Forum:SH:Making use of pronouns

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Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Making use of pronouns

Wookieepedia has been assuming gender of characters based on the pronouns used to describe said characters (e.g. if a character has been identified by "she/her" pronouns, then the character is denoted as "female" in the infobox and prose of her article). This isn't correct, because pronouns do not necessarily indicate a person's gender (further reading: Wookieepedia:WookieeProject Pride/Resources and Pronoun on the LGBTQIA+ Wiki). Someone who uses the pronouns she/her may be a genderfluid or agender person instead of a binary female person.

It is a common misconception, and many people do not yet grasp the relationship between pronouns and gender—certainly, it's pretty new to me, and I also recognise existing language barriers around gender because many only have male and female pronouns or use gendered terms for objects etc.—but we gotta start change somewhere, so let's begin today, here on Wookieepedia. This does not mean confusing readers; listing the pronouns of a character in the infobox rather than listing an assumed gender is a clear way of accurately documenting Star Wars, with minimal assumptions. This means a number of things, and, of course, it includes changes to many, many pages. My off-the-top-of-my-head to-do-list of the hour:

  1. If there is no explicit confirmation of a character's gender, then their gender should not be assumed. This does not require any change to existing policy, and is simply Wookieepedia:Attribution in action, but perhaps it could be written down on some policy/tutorial pages for clarity. However, this of course means changes to many articles. Obviously, existing status articles should not have their status stripped because of this, but new nominations should comply.
  2. Add a pronoun field to character infoboxes — Forum:CT:Pronouns in infobox
  3. Stop pipelinking pronouns to Gender. This has been long-time precedence on status articles (in fact, I didn't even think of this), which needs to be reversed.
  4. Stop assuming gender based on appearances. This is obvious, and while we have been moving away from that I'm sure there are still articles that do this, and we should be making sure new articles don't do this.

These are items another for the end times list, but this time we should start now. It'll take time and effort, but I for one would be more than happy to do so. It is my hope that users can become more aware of these issues through this and be able to educate themselves, and others, about such a pressing and oftentimes personal topic. So, where shall we begin? —Unsigned comment by OOM 224 (talk • contribs)

