Comment by could-of
8 hours ago
The guidelines on gender identity are based on the BLP policies [1], which call for taking harm into account and not going into excess detail on someone's personal life.
Everything people are upset over in this thread is explained clearly in the BLP section on privacy, the gender identity section of the Manual of Style [2], and this essay on gender identity [3].
This particular example is completely clear-cut. Sources didn't cover them at all under any previous names because they're only known from one event. Someone who isn't transgender would be covered the exact same way. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a gossip rag.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gender_identity
Benedict became notable because of her death; Biographies of Living Persons has a privacy section that gives reasoning. These reasons, e.g. identity theft, complaint from the person, harassment, can not apply to a deceased person.
News articles did cover Benedict under the name Dagny.
As far as policies go, this page should be titled "Suicide of Nex Benedict" according to this policy [0], yet the talk on that subject ended with "closed with no consensus to move." [1]
This does speak to the selective application and selective enforcement of policies on Wikipedia. But I was most concerned to learn about how scrubbing the histories of pages is official policy itself.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Choosing_article_tit...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Death_of_Nex_Benedict/Arc...