User:Scarykitty/LGBT Categories

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A kind of sandbox for collecting discussions about the LGBT category structure.

User:Scarykitty/LGBT Categories/Previous Discussions

The Problem

I focus my Wikipedia contributions in two areas: categorizing uncategorized articles and working on LGBT articles, emphasis on the "L". At this intersection, I find that I'm often looking for some organization of lesbian related articles separate from LGBT. I don't mean to exclude by my use of language, but I mean the female/woman/bisexual women/FTMs who date women side of the LGBT equation, as distinct from the male/man/bisexual man/MTFs who date men side of the equation. Others must have felt this need as well because there are *some* categories that are diffused into gay and lesbian (along with bisexual and transgender) but really, not that many (see below for counts, less than 20 in each category). These L and G specific categories also branch up the tree in different and sometimes strange ways (check out Category:Women and sexuality for some weird bedfellow). I do have a working knowledge of the category guidelines and philosophies, so I know that categories are not supposed to be a straight (no pun intended) tree. Nonetheless, the current state of things doesn't seem right.

Under the main category "LGBT" there are sub categories for Bisexuality and Transgender the B and the T of LGBT. But there is no sub category for the "L" or the "G". I agree with SatyrN's [proposal] not to make L, G, B and T the primary category structure. There are lots of things that encompass all four, but there ARE things that encompass just the one, as evidenced by the fact that the "B" and "T" categories are fairly well populated (but not overpopulated). There are lesbian related categories buried in the structure, and I am proposing to organize them together and make "L" fork off of LGBT. The same could be done for "G" I believe.

Current state of affairs: There are less than 20 specific lesbian categories. All of them have parent LGBT categories, as you would expect. 7 of them have parent categories that related to women somehow (many are Category:Women and sexuality, others are related to the subject e.g. Category:Women's magazines. There are also less than 20 specific gay categories. These are more uniform, in that all but one have an LGBT parent category and that is the only parent category. The exception is gay pornography. (I have a chart on this in Microsoft Word that I'm shy about putting into a Wikipedia table due to lack of technical knowledge, but I may publish it as a google document).

I think the great number of things linked from the lesbian article in the See Also section speaks to the need for a more lesbian/woman/etc. oriented category tree. Lesbian#See_also.

Proposal

(very rough, still researching the corners of Wikipedia to see what exists and what doesn't)

1. Paralell Structures (Bold)

Create categories called:

1) Category:Lesbian or Category:Lesbianism (for the non people articles) and 2) Category:Lesbians (currently redirects to Category:LGBT people) (for the people) - THIS IS DONE

and 1) Category:Gayness or something similar - couldn't find the right word. Could also be just "Category:Gay" (for the non-people articles) (this currently redirects to Category:LGBT people and is listed in Category:Often-populated Wikipedia category redirects which I think helps to prove my point that it's needed. (lesbian, no such luck.) and 2) Category:Gay men (for the people)

Then have the structure attempt to mimic the structure of Category:LGBT, Category:Bisexuality, Category:Transgender with main categories like society, culture, art, etc.

Category:Lesbian would link up to Category:LGBT and Category:Women and sexuality - with the lesbian cats there subordinated. The main category would include many of the "main topic" articles below. Category:Lesbians would include parent cat Category:LGBT people and then all the people related Lesbian cats would go under it: writers, musicians, possibly organizing "by occupation."

Category:Gay would link up to LGBT.

Category:Gay men would link up to Category:Men.

I just can't find any men and sexuality, sexual orientation or the like categories.

2. Clean up what exists now (Less Bold)

I may get started on this and things will become more clear of obvious once I do. The idea would be to take all the L and G specific categories above and try to make some sense of them. As I look more closely, it looks like lesbian and bisexual have all the same sub categories, with the exception of television series. The problem remains that the "lesbian" and "gay" specific categories don't link up to the LGBT main category.

3. Add categories (To Do If Paralell Structure is created)

Finding existing articles that will be appropriate for an L or G tag may prove difficult. I've started a list on this page of the more obvious ones.

4. Make Category:Women and sexuality work

I'm not crazy about this one because as is you've got dominatrixes, nymphomaniacs on the same par as lesbians, resulting in a kind of over sexualizing of the topic.

5. Start with television programs

from the list below, one thing that exists in the "B" category and not the L or G is television shows. Films are segmented.

Articles that could be segmented in TV categories

Second Serve - Category:Transgender-related television shows The L Word - Category:Lesbian-related television shows

Guidelines

Cats separated by the L G B or T

These categories were largely compiled from Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Categories and those categories starting with "lesbian" or "gay" were included.