Discussion

  • I agree with all the proposals and think this is a step into making the Wook a more inclusive space. This can make people feel seen, and people who aren't familiar with those issues might learn a thing thanks to it! Representation and inclusivity brings real change to the world, and this is where it starts. HeadSpikesWalls (she/they) RainbowRebellion2 (talk!)
  • I like this. Might also want to add the field to {{Person}} as well. Dentface (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I agree with these points for the most part, but I can't help but feel that the vast majority of characters aren't going to receive any indication of gender aside from their pronouns and appearance. That doesn't mean I disagree with the proposals being made by any means, I'm just curious about what indicators we should use. For example, is Anakin Skywalker directly being referred to as a "boy" as a child enough to assume he identifies as male? And to what extent do we take into account the way a character is coded (ie characters that are obviously meant to reflect a specific sexuality/gender)? - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 21:32, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Yep! "Boy" is a term that indicates gender. I would definitely avoid assuming anything from 'coding', though. Queer-coding has historically often been used as a villainous trait, for example, which is just queerphobia. Dropbearemma LesbianRebellion (she/her) 05:31, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
    • The first point here is exactly why I think the full proposal here is impossible to implement. [Redacted by administration] At the moment, there are no characters (to my knowledge) that have more [Redacted by administration] situations. Which, incidentally, is why I view categorizing characters by pronouns used to refer to them is massively redundant to the gender categories. If we get characters with more [Redacted by administration] situations, then we can just make a new gender category for them. SilverSunbird (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I second this proposal. Just because it's the current way of things, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be amended to use more inclusive language. This implementation is necessary for making the site a safer space, as well as being more accurate to source material, which often doesn't actually specify if a character is male or female! And to echo other editors, on-site inclusivity and respect has the power to manifest into real-world change as well. Herasoars(comms) 22:00, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I agree with this, however I think it's important to realize how massive of a change this is. In order to insure accuracy, we'd have to go through pages we have for every single character with a listed gender, and check all the sources to see if it explicitly says the character's gender, or if it's an assumption that was made based off pronouns, or that it might've been assumed based on appearance. There's also the question of how we should treat droids, but that's a discussion for another day. Rsand 30 (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
    • This as never stopped us in the past, and we can craft new tools to help. Wookieepedia is a perpetual busy worksite, one more task is just that: one among hundreds, and we will adapt to it like we always did, and will again and again. Furthermore, this does not means that every article will have to be edited into conformity right away. Look at web archives, the policy was voted in 2016/17, and while we did a specific project about it in 2020, I'm still finding naked link without archives randomly from time to time. Yes, it'll take time, but there's nothing alarming about that. We're not pushed by some kind of capitalistic productivist drive, we'll handle it at our own pace, some probably will engage with this tasks more than others, and that's it. Let's not worry too much. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:55, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Honestly, this has always sounded rather [Redacted by administration]. There's only one (enby) character I've heard of who uses [Redacted by administration] pronouns, and that's something that can be summed up in the body of the article. (By [Redacted by administration] I mean something other than the standard female, male, and neuter pronouns of the English language.) If the editors do vote for this, it might be better to implement it only for characters like Maracavanya who use [Redacted by administration] pronouns, in my opinion. SilverSunbird (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Tepoh is referred to by zhe/zher pronouns in Queen's Hope. Rsand 30 (talk) 22:32, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
