This case is now closed and pages relating to it might no longer be watched
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Target dates: Opened 28 July 2025 • Evidence closes 23:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC) • Workshop closes 23:59, 18 August 2025 (UTC) • Proposed decision to be posted by 25 August 2025 (delayed)
Case clerks: SilverLocust (talk) & HouseBlaster (talk) • Drafting arbitrators: Sdrqaz (talk) & Elli (talk) & Theleekycauldron (talk) & CaptainEek (talk)
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Case opened on 05:51, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
Case closed on 02:57, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
This case is closed. No edits should be made to this page except by clerks or arbitrators.
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Changed from the proposed parties
Copied verbatim from the case request
Examples of the AE cases of editors with pro-fringe/anti-trans views who have been sanctioned for their actions:
Special treatment of WP:UNBLOCKABLE's who are given leeway of endless warnings after warnings and then "offer to step back" to avoid the sanction that admins were discussing if it hadn't been for their offer to keep the "appearance of a clean record"
Further examples of AE cases with leeway given to users promoting pro-fringe/anti-trans misinformation on Wikipedia:
Retaliatory filings by users promoting fringe theories and/or opposition to queer rights against users:
Preliminary statements given in the case request stage may be found at /Preliminary statements.
@Berchanhimez, Tamzin, and Snokalok: you are all above the 500 word limit; please either shorten parts of your statements to which nobody has replied and/or request an extension before adding more.
@Raladic: Ditto; except that you are above the 900 word extension.
@Everyone: this is your reminderthat Arbitration cases are not debate pages; their purpose is to petition the committee by making an argument (with appropriate evidence) as to why arbitration is necessary or unnecessary, and to allow the committee to gauge the views of the community and the parties about the request(per the case request guide). Concise statements are helpful; extended back-and-forth is not. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 04:18, 16 June 2025 (UTC)
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)
'unblockables' on both sides that have escaped AE (or any) sanctions, if you have specific users in mind that are not currently on the party list, I think these should be added with an explanation as soon as possible. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:06, 15 June 2025 (UTC)
All tallies are based on the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda or furtherance of outside conflicts is prohibited. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith.
2) The Arbitration Committee is a final binding decision-maker for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. It has jurisdiction over conduct on the English Wikipedia and retains jurisdiction over all matters previously heard, including associated enforcement processes. While the committee may take notice of behavior outside of the English Wikipedia, it cannot restrict behavior which occurs outside of the English Wikipedia. Content areas the committee has previously ruled on are sometimes designated as contentious topics or subject to ongoing special restrictions.
3) The Committee rules on conduct, not content. It does not dictate the content of any article.
4) Users who disrupt the editing of articles by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing may be banned from editing these articles. In extreme cases, they may be banned from the site.
5) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited. Making unsupported accusations of such misconduct by other editors, particularly where this is done repeatedly or in a bad-faith attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute, is also unacceptable.
6) All editors have opinions—this is expected and welcome. However, an editor's contributions on content and sourcing must be neutral and dispassionate, even when the results would paint their personal beliefs in a poor light or conflict with them outright. When editors cherry-pick sources or source text; selectively argue that friendly sources are reliable and unfriendly sources are unreliable without real consideration on the merits; control the portrayal of the debate by arguing over minutiae; misrepresent discussion, sourcing, or content; abuse conduct enforcement processes to target perceived rivals; or otherwise engage in intellectually dishonest behavior, they are treating Wikipedia as a battleground and as a vehicle for the advancement of their own ideology.
7) In formal discussions, less is usually more. Editors who choose to ignore this advice by replying to a large number of comments can bludgeon the discussion. Bludgeoning exhausts other editors, dissuades further participation, wastes time, and makes discussions less effective. Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion. Editors should particularly avoid trying to convince specific other people that they are right and the other person is wrong, and should instead focus on presenting their own ideas as clearly and concisely as possible.
8) "Assume good faith" is one of the central pillars of Wikipedia. While some editors do act in bad faith, or are here to POV-push—especially in contentious topic areas—merely because a person disagrees with you does not mean that they are here in bad faith, or that they are pushing an agenda. Editors must not let the fear of POV-pushers prevent them from substantively engaging with other editors to build the encyclopedia.
9) Editors should contribute from a neutral point of view. Single-purpose accounts can create the impression that an editor is following their own agenda with a non-neutral focus on a single topic. Editors operating such an account should take care to ensure that their edits are compatible with the project's broader goal of writing an encyclopaedia.
