Talk:S. Bear Bergman

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Invented pronouns[edit]

I understand why the editor(s) of this article used invented gender-neutral pronouns, since the subject is transgender. Is that consistent with Wikipedia standards? I'm certainly not aware of any print encyclopedia that uses invented pronouns--Jim10701 (talk) 22:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]

With a little research I discovered that use of invented gender-neutral pronouns is discouraged in Wikipedia articles if any other solution is possible. I believe a little editing can preserve this article's gender-neutrality without inventing words. I'm going to go ahead and make those changes.--Jim10701 (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following was relocated from Jim10701's discussion page:

I see your talk about S. Bear Bergman's personal pronouns, but this author specifically requests them and has written at length about the value of them, including work cited now in the Gay/Lesbian Journolists Assn Handbook. Also, I don;t think they're any more a "neologism" than fax or modem, just less widely adopted. I think we should turn them back.Travelling.unlisted (talk) 16:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In an encyclopedia, whether it's Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book, the style of writing should be consistent throughout the encyclopedia; it shouldn't change depending on the subject of a particular article. Ideally, an article about S Bear Bergman would be written in the same neutral style as an article about Queen Elizabeth or World War II or the Empire State Building. The purpose of the encyclopedia is to give information about the subject, not to reflect the preferences of the subject in the way the article is written.

Also, an English encyclopedia should be easy for the vast majority of English speakers to read and understand, and the number of people in the general population who know what ze and hir mean is very, very small. Such words may eventually become as common as fax and modem, but they are not now. To use them in an encyclopedia would hinder rather than enhance most readers' ability to learn about the subject.

When I edited the Bergman article, I tried hard to do it in a way that respected hir desire not to be addressed in gender-biased language, while still using words the vast majority of English speakers understand. The fact that the changes I made have held up for more than ten months makes me think that most other editors are comfortable with them; Wikipedia editors are not shy about changing things they don't like.

I understand and respect your point, but a much better way to make it would be to add a section to the Bergman article telling about hir preference for the new pronouns, maybe even giving a quote from the Journalists Handbook you mentioned. Explaining and giving examples of the kind of language the subject prefers is an excellent idea; writing the article itself in hir preferred style might be okay in a magazine, but that's not the way to do it in an encyclopedia.

My using those pronouns here, in this discussion, is fine, but using them in an actual Wikipedia article would not be. The work of Bergman and others to change the English language is admirable, but it has not succeeded well enough yet to use those changes in the body of a general reference encyclopedia like Wikipedia.

Since this topic is more pertinent to the Bergman article than to me as an individual, I am going to relocate it to that article's discussion page.--Jim10701 (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, this is the only Wikipedia article that specifically avoids referring to its subject as 'he' or 'she' - at least, it's the only one I've found. I actually didn't notice it at first, so well done for doing it subtly; the repetition of 'Bergman' is a little awkward, but if that's what the subject prefers, that's how it should be. I do think it would be a good idea to add a section to the article explaining the subject's own preferences, and how they identify themselves; if nothing else, it would be more informative for the reader. For example, at the moment this article describes Bergman as transgendered, but doesn't say whether s/he is a transwoman, a transman, or something else; surely it would be helpful to explain that further? Robofish (talk) 17:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Admittedly, I'm a new Wikipedia user. Part of my personal mission/mandate is to help make the LGBT listings more robust. I appreciate the comments and will take on the task of adding content, referencing Bergman's work about gender-nonspecific pronouns.

That said, I still find myself somewhat curious - there are many things about Wikipedia that are like a trad. encyclopedia, and many others that are different. I wonder about the policy on "invented pronouns", because it seems to me like a reification of privilege, ie, the "normal" people, of whom there are more, get to choose whose words are valid. Is this being addressed somewhere in Wikipedia? I don't want to charge in and try to reinvent the wheel out of paperclips. Any thoughts appreciated.Travelling.unlisted (talk) 01:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In this short paragraph you touched on several issues that may take me a while to respond to. I know I'm longwinded and pedantic, but I can't help it; nobody has to read it.

First of all, let me say that you have my wholehearted support in your mission. I am gay myself, and I'm sick to death of the whole world's treating us like freaks at best and like dangerous criminals at worst. Starting at the level of language, of things that may seem trivial like pronouns, is not trivial at all if it in any way undermines the hateful and oppressive system we all live under, a system that ultimately hurts everybody, the oppressors as well as the oppressed, because it's sick at its core. I wish you great success in what you're doing.

But in addition to being gay, I'm also old. I learned to speak and write when using "correct" grammar, spelling, etc. was extremely important, and things learned well in youth are hard to break free of. I'm not saying that continuing to use the English language as it was taught fifty or a hundred years ago is wrong in itself, but it is something I have to deal with in a world that no longer shares those particular values. Although I used the new pronouns earlier in this conversation, I had to force myself to do it; I don't think it will ever be something I do naturally. But fortunately that doesn't matter much, because the world now belongs to people much younger than I am. If they can learn in any way to live free of old destructive inhibitions, even if it's only in the words they use, good for them. Words—even little, seemingly insignificant words like pronouns—have far greater power than most of us know.

As to why parts of Wikipedia seem like the kind of traditional encyclopedia I said it "should" be and others don't, that's because of its peculiar nature as an almost entirely open forum for anybody with access to a computer to edit, and there are very many computer-literate people who don't care about traditions of any kind. By education and habit, I am to a large extent in the traditional group, although on a deeper level I'm about as radical and iconoclastic a person as you'd find anywhere. The notion of bringing down the old system and rebuilding it from scratch appeals to me at least as strongly as precision, accuracy, and neutrality in language do. So, in a way, Wikipedia is like me: a nearly schizophrenic combination of tradition and radical libertarian anarchy. I don't think it will ever be either totally traditional or totally free, because at its foundation it is neither, or both.

That makes this the perfect place for you to do what you're doing. I encourage you to be as bold and assertive with your agenda as you're comfortable being. When people like me try to impose tradition on you, kick back. Change this article in any way you like, put in as many zes and hirs as you want to, and see what happens. If I or somebody else like me changes it back, then do it again, and again. The worst that can happen is you might be reprimanded by somebody who thinks he's in a position of authority here, and the very worst would be to be barred from editing, but you could just come back under a different user name—or under no name at all (you don't have to register to edit, in most cases)—and keep fighting.

If you haven't already, you soon will discover that there are bullies here and—even worse—gangs of bullies here who use the core Wikipedia concept of consensus to impose their own particular prejudices on anything they don't like. Don't let them intimidate you; like all bullies, they're just frustrated infants inside. The way to true consensus is to keep making your own point over and over until some compromise position naturally emerges. Whatever that position turns out to be, it will (1) be closer to your own position than it was in the beginning and (2) last only until the next editor starts pulling it in some new direction.--Jim10701 (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Religion[edit]

Bergman is an observant Jew. I think that should be incorporated into the article somehow, since it is important to hir identity and writing. http://www.phinli.com/Talent/Profile/s-bear-bergman Vis-a-visconti (talk) 09:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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