Talk: Natani

Gender/Pronoun Edit War

Natani was AFAB, but clearly wants to be seen as a man, i.e. male gender. We have a good compromise in the infobox that states sex separately from gender. Please do not use female pronouns when referring to Natani in the article or wiki in general. The concept of being transgender doesn't exist in the world of TwoKinds, but in our own context it's extremely rude and oppressive to ignore a person's desired gender. --CaduRyaq (talk) 04:35, June 9, 2018 (UTC)

Grammar Recommendations

I recommend replacing pronouns entirely with “Natani’s” name (or adjectives) in lieu of “He”, “His”, “She”, or “Hers”, etc. on the wiki as these two options won’t start the Gender/Pronoun war I’ve lately been fighting to kill in Patreon comment battles.

Sentence Examples

Poor: “Kat became enamoured with Natani because”: “she is brave” or “he is brave”. Both can be considered “right”, however result in arguments and “Edit Wars”.
Better: “Kat became enamoured with Natani, due to Natani’s bravery” but that results in redundancy, which reduces readability.
Best: “Kat became enamored with Natani due to the latter’s bravery.” Adjectives remove potential redundancy while preserving the intended meaning, and eliminates pronoun kindling.

My General Guidelines

When Possible, Refer to Natani by name.
If referring by name in every instance would result in more than one “Natani” being typed per sentence (unless appropriate to do so), utilize adjectives, such as “former”, “latter”, “above”, and “aforementioned”, to neutralize the gender stance within the phrase.
If it is impossible to refer to Natani by name or adjective, analyze Natani’s circumstances in the timeframe being discussed and proceed with extreme caution.
- Prior to the encounter with Issac, Natani can safely be refered to in the feminine tense.
- Following this event, Natani developed a solidly masculine personality, and in the aforementioned circumstances, it is more appropriate to refer to Natani in the masculine tense.
- Following the detonation of the Na’Rella, Natani has exhibited more feminine traits than before, however clearly does not wish to be called “Miss”, nor is comfortable with the idea of any form of sexual contact, which exhibits more of a masculine mentality. As such, for events following the destruction of the Na’Rella, an author should exclusively follow the above two points, or present within their writing valid context warranting the use of a gendered pronoun. Examples include
  - Directly quoting a character.
  - Within the context of the section of the comic referenced, it is entirely clear that Natani is exhibiting behavior associated exclusively with the gender stated. Such as: (Feminine: Natani states desire to become pregnant) or, equally unlikely given current circumstances (Masculine: The desire to somehow make Keith pregnant).
  - Natani permanently becomes physically Male, or otherwise presents a primarily feminine mentality.

What are your thoughts?

Grammar Recommendations section originally written by DarthKeidran (SuperGilligan93 (talk) 22:29, June 12, 2018 (UTC))

1 and 2 would prevent any edit issues, but it results in stilted language. Name and "singular they" is the modern convention for gender neutrality. It's reasonable to use gender neutral language when male/female gender is not defined, and occasionally otherwise, but doing so universally actually fails to correctly gender Natani. It proscribes trans people into an "other" category, rather than their desired male/female.

I don't agree with 3a and 3b. That used to be the best information available, but the meeting between Natani and Young Natani (particularly page 932) clearly indicates that they "liked being seen as a boy" at all stages of life. 3c isn't quite right either. Trans people are still trans even if they do not exclusively exhibit the traits of their desired gender, as cis people are not held to that standard either.

--CaduRyaq (talk) 00:15, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

I do see where you are coming from. However, my point is not so much to de-gender Natani, so as to eliminate points of contention. I'm sure you are aware of some of the "fights", to put it lightly, that occur frequently almost every time a patreon post includes Natani, and, less frequently, Clovis. They are almost always initiated by someone trying to correct another's comment to fall in line with their point of view. There was a time when I took part, and sometimes initiated these types of arguments because of how indoctrinated in "Zero-Tolerance for LGBT" I was, which is likely a big part of the argument from the "Natani's a she" side of the argument. Working, professionally, with people who are more in Natani's situation I've learned that arguing isn't a good solution.

You quote parts of diologue that, without any context, exclusively supports the Male pronouns. However, there are other details left out and/or ignored that indicate that Natani could have been a tomboy (which by definition means "a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy, including wearing masculine clothing and engaging in games and activities that are physical in nature and are considered in many cultures to be unfeminine or the domain of boys") at a young age including, immediately prior to the phrase you quoted "I didn't mind being a girl, but... I liked being seen as a boy." and not long afterwards "the way you see yourself… the feelings you have, both masculine and, yes, occasionally feminine… …It all comes from you." which decreases the exclusivity of the male only mentality.