      • Remembered Tepoh as I was commenting on the CT. So make that two enby characters with [Redacted by administration] pronouns, but apart from that my comment stands. SilverSunbird (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Excellent points all, OOM! Imperators II(Talk) 00:20, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I hadn't even thought about the whole linking of gender via pronouns! Great callout and agree with all of this! Manoof (he/him/his) RainbowRebellion2 05:07, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I wholeheartedly support this! Off to edit my existing SAs in a few hours once I'm done with some other things. Dropbearemma LesbianRebellion (she/her) 05:31, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I support this. I can help check video games for pronouns. Rakhsh (talk) 10:55, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Agree with all points except number 1. I'm sorry but I can't get behind that. Now, I in no way belive that Pronouns = Gender IN REAL LIFE. that much we can all agree on I'm sure. In Star Wars though, it cuold get confusing to not list gender based off their pronouns. and before you come after me, the reason why it'd be confusing in SW and not IRL is because as much as i would love to, I can't ask a SW character what they identify as, like how I can in IRL. we have yet to see a character who's gender ≠ pronouns. Using pronouns is the last thing we have to identify a character's gender. sure, there's sourcebooks and whatever that clearly state, but chances are that it'll only be for the main characters of whatever movie/show/book/comic/media. that leaves tens of thousands of characters whose gender we'd have to remove from infoboxes and article sections. with tthat being said - i think it wouldn't hurt to perhaps check with some of the writers? to see if they plan on introducing characters whose pronouns do not match their gender? I also agree with SilverSunbird's statement. idk. im not an expert in gender identity but as editors of a wiki i believe its out job to document with what we've been given. so far, pronouns are what are used to identify gender. BloodOfIrizi Sabine Starbird(Syndicure) 20:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Huh? You say's it's out job to document what we're given, so what's confusing about documenting what we're given? If a character is described with "she/her" pronouns, then we should just list that in the infobox and use those pronouns to refer to the character. What we shouldn't do is take the totally unnecessary extra step of calling that character "female" and listing "female" in the infobox until sources explicitly confirm the character's gender. OOM 224 21:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Ziara, I don't think we need to reach out to the authors. As you said gender != pronouns and I trust the Creators know that as well. As we've seen with THR, creators are allowing Real Life to be reflected in the SW universe and I feel it's only a matter of time until we're introduced to a female character with they/them pronouns or any other example. This is about paving the way rather than playing catch-up as the Wook has often done. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 01:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Not to pop in half a month late with Starbucks, but there actually are examples in Star Wars where pronouns reflect something other than an internal truth? Top of my head, I can think of Seeqov Thranx, whose page I want to get back to overhauling: she permits "she" pronouns because she interacts with humans a lot, but the reality of both her gender experience & pronoun use seem to be more complicated. The fact that many variations are possible both within human experience and in alien species in Star Wars argues to me that recording pronoun use is more useful than making an inference without evidence. Also, tons of source material does specify a gender separately. I have multiple times run across an article using "male" or "female" while working on Wookieepedia:WookieeProject_Pride_Projects#Hutts_and_others where the reality was more interesting than that! Minnabird Naboo (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
  • These points sound so obvious, I'm disappointed we even have to discuss them at all. It's time for Wook to move away from the harmful stereotypes of the past, regardless of how hard it'll be or how much flak it'll attract from third parties. Although I still don't get point 3, why is it wrong to pipelink to "gender", since the page already has a section for pronouns other than he/she/they? Also, we've got to talk about droids, but as Rsand said, that's a discussion for another day. AxMech (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Hi! Pipelinking pronouns to gender makes it seem like those are linked when in fact, you could use any pronouns with any gender! Hope that clear things up. HeadSpikesWalls (she/they) RainbowRebellion2 (talk!) 22:19, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Will we be categorizing characters by the pronouns separately from confirmed gender identities? And with the goal of not assuming based on appearances, in the case of characters that are voice-only would that mean that the article for a character who sounds masculine and has a male voice actor can't have any mention of being male? Commander Code-8 Hello There! 