Category talk:Non-heterosexual real world people

Concerns about citations
Much as I’m glad to see such a category - having even started working up a plan for this - I am rather surprised by the lack of citation for the vast majority of people who have been added to this category.

I believe it was noted when I first raised the matter of introducing such a category, that it would have to be handled with the utmost care with regards to citations such that we are entirely accurate in how we present real-world people, particularly in instances of people no longer with us.

As such; I’m wondering how we should approach this: Should all uncited individuals in the category be removed until they can be cited? Should they be given citation needed notes on their respective pages? JDPManjoume ☎  15:50, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the need for categories like this? Why must we divide people due to their sexuality or gender identity? I don't see the practical need. Also, there are a lot of people who do not like to be labeled, myself included, how do we treat people like this? RadMatter ☎  17:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Okay, as I created the Category, I will address the concerns.


 * @JDPManjoume, I added all the pages into this category by using Queer representation in Doctor Who; there, a lot of individuals are cited as being non-heterosexual, IIRC. These citations are simply just not reflected on the individual pages.


 * @RadMatter, while I see where you are coming from, there is a genuinely good use for this category, in my eyes. In the situation that one is researching the non-heterosexual individuals who contributed to Doctor Who works, having all the pages neatly collated in a category proves immensely useful; I've seen many a person research this type of thing, so I believe, just on these grounds, the category should be retained, though I am sure there are many more arguments to be made for this category's existence. 📯 📂 23:19, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I personally don't think that is a good enough reason for the category's existence. If someone is looking for non-hetrosexual people surely they can research an individual person? We don't have categories for real-world people based on skin colour or race (to my knowledge) or many other traits, and I think that is wise. All this category does is divides people and - most offensively - acts as if hetrosexual is the "norm". RadMatter ☎  23:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * While heterosexual isn't the norm, it is certainly perceieved as such. Regardless of that, while there are certainly more pages that could be added to this, the sheer amount of pages in it attest how little non-het (and similarly non-cis) people are even involved in big franchises like Who.
 * A bit "potAto, potatO", but what you call "divide" I call "uplift, highlight". A category like this is good because queer writers and authors will inevitably and often have the way the interact with their work influenced/nuanced by the fact that they're queer. There are essays (covered by this very wiki) on this subject. There are podcasts being produced by people on this category about this very subject.
 * As the person who's guilty of having added pages to here without sourcing the info, I apologize, and will amend this by tomorrow, if no one gets to this before me. But matter of fact is: a useful category it is. OncomingStorm12th ☎  01:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Well it shouldn't be perceived as such, and categories like this only reinforce that. Having a category that just clumps a whole bunch of people together based on something like sexuality is ridiculous. Especially as it highlights a certain individual who is seriously intolerant of others in the group/category. RadMatter ☎  12:24, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

As with all categories on this wiki, it does require inclusion in the article first. In this case, that also means sources. As for this coverage somehow being "intolerant", that's a complete misunderstanding of what labels are for.

(Those who don't actually need them like to imagine they're constraining. For those of us who do, it's both enlightening and empowering to know there are words for it. In any case, this is for self-identified cases.) 17:48, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * (Oh I understand who you're taking about now. But we don't pretend someone's straight just because we don't like them. This is not an ideological category: it's descriptive. existing doesn't mean we throw the whole concept of transness out the window, for instance.) 17:51, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Just so we are clear going forward, I am a member of the LGBT community - not that I should have to state this - so the generalisation that straight people are the ones who would have a problem with this category while LGBT people would find it "empowering" is false.