I don't quote this to tear down your point, so much as to make a point myself that: there are things that both sides of the debate will argue until we're all blue in the face. The "Male-only" people that tend to ignore the occasional actions that are more feminine. The "Female-Only" crowd who ignore the phrase you quoted, and rely exclusively on biological sex. And the people like myself who view Natani more as a "fence-sitter" who can, at any page become "Gender-conforming", or completely regect femininity, and tend to use pronouns loosely. The thing that's the same with all of them is that an argument isn't going to change people's stance or how they write. People who want to rewrite Natani's article with female pronouns only, or those who wish to use male pronouns only, don't give a damn what the other half wants and will do what suits their personal and political views, even if it means continuously rewriting/reverting an article until either they or their "opponent" gives up, which gets in the way of those trying to add actual information to said article.

My goal is not to push the agenda that Natani's female, and female only, or to degrade the opinion that Natani's only male because of gender identity and should only be referred to as such. My goal is to prevent the unnecessary fighting within the community that is beginning to make it into a toxic environment.

I myself didn't really like point number 3 when I wrote it because it, again, puts the way the article is written back into the hands of those who argue. Using the first two points, I've rewritten the "opening Paragraph" of the article (pasted below as an example) to follow my first two points. It provides the same information, plus the previously deleted fact that Natani didn't mind the femininity at the young age, but still liked being viewed male, without explicitly gendering Natani as a female.

"Natani (IPA^(key) /nɔ'tɔ'ni/) is an assassin and one of the main characters of Twokinds. When making their first appearance, Natani, along with elder brother Zen, had been hired to assassinate Trace Legacy and his group. Despite this, Natani would join the group and become a key factor at the Basidian Islands.

Despite refusal to give in to a "girly body" and associated behaviors, Natani developed feelings for Keith. During a period of unconsciousness, Natani would come to an understanding of how, prior to a mental link, "I didn't mind being a girl, but… I liked being seen as a boy." and that "…the feelings [I] have, both masculine and, yes, occasionally feminine…" "… all comes from [me]." Natani was then able to accept feminine attributes a little bit more, and reawaken from the coma."

In the second quote (later in the same page) all I did was change the word "You" to "I", hence the brackets (which are often used this way in direct quotes). This kind of rewording can satisfy both Gender crowds (it shows Natani's preference towards masculinity, but also shows Natani's acceptance of femininity) as well as the "Natani's a fence-sitter" crowd, and eliminates the opportunity for a Gender/Pronoun Edit War to occur within that section.

Yes, following my suggested points take a while to complete (about 20 minutes for those two paragraphs), but is much better than having to deal with non-stop edits and people going into an all out war.

If you are willing to at least cooperate with me on this plan, I will help rewrite the article from a moderated stance, with the intent to eliminate opportunities for edit wars. This rewriting will take place at my "Test Page 1" until both of us come to a conclusion that it respects Natani's present desire to be viewed as male (to support the Trans/Male viewpoint), does not ignore information presented within the comic (to provide balanced support for the Confused/Female viewpoint), and does not portray Natani as exclusively male or female (to help eliminate edit wars). Only after agreement, would the rewrite be offloaded onto the actual article.

-- DarthKeidran SuperGilligan93 (talk) 19:20, June 30, 2018 (UTC)

No action can be taken that would eliminate contention over this issue, it's an extension of a much larger societal conflict over LGBT+ rights. Since the comic features LGBT people, it's actually going to attract more conflict than others. Trans rights in particular is the hottest LGBT issue of the past few years.

Regarding "Zero-Tolerance for LGBT", is it possible to be extremist and excessively authoritarian as a social liberal (i.e. a "SJW")? Yes, however, the balance to be struck here isn't one where we allow the status quo of human thinking to squash minorities. I'm bi, and there are plenty of people who would like to erase me. I'm not going to let that happen to trans people either.

Is Natani a tomboy? The definition you quoted starts with "a girl", and that's the critical point. If one values self-identified gender, and I quoted an expression of self-identification, then Natani is not a girl. As to "I didn't mind being a girl" all that indicates is a lack of gender dysphoria, and gender dysphoria is not a requirement to be trans. Possibly Natani is non-binary, but is clearly not a girl.

If I want to stop people from constantly switching the pronouns, I do have a big hammer to swing on this wiki: I can protect the page. I haven't done so, as I'm careful with my authority, and that would limit valid contributions.

I think a rewrite is appropriate, however I can only agree to neutral language (they/them/Natani), provided the article directly addresses the transgender topic. I can write this section. I'd like to redo the "girly body" paragraph too. It's bugged me for some time, as-written it makes a heteronormative association between femininity and attraction to masculinity.

You can start changing the main article here to neutral language, and I'll come in when I have time and add my bit.

