Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Gay or lesbian politicians

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Category:Gay or lesbian politicians]] listed for deletion on January 8, 2005. Consensus was to delete.

I question the value of this category. I wonder, what is the intention? To me, it seems similar as creating categories that single out Jewish politicians in Christian countries. It gives me the impression that Wikipedia here serves to boost prejudices and reinforce negative perceptions by means that are not related to the policies and ideologies these politicians represent. /Tuomas 06:31, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't see the problem really. We have Category:Gay writers and a few others I've noted.--ZayZayEM 14:50, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or refocus to Category: Gay activists. Gay writers can at least be assumed to cover Gay themes with a certain degree of self-acquired experience, but people listed as (or factually being) gay politicians do not have to make much use of their sexual orientation in their role as politicians. Beside Tuomas' argument, I think it makes Wikipedia too much of a gossip source. Sexual orientation of politicians, of professionals, of athlets, of militaries are of limited relevance.Roy Cohn is probably an example of how this category is used for the purpose of defamation. --Ruhrjung 16:13, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Presumably you don't live in one of the many countries where such issues as gay marriage are being debated at government level. In circumstances such as these, gay politicians do make use of their sexual orientation in their role as politicians. Gay politicians and gay activists are overlapping categories, but nowhere near identical. Keep. Grutness|hello? 07:53, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • "Gay activists" is far too broad. If the current category invites speculation about closeted politicians, then change it to Category:Openly gay or lesbian politicians. BTW I don't get the Roy Cohn example; how is it defamatory, unless what's written in the article is untrue? Rd232 17:00, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Maybe my grip of English is insufficient with regard to the meaning of defamation. I mean: How should his (closetted) sexual orientation be relevant? How should a summary of people with a certain stigma in a certain profession be relevant to anything? To me it has the taste Guilt by association, and of producing lists of Muslim shopkeepers, where patriots aren't supposed to do one's purchases, or of Jewish corporations whose products are to be shunned by Christians. Beware! --Ruhrjung 20:36, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, sexual orientation isnt relevant for categorization RustyCale 20:42, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. They are Gays who are politicians, there are Gay activists, and there are [locality] politicians, but I don't think there are "Gay politicians" per se. We wouldn't have a "left-handed politicians " category, though we might have separate categories for politicians and for lefties. -Willmcw 21:02, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep An imperfect analogy would be the 50's when magazines for African-Americans would report every appearance of a Black on television because there were so few of them. A gay politician, especially one who is fully open about their sexual orientation, is still fairly rare in the 21st century. I might have heard about many of those politicians in Southern California that are gay, but it is rare that I will know about a gay politician outside of California (for example Pim Fortuyn), and that is why the Category should be kept. On the other hand, this category should be used only for those politicians that are fully out, and shouldn't be used for speculation or "outing" anyone (such as the conservative S. Calif. Representative who may, or may not be, gay). Dead people, however, who might not have been out, but where the evidence is pretty convincing (e.g. Roy Cohn) should still be in this category. gK ¿? 02:37, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • If it's to stay it should at least have some of the more notable gay politicians such as Peter Mandelson, Peter Tatchell, Ron Davies or Nick Brown. And Jeremy Thorpe, maybe, too. I was interested to see Daniel O'Donnell there - but then I saw that it wasn't the famous one that's being referred to:) jguk 12:42, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • It seems that every time somebody creates a category even remotely connected to LGBT anything, somebody else tries to have it deleted. In fact, I seem to recall that when Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people came up here, somebody proposed breaking it down into smaller categories such as "Gay writers", "Gay politicians", "Gay activists", etc., and now that that's been done, somebody wants to delete those, too. Gay politician qua gay politician is still a notable thing in and of itself, precisely because there are still relatively few who are open about it, and it is a categorization of specific interest to many people. After all, people regularly maintain entire websites devoted just to listing famous LGBT people. Bottom line: there is no valid reason for deleting this category that doesn't ultimately boil down to flat-out homophobia. (And as for Roy Cohn, it's a recorded fact that he regularly had sex with men, and it's a recorded fact that he died of AIDS. I just don't see how it's defamation to call him what he quite obviously was.) Bearcat 23:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"as for Roy Cohn, it's a recorded fact that he regularly had sex with men, and it's a recorded fact that he died of AIDS" I'm pretty sure that dying of AIDS is irrelevant to being gay. I'm not quite sure that only gay people have sex with people of their own gender either. I'm not against keeping this category, but I think it should only include people who have stated themselves that they are gay. I also prefer Homosexual to Gay as being more clinical and precise in meaning, more suitable for an encyclopedia. Gay is a little ambiguous. (Is it queer for someone to be a gay heterosexual?) Also prefer the term heterosexual to the term straight. Just a comment. Pedant 00:55, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
    • Seems to me that it's a valid sub-category of Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people, although it should be changed to include bisexuals and transfolk. Iotha 23:24, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay, so he may have been bisexual. Sue me. But he regularly had sex with other men, so he definitely wasn't straight. (Straight people might experiment once or twice, I'll grant, but if it's a regular ongoing feature of their sex lives, straight they ain't.) And as for dying of AIDS, well, no, it's not diagnostic of being gay, but it does have some bearing on the fact that he was having sex with men. Bearcat 01:38, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh, and I'm also sick of the argument that we shouldn't have gay categories if we don't have left-handed categories; the two are in no way comparable in their relevance to understanding a person's historical or cultural context. Bearcat 01:44, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep (and not much reason not to, and some reason to, move to a bi- and trans-inclusive title). Samaritan 06:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Even if sexual orientation were a valid wikipedia classification (which I don't think it is), this is over-categorization. What's next, Category:Adopted handicapped African-American gay or lesbian politicians from Arizona? If you want this particular cross-section of information on wikipedia, then make a list article. Postdlf 01:08, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Delete Make it a list and not a category.Lokifer 22:51, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep or devolve to list - This is critical information for both pro-gay (to identify positive role models and allies) and anti-gay (to identify negative role models and enemies) advocates, and for the average citizen. An annotated list may be less likely to offend because it can say exactly why someone is included on the list. However, we do have Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people. After debating on Wikipedia:Categorization of people, we decided to put little disclaimers at the top of some categories, including that one, and deal with ambiguity in terminology by stating clear inclusion criteria. This category could/should have both of those, since the main one does. I think I've voted previously to convert these categories to lists, where it would be much easier to distinguish gay from bi from maybe-gay from not-gay-wink-wink, for anyone who cares. Though the lists we have, last time I checked, aren't particularly meticulous. But we should either do that for all the BLTG etc. categories, or none. -- Beland 11:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Comment Some people are uncomfortable putting LBGT people in the spotlight, because it sounds to them like discrimination to point out people's differences. Other people are uncomfortable leaving people in the dark about the sexual orientation of notable individuals because it makes them, as well as any discrimination they might experience, invisible. It sounds like there are well-meaning, pro-LBGT people in both the "no darkness" and "no spotlight" camps who suspect everyone in the other camp of being anti-LBGT. It would be funny if it weren't sad and a little alarming. (Not that there aren't anti-LBGT folks around, though they are probably also split between the spotlight and darkness camps, wanting either to expose behavior they see as immoral to public shame, or to "protect the children" from what they see as negative role models, and so on.) I hope that keeping that in mind will help make such debates more civil and more productive. -- Beland 11:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep please it's a useful category. CDThieme
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