Talk:Discrimination against transgender men

Issues banner

Since I created this article in 2021, there has been a message declaring "This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (August 2021)" and "This article possibly contains original research. (August 2021)". In the four years since, the article has been improved substantially by several editors and I believe the banner is no longer required as a result of these changes. In addition to this, the banner in the Transphobia section reading "This section possibly contains original synthesis. Source material should verifiably mention and relate to the main topic. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (February 2024)" is also no longer relevant as a result of subsequent changes and edits made in the year since it was instated. I welcome a balanced discussion on the matter as it is my view these banners are no longer needed.

In the case of the latter banner, in the Transphobia section, I query the use of "original synthesis" here. The field of Queer Studies is relatively young, as is the study of transgender people within it, and the study of transgender men within that, but there is established scholarship on the topic, cited frequently in the article, which in my view contradicts the notion of "original synthesis". It would not be, say, original synthesis to state that transgender men face barriers in accessing healthcare in some contexts, as this is a well documented problem. Likewise, stating that transgender men are at higher risk for sexual assault, which is also well-documented. I'm struggling to see where the supposed synthesis is? To me, original synthesis would involve taking the aforementioned citations and extrapolating a theory or idea from them and suggesting a new idea altogether - and then presenting that as an established fact. As far as I can tell, this has not happened here. If what presently exists in the section is original synthesis, then by that metric, the analogous sections in the articles about Transmisogyny, Discrimination against non-binary people and Discrimination against intersex people must also be considered such, if that is the logic underpinning the banner's inclusion on this article. Otherwise, the presence of the banner only and exclusively on the article for transgender men is odd - and if I may suggest it, concerning, given the frequent vandalism of this article by individuals with clear anti-transmasculine views. In short, I believe if the latter scenario is in indeed the case, then the addition of the banner may be viewed as a means to delegitimise the topic of the article, rather than a sincere request for edits to be made. I do hope that this explanation of my point has made sense and, as always, I am happy to clarify if necessary. I hope, at the very least, this generates a useful discussion regarding the nature of the banners and whether their presence is redundant by now. A separate discussion would also be appreciated on the frequent vandalism of this article, as alluded to above, which does give me some concerns which I hope will be taken into fair consideration. LucCymru85 (talk) 23:12, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

ETA: Username change Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 08:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Wondering if any other editors feel able to weigh in on this? Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 13:36, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

In the absence of any input from other editors in the last six months, I'd argue that the issues raised in the maintainance templates have been resolved. There are three issues raised by the templates:

For the whole article:

-This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (August 2021)

-This article possibly contains original research. (August 2021)

For the Transphobia section:

-This section possibly contains original synthesis. Source material should verifiably mention and relate to the main topic. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (February 2024)

In the last four years multiple editors have contributed to the article and worked to address the issue of the article possibly being written as a personal reflection or essay. I would argue through the collective effort of multiple editors, this issue is resolved. If you compare the article as it is in June 2025, it is vastly different than its iteration in August 2021 when the issue templates were added. Several sections present then have since been completely removed. Others have been reworded and reworked to a degree which adequately address the issues raised in the maintainance templates. Further to this point, the article in August 2021 had 30 references, whereas the article in June 2025 has 52 - to me this combats the issue raised around original research - as by now the article is well-sourced. By comparison, the article for discrimination against transgender women (transmisogyny) has 41 references and the article for discrimination against non-binary people has 42.

This suggests to me that this article has reached the same level of quality as its sibling articles for discrimination against trans women and nonbinary people.

As six months have elapsed since my initial comment in January and no other editors have objected to the removal of the issues template, I will remove it shortly. If there are genuine objections to its removal, those who object are welcome to reply to this comment with their objections and the template may be reinstated if there's a consensus the issues have not been dealt with. As far as I can tell, the issues have been adequately addressed and the template will be removed. Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 17:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Recent revert

@Fwltur Gwydr: Noticed your most recent revert and thought I should explain "pre-transition" in my edit summary was a typo I've just now noticed, I was meaning to type "not pre-transition"; my thought is that since we specify earlier in the paragraph it's a study of trans men's experiences post-transition and experiences w/ violent reactions from (cis) men, it is a bit redundant to say we're considering here trans men after transitioning, and that they experience violent reactions from (cis) men, but I don't feel strongly one way or the other how to pare it. If "read as male" is crucial here (Abelson's phrasing is the slightly clunky "when sex categorized as men" iirc), it might be best just to say something like After others came to read them as men, trans men reported an increasing defend their masculinity or carefully avoid conflict to prevent such violence., which is similar & avoids the redundancy moreso. Let me know what you think, I suppose it's a bit subjective how to write about. WeatherElectric (talk) 16:46, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