--CaduRyaq (talk) 13:57, July 1, 2018 (UTC)

In regards of the "girly body/female body," Natani literally thinks that about himself when he was teased by Zen from the wagging tale here:http://twokinds.keenspot.com/comic/299/. If anything Natani holds this "heteronormative association between femininity and attraction to masculinity" to himself. Argorrath (talk) 20:34, July 2, 2018 (UTC)

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@CaduRyaq Ultimately, I agree with you where it matters most. The fights and arguments over gender and LGBT, and Natani's in general (being the topic of this talk page), have gotten to be too much, and are unlikely to be eliminated any time soon. I even reverted a change from an anonymous user who started changing the pronouns to female ones (then made a minor edit with the summary saying something along the lines of "please don't do this") because I didn't want it to become another edit war. I'm able to protect the page as well, though, as tempting as it is to stop the edit wars, I wouldn't do so without consulting you and the other major editors of the wiki.

In regards to my "Zero Tolerance" comment, I meant that I was raised in that scenario (due to my parents taking a more extreme approach to my religion than most), and I have pushed past it because of those I've worked with and the highly progressive company I, indirectly, worked for.

I pulled the definition for tomboy from the web. The one from webster.com similarly says "a girl who behaves in a manner usually considered boyish", in both cases I trust the author's definition of "Girl" is "biological female", and, more than anything, "young biological female", considering that my statement was in regards to the younger, pre-Isaac encounter Natani. I'm not saying Natani is a tomboy, but could have been counted as such at that young age. That is not to say that intersex children (hermaphroditic (about 1 in 2000 believe it or not)) who are surgically assigned a gender following birth are tomboys (or janegirls?) because that surgury could literally have been wrong. I wouldn't consider them trans either because in that case, they were literally and deliberately assigned the wrong gender by other people.

I hope that this helps clarify where I was trying to come from.

If you would like, please, feel free to make the edits on my "Test Page 1", so that we're on the same page until we are able to agree it's ready to be pushed over to the article. In regards to directly addressing Transgenderism and other LGBT topics, I believe it appropriate to make a separate "Transgender Status" (or equivalent) section within the "Personality and Traits" section (I've got that primed for you on my test page). If people add substantiative information to the main article itself, I'll copy that information over to the test page and "neutralize" it until it's ready to implement.

-- DarthKeidran SuperGilligan93 (talk) 18:21, July 3, 2018 (UTC)

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@CaduRyaq I have completed "neutralization" of about 1/3 of the article (up to "How Natani Met the Group") on my Test Page (so that you can look at the differences side by side if desired), and added writing some detailed information in regards to The Dragon Masquerade that was missing from the article. I'm unsure whether to call that section "Servitude to Clovis" or "The Dragon Masquerade" so if you can help make the decision that would be appreciated.

Also, feel free to critique my selection of language. If any of it, namely where I've had to re-word it in attempts at "neutralization", seems biased towards either side of the debate I want to correct it to a more moderated stance.

Thank you again for your patience and assistance.

-- DarthKeidran SuperGilligan93 (talk) 20:35, July 3, 2018 (UTC)

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@Darth in regards of: Natani would come to an understanding of how, prior to a mental link, "I didn't mind being a girl, but… I liked being seen as a boy." and that "…the feelings [I] have, both masculine and, yes, occasionally feminine…" "… all comes from [me]"[3] I was wondering that removing the dialogue and a shorter summary could be given. The source still stays of course but maybe merging the quotes together or something idk. And then the quotes would be given in the story section. ATM it looks just a bit clunky but thats only me. Argorrath (talk) 05:24, July 4, 2018 (UTC)

@Argorrath Does this work better?

Despite refusal to "give in to this female body"[1] and associated behaviors, Natani developed feelings for Keith. During a period of unconsciousness, Natani would come to an understanding of how, prior to a mental link, "I didn't mind being a girl, but… I liked being seen as a boy." and that both the masculine and occasional feminine feelings "all comes from [me]"[2] Natani was then able to accept feminine attributes a little bit more, and reawaken from the coma.

I'm in the middle continuing the rewrite of existing information on my Test Page (after I finish my DarthKeidran Story Comment (for the first time this week thanks to an injury and the meds kind of making writing something quickly difficult)). Like with CaduRyaq, feel free to help make changes on it where you feel it needs a change (just make sure to leave a summary explaining what the reason was so we can all be on the same page). It may even help, given one of your earlier replies, if you can help author the "Transgender Status" (or equivalent) section I've got prepped.

Where I am not part of the LGBT community, and am one who personally, normally utilizes the feminine pronouns with Natani. It would not be appropriate for me to write much beyond "Due to X situations, Natani exhibits transexualism" as it is quite likely I would say/write something that is either incorrect, or unintentionally offensive in regards to the LGBT community to some degree.

-- DarthKeidran SuperGilligan93 (talk) 16:50, July 5, 2018 (UTC)