Board Thread:Support Requests - Community Management/@comment-25620470-20150907220403/@comment-24473195-20150910233004

Dinoguy1000 wrote:

Dessamator wrote: If this were Wikipedia, then one would require a NPOV. This would mean that you don't consider politics or things like that and simply refer to the person by their biological gender. Wikipedia's policy is to refer to a person using their preferred pronouns, given reliable sources that those are preferred:

An exception to the previous point is made for terms relating to gender identity. In such cases, give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article. Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (she fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., she became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary).

Good point. But the only reliable source (CNN) that I could find in that particular article keeps refering to Amelia (Amanda) as a female. Most other links are not reliable sources and consist mostly of blogs and other informal communication channels. It also brings up another problem, if someone were to make a direct quote, they would have to include the pronoun being used.

Personally, I'd rewrite it to make include a small description of historical information regarding the biological gender, and from there on avoid the pronoun and simply talk about the core concept of the article, autism.

The discussion about other details such as the pronoun preference is probably best suited for a blog in which the author can use any free style and any pronouns that suits them, hopefully.

Ultimately, the decision falls unto the wiki contributors. They must decide what is best for that article.