Why does WikiTree continue to be unaccommodating to trans and nonbinary folk?

Question

It was some time ago that I suggested that new fields be added to profiles so that ones gender assigned at birth and current gender identity could be specified.  Also, since most transgender folk change their name legally at some point, there should be fields for specifying the first, middle and last names given at birth and the current legal names.

There seems to be some impediment to adding new columns to the database and/or new fields to the profile page.  Why is that?

I am sure that I am not the only transgender person who is contributing to this project, and who is frustrated with the inability to specify accurately the current state of their legal name and gender identity.  To be honest and accurate, I have had to set the "Sex at birth" field on my profile to Male.  One consequence is that the gender icon that appears on my profile and in my family tree is that of a male.  This is rather distressing and does not reflect who I am.  I am about ready to delete my profile all together.

Comments

Hi Emily, I am sorry you are feeling frustrated. Just a reminder almost all of us are volunteers with very few staff. Hopefully a solution of the profile image could be found. I note some users have Avatar pictures in place of that image (some look like people but some are aliens or cartoon characters, or non-human forms).

I am sure you have read these answers before.

Unfortunately, the database architecture was originally designed with 2 gender options, which can present the kind of difficulty you are asking about.  Aside from gender identity issues affecting people, there are many situations where the gender of a child who died as an infant is not known and the system produces an error message when gender is not selected on a profile.

Improving the gender selection is on the to-do list for the administrators and hopefully they will address this sooner rather than later, but there is a very small staff to do programming work and a lot of software issues needing to be addressed.
 

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

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I understand about software issues with few people to work on them.

If I might suggest, my occupation before I retired nearly two months ago was as a software developer.  And I know my way around a database.  I realize that WikiTree is a large and critically important project, and access to the software should not be granted to just anyone.  But I would be more than willing to lend a hand, especially in dealing with this particular problem.

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I'm afraid sorry Emily my understanding is, as you hint, that development of the core software is restricted to the WikiTree Team. However, app development is more open. See

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:WikiTree_Apps

An explanation of sorts for reluctance to add database fields is at

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Christening%2C_Baptism%2C_and_Burial_Fields

However, this may be changing: see

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1646304/new-plan-for-biological-non-biological-parents

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I don't believe developing apps are a suitable solution to this problem.  To be of any use, legal names and gender need to stored in the database along with the other profile data, and I'm sure apps are not allowed to do that.

I am assuming that WikiTree is a nonprofit entity, and therefore I will assume further that the team of developers on the project are unpaid volunteers.  Therefore, since there are no budgetary concerns, it would seem to me that the number of developers on the team could expand to fit the need.  I am defininitely not advocating for WikiTree being an open source project.  But I am sure that there are many highly qualified software developers who are either retired, like myself, or otherwise have time on their hands, and would be willing to participate in making the project better.

I did a search in G2G for "transgender" and found several posts asking how to deal with profiles of people who are transgender.  They go back to at least 2015.  I've listed a sample of them below.

Clearly this issue has not been at or even near the top of the list of priorities for making improvements.  This seems not to align with the ambition of a project that seeks to be inclusive of as many humans as possible.

I am sure that most transgender folk who come to this project to add their profiles find the current situation deeply offensive, myself included.  Granted, we are a small minority, but our numbers are growing, so this problem is not going to go away.

2022: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1401453/handling-name-changes-for-transgender-individuals?show=1401453#q1401453

2019: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/784237/wikitree-transgender-unfriendly-policies

2019: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/879764/profiles-of-transgender-individuals-editing?show=879764#q879764

2018: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/661705/gender-definitions?show=661705#q661705

2018: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/564062/how-should-janet-mocks-gender-be-classified?show=564062#q564062

2017: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/336001/how-do-we-enter-transgender-profiles?show=336001#q336001

2017: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/486907/wikitree-needs-to-reformat-profiles-for-gender-change?show=487048#a487048

2015: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/153331/how-to-note-gender-transition?show=153554#a153554

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My understanding is that the people on the WikiTree Team, including the developers of the core software, are paid staff. I hope someone will please correct this if I'm wrong. I'm not saying that restricting core development tightly in this way is a good thing, but that seems to be the way it's been done so far.

If the addition of new parent fields in the biological/non-biological change goes ahead, it may set a precedent for other possible new database fields. I wonder whether something which might be done from outside the Team would be to make a detailed proposal for discussion of exactly what database fields should be added and how they would work.

Thanks for the list of links! See also these two posts concerning changes that were introduced last year:

2022: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1401464/did-you-notice-the-gender-related-or-descendant-page-changes

2022: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1361198/what-you-think-these-proposed-changes-the-sex-gender-options

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@Emily: That's actually incorrect. WikiTree is a for-profit company, and it is not open source. So it's not like anyone can volunteer to help on the underlying software. 

And you're not alone: There are many software developers here who are also users of WT. We've all had various improvement requests over the years. 

So don't think that it's just you.