10) Requesting that another editor perform an action that, if one would have done it oneself, would have been clearly against policy is meatpuppetry and is a form of gaming the system. While it is possible that more than one editor would have independently chosen to act the same way, attempts to coordinate such behavior is improper on its own as it seeks to subvert the normal consensus building processes.
11.1) All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, with all relevant points of view represented in reasonable proportion to their importance and relevance to the subject-matter of the article. A neutral point of view requires fair representation of all significant historical and scientific interpretations, including significant minorities. This refers to legitimate differences in interpretation of the record, as opposed to views considered fringe by the substantial consensus of reliable sources.
12) When the community's extensive and reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Arbitration Committee may, as a last resort, be compelled to adopt robust measures to prevent further damage to the encyclopedia, disruption to the editing environment and to the community.
13) Policy states: "Editors are expected to conduct themselves with appropriate decorum during arbitration cases, and may face sanctions if they fail to do so". The pages associated with arbitration cases are primarily intended to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed, and expeditious resolution of each case. While grievances must often be aired during such a case, it is expected that editors will do so without being unnecessarily rude or hostile, and will respond calmly to allegations against them. Accusations of misbehaviour must be backed with clear evidence or not made at all. Behaviour during a case may be considered as part of an editor's overall conduct in the matter at hand.
1) The locus of the dispute is transgender healthcare, as well as the behavior of the named parties as related to transgender topics. Transgender healthcare and transgender topics generally are already covered by the contentious topics sanction scheme for gender-related disputes or controversies and associated people (GENSEX), but have been especially controversial within the broader GENSEX topic.
2) Parties within the topic area habitually commented on the close reviews for discussions they had also participated in, often casting both a vote and making many comments (Pinguinn evidence).
3) Disputes over sourcing have been central to the topic area. Parties have used weak sources or tried to discredit or misrepresent generally reliable sources (Sean Waltz O'Connell evidence, Tryptofish evidence).
4) Raladic (talk · contribs) changes her standards on whether allegations of misconduct are too contentious to include in an article based on whether the accused shares her beliefs. When it comes to entities that align with her beliefs, like Benjamin Cohen or WPATH, she argues that allegations of misconduct cannot be included without sustained coverage (1 2 3), a very high bar that has no application to those disputes. In July 2025, Raladic removed allegations of misconduct from Cohen's page; when Sweet6970 reverted once, Raladic went straight to ANI, skipping the talk page entirely—the filing was subsequently dismissed as a content dispute. In Raladic's own editing, however, she liberally labels living people, organizations, and their actions as "anti-trans" without corroborating sourcing (4 5 6 7 8 9 10; Sean Waltz O'Connell and Sweet6970's evidence).
Building on the evidence from the ANI thread, Raladic tried multiple times in this case to use conduct processes as a vehicle for winning disputes:
users promoting pro-fringe/anti-trans misinformation, while AE threads against people she agrees with are
retaliatory filings by users promoting fringe theories and/or opposition to queer rights(Raladic's case request).
Statements like "trans women are not men" are WP:FRINGE. The former was a quote, the latter turned out to be a mistake. (Raladic's workshop talk page statement)
Raladic was warned for battleground editing in a December 2024 AE filing.
5) Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist (talk · contribs) ("YFNS") (previously TheTranarchist) was topic-banned from GENSEX by the community in March 2023, with a successful partial appeal in November 2023 and all restrictions lifted in January 2025. She was the subject of a June 2025 AE thread that did not result in sanctions.
goes beyond interest into trying to mold the topic area to fit her worldviewand had created
near attack articles.
6.1) Void if removed (talk · contribs) was privately reminded by an individual Committee member about off-wiki canvassing in March 2024. They have been the subject of two AE reports: one in September 2024 (closed as no action but with a gentle suggestion to follow advice given), and one in June 2025 ("warned for putting words in other editors' mouths instead of responding to what they actually said"). Void if removed has engaged in battleground and bludgeoning behavior (LokiTheLiar evidence, Pinguinn evidence):
7) Colin (talk · contribs) withdrew voluntarily from this topic area during his third AE case in May 2025, after which administrators deadlocked on the appropriate remedy. The evidence in the AE thread points to a long span of one-against-many incivility and bludgeoning in strong defense of the Cass Review—a dispute that pitted him against, as he saw it, a large number of "activist" editors and sources looking to discredit the review. He also badgered and attacked the admins trying to moderate that dispute (Pinguinn evidence). His behavior continued in this case, where he proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies to curtail "activist editors" and rebuke admins in the topic area (Colin's workshop proposals).
8) Sweet6970 (talk · contribs) has engaged in persistent battleground editing.
