LGBTQIA project and project-protecting LGBTQIA profiles?

Question

Hello, all! Do we have a project in place that can project-protect Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intertsexual Asexual etc. (LGBTQIA+) profiles? If so, I'd like to join. If not, I'd like to coordinate with other LGBTQIA+ WikiTreers to make this happen.

 Happy Pride Month 

Some related G2G conversations over the years. If there were more conversations on other topics under the Big Umbrella, I wasn't able to track them down easily! Almost all linked here are related to profiles of transgender people which also happens to be an area where project-protection would be helpful and help foster a safer more welcoming environment for trans WikiTreers.

• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/804198/can-we-add-a-third-gender-option-for-profiles-please
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/784237/wikitree-transgender-unfriendly-policies?show=784237#q784237
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/879764/profiles-of-transgender-individuals-editing?show=879764#q879764
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/653751/listing-children-of-transgender-person?show=653751#q653751
• https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/823633/what-gender-if-any-should-i-use

Comments

K., could you further explain what the purpose of the project would be? Is it about improving the quality of profiles of deceased LGBTQIA+ folks or fostering a welcoming environment for living LGBTQIA+ folks, or something else? 

---

Both! And protect profiles who do qualify (see below.)

It's also always good to have a group of folks who are out and LGBTQIA+ to answer questions non-LGBTQIA+ folks may have about features that impact LGBTQIA+ people and profiles, profiles of LGBTQIA+ people, etc.

We are by no means a monolith, and organizing ourselves can help represent that diversity of perspectives. Without at least a little bit of organizing, LGBTQIA+ individuals can often be perceived as an authority on something they don't have lived experience with. A lesbian, for instance, might have a less visceral response to the Find a Grave acronym because lesbians are less likely to be bashed by that word than their male gay counterparts. I was never bashed with that slur; I'm queer enough to be sensitive about writing it out instead of using the acronym, but wasn't sensitive enough to take on the heat of asking others to consider not using the acronym. I've been struggling to write this paragraph for way too long; in summary: there are some conversations that are best served with some intra-community talk before engaging in inter-community talk. Hope that makes sense.

A great example of a profile that I'd love to protect is that of Nancy Brown, an AMAB person who dressed, worked, named herself, and lived as a woman her entire adult life. In 2020, everything about her life suggests a high likelihood that she would have come out as a transgender woman. But we weren't talking pronouns during her time, and the topic of queering history is a complicated one even intra-community! While I chose to use she/her pronouns as a queer person as a way to respect my genderqueer Elders, we don't actually know how Nancy referred to herself. We only have one account of her and that author uses he/him pronouns for Nancy while affirming every other aspect of her gender. A WikiTree marathon related to gender markers caused a marathon participant to misgender her as male a few years back. This resulted in a G2G conversation that did not foster a welcoming environment for transgender people, and I'm grateful to the folks who showed up to try to rectify that.

I hope that helps answer the question of purpose as I'm currently pondering it, but always open to adjustments from other LGBTQIA+ WikiTreers! I guess the tl;dr is twofold: LGBTQIA+ informed WikiTree work as relates to LGBTQIA+ features and profiles, and fostering an LGBTQIA+ community of genealogy nerds for various reasons including but not limited to intra-community discussion and mutual support.

---

I would recommend that you spell out each acronym at least once when you make a post and then use the acronym in following references.  I'm not sure what a LGBTQIA is.  I'm familiar with the first four letters but the last three have changed in the past few months since I last saw an acronym like this.  Not sure if the letter combo is constantly evolving or if different in different countries maybe?  

I also have no idea what an AMAB is and I'm sure I am not alone.

---

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual+. AMAB = "Assigned Male at Birth", and its a transgender term for trans women :)

---

Generally all acronyms like LGBT+ and LGBTQIA mean the same: all sexual and gender identities. The difference is that the longer acronyms mention all identities explicitly.

---

Has there been any movement in creating a project for LGBT folk and what that might look like? I'd like to be involved. Thanks!

---

If I enter 'Chelsea Manning' (I was responsible for the creation of her profile) there are only two hits, privacy set on black (strict): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Manning-3485 - she currently has the notables category but deserves a better project. This project would be an excellent initiative. 