Lesbian

(15)

Gay

(left out Gay Games and gay villages, which are probably meant to be understood as LGBT games and villages but they aren't called that)

(17)

Bisexual

(this is less developed because because these categories do link right up to Category:LGBT

Transgender

(I developed this section of my proposal less because these categories do link right up to Category:LGBT and therefore need less work.

Examples of articles that could benefit from a lesbian/female specific category

These are the types of articles that should be bunched together as lesbian-specific.

Note: I generated this list partly at random and partly by searching on Google for items on the Wikipedia site including the word lesbian. Most articles were already categorized with one of the lesbian-categories shown above, but these were not. Additions and comments are welcome!


Maybe not sure

Examples of articles that could benefit from a gay male/male specific category

Haven't done an exhaustive search, just dropping things here as I come across them. Feel free to join in!

Examples of Bisexual or trans related articles that do what I am proposing

A Double Shot at Love with the ikki twins categorized as both LGBT related television program and Bisexual related television program

the other two Tila Tequila shows

Current "Structures" so to speak

Lesbian

Women and sexuality has 8 free-standing articles

It looks like User:Dakinijones did a ton of work in August fixing up the Women category. Among his/her efforts was to add Category:Lesbians by occupation which seemingly never got populated. Also, originally, the women and sexuality category was called feminism and sexuality, but that no longer exists. The current category name is probably more appropriate as lesbian does not always equal feminism, and nymphomania is probably not feminism (maybe, I don't know).

Gay

none really - all of the above examples except a few (pornography, Neo Nazis) link up only to the LGBT category.

There *are* male related categories like Category:Men. I just linked up Gay organizations with organizations of men (wait for the howls, folks!). Men by occupations bizarrely basically only includes dancers, porn stars and Popes. (you poor guys)

Bisexual

(in progress)

Comment: (full disclosure, i am the one that segregated out a separate Bisexual category from the former Bisexual community cat) imho the organized Bi community (BiNet, etc etc) should have their own cat, but the films, literature, TV series, etc definitely don't belong under "Bisexual community". Not sure if I overlooked that during the split or if someone came along afterward and moved the (TV,literature,etc) cats back to the Bisexual community cat though. will check it out.. Outsider80(User0529) (talk) 04:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree Yes, bisexual community is weird and vague as a topish level category and should be demoted, methinks. Scarykitty (talk) 04:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Transgender

Note: Transgender also links up to Category:Gender.

(seems to be missing Category:Transgender by country

To do

  1. Also drag king, though linked from the lesbian page, has only transgender category, not lesbian. That may be Ok, but need to ponder it.
Should have both, IMHO. -- Banjeboi 07:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I thought that drag kings/queens were performers first, who were not necessarily gay/lesbian or transsexual (though I guess they might count as transvestite? (unless they wouldnt' be transvestitite since they were doing it for performance?). will defer to those more knowledgable in lesbian and transgender issues though. Outsider80(User0529) (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
that's fair nuff but where I live drag kings are absolutely part of lesbian culture. Probably best to leave it alone for POV issues and I ain't a source. Scarykitty (talk) 04:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
  1. Xena and progeny have no LGBT related categories, though they are tagged with LGBT project.
  2. Go through LGBT/gay oriented categories for lists and see if any are appropriate for Category:Lists of men
  3. Need someplace to put LGBT related non fiction that isn't a book, for example, Adrienne Rich's essay. Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. Either change non fiction books to non fiction. Also would probably need to be moved out of literature. Check other book structures to see how it works.
  4. keep going through [1] (page 9 onwards) to get the universe of lesbian related articles.
  5. What are the missing lesbian categories? Directors Angela Robinson; Activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon;

Other things that need examination

Category:LGBT art is a subcategory of Category:LGBT erotica. Seems it should be the other way around, erotica is part of art, not the other way around, no?

Comment: hm.... definitely is a mess. maybe something like:

  • LGBT
    • LGBT art
      • LGBT erotic art (does not exist currently afaik)
      • Homoerotic art
      • (and all the non-erotic types of LGBT art, etc)
    • LGBT erotica
      • LGBT erotic art
        • (with LGBT art as parent cat, not child cat)
      • LGBT erotic literature (does not exist currently afaik)
        • (with LGBT lit as parent cat, not child cat)

Outsider80(User0529) (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


mid 2009 discoveries

Lesbian categories, need Category:Lesbian nightclubs Category:Lesbian rights and maybe some other stuff

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