 * I am not suggesting that we should "pretend someone's straight just because we don't like them". I am saying that I would prefer everyone into a single real world people category and can't understand why people with an alternate sexuality have to be split off. RadMatter ☎  20:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I too am against categorising real-world people by sexuality and don't think it's any more appropriate than having a category for non-white real-world people. I can at least understand why we have this category for fictional characters, but I don't see any reason to mark and group people involved in the DWU based on who they enjoy having sex with. Jack &#34;BtR&#34; Saxon ☎  20:55, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't wish to go heavily on detail into this yet, as again, I'd hoped this was something we'd run rather thoroughly through in a Forum discussion one day... but to again try to contextualise this in whatever brevity I can, from the perspective of myself as a gay man of colour, whilst expanding on what Epsilon has said: I very much see a merit in having a category for much of a similar reason as I see merit in the real-world coverage detailed within the 'Sexuality' and 'Queer representation in Doctor Who' pages. Sexuality certainly isn't a be-all end-all of one's existence, and labelling accurately is a complicated matter (hence why my planned future proposal had settled with the 'non-heterosexual' phrasing for less complication... but it does serve an important purpose in the same kind of manner as the fictional character category. It provides for a handy reference list of these individuals under one category for anyone wishing to research the representative history of Doctor Who from a production perspective, and often provides suitable background context to either those individual's work (Patrick Ness, Paul Magrs and Scott Handcock come to mind as three immediate examples in which it's topical) or the work environment in which they were within. Or even in their wider life - Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman are two instances in which further expansion of cast biographies in future is likely to cover their founding of Stonewall in some depth. I rather feel safe to say that there is a definite measure of discussion and value in such a list, because this discussion has been somewhat touched upon in an official venue - with an episode of The Fan Show that focused upon this & featured Waris Hussein talking about the fact that there was a much more restrained situation for himself and other non-heterosexual production members in terms of putting that into their works. We, of course, aren't Wikipedia and nor do we exactly need to run by their example... but I would say that I have personally found significant benefit from their categories in this kind of vein. (And it would certainly be much nicer to categorise them, rather than just having to hammer all these individuals into the 'Queer representation in Doctor Who' page.)

Putting all that to the side, my point of questioning was re. the sourcing. This is because I am somewhat wary of how we approach writing biographies on real-world people. @Epsilon, I appreciate that clarification but I would think we need these things noted onto those pages too. Particularly as it will help fellow editors discern what has been added uncited from what has been added with citation. Peter Wyngarde and Dursley McLinden come to mind as two individuals currently within this category that are contentious without upfront citations. I feel we need that in two regards - the immediate matter of clarity for claim citation on real-world pages... and also because having those references upfront would make sense for the benefit of someone researching the topic as is. I am certainly happy to try and help with what ones I can. (I actually started some work a while ago on a Sandbox page to collate references of this nature, for future usage in a Forum discussion about this matter) JDPManjoume ☎  15:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC) PS - Apologies all for the textwall layout of my comments. It appeared as paragraphs blocked out when I previewed it, but now hasn't committed to the page that way. JDPManjoume ☎  15:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

An update on citation progress from myself. For the moment, I have removed all uncited or not sufficiently cited ones from the category until such time that they have been cited (as should be) [apart from RTD... but get to that further down this]

No citations at present I've found
 * Geoffrey Bayldon & Alan Rowe
 * Benjamin Cook (this may have been noted by him on his Twitter, but I am personally unable to check due to personal differences between him and myself)
 * Barnaby Edwards & Nicholas Pegg
 * Simon Fisher-Becker
 * Tim Foley
 * Alex Frost
 * Mark Gatiss
 * Roy Gill
 * Tim Leng
 * Ian Levine (all the tweets I could find were instead about confusion between him and the adult entertainer of the same name, and that does actually pose difficulties for citation research)
 * Joseph Lidster
 * Matt Lucas
 * Natalie Morales
 * Cyril Nri
 * Paul Rhys
 * Leonard Sachs
 * Ryan Sampson
 * John Sessions
 * Hugh Skinner
 * Peter Straker
 * Nathan Sussex
 * Sophie Ward
 * Robert Webb
 * Richard Wilson

Known possible leads to be examined
 * Dallas Adams (in lack of many in-print acknowledgements, JNT's memoirs apparently discuss this but need to be checked out)
 * Trevor Baxter (I've been told that this is mentioned in a BF Behind the Scenes extra on a boxset Trevor was featured in. Person can't remember which though)
 * Paul Clayton (I know he's spoken with the LGBTQ+ fan group 'Friends of Ace' about Mr. Colchester, and I believe it may have come up then)
 * Gary Downie (page itself notes an obit being used for page content?)
 * John Nathan-Turner (apparently also in an obit)
 * Nicholas Pennell (Mary Z. Maher has a biography about him that needs to be examined for viability as a citation)
 * Gareth Roberts (due to my reading of his Twitter feed for the matter of properly and thoroughly citing details for the transphobia part of his page, I am nowadays unable to access it to lift any of his tweets that would work as ample citation)
 * Caroline Tankersley & Ben Tedds (these should be easy Twitter ask verifications)
 * Sandi Toksvig (the sole citation of this, without digging through episodes of QI, seems to be a cost-gated Telegraph article. Still looking for alternatives.)