Answer 1

I don't see any project covering LGBT+ people or anything close to it in the list of projects. So it may be good idea to start one.

It will probably be a project with a large focus on 20th century profiles. Before that most sources about someones sexual orientation are unreliable, because people would deny it and the information would be based on rumors and gossip.

Comments

That was my impression RE: existing projects.

And yeah, having the project will be a great way to consolidate some LGBTQIA-centered conversations around the whole queering history question and what's considered acceptable evidence, etc. Messy messy messy, but we gotta start somewhere.

---

Hi Koen, although I agree that most of the people will be from the 20th century, we don't just have to rely on rumour and gossip to make some assumptions about people from earlier periods.  There is other evidence; writings, legal cases, and histories for instance.

---

+1 what John said. In the comments of the initial post here, I added a link to the lovely Nancy Brown who was born around 1790. We have a description that is fundamentally gender affirming while also confirming Nancy was AMAB. So we already have some WikiTree profiles that qualify, and I agree with John and Koen that it'll still probably be weighted towards 20th century profiles!

Answer 2

I do have a question - if a profile becomes project protected, does that mean the original profile manager no longer has access? I have several family members that would fit this project, but I don't want to give up the management of their profiles to people who didn't even know them.

Comments

No, that is not what it means. Project Protection is explained here:https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Project_Protection#What_is_protected_on_a_PPP.3F

and

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Project_Protecting_and_Merging#Which_profiles_should_be_protected.3F 

Answer 3

Hmmm... I don't think this idea could be project protected. There are four guidelines. They must meet all four - and one of which is they be 200 years old or notable. So, unless there were a lot of openly LGBTQIAP people running around 200 years ago, this is going to be difficult. And, unfortunately, none of my profiles would qualify for that. Like Koen van Hoof predicted, all of my family's profiles are from the 20th century.  

So, it sounds like to me, unless they are notable, the project cannot be protected. However, I believe they would already be protected under the Notables project. 

* Do not protect any profiles under 200 years old unless they fit Wikipedia's guidelines for notability.

Comments

Project management could be an option :

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Project-Managed_Profiles

---

Interesting. Thanks for clarifying the current guidelines, Alicia. And thanks for a possible alternative, Jillaine!

---

And take a look about starting a project:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Project_FAQ

---

Most of the linked profiles are living persons and/or WT members. How is that going to work with project protection?

---

Natalie, which linked profiles are you referring to?

---

I presume Nat is talking about the LGBT category https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:LGBT  Though many of them are deceased (apart from the WT members of course).

---

Most of the profiles I had a look at appear to be managed by the Notables project.  Instead of starting a LGBTQIA+ project, perhaps there could be a LGBTQIA+ sub-group in that project, at least to start with?

---

I''m referring to the profiles K linked in the post. Go up and click those links to other g2g posts and click the links to profiles in those posts. All but one are WT members. K says, "Almost all linked here are related to profiles of transgender people which also happens to be an area where project-protection would be helpful." It sounds to me, K is talking about protecting WT users.

---

I've asked K to clarify her intent for this project.

---

I think people that had a role in LGBT emancipation and people that have been convicted for something like 'sodomy' / 'indecency' could be in the scope of this project.

---

Koen, I love the way you're thinking about this!

John, having an LGBTQIA+ Notables project would be better than the kind-of nothing-ish we have at the moment for sure. Would ultimately like to have something broader in scope, but tried to (somewhat poorly, gah) communicate what was I thinking intention wise in the comments below the original post. If LGBTQIA+ Notables project seems like a good way to start with folks who have project leadership experience, I'm amenable. I've only lead a free space project, so I'm vague on a lot of WikiTree's structural jazz.

---

This would likely be a team under the Notables project with you as a team leader.

See: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Project_Teams

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Team_Leaders

Send me a message at Eowyn at wikitree.com and I can help connect you with the project.

---

K, if the idea goes ahead, I'd love to take part :)

---

I just realised I haven't actually said anything, but I'm also happy to get involved.

