Handling name of transgender artist

[bsammon]

@aerozol

A trans artist doesn’t necessarily relabel or reissue anything. Transitioning is often an public acknowledgement that they were always x person. Being ‘deadnamed’ can put a transitioned individual

A trans artist doesn’t necessarily relabel themself. It doesn’t conflict with the “this is who I always was” view of things if you say they reissued an album to change the name printed on the album, to change it from an incorrect name to the correct name.
Put a different way, it is conceptually possible to say (and have Musicbrainz say) that some versions of album X were labeled with artist name A, and some versions of album X were labeled with artist name B, while representing that name A was incorrect (as we might do for typo/misprint album variations).

[briaguya]

@outsidecontext

We could do the same, but have an explicit release-artist relationship, something like “originally credited as”. That would make this data available in a structured way and also allow for dates to be set. Advantage is that a relationship is rather easy to add.

it’d be nice to create some example data to see how those relationships would appear on the site.

i got the musicbrainz-docker server with sample data running locally, but i haven’t yet been able to verify a test user email to start editing.

i also don’t want to just use the main MB db to enter example data, any chance there’s a sandbox db somewhere?

[draconx]

@outsidecontext

Now we can argue if that really is a new release when basically nothing was changed, the release still having the same files and IDs in the shops (also same links then).

I don’t think two releases having the same links matters at all. URLs change meaning for lots of different reasons. If the URL ceases to be valid for a particular edition we can just mark the relationship as ended.

The same sort of thing can happen with physical releases too with things like limited edition bonus items. The links don’t change when the stores run out of bonuses, even though what you will get when you buy via that link changes.

[draconx]

@briaguya

i also don’t want to just use the main MB db to enter example data, any chance there’s a sandbox db somewhere?

Yes, you can use the test server.

[briaguya]

awesome! it felt like it was missing something

[outsidecontext]

Just note that we don’t have the exact fitting relationship yet. But I guess just for the sake of getting a feeling how this would work it would be sufficient to use some other relationship. The point is that the old name would with this proposal only show up as a relationship, similar to how e.g. performed by etc. works. So under the release it would show something like:

previously credited as “Eric Taxxon”

It could also be with an “until YYYY-MM-DD” date

[briaguya]

i tried editing https://test.musicbrainz.org/release/668fc7ee-8ba1-4f6d-8829-74147e371a45 (test db)

i used a standard “performer” relationship

then, with a little right-click-inspect magic, we have

not sure how i feel about it…

[aerozol]

@bsammon

It doesn’t conflict with the “this is who I always was” view of things if you say they reissued an album to change the name printed on the album

I can’t speak for them, but it seems the trans community does see it as conflicting in some cases. They really should be the first port of call on the subject imo

[briaguya]

tried a few things on the test server (juno release and recording), and i’m not sure what we’d use for the recording <-> artist relationship or the release <-> artist relationship string that works for tracks or releases with multiple artists

[jyof]

@briaguya

even in the case of a physical release that has deadnames in ink, we shouldn’t use the deadname in the “credited as” field. i know this goes against standard policy, but until MB can present those credits in a way that provides proper context and respects artists it’s deadnaming.

I strongly disagree with this. The physical release cannot be deadnamed, and the “credited as” field identifies a specific characteristic of the physical release (namely, what is printed on its cover). Just as we identify the country and date of the release’s origin (and not the artist’s!) on the release page, we should also identify the credited name on that release. It’s unfortunate when the credited name is also the deadname of a real person, but deliberately misidentifying the characteristics of the physical release undermines the value of this site in classifying and identifying musical releases.

[jesus2099]

@briaguya

even in the case of a physical release that has deadnames in ink, we shouldn’t use the deadname in the “credited as” field.

It would not make sense having the physical release in MB if its second most important characteristic is not as printed.

Or you would like the credited dead name hidden in the tooltip or in some <spoiler> hidden zone?

[briaguya]

@jyof, @jesus2099, i agree with the point that we want to record accurate information about physical releases, however, as i said before

@briaguya

until MB can present those credits in a way that provides proper context and respects artists it’s deadnaming

so, until we have a technical solution for this issue, such as

@jesus2099

would like the credited dead name hidden in the tooltip or in some <spoiler> hidden zone?

or

@briaguya

i think a way to tie aliases to “credited as” would allow for flexibility in presentation.
for example, an alias could have a:

• “hidden” mode, where credits could appear as “Artist name [info]” where [info] links to the alias
• “credited as” mode, “Artist A (credited as B)”
• “replace” mode, where the alias is used exclusively.

we should use the tools that we do have to present the information in a respectful manner, such as

@outsidecontext

mention it in the annotations (until we get a better way to note that)

[jyof]

I’m all for better tools – and I’ll gladly lend my support to a solution that makes the software more flexible and usable. But as for:

@outsidecontext

mention it in the annotations (until we get a better way to note that)

Unless names stored in annotations appear in search results, I’m not in favor of this workaround. Not everyone who searches for an artist by name would be aware that the artist is trans. Annotations are for information about a release that doesn’t fit the metadata, and the name the artist was credited by is definitely something which does fit the metadata.

I would be okay, though, with a limited exception for an artist who was a minor at the time of release and didn’t consent to its release in the way that a pre-transition adult would have.

[briaguya]

@jyof

Unless names stored in annotations appear in search results

if the goal is simply making sure the artist appears in the list of search results when someone searches for their deadname, aliases should work.

so, in using the annotation field to communicate what I’d hope to be something the “credited as” field could handle, we could put

originally credited as “deadname”

or

credited differently (with a link to the alias, or a spoiler or something)

i agree that annotations aren’t the best place for this info, but until there’s a technical solution it seems like the most respectful option

[mrr0dr160]

re: replied comment:

I like this.

