Comment by ajsnigrutin
15 hours ago
Many married women are known under their husbands last names, from Maria Salomea Skłodowska, Betty Marion Ludden to Melanija Knavs. Some celebrities even use stage names, such as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta.
Many of these women are not really known under those names, but somehow, they're still listed on their wiki pages.
Most of the married women on Wikipedia didn't get the choice of keeping their own name, so we cannot really compare it to someone who changed their name.
Same for stage names, people don't use stage name because they want to escape their former name, they use stage names because it's cool.
And when people use a pseudonym and want to keep their real identity secret for personal reasons, their name doesn't appear on Wikipedia, and nobody is ever complaining about that! It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular…
But it's not a secret, the name has been mentioned in mainsteam media on multiple occasions, and even here, in this thread on HN.
> It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular…
Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia, especially if we're talking about peoples legal names, except if the person was trans for some reason. Wikipedia is the one making exceptions here for one group in particular.
> Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia
Nope. When it's an unknown transgender person who died for being themselves, perhaps it's stupid to put the older name there. World renown Ellen Page is deadnamed right there at the top. Because they were known for decades worldwide under that name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Page
2 replies →
> But it's not a secret, the name has been mentioned in mainsteam media on multiple occasions, and even here, in this thread on HN.
Most pseudonyms aren't real secrets either, plenty of people knew the real name or face of people posting under a pseudonym but that doesn't make it OK to post it on Wikipedia.
> Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia, especially if we're talking about peoples legal names
Ah yes, “every other” except for the ones they don't. We've already talked about people with pseudonyms right here!
> Wikipedia is the one making exceptions here for one group in particular.
One group that happened to be harassed (and, unfortunately often, assaulted) for having changed their name in the first place, hence the “exception”: the group is exceptionally vulnerable.