---

I think there are two main purposes:

- Writing and improving profiles of LGBT+ people.

- Making WikiTree more friendly for LGBT+ people, e.g. discussing solutions for difficulties that are embedded in the system.

The first purpose would be in the right place in a LGBT+ team of the Notables project. The second purpose is of a more functional nature. Could a LGBT+ Notables Team also serve the second purpose?

---

Great question, Koen.  I initially thought, no, they are two very different types of goals, and most projects focus on #1 types of activities.

But then I realized that we do try to do something of #2 in the Native Americans project.  But I'd say our overarching focus is on the #1-type activity.  So perhaps it's possible. It's a very different type of activity, and I think deserves special attention, but yes, I do think that a project could be designed to do both. England project does this well, I think.

---

Thanks Koen and Jillaine, I had been thinking myself that having a Help page that explains solutions to system difficulties such as how to add a same-sex spouse or represent a non-binary gender or transgender might be a good outcome.  Those help pages might already exist, I haven't checked.

However as this is a genealogy wiki, the main activity would presumably be on #1 type activities.

---

Proud this is coming together and happy to help add profiles of our notables.

---

Nothing important to add except that I'm glad this conversation is happening! I've always felt super isolated as a trans (agender, non-binary) genealogist, and it's really lovely to know I'm not alone.

Answer 4

Perhaps project protected isn't possible (due to the 200 year rule) but the profiles could be project managed, if your project would add value to these profiles.  The current PM's remain the same but the project would have a window into changes.  Do you think there would be controversial changes or some things that need to be standardized for this group of people?

Comments

Hi, Cindy! If you read the comments on the question and in the answers, you'll get the answer to your final question, but I'm also happy to paste this in from what I wrote in the comments of the question.

tl;dr: Yes.

A great example of a profile that I'd love to protect is that of Nancy Brown, an AMAB person who dressed, worked, named herself, and lived as a woman her entire adult life. In 2020, everything about her life suggests a high likelihood that she would have come out as a transgender woman. But we weren't talking pronouns during her time, and the topic of queering history is a complicated one even intra-community! While I chose to use she/her pronouns as a queer person as a way to respect my genderqueer Elders, we don't actually know how Nancy referred to herself. We only have one account of her and that author uses he/him pronouns for Nancy while affirming every other aspect of her gender. A WikiTree marathon related to gender markers caused a marathon participant to misgender her as male a few years back. This resulted in a G2G conversation that did not foster a welcoming environment for transgender people, and I'm grateful to the folks who showed up to try to rectify that.

Answer 5

I think it's a great idea!  As a parent of an LGBTQ child, I'm interested in protecting the community and preserving their history!

Answer 6

Could there be some movement or agreement at least in renaming the LGBT category to the inclusive name of LGBTQ+ ? This extra two characters is the generally widely accepted acronym used by many organisations now, including Stonewall UK.

I find it rather disappointing that more than 2 years after this thread was started, a project has yet to be established. I'd be happy to be involved in such a project.

Comments

We can't use LGBTQ+ because special characters (+) aren't allowed in categories. However, it could be updated to LGBTQ.

---

See Paul's new thread on the subject at this link.

Answer 7

Though I can respect all people for who they choose to be, I signed up with the intention to research genealogy. We are adding a plethora of (what I feel to be) confusing and resource draining ideas. Genealogy is based on simply the building of a single tree, gathering facts (sources) and creating bios. I really don't want to discourage anyone or cause distress. I wonder if G2G will then be a focus group for hashing out and attempting to remedy social issues. I do not want to "walk on eggshells" nor do I want to disregard anyone's feelings. Also, will this impact DNA or connections in any way? Will integration with FamilySearch be impacted?

Just asking...

Comments

People engage in genealogy for a variety of reasons, and through it may come to enjoy focusing on a particular aspect.

For example, while I have no Native American ancestry myself, I became extremely interested in "false" genealogies while researching my husband's New England ancestry. (Supposedly one of his 17th century ancestors married an "Indian Princess.") This led to an interest in the tension between oral history and documented genealogy which often shows up when researching Native American ancestry.

