This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. 
AnilSerifoglu (talk) 00:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
AnilSerifoglu (talk) 00:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Jango clones, Legends and gender
Current Wookieepedia Sourcing policy and status articles dictate that we treat all Legends clones as male, with Good articles such as 17 and Unidentified clone trooper (Geonosis) using blanket statements about all clones made in sources such as 
clone troopers in the Encyclopedia (original site is defunct) and 
clone troopers in the Databank (original site is defunct) as their gender citations. This differs from our policy on Canon, where gender of clones can’t be assumed due to the presence of female clones in Canon. The reasoning being that, due to the Legends continuity's relative inactivity, the chances of a female or non-binary clone being introduced are next to none.
Recently, however, there has been some pushback against this policy for being too literal of a reading for the following reasons:
- The sources cited are meant as a general overview of your average clone trooper as opposed to necessarily applying to all of them, with statements that either only apply to clones as a group (such as their appearances or equipment) or statements that apply to most clones but still have outliers (such as the clones being listed as affiliated with the Galactic Republic).
- Most of the Legends sources were likely written without queer people in mind, a trait shared with early Canon sources on clone troopers, to the point that
clone troopers in the Encyclopedia (original site is defunct) is used as a source for both continuities. - There aren’t any Legends sources explicitly stating a trans clone trooper could never exist so their introduction into canon is not a deliberate lore change like many of the two continuities’ other differences.
I propose we treat these sources in a similar way as other antiquated blanket statements such as the statement about male and female Kaminoans in Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, Updated and Expanded, leaving the only blanket statements used for gender citations being for either smaller groups or droids who have gender programming instead of the real world concept of gender identity. This would have the benefits of:
- Matching the inclusive policy we take to citing gender across our other character pages
- Making the gender citation guidelines similar for clones in both Canon and Legends, leading to our policy being less potentially confusing for new editors
- Making the gender citations for individual clones more relevant to each subject.
Speaking from personal experience, part of the value of Wookieepedia for me is learning specific information about an individual character. While obviously clones have information that usually applies such as species and height, I feel we are limiting ourselves as a resource by using a catch-all explanation for gender in this regard.
Feel free to discuss below, all opinions welcome. Special thanks to User:OOM 224 for his help with fleshing out arguments and proofreading. - JM1998 (talk) 13:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Discussions
- I'm not the most knowledgeable with Legends material, but from what I read I don't see any issue. Looks good to me, but I'm curious what others will say. Bonzane10 black belt in card-jitsu 14:23, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
- I see your point, but I personally disagree. We have sources explicitly listing clone troopers as male. The same is true for Canon, however since there are examples that contradict (Sister, Omega, Emerie Karr) we can disregard that info. However, Legends sources list all clones as male, therefore all clones in Legends are male. We should document what sources tell us, and since there are no female or non-binary clones in Legends, we should document as such. I'm sure others might disagree, but this is my take. Rsand 30 (talk) 17:45, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Rsand 30. The sources state that GAR Clone Troopers in Legends are male and there are no sources (I know of) that contradict this, so we have to document what the sources say.SaintSirNicholas (talk) 17:59, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
- Absolutely. An excellent Senate Hall debut! JM's points already address the above concerns about Legends sources listing these clones as male, but I'd like to emphasise the following. Things like a template gender field were listed as a generalisation and we should not be treating it so literally—I get it when we have a lack of information on some niche star system's population, but not when it comes to a people's gender, which is inherently a concept based on individuality. Treating the Legends Databank and SWE sources for the issue of gender to be fully accurate is really an assumption of itself. The new canon continuity has shown us that of course it's possible to have non-male clones; just because that isn't shown to be the case in Legends, in older sources that probably reflect the absence of thought paid to queer people, does not rule this out—and ruling out the possibility of individuality is exactly what listing all clones as "male" is doing. OOM 224 (he/him) 07:11, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Do you have a source stating that the listings of all clone troopers as "male" in Legends sources were intended to be generalizations instead of canon? Also, saying that Legends sources "probably reflect the absence of thought paid to queer people" sounds like a bad-faith assumption, especially given your assertion that arguing in favor of maintaining the current documentation of Legends canon as is is exactly that. Finally, Canon precedent does not apply to Legends, and vice versa. They are different continuities and should be treated as such. It's not about "ruling out" any possibilities, given that things are obviously changed and updated to document an evolving canon; it's about what has been specifically stated and established, and the absence of anything that contradicts it, a general idea that applies to the documentation of anything on a wiki (with the exception of lore that is actually considered harmful). SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 08:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- The point of a wiki is to document what's there, and editorial responsibility means deciding whether or not to make a call on whether seeing "Gender: Male" on a StarWars.com entry for a group of characters necessitates every article on a character of that group to specify that their gender—a personal, internal perception of oneself—was male. We know that Jango Fett was male and we do mention on every clone's article that they were a clone of Jango Fett. Perhaps articles should simply specify that Fett was male rather than assume the gender of individual clones. OOM 224 (he/him) 08:34, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I do understand why we interpret sources in the best faith possible, it's served us well throughout the wiki. But, frankly, given the amount of Legends sources that conflate sex and gender and the amount of clones that exist, I don't see why we'd assume the writers were saying that every individual clone personally identifies as male when it's much more likely they simply listed them as male because that's what Jango Fett was. JM1998 (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Quickly adding to this to say that there have been examples of the databank, such as Gardulla the Hutt in the Databank (original site is defunct), which conflate biology and gender despite using the word "gender" in the infobox, so saying the guides were written without the intricacies of gender and queerness in mind seems like a pretty logical conclusion.JM1998 (talk) 15:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Again, though, what you consider a logical conclusion is not something everyone also concludes, and claiming that the clone trooper Databank entry listed their genders as male simply because of Jango Fett being male, and that all of Legends was written without the existence of queer people in mind, is still little more than the kind of speculation Wookieepedia avoids. I don't think a single error regarding a Hutt should render the entire gender field of all Databank entries void of canonical value for every other character, nor do I think we should selectively pick and choose what Databank gender entries apply to which character unless there is an evident mistake, such as Gardulla's entry, or examples of a retcon, such as deviant Canon clones of Jango Fett. SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 16:35, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Though not commenting on the issue itself aside, I'd advise you to perhaps phrase the last part of your statement a bit less derogatorily, given that "deviant" does have two dictionary supported meanings, one of which isn't very nice. Nor will the phrase retcon work its way onto any of the aforementioned canon clones, and calling their existence such is a bit insulting.—spookywillowwtalk 16:44, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- My intention upon pointing this out was not to discredit the databank entirely, for individual characters I think it's perfectly fine as a resource, but I do have to question if our continued insistence that a trans or non-binary clone could never exist is based on somewhat flimsy pretences given the databank has plenty of other generalisations and the Databank has been proven to be unsophisticated in its discussion of gender in the past. JM1998 (talk) 16:52, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- To respond to both of these: I was referring to Canon Jango Fett–cloned clone troopers that differed from Fett himself, a human male. Perhaps I could have phrased that better, especially if I came across as insulting. That was not my intention at all. To explain further, by "retcon," I meant its general definition to refer to the fact that, initially (or at least as far as I am aware), clone troopers in Canon were stated to be male, which has since been established to not be the case, given the introduction of non-male Jango Fett–cloned clone troopers. However, given the complete lack of this in Legends, I simply think that such descriptions in Legends sources that all Jango Fett–cloned clone troopers as male are applicable. While it is always possible that an individual Legends source did not handle the topic of gender with the delicacy it deserves, I do not think it to be fair to judge it all in bad faith; this is why I question the use of the example of Gardulla's entry to be more than an individual mistake to the point that it is an indication that the entire topic of gender in such sources to groups of characters is unapplicable. SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Again, though, what you consider a logical conclusion is not something everyone also concludes, and claiming that the clone trooper Databank entry listed their genders as male simply because of Jango Fett being male, and that all of Legends was written without the existence of queer people in mind, is still little more than the kind of speculation Wookieepedia avoids. I don't think a single error regarding a Hutt should render the entire gender field of all Databank entries void of canonical value for every other character, nor do I think we should selectively pick and choose what Databank gender entries apply to which character unless there is an evident mistake, such as Gardulla's entry, or examples of a retcon, such as deviant Canon clones of Jango Fett. SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 16:35, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- Quickly adding to this to say that there have been examples of the databank, such as
- Do you have a source stating that the listings of all clone troopers as "male" in Legends sources were intended to be generalizations instead of canon? Also, saying that Legends sources "probably reflect the absence of thought paid to queer people" sounds like a bad-faith assumption, especially given your assertion that arguing in favor of maintaining the current documentation of Legends canon as is is exactly that. Finally, Canon precedent does not apply to Legends, and vice versa. They are different continuities and should be treated as such. It's not about "ruling out" any possibilities, given that things are obviously changed and updated to document an evolving canon; it's about what has been specifically stated and established, and the absence of anything that contradicts it, a general idea that applies to the documentation of anything on a wiki (with the exception of lore that is actually considered harmful). SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 08:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- If we list height, which there are known examples of clone troopers with not that height (Wrecker, Hunter), then we should definitely list gender in Legends when there is no examples against it. I understand that they are most likely intended as generalizations, but height and weight are also intended as generalizations, and we list that, so, for consistency, we should list gender as well. ThrawnChiss7 Assembly Cupola 12:46, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- The main difference is that height is a physical characteristic while gender is internal so the standards for counting generalisations should be more robust in my opinion. You can see an example of the differences in the articles for canon clones, as we still assume height for Clones where no evidence exists to the contrary but we don't do the same gender. Ironically, I feel the weight example is perhaps even more of a ridiculous generalisation then gender and