@WeatherElectric can I kindly ask you to hold off on making more edits for a wee second - you've made a lot in a very short space of time and you've made some errors which I want to work through and address, but your piecemeal editing style is making it very hard to revert edits you've made without having to do it manually. I'm saying this in good faith - making edits is fine but you seem to be making a lot of edits really quickly and it's difficult to keep up with.

I think many of your edits (including the one I reverted) are subjective - there was nothing wrong with the original wording in my opinion. Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 11:40, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

@WeatherElectric for example, your edit at 19:46 yesterday about the pill is simply incorrect. I'm pretty sure I added the section on the pill years ago and sourced it with a source which backed up the fact that the NHS is only legally permitted to dispense emergency contraceptive pills to people who are registered as "female" on the NHS and have been seen by a pharmacist in person (as they need to see the exact person the medication is going to - they can't dispense the medication to a person who goes to the pharmacist on the person who needs the pill's behalf). Here is a source from NHS England from 2023/24 which states that only "females" access the pill: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/sexual-and-reproductive-health-services/2023-24/emergency-contraception. It is possible that the Lloyd's website has updated since the source was first added - however you don't seem to have considered this and jumped straight to an accusatory/alarmist tone in your edit note.

Via NHS England: "Since 2001, the reclassification of emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) meant that it could also be purchased over the counter at a pharmacy without a prescription (by females aged 16 and over). In addition, nurses and pharmacists can supply EHC to females of all ages under a Patient Group Direction (PGD). PGDs are documents which make it legal for medicines to be provided to groups of patients without individual prescriptions having to be written for each patient." (emphasis mine)

Here is an additional source from the BMJ which talks about the requirement for those accessing the pill (source refers to such people as "women" exclusively) to have a consultation with a pharmacist: https://srh.bmj.com/content/47/1/55. I note that this doesn't directly relate to the article but it supports the claim that a consultation with a pharmacist is mandatory to access the pill.

There is also this US article here which relates to the difficulty in accessing contraception by trans men and nonbinary people https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12188679/

I also want to add that I've seen you do this several times now to this article where when you encounter something that is fine but perhaps inadequately sourced and could use better sources, you delete the offending part of the article instead of searching for better sources. This leads to me having to restore the edit with better sources or replacing outdated ones, which is a massive reduplication of effort when you could have simply come to the talk page in the first instance and said "this source is outdated, can someone find a better source so the text can be kept". Lots of the information you've deleted is fine, but simply needs better sources (which definitely exist and can be found easily). Simply deleting the information as a way to deal with it is counterproductive and actually makes the quality of the article worse instead of improving it. The NHS England source I found in 2 minutes on the first page of a Google search.

The wording the NHS England article uses is "females" which corroborates what was originally in the Wikipedia article relating to needing to be registered as "female" on the NHS and signing a document to delcare themself as such. I agree that the wording could use some work (e.g. instead of "will not be dispensed" putting "may not be dispensed" but changing the wording is much simpler than just deleting the entire section on the pill.

I'm sorry if I seem exasperated - I'm trying to understand why you've made these edits in the way that you have, because I can't figure out why you have gone about things in the way that you have done. I've held off on making this point because I am and have been assuming good faith (and this comment itself is made in good faith) but your continuing to edit in the way that you have is starting to throw up some problems, so in a sense I'm just asking you to hold your horses so things can be ironed out properly. I hope this has made sense. Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 12:37, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I haven't looked at WeatherElectric's edits, Fwltur Gwydr, but some of what you're discussing sounds like original research. For example, that quote from the NHS website shouldn't be used to conclude anything about transgender men unless that's covered in the source. All Wikipedia can do is report what sources say, not draw inferences from them. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I suppose that's true - but it's definitely a tricky one. A lot of LGBTQ+ topics are under-researched and most literature defaults to cisgender-centric terminology, which means direct references to trans men aren't necessarily made - but there's also definitely ways to talk about these things without them seeming like original research. For example, while the sources do not mention trans men by name, the stipulation by the NHS that patients accessing the contraceptive pill must be registered as "female" on the NHS and must be seen by a pharmacist in-person does throw up challenges for trans men and probably warrants mention in this article. Would a rewrite along the lines of this work?:

"Although transgender men aren't forbidden from accessing the emergency contraceptive pill on the NHS, current requirements stipulate that patients accessing the pill must be registered as female on the NHS and attend a consultation with a pharmacist before any medication is dispensed."