Further citation needed
 * Max Adrian (Ray Diffen's book acknowledges that Max and Laurier were close & lived together, but it doesn't actually give acknowledgement in the way that most sources do...)
 * Jeremy Hoad & Paul Magrs

Other action
 * Russell T. Davies (his page is now fully protected as result of his showrunner announcement, so I have left an appropriate citation on his Talk section, for someone who has permission to edit to add in.)
 * Dursley McLinden (particularly contentious, should be left alone until there is some citable statement somewhere from someone with personal connection to him during his life)
 * Graham Norton & Paul O'Grady (both of these pages appear to be referring moreso to an in-universe counterpart so more discussion will be needed about those)
 * Oscar Wilde (similar to above, realworld page though... just not sure the best way to tackle. Especially as Dorian Gray as a work is closely tied to his sexuality.)
 * Sue Perkins (further discussion probably needed on how to handle, as Sue was I gather actually initially outed by an ex some years ago)
 * Peter Wyngarde (goodness knows how best to tackle this one; the man's name, DOB & sexuality all seem to be a messy debate... add to that a fanclub organiser who has taken on his name, a biography that has come under some debate regarding accuracy, and even chaos at times on his Wikipedia page; and honestly, I think his page will be a fullblown Forum discussion in every regard one day.)

Further ones to look at not previously added or raised here
 * Alex MacQueen
 * Gary Craig (I know this to be the case, but just need to deal with citations for this man in general. He still hasn't yet been able to receive a page on here because of those difficulties. I'm continuing to work on this one...)
 * Nicholas Mallet
 * David Winfield (Again, one I know to be the case, and has previously made known public but he's only commented as such on social channels that are now private, so citation will be a tricky one)

Additionally, I am aware that there is some discontinuity and confusion regarding was vs. is for personal life notation of this on pages of still-living people with long lasting precedents. I'm obviously no admin, but I know that's something that can't be thoroughly tackled until the Forums return. I've mostly notated using 'was', as per the advice of another editor, but of course, this may eventually be changed in a future Forum discussion. JDPManjoume ☎  20:56, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

A concern
Prefacing this by saying I do understand the level of nuance this discussion holds, and I have trepidations in further contributing to my admitted lack of involvement in the LGBTQ+ community; I try to do good, but I have seen that these categories I've created have faced a level of backlash, on-site and externally, so I am doubting my actions now.

We've had criticism of these categories on this very talk page, and also from Doctor Who creatives such as Felicia Barker on Twitter, so I would like to invite suggestions on how we could further improve these categories. I don't believe just deleting them would help, as it kicks out a useful resource for research, in my opinion, so perhaps, may there be a better name for this category ?

I do hope I'm not speaking incorrectly here, considering I typically have little interaction with the LGBTQ+ community, even if several of my online mutuals belong to the community themselves. 📯 📂 19:09, 1 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I have been trying to explain how damaging this category is for quite some time... but it takes until someone on Twitter has an issue for people to realise this? No shade to Felicia, I completely agree with the hurt and disgust she feels.


 * The category literally treats LGBT+ people like some abnormality that needs labeled and categorised. Of course we should appreciate people with alternative sexualities, but this is not the way to do it. Not all LGBT+ people include LGBT themes in their work so it begs the question... why is their sexuality so important as to be noted in this scenario? Certain people don't want to be labeled either but making a category like this forces labels onto people.


 * The best reason for the category to exist is that it makes it easy for people to research LGBT+ creators... and that just showcases how little respect is being given to those LGBT creators as the researcher can't even be bothered to put the time into researching them and needs a quick and easy list. RadMatter ☎  20:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Here's a little comparison as to why we're finding this offensive. On Family Guy, Peter Griffin is interviewed by a news reporter and the caption on the television lists him as "local fatty". It is played off as a joke... but here at the TARDIS Wikia we're actually doing this for real. LGBT+ artists are providing their work and being listed by their sexuality without it having anything to do with the price of fish. On Family Guy it was meant to be an, albeit funny, joke... but here it is a reality and is ridiculous. RadMatter ☎  20:18, 1 March 2022 (UTC)