kinda illustrates my issue with both, as amongst the millions of clones there would almost certainly have been ones with different histories and diets so there would almost certainly be weight fluctuation amongst them. With both weight and gender I believe it is only meant to serve as an example of an "average" clone trooper.JM1998 (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I find height and weight somewhat analogous to gender in this situation. The source doesn't mean "every single clone trooper ever" has that height, weight, or gender, but it just a generalization. If we list height when there is known examples of not that height, I believe that gender and weight should be listed for individual clone troopers as well. I would be supportive of not listing height, weight, or gender, but not listing height and/or weight but not gender. ThrawnChiss7 Assembly Cupola 16:44, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- For the record, we currently don't list weight, which also isn't mentioned in the Databank. Rsand 30 (talk) 16:48, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think that's because that source isn't widely known. I added it to the GA Vaughn, where weight is currently mentioned in the infobox and body.ThrawnChiss7 Assembly Cupola 17:41, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think that's because that source isn't widely known. I added it to the GA Vaughn, where weight is currently mentioned in the infobox and body.ThrawnChiss7
- My issue with this line of reasoning it could just as easily be used to argue that we should assume gender for Canon Clone Troopers, something policy has pretty firmly established we don't do. If we conclude that a non-cis Clone in Legends is equally as likely as a Canon clone outside the listed weight in 2015 Topps Star Wars Chrome Perspectives: Jedi vs. Sith and these are just meant as brief overviews of what most clones are like then how are Legends and Canon even that different beyond Canon confirming something that was always possible?JM1998 (talk) 17:19, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- For the record, we currently don't list weight, which also isn't mentioned in the Databank. Rsand 30 (talk) 16:48, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I find height and weight somewhat analogous to gender in this situation. The source doesn't mean "every single clone trooper ever" has that height, weight, or gender, but it just a generalization. If we list height when there is known examples of not that height, I believe that gender and weight should be listed for individual clone troopers as well. I would be supportive of not listing height, weight, or gender, but not listing height and/or weight but not gender. ThrawnChiss7
- The main difference is that height is a physical characteristic while gender is internal so the standards for counting generalisations should be more robust in my opinion. You can see an example of the differences in the articles for canon clones, as we still assume height for Clones where no evidence exists to the contrary but we don't do the same gender. Ironically, I feel the weight example is perhaps even more of a ridiculous generalisation then gender and kinda illustrates my issue with both, as amongst the millions of clones there would almost certainly have been ones with different histories and diets so there would almost certainly be weight fluctuation amongst them. With both weight and gender I believe it is only meant to serve as an example of an "average" clone trooper.JM1998 (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I am not ready sure what the basis to assume the books explaining Clone gender in Legends are wrong is? As far as I am aware, there are no sources that say otherwise, so the ones explaining Clone gender should be understood as truth, as we would for any other piece of information in a source that is never contradicted. Of course, if someone has a source that disputes or disproves the statements that Legends GAR clones are male, then I would be eager to see it and encourage it to be shared freely so we can learn.SaintSirNicholas (talk) 12:59, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- One problem with this approach, as has been explained in the original post, is that we are already preferentially treating information from official infoboxes such as the abovelinked Encyclopedia one - if we are to assume that male gender is something that applies to all Legends clones, why don't we also assume, for example, that every unpictured Legends clone trooper used a LAAT/i, a V-19, an ARC-170, an AT-RT, and an AT-TE? What exactly is it that makes the gender info more reasonable to assume for every clone trooper ever? Imperators II(Talk) 13:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think that this is a false equivalency, for the same reason that a starship class's or droid model's equipment is not generally applied to an individual starship's or droid's article if an individual starship or droid is not directly established to feature any such equipment. This is less applicable to a personal trait such as gender, so the blanket statement that Legends Jango Fett–cloned clone troopers are male is applicable, while individual equipment is not. SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- One problem with this approach, as has been explained in the original post, is that we are already preferentially treating information from official infoboxes such as the abovelinked Encyclopedia one - if we are to assume that male gender is something that applies to all Legends clones, why don't we also assume, for example, that every unpictured Legends clone trooper used a LAAT/i, a V-19, an ARC-170, an AT-RT, and an AT-TE? What exactly is it that makes the gender info more reasonable to assume for every clone trooper ever? Imperators II(Talk) 13:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
- We have the option of two assumptions, since we don't and can't canvas all authors and editors and creators involved in all the works: 1) that mentions of clones being male is a generalisation, similar to statements made in canon but without exemptions to prove this is a generalisation and not a firm rule. 2) that mentions of clones being male were explicit and made without queer representation in mind, and that as such the two continuities should be treated differently. I see no reason to favour one assumption over the other, and the former allows consistent treatment for both continuities resulting in simpler policy AND better inclusivity. Just because that's how it's been doesn't mean that's how it should be, and this is an opportunity to improve things for everyone. Having no specified gender for clones doesn't have any negatives, but could be a positive for someone out there. Having them all male has the opposite result. ℳÅℕ☉❂Ⅎ she/he/zhe/xe/they are Manoof 12:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