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I am assuming that WikiTree is a nonprofit entity, and therefore I will assume further that the team of developers on the project are unpaid volunteers.  Therefore, since there are no budgetary concerns, it would seem to me that the number of developers on the team could expand to fit the need.  I am defininitely not advocating for WikiTree being an open source project.  But I am sure that there are many highly qualified software developers who are either retired, like myself, or otherwise have time on their hands, and would be willing to participate in making the project better.

My understanding is that the people on the WikiTree Team, including the developers of the core software, are paid staff. I hope someone will please correct this if I'm wrong. I'm not saying that restricting core development tightly in this way is a good thing, but that seems to be the way it's been done so far.

WikiTree is not a non-profit, and members of the Team are part-time contractors. 

Regarding the "Sex at birth" field (it was renamed from gender to more accurately describe what the field is for), there is the option to set the status as "other/do not display" for those who don't want their birth sex to display but still want the DNA features to work properly. And the name issue is the same for anyone who changes their name -- the fields definitely don't fit every circumstance well.

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@Emily,

One of the biggest issues for WikiTree "to be inclusive" is the issue of being mostly English-language, or at least English-centric. Discussions about internationalizing WT have been going back just as far, and if implemented, would reach billions more people.

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Shortcomings in one area do not excuse those in another. Linguistic diversity is important, but it is not the topic here.

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@Jim: It's relevant because Emily asked "what is the impediment" to implementing a specific feature.

The underlying impediments are the same across different sets of desired features. One has to be careful about calling out any perceived non-inclusiveness, because there is valid parallel to internationalization, including people who have threatened to leave, or who have left, over the non-implementation of internationalization features, and large groups of people who have to deal with the existing software as it is.

Is it a frustrating situation? Yes, absolutely. But everyone needs to realize that it's not just in one single area. Yes, these different situations have a common underlying issue. Yes, these various issues have been discussed for years. It's not a social injustice issue; it's an underlying technical and financial issue. All the users here are not in control of that.

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Providing more supportive features for trans people would take far less resources than comprehensive language internationalisation. The "do not display" status Jamie mentioned was successfully and quite easily introduced; but as Emily has pointed out this does not yet cover all cases. If the new proposed parent database field additions go smoothly, I hope that will pave the way for further new fields which can solve some of the issues described here.

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The "do not display" feature did not require a new database field. It also required dozens of updates to page templates (any page that included any gender/sex data), and a large amount of testing (and introduced some bugs) -- so saying it was "quite easily introduced" is not accurate.

If at some point adding new database fields becomes an option, a lot of the groundwork for handling different pronouns/gender displays was done with the previous update.

Answer 1

Hi Emily. Thank you for your post. You're quite right that the options and facilities could be much better, and I don't want to minimise that or diminish the problems you've pointed out.

I wonder however if there are steps available already in the existing system that might alleviate things a bit.

Firstly, does it work to set your sex at birth temporarily so as to enter DNA data, and after that set it to blank blank or female? I'm not sure whether that will break DNA display or not, but it's worth a try.

Secondly, is the "other/do not display" status on sex at birth any use? See

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

Thirdly, if you do want your birth names recorded, would it be any good to set Proper First Name to your first and middle names at birth, your Preferred Name to your first and middle name now, and then turn on the "No Middle Name" option? Again I'm not sure how this would display, but it might help.

Comments

My concern with changing the sex at birth field to female, appart from the DNA issue, is that it would not be accurate, and if I were to forget to change it back, it might confound current or future genealogists.  Nor am I crazy about setting it to blank, or setting the "other/do not display" status, as that tends to suggest that I am agender or nonbinary.

I had earlier considered the option of putting my current legal name in the preferred name field, but that does not feel satisfactory at all, since it is now my legal name.  I ended up entering my legal name in the name fields, and writing a note in the biography section where I mention my name given at birth.  Again, this seems problematic for genealogists and for people searching for me in general.

Answer 2

Hi, Emily, I've been frustrated a bit with WT about this. I haven't found a solution yet.  I have a child who is trans. I haven't filled out her profile fully yet, but so far I just put her legal name rather than her name at birth.  I hate misgendering her but the genealogist in me wants to document her authentically. I was thinking I'd make a note in the profile, but keep her as female gender and her affirming, legal name.

Also, with Transgender Day of Remembrance coming up next month, I want to make profiles of the transfolx we've lost each year. I want to make sure they don't get misgendered in death, like many do in the obituaries written by unaccepting family.

Comments

Here's other threads: 

2017: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/653751/listing-children-of-transgender-person

Answer 3

The issue is likely technical than anything else. There are many needed improvements that the implementation requires a change to the underlying database schema. This is not something done lightly, or quickly. These kinds of changes are tough to implement and test, and if done incorrectly, can break the website. It takes time and money to implement.

So there is nothing here inherently against any group of people. It's requires a lot of work to get a solution that's right, that works for everyone, and there are multiple competing work priorities for a small set of resources.