More can be added, but trans men with a male gender marker may face problems on that basis, while trans men with a female gender marker undeniably face being required to misgender themselves for medical care. There is, however, limited research on this issue for trans men specifically, so perhaps that part can be left off until there are more sources. I do think though that the proposed rewrite in quotations above is acceptable enough to be included in the article, as it makes no claim about how the requirement to be registered "female" affects trans men, only that this is a stipulation of the NHS which does affect trans men. I hope that helps to clear up where I'm coming from! Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 13:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is expressly against Wikipedia's core policies. If there isn't a source discussing the implications for trans men, this can't be included in the article. It's unfortunate, but where a topic is under-researched, that's reflected in Wikipedia's coverage too. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:35, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I won't push this any further. Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 14:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi, just returning to this after holiday and since you've rather broadened the discussion to a number of related topics I'd like clarify a few things since it seems you have raised several potential issues with my editing, though to be honest I think some of this may stem from misunderstandings about sourcing reqs from the above? I suppose since you note some confusion WP:AGF-wise I would start off by cautioning it can be really easy (and understandable!) to potentially fall into WP:OWN-type mentalities here with material one has substantially written and thus can have some amount of investment in, but we need to be really careful in general about material in articles that is inaccurate or poorly sourced, and that while generally I really do try to make a decent effort to source things I can seem to before removing it, it is more often likely the case I simply don't agree with you sources are reliable for a specific claim than that I've totally overlooked searching for sources, and verifiability is a mandatory core policy we have to observe for all information on Wikipedia. It's not something I can make special dispensation for because both you (and I, honestly) might like people to be more aware of a given subject, or our individual best attempts of original research, as Cordless Larry noted above, determines it is an important issue. I am quite happy to discuss any individual edits you take issue with, and patiently discuss sourcing/reconsider this or that, but I'm not sure how to respond to general requests to slow down that are not coupled with a clear policy-based objection to the non-contraception edits, and do not discuss specific issues to other non-contraception edits. Wikipedia can be stressful, so you are of course free to disengage, or revert and briefly discuss further edits when you find the time, if you find specific edits problematic, but I admit I am not really comfortable letting material that I can't find a policy-based way to include stand. Per WP:ONUS, the responsibility for achieving consensus for material to remain in an article is on the party who wants to include some material; the expectation is generally folks discuss stuff carefully and, if we can't come to a consensus on how to include this or that in a way we generally agree is compliant with policy, it stays out. I understand that might be disappointing, but it's important to remember Wikipedia is limited to talking about what we can directly extract from the sources, and the best thing we can do within that remit to inform people about discrimination against transgender men is ensure we have accurate material which is supported by the sources, and presents subjects in as neutral a manner as possible.

The issues you raise strike me as emblematic of a broader problem I encountered in reviewing the article, that oftentimes we cite sources which simply do not say what they're cited for, but may say a related, slightly different thing or be related in basic subject, which seems to be motivated by an understandable good-faith desire I share inform people about less-understood and perhaps not-written-enough-about parts of discrimination against transgender men (though one must note here Wikipedia is not for advocacy), but has resulted in an article which, when I began editing, appeared to be pock-marked with various minor and major inaccuracies, due weight issues, neologisms from Tumblr never used in the sources, etc. To address the points you raise here and in edit summaries in turn:

