Talk:Eleanor Blake

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Deadnaming[[edit source]]

Hey. So, I'm not a user here and haven't touched Wikia in a long time (long enough that I still call it Wikia), but I couldn't help noticing that this page deadnames a trans character. As a trans person myself, that hurt to read. I shouldn't have to explain how inappropriate it is to use any trans person's deadname without their consent, even a fictional one. I hope the editors at Tardis Data Core will consider changing the article to be less triggering for trans readers who just want to browse cool Doctor Who lore. 23.16.246.215talk to me 20:48, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

As you point out, Eleanor is a fictional character and we can't pretend that the one story she appeared in didn't tell us the name she was given at birth. Jack "BtR" Saxon 20:51, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
So as discussed as Talk:Kiev (of all places) it's been pointed out that we don't actually have a real "deadname policy", we just have T:ACTOR which doesn't cover all cases. Hopefully Czech meant this coming Monday when he said the forums will be up and he didn't miss the deadline - we'll likely discuss the issue when the forums are up. With that said, I don't think it likely that we'll remove the info from this particular page, for the reason that Jack mentioned. Najawin 20:58, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes — the deadname is just… part of the story. Eleanor's a somewhat less obvious case, but we have seen what are very much coming-out narratives in Doctor WhoThe Wonderful Doctor of Oz, for example — and it just wouldn't make any sense to taboo the fictional deadname when trying to discuss a story of that kind.
That being said, what has emerged is that the deadname should be mentioned in-text, but not bolded or placed in the infobox's "aliases" field in a way that would imply that it's a valid alternate name for the character under discussion.
The writing of this page was also less than ideal in describing her as having been "born male"; that language certainly shouldn't be used, and I've edited it as appropriate. Scrooge MacDuck 21:05, 24 November 2022 (UTC)