I also think of the new-since-this-post-was-originally-created project, US Black Heritage Project, which focuses on both improving the genealogical relationships and data of African Americans while at the same time working to create a welcoming environment to folks of African descent.

An LGBTQ project could serve a similar purpose.

Genealogical research is still front and center in all these examples.

---

I totally second what Jillaine says. Building accurate trees with sources is the most important thing. But telling history from the perspective of the people involved will always be part of that.

As for eggshells, there have been lots and lots of (sometime really heated) discussions around race, native American or other Indigenous ancestry, historical naming conventions, or how to treat histories of enslavement. It's all important. Having project guidelines around how to record the sometimes personal relationship we have with our histories can make it easier to navigate. Without the eggshells.

---

Thank you both for your replies. Still the question about matching to FS was unanswered. As WT users rely on free sources, a primary go-to site for sourcing is FamilySearch. I will often use a branch from each on 2 monitors to double check my work. If anyone could clarify that for me, that would be great.

---

Thanks for you input. I decided to check for myself. No, they do not. They stated as they were non profit, it was a resource issue. Whether it changes in the future is, of course subjective. I will close with that as there is nothing more to say.

---

I'm not sure at all what you mean when you ask whether working on an LGBT profile will break the integration with FamilySearch.

We've had the capacity to deal with adoption (for example), or out of wedlock births, or same-sex marriage for years. Those sorts of issues affect genealogies whether you explicitly acknowledge gay relationships or not. Categories per se have nothing to do with FamilySearch integration, nor do well written biographies.

There might occasionally be a bit of perceived complication around how to describe the biological children of transgender parents, but, the same as these other cases: it happens, it's not that complicated, and we can pretty easily figure out some consistent conventions to handle it.

---

I guess F.S. has updated the software to allow same sex marriage and record searching (I don't know when the update was made). I do take a neutral stance on relationship status. I only want my profiles to be correct. I have had many issues trying to get F.S. to correct glaring mistakes already (father/son with same exact ID but 7 years apart, married to different women, 1 non existent) which resulted in an error called a looping pedigree). Not possible to merge. No solution thus far.

So, what does this have to do with same sex issues? Nothing, as long as all the issues such as merging profiles has been clearly thought out.  I hope it has. This is not so much a learning curve issue as a technical one. Will it affect DNA testing and relationships? I think it will make us all a bit more reliant on it, as I believe more adoptive profiles will be added. I suspect there will be some unforeseen challenges and more discussion as they occur. For now, I'm just going to watch and hopefully view some well written profiles.

---

Maybe we're not understanding what you mean by FS integration? WikiTree has a separate database from the set of family trees over at FS. They can be compared; data from one can be imported or copied to the other, but they are two separate databases.

---

Yes, I understand that each and every site maintains their own database. However, WT must now, and likely will in the future, depend on other sites by referencing source materials owned by others. In the WT help section it advises us to "source", using freely available sites (such as FamilySearch, FindAGrave, Archives.org...) WT has pretty bright and helpful people that give us tools such as WT sourcer, and the WT browser extension. Sourcer, for example, must written to recognize the code of a certain page (apologies to the WT program creators for the non technical verbage) say a marriage record on FamilySearch. So a "hard link" exists to that page, I believe. So the word integration might be better termed association. Also, F.S. uses the one single tree concept, just as WT does. And yes, I understand that these links only point to "records" and are not tied to a profile (in any database online). But I only pointed out a concern, and am not selling myself as a technical expert (far from that). Though the majority of us profile managers do not write code, I (not speaking for anyone else) like to have a basic understanding of how things work. If you don't ask, you don't learn. But this has strayed a bit far off topic, anyway. I'm sure these profiles will be "interesting" to follow with all the interest being shown.

Answer 8

Wikitree is a place to foster and welcome new ideas on how we can improve profiles, etc.  I will always agree with an idea if it honors the profile in question.  As long as the person was/is openly LGBT+ there's no reason they should not be honored for who they were/are.  

I only have a problem with historical figures where we can assume they were, but there was no actual proof.  These profiles should be left alone.  Focus should only be on 20th and 21st centuries.