MusicBrainz seems to have a problem with the flexibility of releases in the real world.

In reality, releases on Bandcamp can and do change names of artists. The release is currently credited to Patricia Taxxon. It was formerly credited as…:

• eric taxxon
• Eric Taxxon

…if I’m not mistaken, because all the releases on her Bandcamp page probably had the same name.

On another note: I don’t think mentioning the deadname of the artist should be considered unacceptable as some other people think. Tori Amos changed her name and she’s not transgender, she just changed her name and hates other people calling her that name, but the birth name is still historically relevant, so it’s on the Wikipedia page.

It’s unfortunate that Patricia suffered through this. But we don’t bury our history, we learn from it. If we buried our history, we would be doomed to repeat it. People of today’s generations forget that and do the same things over and over again, failing like all the previous times other people did the same thing.

As in, Patricia is not a dude. But erasing her deadname only makes light of her current status as transgender.

TL;DR:

1. The release has two artist names in history. It is not two releases, it’s one release with different names that apply on different periods. Making a new release for every instance of her old name is nonsense. MusicBrainz software needs a fix re: this.

2. just read the text above TL;DR for my opinion regarding old names of transgender people. Nuance is lost on summaries.

[outsidecontext]

@mrr0dr160

The release has two artist names in history. It is not two releases, it’s one release with different names that apply on different periods. Making a new release for every instance of her old name is nonsense. MusicBrainz software needs a fix re: this.

Yes, fully agree here. That is the conclusion I came to as well. No matter how you think about displaying the deadname, the current presentation of Patricia’s releases just doesn’t reflect the reality well. What happened that there are a lot of releases that were originally credited to a different name, but now are all credited to Patricia Taxxon.

@mrr0dr160

MusicBrainz seems to have a problem with the flexibility of releases in the real world.

Yeah, reality is messy, especially when the human factor is involved . Reality doesn’t care about style guides and database structures. It does not even have any obligation to “make sense”.

Having a database that is both flexible enough to fully reflect reality while still staying usable is a tough challenge. Usually both goals directly contradict each other, especially when you are getting into the dirty details.

[mrr0dr160]

@outsidecontext

Having a database that is both flexible enough to fully reflect reality while still staying usable is a tough challenge. Usually both goals directly contradict each other, especially when you are getting into the dirty details.

Since we’re at that, do we credit all releases, via alias, or do we go one by one? Patricia does have a lot of release groups, but each has only one release (and the Wayback Machine is on our side this time, luckily). I do not know how problematic this could prove to be with another artist though.

tangent

Last week I spent the day editing for hours though. I do not know which of the changes are incorrect, if any, because they mainly fixed things that I found wrong but are not established in the style guide, per se, that I’ve seen done elsewhere in the website. MusicBrainz is still very much a work in progress and music is tough to catalog. I’m happy there’s a forum.

I’m happy I came across this thread, I very much wanna fix Patricia’s page. I didn’t even look for this thread, I had made up my mind that I didn’t know if I could fix her page, and didn’t know what to do with it, whether to go through changing everything to “Patricia Taxxon” or begrudgingly (because of my tags, as well as artist intent) fix the older releases that were very much not credited to that name at the time.

I won’t do anything though.

EDIT: Actually, I have something else to add:

LOONA

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/de4feabc-cd21-4568-a09c-2086bfebe2f4

Recently their digital English name in streaming services changed from “LOOΠΔ” to “LOONA”, retroactively.

Seems this issue isn’t even just for transgender artists. Archive panic much?

[mmirG]

@mrr0dr160

But we don’t bury our history, we learn from it. If we buried our history, we would be doomed to repeat it.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto were sheltering behind some small boulders, surrounded by 350 Indian warriors determined to have vengeance for the burning of their village by the US Army. As the Indians surged forward to capture our heroes, the Lone Ranger turned to Tonto and said, “Looks like we are really for it this time.”
Tonto replied, "Who is this “we”, white-man?

Which is to say that your assumption of commonality, and promotion of an approach which is convinient to those holding a dated understanding of gender and displaying a lower level of appreciation of the everyday dross rained upon many transgender people, may be better reconsidered.

[mrr0dr160]

@mmirG

and promotion of an approach which is convinient to those holding a dated understanding of gender

Look, I don’t agree that MusicBrainz must remove the alias “Eric Taxxon”. I do agree that it’s presence in the UI must be reduced, to her respect, and I do agree that we should change the actual artist, but you’re never gonna make me agree that the alias must be completely removed from the website.

I refuse to argue that keeping the old alias in the database in any way is an insult or disrespect. Don’t argue with me if you’re going to say I’m helping “those holding a dated understanding of gender and displaying a lower level of appreciation of the everyday dross rained upon many transgender people” [i.e. you’re implying I’m helping transphobia be accepted]. I won’t stoop to that level. If you can’t handle my opinion, too bad.

[tastytea]

Edit: Re-reading this, I realized that I was nit-picking and that this comment doesn’t help the conversation. I’m sorry.

Original post

@mrr0dr160

But we don’t bury our history, we learn from it.

MusicBrainz is not a history book¹. According to https://musicbrainz.org/, “MusicBrainz is an open music encyclopedia”. Encyclopedias record the reality as it exists now, as best as they can. If the reality changes, the encyclopedia is changed. They can also record the history, if it seems useful to its purpose. But it is not the focus of an encyclopedia and not too much emphasis should be placed on it in MusicBrainz.

@mrr0dr160

If we buried our history, we would be doomed to repeat it.

What does that mean in this context? Who will repeat what?

¹ BTW: History books usually don’t record the reality, but the reality as the dominant group sees it.