tool to achieve a good result. Would we try that at Woman and Man? Should we? I know I didn't respond to your specific questions, but I wanted to address this more from a holistic viewpoint. I wonder where this will go, and will follow eagerly. (subscribed) Mathglot (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Alright, so what do you propose the lead look like then? Or more precisely, how do you suggest we get to a complete lead? Because two sentences is insufficient. As for man and woman, the leads actually historically mirrored each other; their current (and mostly minor) divergence is an issue I'm arguing we should fix elsewhere. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:01, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but larger seems like a safe bet to get approval from even those often on opposite sides of the article topic. As far as how to expand it, normally that would be some function of the body of the article, which leads to another question: since in principle WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, if you mean to make the leads more similar, doesn't that imply making the two article bodies more similar, and achieving that first? Here are some basics stats on sizes and sections:

• Trans man – 40.9kb (raw), 1898 words (12kb) readable prose; contentious; class C; extended-protected; Sections: Terminology; Transitioning; Prevalence, identity and relationships; Health; Sports; Discrimination.
• Trans woman – 52.7kb (raw), 2035 words (13kb) readable prose; contentious; class C; semi-protected; Sections: Terminology; Sexuality; Healthcare; Discrimination; Media representation.

Sizes are pretty similar, and there is overlap in some section organization. Maybe the section org could be brought more into alignment; I don't know if there would be consensus for that or not. (Interestingly, sports is not mentioned at all at Trans woman, and there is certainly a lot that could be said.)

If we ignore that for the moment and just come back to your original question, I guess I would extend the lead to four paragraphs, reflecting the current sectioning. Alternatively, if you think the leads should be more similar, then it would make sense to work on the body first and make them more similar, because if you just do the lead now, it's likely to mostly be thrown out if the body is done later and then the lead needs to summarize the new version of it. I guess which approach works best depends in part on how much effort you are willing to spend on it, bearing in mind that it won't all be smooth sailing, regardless which tack you take. Mathglot (talk) 00:37, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Expanding the lead

CaptainEek, Okay, based on the previous section, I took a stab at summarizing the § Transitioning section, in new paragraph two of the lead. It's about half again as long as I was shooting for, because we have at least two more paragraphs yet to add, but it's hard to know what to cut back. See what you think and if you agree it's too long, see if you can cut it back a bit. There are four more sections that could be summarized; five, if you include § Terminology. Mathglot (talk) 08:06, 15 March 2025 (UTC)