After a series of incidents where an unknown congressional staffer or staffers made trans-phobic edits to Wikipedia pages, the organization has blocked them from future changes.
Towleroad.com reports:
It’s impossible to know whether the edits are coming from one or multiple users, but the changes come from an IP address, 143.231.249.138, that has repeatedly been linked to House of Representatives computers. In the “talk” discussion section of one article, an individual making the changes has also claimed to be a staffer on Capitol Hill. The anonymous user has demonstrated a relatively specific focus on transgender topics. For example, a Wednesday edit to the “Tranny” article changed the phrase “assigned sex” to “biological sex” — a term that has been criticized as transphobic. Articles on “body integrity identity disorder” and “gender identity disorder” were also edited. Even the Wikipedia article on transphobia was edited on Tuesday to include an external link — since been removed for its reported “hateful or abusive content” — defending transphobia. “This article is too pro-trans,” the user complained after his or her edit was removed. “When I attempted to add an alternative point of view regarding this topic … it was reverted right away.”…
The final straw came on Wednesday afternoon, when someone from the House edited the page for the Netflix hit show “Orange is the New Black” to change the characterization of an actor from “a real transgender woman” to “a real man pretending to be a woman.”
“‘This article is too pro-trans,’ the user complained after his or her edit was removed.” Okay, just as a thought exercise, let’s replace “pro-trans” with “pro-Black”, or “pro-Hispanic”. Would anyone seriously look at that and say that wasn’t racist?