00:57, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Correct, gender should not be assumed based on traits. And voice actor gender doesn't come into the equation, see Garma for a Star Wars example and Emma D'Arcy for a non-SW one. Imperators II(Talk) 01:32, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I also support this. OOM: This was well written. You don't have to be crazy to hang out with me. I'll train you. –Nightlily (sing your song) 12:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Okay, so, just to make sure I'm getting this correctly. The ultimate proposal is to assume that, in any and all cases where characters are referred to with a pronoun associated with a specific gender, if their gender has not been otherwise specified, is to avoid "assuming" their gender and just list the pronouns. I think this is [Redacted by administration]. Why? For one, that's very likely overthinking the presumed intentions of the majority of the creative talents at play here. I know there is a minority of people who are [Redacted by administration]. However, there are no characters currently extant within the Star Wars universe who have been stated to fall into this category. This includes all known enbies. Secondly, it is utterly trivial to create a new page category for if or when a character like that is created. It is very likely safe to assume that, when an author refers to a character with specific pronouns, [Redacted by administration]. I'm sure that if/when characters with more [Redacted by administration] gender situations, who are not members of species with totally alien gender systems, show up, the creatives will be happy to make that clear while introducing them. Frankly, this feels like an extreme overabundance of caution in a situation where we don't really need to change anything we've been doing. I frankly think this proposal would be a step backwards in acknowledging gender diversity as it seems paranoid. SilverSunbird (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Just to respond to that comment about a female character referred to as "them": we put a character like that in a category for non-binary females. Not only are there several real-life women of whom I have heard who fall into this category, but based on what I've heard about real-life people regarding this issue, [Redacted by administration]. SilverSunbird (talk) 04:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
      • SilverSunbird, you need to stop referring to the very simple matter of pronoun use, whether in Star Wars or in real life, with words like [Redacted by administration] This comes from talking to people and listening to them instead of hearing about without knowing them, including people following this very thread. Please don't do this again. Immi Thrax RainbowRebellion2 (she/her) 05:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
        • What I was specifically calling [Redacted by administration] was the idea of [Redacted by administration] unless we have reason to believe otherwise. For a matter you call "simple", you don't seem to be treating it that way. As a final note, I'm just going to point out a massive problem with this proposal that I do not believe anyone else has brought up: avoiding [Redacted by administration] also technically applies to enby and fluid characters. For characters like Kantam Sy and Zae-Brii, to give examples here, this would mean that standard wiki practice would avoid confirming their identities. And people can be female/male and enby at the same time. I intend no disrespect; I'm just trying to express my opinion on a change that I believe would impact this wiki negatively. As we've seen in recent works, characters with diverse gender identities are being identified, so I don't think we need to [Redacted by administration]. SilverSunbird (talk) 06:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
    • "a pronoun associated with a specific gender" means that someone using he/him or she/her pronouns are male/female respectively, that's what you're talking about right? The problem is this is completely ignoring and misgendering anyone who is non-binary (or any other gender) based on your perception of the pronoun, and promotes (even passively) the idea of binary genders. This is a real occurrence with real people and fiction, particularly Star Wars reflects reality—including the historical and incorrect societal ideas of gender and pronouns. To conflate pronouns and genders would be harmful to real people, and while we work in a land of fiction, we shouldn't ignore the real impacts we have. It also does justice to the original source, ensures we aren't misconstruing a creators intentions in the absence of confirmation, and opens the door for future writers to build upon our articles. Manoof (he/him/his) RainbowRebellion2 05:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Good common-sense points, several of which I've seen discussed and implemented informally, often with the result of making the article more accurate to the source material. Don't you love a good deep-dive into the sources? And I am very excited about that CT; glad to come back to this. Minnabird Naboo (talk) 02:22, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