Sweet6970 shows up regularly at AE (and occasionally other venues), uniformly defending ideological allies and attempting to sanction opponents:
calling trans women maleas
plainly in good faith. This editor was indefinitely blocked as a result of the AE thread.
Transwomen are maleby arguing that
Wikipedia is not the Thought Police. The editor was topic banned as a result of the AE thread.
9) Samuelshraga (talk · contribs) has repeatedly accused other editors of intentionally misrepresenting themselves or sources. In doing so, he also frequently misrepresents others' claims, without retraction.
argue[d] that a BMJ article is not usable for claims in its own voice because it also quotes SEGM members, and that a discussion needs to be had at RSN about a review article ... because one of the 5 authors is affiliated to SEGM.OsFish did make the "strawmanning" comment, but the other two claims are false (1 2).
Samuelshraga was warned for personal attacks in a different June 2025 AE filing (Samuelshraga, Pinguinn, and Aquillion's evidence).
10) Aaron Liu (talk · contribs) has bludgeoned discussions.
11) JonJ937 (talk · contribs) was topic-banned from GENSEX in August 2025 by Moneytrees based on evidence of coordination and gaming
presented at SPI.
12) Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk · contribs) was topic-banned from GENSEX in August 2025 by Moneytrees based on evidence of coordination and gaming
presented at SPI.
13) Springee (talk · contribs) is a regular participant in user-conduct processes; they oppose sanctions on most editors, including editors on both sides of this dispute. However, this leads them to frequently defend editors engaging in blatant disruption in the form of bigotry – sometimes directed at other editors – and BLP violations (RelmC's evidence, Springee's comments):
When it became clear the editor had accused others of supporting child abuse, Springee then supported a topic ban. The thread closed with "clear consensus for a community ban" after three days.[The filer's] actions come off as more trying to punish an editor for wrong think rather than for some sort of wide spread disruption. Additionally, the transphobia accusation is less than ideal given the context and absent some sort of additional evidence. Certainly the gender of the child is a core part of the dispute and it's understandable that some would question if Wikipedia should be using stated vs biological gender in a case like this one. As a matter of course Wikipedia goes with stated gender but it should also be understood that isn't a universally held view and reasonable people can disagree here.
2) In any challenge to the closure of a formal discussion within the WP:GENSEX topic area (e.g. an RfC or AfD), users who participated in the underlying discussion are limited to at most two comments, not exceeding a combined total of 250 words. Uninvolved administrators may remove violating comments, in whole or in part, as an Arbitration enforcement action, and may use repeated violations as the basis for other sanctions.
3.4) An uninvolved administrator may impose the "AE participation restriction" (AEPR) on any AE thread. Comments in threads restricted in this manner are limited to:
Administrators are reminded that they have broad discretion in moderating AE threads, including removing users' sections, instructing users not to participate, and imposing AE sanctions against those who misuse the noticeboard.
5.2) Raladic is indefinitely banned from transgender topics, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
6) Raladic is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
8.2) Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist is indefinitely banned from transgender topics, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
10.2) Void if removed is indefinitely banned from transgender topics, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
11) Void if removed is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
12) Colin is admonished for their behavior in the transgender healthcare topic area.
13.1) Colin is indefinitely topic banned from the topic of transgender healthcare, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
15.2) Sweet6970 is indefinitely banned from transgender topics, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
16) Sweet6970 is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
17) Samuelshraga is admonished for their behavior in the transgender healthcare topic area.
17.1) Samuelshraga is indefinitely topic banned from the topic of transgender healthcare, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
19.1) Aaron Liu is reminded to avoid bludgeoning discussions.
21.2) Springee is admonished for their conduct in transgender topics, broadly construed.
22.2) Springee is indefinitely banned from user-conduct enforcement noticeboards. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.
0) Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, should any user violate a restriction imposed directly by the Committee, that user may be blocked as an arbitration enforcement action. Such blocks must be logged in the arbitration enforcement log.
0) Appeals and modifications |
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee. All active arbitration enforcement actions may be appealed. Only active restrictions may be appealed, and all labelled enforcement actions (including ones alleged to be against policy) must be successfully appealed under the applicable arbitration enforcement appeals procedure before they can be modified. Unless otherwise specified by the Arbitration Committee, the following procedure governs arbitration enforcement appeals. An editor may:
Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction. A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the Committee, once the Committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction, who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever other period the Committee may specify. Changing or revoking an enforcement actionAn administrator may only modify or revoke an enforcement action if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:
A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the enforcement action:
Any administrator who revokes or changes an enforcement action out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped. Standard of review On community reviewUninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify an arbitration enforcement action on appeal if:
Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn an arbitration enforcement action only if:
References
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.