User blog:CuteButLooksLolita/TRANSGENDER WIKI ADVOCATE STATEMENT AND PLEA

TRANSGENDER WIKI ADVOCATE STATEMENT AND PLEA

"Fandom is the world’s largest entertainment & gaming fan platform. We help 315 million people worldwide go deeper on their favorite games, entertainment and culture with unique tools, memorable experiences, original content and commerce. We reach more fans, across more fandoms, than anyone. Our mission is to understand, inform, entertain and celebrate fans by building the best entertainment and gaming communities, services and experiences.

Fandom is a diverse place, and we want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and welcome. Recently we've been looking at our LGBTQIA+ community and striving to provide the right environment for people of all sexualities and gender identities. Many of the staff at Fandom are on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, and we know many of you [fans] are, too. So we ask that everyone follows [the diversity] rules to make Fandom a safe space for everyone."

The above is part of the Mission Statement for FANDOM. Thankfully, it includes a diversity statement that shows FANDOM's support of the LGBTQIA+ base of fans. This support would also logically include the many Wikis that are of interest to such a diverse group of fans. One niche of diversity are the Wikis that highlight characters from many media sources that feature transgender characters. This would include the often overlooked male to female transgender characters and people.

Many stories that can be found no where else, can be found in anime and manga that feature a male to female character in the story plots. What caught my attention several years ago was the seeming lack of Wikis that review and chronicle such anime and manga stories. I, myself, am a male to female transgender / bigender individual IRL. It therefore became my purpose to create Wikis that would not only tell the various stories of male to female transgender characters, but to have such Wikis be a source of uplifting entertainment and encouragement for transgender fans IRL. The first transgender themed Wiki that I created was "Gonna be the Twin Tail Wiki". I have created a few others since then, and am always on the lookout for more anime and manga stories that feature transgender characters and would be good Wiki candidates.

Yet, a serious concern has gradually manifest itself, and has not only come to my attention, but continues to be a source of worry and angst. That is the fact that male to female character Wikis, by their very nature, cater to a very small demographic of fans. This because male to female transgender teens and adults make up only a very tiny slice of the general population. Nevertheless, this tiny demographic of fans need to have Wikis to turn to that capture their unique interests, with characters that they can identify with, and follow along as the transgender characters go through their own diverse transitions. Entertainment and encouragement, along with many other positive traits, such as unwavering loyalty to FANDOM, can be had by enjoying these unique Wikis.

The concern of mine is that because transgender themed Wikis are necessarily small, with a likewise small audience, that FANDOM may or eventually will execute periodic reviews of such Wikis, and finding that they do not have the fan base or audience of mainstream Wikis like Minecraft, Game of Thorns, or Harry Potter, therefore, FANDOM will arbitrarily and capriciously remove, close, and delete these very special and necessary Wikis. It may be a misguided person of FANDOM management acting out of ignorance of transgender concepts, or worse yet, a prejudiced person acting on their own religious or personal dubious beliefs that "there are no such things as transgender people or characters" ! Maybe the removal of transgender themed Wikis will be done, not by a ill-informed human, but worse yet, a FANDOM BOT, acting only on suspect Artificial Intelligence or faulty algorithms, devoid of any understanding or compassion.

Thus this statement and plea of mine is of a necessity, to argue for the inclusion of transgender themed Wikis in the overall wide universe of FANDOM Wikis, regardless of the fact that they are small by nature, and serve a small group of fans. Please, FANDOM, allow the existence of transgender themed Wikis, recognize the nature and necessity of having them, and protect such Wikis from being slowly killed off because they will never be as big and powerful as mainstream Wikis are. My plea to FANDOM management: Please fulfill FANDOM's stated goal of honoring diversity in Wikis and fans, and keep transgender themed Wikis as the vital and necessary concept that they are.

CuteButLooksLoita, Creator and Sysop of transgender themed Wikis on FANDOM

I also add my name and support to CuteButLooksLolita's advocacy and plea---

CuteDress&TwinPonytails, Creator and Sysop of transgender themed Wikis on FANDOM

Oct. 1, 2021

Cedar Point, Ohio, USA and Rye Beach, Ohio, USA