For anyone still uncertain or opposed to the concept of not assuming gender from pronouns, and as someone who did initially struggle with the concept myself because of how ingrained into me it was, I beg you to consider this: a system that assumes that by default a person’s pronouns denote their gender unless stated otherwise says to anyone who uses pronouns not considered to “match” their gender that they are an anomaly and that by default we simply assume that they don’t exist.

Even if we did not have concrete evidence that they do exist in universe, there is no world in which we could use a system like that and claim to be inclusive, safe, and welcoming for everyone and ultimately, that has to be our priority. Keep in mind that not listing a character’s gender if we haven’t been told it is not stripping that character of something, it should not effect how you engage with the character or story personally, it is simply saying, as we do in all cases, “we have not been given this information about this character, here is the information we have been given explicitly.” What a reader or indeed user then decides to personally conclude or interpret from that internally is up to them, as it is with the stories themselves. But there is no need for us to include our own conclusions or interpretations on the site. Ayrehead02 (talk) 08:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

  • I agree that for canon, pronouns cannot be assumed as it is clear that association of he/him to male and she/her to female is clearly not true. However, in legends, there is no known indivuduals that explicitly contradict the association of he/him to male and she/her to female. I know they haven't been stated as "male", but we make other assuptions. For example we interperate "on Sag Kemper" to mean "Sag Kemper was a terrestrial astronomical object", despite it not being explicitly stated. -ThrawnChiss7 ThrawnHS Alliances Assembly Cupola 13:36, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
    • It doesn't matter that Legends source material wasn't inclusive. It doesn't mean we are going to host non-inclusive material on Wookieepedia. And please do not compare assumptions that don't have an effect on real people to ones that do. Imperators II(Talk) 13:44, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
      • Also, pronouns are sometimes divorced from gender/aren't enough to establish gender even in Legends. Seeqov Thranx uses she/her but is specified to be closer to female than male, but is called female_oriented rather than female. Legends Filordi are also a mixed bag. In Clouded Paths it says "Furran is a Filordi permitor. Because his (emph. mine) species is somewhat strange to other species, he is less successful than he would like to be, and so many times comes off as gruff and somewhat angry," but other Filordi are variously stated to be male or genderless, with pronoun use varying (some use "it"), and it's hard to tell whether this source uses "he" from convenience and habit or if it's an expression of gender. Minnabird Naboo (talk) 14:24, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
        • Thanks for bringing those examples, it seems clear to me now not to assume gender even in Legends. However, I want to emphasize that the reason for doing this is because source material shows it not because that is how it is in the real world. Pronouns != gender on Wookieepedia because pronouns != gender in Star Wars, not becuase that how it is in the real world. -ThrawnChiss7 ThrawnHS Alliances Assembly Cupola 14:40, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
          • No, you're absolutely missing the point. We are not assuming gender from pronouns because it is the right thing to do considering our real-world readers and editors - and also because Fandom's Terms of Use require that we not do so (there are excellent resources on exorsexism on that page that I suggest you read up on). Imperators II(Talk) 14:50, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
            • Can you please clarify what youre saying? I interperate what your saying to mean "wookieepedia assumes pronouns!=gender for Star Wars characters because in the real world, assuming a real persons pronouns!=gender is very offensive and incorrect". However Star Wars != the real world, and our job is to document star wars, not impose reality onto star wars. Redacting an article title because it is a slur doesn't take away from the content of the article, so it doesn't take away from our information. However, we should definitly keep using Slave I's name becuase that is its name and the word "slave" is not a slur, and I would strongly disagree with censoring that because some people think the word "slave" is offensive. I'm not against saying "Shmi was an enslaved being owned by Watto" instead of "Shmi was Watto's slave", as you are not taking away any information, you are just rewording it. I can't think of an example of wookieepedia imposing the real world onto star wars, but wookieepedia should never impose the real world onto star wars, it should just document star wars, and if a source material uses a slur, then it can be sensored.-ThrawnChiss7 ThrawnHS Alliances Assembly Cupola 15:33, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
              • For clarification, I don't belive it is "impose the real world onto star wars" by removing material that is widely regarded as offensive. -ThrawnChiss7 ThrawnHS Alliances Assembly Cupola 15:36, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
                • Yes, on our in-universe articles we document the Star Wars galaxy and not the real world - and in the Star Wars galaxy, nothing is associating gender with pronouns. And the real-world reason why we, a real-world Star Wars encyclopedia, don't assume gender from pronouns out of consideration for our real-world readers and editors, has been explained on this very thread and elsewhere so many times already that you're just being obstinate now. I strongly suggest that you cease with this line of rhetoric so that our visitors affected by it do not have to keep being traumatized. Imperators II(Talk) 15:54, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
                • Imp nailed it, but also — "Pronouns != gender on Wookieepedia because pronouns != gender in Star Wars" — pronouns and genders are, by their very definition, separate things. What ThrawnChiss7 is saying here is that certain pronouns equate to certain genders (e.g. a person with she/her pronouns must be female), which is, as explained many, many times already, absolutely factually wrong. Any pronouns can be used by people of any gender. As Ayre said, many people have been accustomed to such assumptions, but misunderstanding can be addressed by learning, if one is willing to listen. However, no one needs to tolerate claims that stem from ignorance of the topic and are insensitive of others, so unless there is something better to say I suggest that these arguments be dropped. I believe the explanations given here and the linked resource pages clarify the topic of pronouns adequately for the public context, but anyone is free to privately message me for further queries. OOM 224 (he/him) 18:51, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
                  • I'm very sorry to everbody if I implied that certain pronouns equate to certain genders in real-life, as they do not. I would like to quote something Imp said in Forum:SH:The way I see things "If there are social groups in SW that do associate pronouns with gender, that's fine, but in the absence of such information, we simply don't assume, same as how we should not assume for real-life people." my point was basically that, ie that if certain groups in star wars do associate pronouns with gender we should assume their gender for those specific star wars groups, even though in the real world pronouns do not have an equivalence with gender. -ThrawnChiss7 ThrawnHS Alliances Assembly Cupola 22:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

[Redacted by administration]