[soundnote]

> people are the gender they say they are seems to be a very simple policy.

Simple, yes, but is the policy particularily sane? Consider, for example, if I were to claim I was a duck. Should my wikipedia page pretend I have been a duck all my life? That would be preposterous, because as anyone can see, I am human.

Our science and medicine cannot change a person's sex, we can force the body to act a bit more like the opposite sex through constant medical intervention, but nothing more than that.

People's inner feelings fail the "soundnote is a duck" test: There are quite a few MtF writers, for example, whose style of communication is clearly male despite their self-identification: They physically are men, and have grown up as men, and their thinking clearly fits the male mold such that seeing a female name under their text just feels off. Just as I am not a duck, they are not the sex they wish to, even if they say so.

[jl6]

Often completely missing from this debate is the concept that context matters. Sometimes, in casual contexts, it really doesn't matter what someone's sex or gender is, so you may as well address them using the gender terms they prefer, just as you would address them by the name they prefer. If someone looks like a woman, and the context is a casual conversation in the office, then it would be a bit mad to call them he/him, even if they don't really pass, because (a) it's rude, and (b) you don't have a way of absolutely confirming their sex. So, casually, it seems like we should treat trans women as women.

But then some contexts aren't casual, and a person's sex really does matter. It would be equally mad to exclude trans women from prostate cancer screenings, for example, when they are unambiguously male. Given what we know about male pattern offending, granting males (regardless of their gender identity) access to intimate female spaces creates risks that many females would rather not take. Given what we know about male physique and the impact of testosterone, granting males (regardless of their gender identity) access to women's sports creates injury risk and unfairness. So, in these not-so-casual contexts, sex trumps gender and it seems we should treat trans women as men.

Personally, I think a sex offender's sex is absolutely relevant to their crime and thus relevant in a Wikipedia article about their crime - and it's genuinely absurd to read about a male rapist and "her" victim, besides being grossly offensive to women in general. This is not a casual context, and the polite fiction should not take precedent.