Read on Twitter
Trans journalists (and any trans person who has contributed to the public record in writing, film, music, art, etc.) deserve to be credited by their correct names. This is something the academic publishing world is finally doing something about.
(A
of resources on this) https://twitter.com/benyt/status/1384523648418074625
(A
of resources on this) https://twitter.com/benyt/status/1384523648418074625
First, my credentials: I'm a professor at an R1 university in the US, and a transgender woman. I helped found a working group of transgender researchers and our allies, who have been instrumental in helping change the consensus of the academic publishing world on this topic.
I started this group after publishing an article in @nature about my experiences developing the first trans inclusive name change policy (along with @katta_spiel and @toupsz) to be adopted by a major publisher. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02145-3
The policy I helped create was adopted by the Association of Computing Machinery ( @TheOfficialACM) in November of 2019 after two years of negotiation, deliberation, legal investigation, and careful consultation with our community. https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/author-name-changes
"I’m not trying to mislead people by changing my name. I want to make certain that people know that I’m the one that wrote the work. I want to have the work associated with me." https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/publishers-develop-inclusive-name-change-policies-67740
I'd faced difficulty persuading publishers to change my name, even after the ACM policy had gone live. I was fortunate enough to reach the desk of @silentypewriter at Springer, who suggested that an article in Nature could help jumpstart the conversation. He was right.
As my nature piece was coming out, @irv_does_chem was in the process of working with @JessRuckerB at @ACSPublications to develop their own policy. It came out in September of 2020
https://publish.acs.org/publish/publishing_policies/name_change
https://publish.acs.org/publish/publishing_policies/name_change
Our first order of business was to produce a report that reviewed the kinds of objections and arguments we'd been encountering within academic publishing, so that future trans authors facing these arguments weren't starting from scratch. https://tesstanenbaum.medium.com/towards-a-trans-inclusive-publishing-landscape-893339b9868d
We put out the call for others to join us, and soon had a robust group of academics, across dozens of disciplines, all advocating for change. This included @lilianehunt91, who led the charge for changes within @edisgroup https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/09/30/for-academic-publishing-to-be-trans-inclusive-authors-must-be-allowed-to-retroactively-change-their-names/
Lilian's work with @edisgroup led major publishers like @EmeraldGroupHQ, @F1000Research, and @WellcomeOpenRes to adopt inclusive name change policies.
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/our-services/authors/author-policies/article-withdrawal-correction
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/our-services/authors/author-policies/article-withdrawal-correction
More people were speaking out in favor of these policies, and more scholars were joining our working group. https://blog.f1000.com/2020/09/28/open-research-publishers-introduce-trans-inclusive-polices-to-allow-authors-to-retroactively-change-their-names-on-public-records/
We'd made enough noise to draw the attention of folks within @C0PE, and soon @irv_does_chem, @r_speer, and I had joined a working group there, to work on developing formal guidance for the academic publishing world on the issue.
https://publicationethics.org/news/update-cope-guidance-regarding-author-name-changes
https://publicationethics.org/news/update-cope-guidance-regarding-author-name-changes
In January of 2021, we published an article through @C0PE, that outlined high-level principles for name changes in publishing (with the contributions from @irv_does_chem, @FluffyEclectic, @brimwats, @teddyggoetz, @katta_spiel, and @MikeHillUCLA)
https://publicationethics.org/news/vision-more-trans-inclusive-publishing-world
https://publicationethics.org/news/vision-more-trans-inclusive-publishing-world
This led to renewed attention from the press, including @AdvSciNews who interviewed me in February https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/anonymous-name-change-policies-for-a-more-inclusive-publishing-world/
We also contributed to an article in @ScienceMagazine https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2021/02/new-more-inclusive-journal-policies-ease-author-name-changes-published-papers
This winter, @leogaskins made an invaluable contribution to the conversation on trans inclusive name changes, with an article in @PLOSBiology https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001104
We have reached a critical mass of support within the academic publishing world. In the last few months, even more, and bigger publishers have adopted trans inclusive name change policies, citing our work with @C0PE as a motivating factor. What follows is a partial list:
@wileyinresearch adopted their policy in December of 2020.
https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html
https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html
@PLOS adopted theirs in September of 2020 https://theplosblog.plos.org/2020/10/implementing-name-changes-for-published-transgender-authors/
@SAGEPublishers just announced theirs last month: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/name-change-policy-0
And we've been consulting with @tandfonline and @SpringerNature on policies that are on the horizon.
These policies help transgender authors reclaim the work that we produced under our previous names. But they also make publishing more equitable for anyone who changes their name for any reason, including marriage, divorce, religious conversion, and caste stigma.
In a "digital-first" publishing world, there's no excuse to associate older work with an obsolete name - it harms the author, and it harms the broader project of scholarship that we devote our lives to.
All of this is to say, @benyt & @newsguild - many of us have been doing the work on this for years. We've changed the consensus towards greater equity and inclusivity. If you're interested in doing the same at the @nytimes (or anywhere) we can provide you with acres of precedent.
It should also be said that I've only highlighted a small number of publishers in this thread, but there are many more that are doing the work to do right by their communities.
If you know of a publisher who has a policy like this, post a link so I can add them to my records!
If you know of a publisher who has a policy like this, post a link so I can add them to my records!