1. What I am objecting to with the pharmacy claim is the claim that we were citing with it, that transgender men presenting as male are categorically excluded from morning-after pill prescriptions, which is simply not true and you seem (? correct me if I am reporting your opinion inaccurately here) to more or less acknowledge is not true, if you seem to object to still my edit on the basis there are potentially more defensible claims, which is fine and potentially interesting but renders much of this discussion kind of moot without sourcing for any of the other potentially more defensible claims. I am not specifically claiming trans men face no issues in getting the morning after pill, and noted as much in my edit summary, though we seem to lack research in reliable sources which would enable us to write about this with original research as Cordless Larry notes above. Even if we were to go with your suggestion of "may", stuff written by the NHS about "females" doesn't enable simple conclusions in the way we might hope; although you are interpreting it as excluding trans men, my read is that it is simplified material using lazy non-trans-conscious phrasing (which should caution us substantially against its use for per WP:RSCONTEXT) probably intended to note people assigned male at birth ("males", in the unfortunate verbiage of the public institutions of a country not always the most thoughtful about trans people of late) will not usually be prescribed the pill, such as if they're seeking it for partners. Whether someone is assessed as "male" enough by this metric is going to depend on the individual prescriber you're interacting with obvs, how open about transness, but I've found no evidence there's a coherent rote process you seem to be describing like a policy of always or sometimes prohibiting based on NHS registration, or legal sex, or presentation. It's more of a mess in practice. Although anecdata not sources, as a gut check here, I asked several British trans men in my circles about this subject; many have encountered confusion and misunderstanding based on presentation or NHS registration, as you say, or being turned away initially, but none who literally could not obtain the pill through a specific pharmacy due to being trans men, and I think that is kind of crucial distinction here. I worry that inability to divorce "trans men experience issues accessing contraception" from "trans men are sometimes actually prohibited by policy from morning after pill if presenting as male / legally male / registered as male in NHS etc." reflects a general unfortunate wandering from the precise details which can misinform readers on a lot of matters of quite serious importance; WP:MEDRS really, really cautions us about the consequences of getting this stuff wrong, and the importance of high standards here! Like, if the sourcing/WP policy is not itself motivating enough, put yourself in the position of a young British trans boy who has recently started being read as male but with little access to sexual health resources or outside knowledge reading this stuff. Like, do you think if he reads the material I removed, he is going to be as likely to ask for contraception at the pharmacy when he needs it? No, right, if he believes his local pharmacy will not at all prescribe it? Obviously my apologies if I come across accusatory in concern over this, though I'm not sure what the "accusation" here is ("misinformation"? generally, with apologies, that's still basically what I'm suggesting this is, although perhaps simply "inaccuracy" is milder and avoids confusion with related tho diff words like "disinfo" which might unintentionally suggest intent so I'll prefer that), but my worry is this verges on just...not sufficiently responsible with the details, however well-intended, and while I share your general interest in reporting any barriers to contraception access if we can find sourcing about that, it is worth some reflection about whether we've accidentally gotten into really counterproductive territory from initial goal of informing readers about discrimination trans men face, again, however unintentionally. This isn't, to be clear, intended to make any kind of personal point about your editing, though I think the article as written is poorly sourced, just to stress we should avoid some I think not sufficiently careful ways writing about this that have very foreseeable negative unintended consequences and contravene policy. I am happy to integrate more info from the BMC article you bring up into the article, although it seems not to contain info on the specific subject we're discussing here, so it would be used to support different subjects (adjacent difficulties accessing cervical cancer treatment are mentioned skimming, although that IIRC already comes up in our article).
2. Back to the subject I started this thread for, the Abelson para, "subjective" is pretty vague and doesn't really offer me much in the way of specifics, so I'm not sure how to really respond to it, but I'm happy to discuss presentation of the material further. I guess one thought I was having reading Abelson again here is that we're simplifying things a bit with descriptions like "generally read as male", even if that's a fair characterization of a number--the study includes some trans men only a few months on T, several mention being still misgendered etc., so I don't think we're representing Abelson totally accurately in saying the violence / masculinity defense is necessarily straightforwardly related to generally passing as men rather than simply, well, being trans men, or being newly perceived as men in various contexts; my interest is really mostly just in getting rid of some prose redundancy mentioned upthread + representing Abelson accurately here, which is why I flag it. If that's subjective, why do you feel that way? If you no longer feel it is, why not just eliminate the redundancy? I'm not sure I quite follow you. WeatherElectric (talk) 23:03, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm replying here only to say that I'm disengaging from this discussion for the time being, just so you're not left hanging. Just a bit overwhelmed myself atm to properly respond due to other life stuff. Fwltur Gwydr (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

All cool yeah. Wish you well and always here to discuss when you do get the time. WeatherElectric (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2025 (UTC)