Well, It's Worse Now: What the hell is the "LGBTQIA+ Wiki" ?
The "LGBTQIA+ Wiki" is a wiki being created by the mods of FANDOM. Not LGBTA Wiki- FANDOM, the site that hosts LGBTA Wiki. The creation of this Wiki was made alongside an announcement that every single LGBTQ+ focused wiki is being "merged" (deleted), with "common" identities being on this new wiki, and "uncommon" identities like xenogenders being put on the another wiki.
First and foremost: This is not "merging." Do not let the admins make you think otherwise. This is deleting without consent, without a good reason. No mods on any wiki were informed of this, nor did they get a say in this whatsoever. Many, many people have been furious on LGBTA Wiki over this new development, but FANDOM has supposedly already made up it's mind.
You might be asking- especially if you didn't like the LGBTA Wiki before- why is this a bad thing? Well, there's a lot to it...
1. It is without the consent of any creators involved.
Not only was LGBTA Wiki not informed, but neither was any other Wiki, such as the Nonbinary Wiki, Gender Wiki, or Kenochoric Wiki. It was made on the behalf of staff on FANDOM. This is an act of usurping creators and normal community members in order to force out a wiki that the site personally wanted. This is unacceptable behavior.
This not only undercuts creators, but admins as well, and everybody who has ever submitted and worked on pages for these wikis. People's hard effort was put into these pages, and now it is all being deleted for the sake of a wiki that is significantly worse.
2. It is blatantly against xenogenders and other microlabels.
This wiki will not be allowing xenogenders or any other "uncommon" identity, despite exactly 0 people liking this idea. Comments by the new admins on this topic have been rude and dismissive at best. Forcing this onto another wiki, and making them be the one who holds all the microlabels, is creating so much sudden traffic and panic that nobody on that Wiki was prepared for.
It is also extremely concerning that random FANDOM admins believe they can distinguish what queer identities deserve to be on their Wiki and which ones do not, especially since not every member on this new team is queer (some are simply "allies.")
3. It is already parroting exclusionist content that would have never been acceptable on LGBTA.
Inclusivity is important in this community. However, on this new wiki, various entries are already very concerning, with much more exclusionary language than LGBTA had. For example, with lesbian:
LGBTA: "Lesbian is a term that defines queer attraction to women.", has extensive resources dating all the way back to Sappho, numerous community made flags, etc.
"LGBTQIA+": "A lesbian is most commonly defined as a woman who has enduring emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions toward other women.", far less sources, most of them being medical, less inclusive language/less inclusive of nonbinary people, various lesbian subcultures only being included under a "controversy" section, and only one flag.
4. It is forcing the deletion of an active, thriving community that has been active for years, just to promote a less inclusive wiki.
LGBTA Wiki is not new, inactive, or unable to be used. It is a thriving community with tons of terms being added daily (something not even allowed on this new wiki). The FANDOM mods are, in short, undercutting a very active community to promote their own, shittier community, which is tyrannical.
When people force a shut-down of a community-run site to make people use their own, it should be responded to accordingly.
5. It undercuts creators and lived experiences for "medical" explanations on sexualities/genders.
The admins have said they will only be adding things that are medically backed up onto this wiki. You will see proof of this, in that most of the mspec (bi, pan, ply, omni) pages have their first source being from WebMD, a medical site. While medical information is not inherently bad, it is extremely concerning for those who are, for instance, xenogender, non-dysphoric, or otherwise not perfectly defined by a medical system, to see a wiki near-exclusively prioritize that.
The entire point of the queer community is that it is not able to be contained in medical documents or perfect explanations. This paired with their decision to not allow any "micro" labels reeks of exclusionary behavior and reminds me a hell of a lot of transmedicalist rhetoric.
6. The Wiki is brand new, has not proved it will be well run, and is barely even created.
There are very few pages on this Wiki so far. We know no information about the mods, their beliefs, or their ability to run a Wiki. If you're going to force us to use a new platform, at least make a little more than 20 pages first. While more have been rapidly made, most are stubs with no flags or resources (which, ironically, is a critique LGBTA often gets).
The admins are consistently saying "the wiki isn't done yet," as they try to shut down an existing wiki that has been far beyond enough for years.
7. The LGBTA Wiki is a resource with massive impacts on the community.
Love it or hate it, you cannot deny the impact of the LGBTA Wiki. With these major resources gone, the community will be left in the dark for the sake of a wiki that will not allow replacement pages for a lot of these identities.
Queer people, especially young ones, will either have to rely on this new wiki which is much less inclusive, or look to other wikis, which are still relatively new, and is far from the first thing to show up in a Google search like LGBTA Wiki is.
It's cutting the line to one of our biggest gateway websites for the community. It's deleting terms that are not posted or archived on any other site. It's removing important resources that many people will find for the first time on the LGBTA Wiki. It's. Ridiculous.
8. It's forcing division between what is and is not "normal" in the community.
The "LGBTQIA+ Wiki" is splitting off from itself and another wiki, with the former hosting "common" identities (who decides what is common?) and the latter for... everything else.
Mods have already stated untrue census data about how many people are xenogender, claiming less than 2% of the community is xenogender, when in reality the census data showed that over 20% percent identify with xenogender. That is 10 times larger than what they claimed, and is just misinformation by that point.
[ID: A screenshot of one of the admins on LGBTQIA Wiki. It states, "Based on the results from the Gender census, an annual survey of nonbinary individuals, less than 2% of those survey respondents identified as xenogender. It can be assumed that for individual xenogender identities under that umbrella, that percentage is even smaller." End ID]
[ID: A screenshot from the xenogender carrd, which has a link to the gender census. It states, "In the results from the Gender Census of 2020, between 1,164-4,820 people (approx. 24.35%), out of 24,576 total results, were xenogender." End ID]
What is "normal" and "non-normal" is not a thing in the queer community. It is no more or less valid to be xenogender than it is to be a trans man. It is no more or less valid to be finsexual than it is to be a lesbian. Forcing this divide is further encouraging divide in the community, and will be alienating for many people.
1. Support the new LGBTA Wiki, which is planned to be hosted on Miraheze. Not much is known about this port yet, but keep an eye on it!
2. Do not support the new wiki, and preferably boycott FANDOM as a platform. FANDOM runs off of monetary support from ads, and refusing to use their platform speaks volumes. Show the site that this behavior is not okay.
3. Participate in the discussions on LGBTA to voice your opinion on the matter. This matter is angering a lot of people, and people get their point across far better in large groups.
