Talk:Gloria Hemingway

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An entry from Gloria Hemingway appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 2 June 2007.

This article should be rechecked for correct pronoun usage. I don't know enough about the individual involved, but of course it is quite innapropriate to refer to a transsexual by their birth pronoun; especially after transition. 68.161.185.76 02:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

After transition I agree, but before transition Gregory Hemingway was a well-known public figure and published author who self-identified as a man, so it would be anachronistic and simply inaccurate to say that a woman named Gloria Hemingway published the 1976 book Papa: A Personal Memoir, for example. --Delirium 03:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur. It may be difficult to get this right, but using "he/him/his" throughout the entire article is inappropriate, and the page should also moved to her later name (Gloria Hemingway), since that's who she was. -- Schneelocke 08:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I considered that while writing it, but the sources I worked from kept referring to the person using the male pronouns. I'm fine with it being either way. violet/riga (t) 08:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This brings up a real complication with sex changes, if they are indeed legally recognized, they'd immediately nullify marriages if the latter are not recognized..

[edit] Page move

I moved the page to Gloria Hemingway, since that was her name. Gregory Hemingway remains as a redirect, of course! I'll now proceed to fix the pronouns. -- Captain Disdain 16:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

And that's done, too. (I opted to go with feminine pronouns throughout the article and used her name where there was significant danger of confusion. Right now this is pretty much a stub, so I don't think it's all that complicated -- if the article is expanded, then I agree that making a distinction between the mascule and feminine pronouns is an issue, but right now? Not so much.) -- Captain Disdain 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "that was her name". The person in question was named "Gregory Hemingway" for 64 years (1931-1995), and "Gloria Hemingway" for 6 years (1995-2001). Since most of his well-known work was done while self-identifying as a man and named "Gregory Hemingway", putting this entry at "Gloria Hemingway" contradicts the "use most common name" rule. See, for example, Cat Stevens, who isn't located at his preferred but less known name, Yusuf Islam. --Delirium 00:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, not that I don't understand where you're coming from, but I don't think these are comparable situations. I think there's a huge difference between Cat Stevens and Gregory (or Gloria, for that matter) Hemingway in terms of name recognition. Gregory Hemingway wasn't exactly a household name even in literary circles. Calling Cat Stevens primarily something other than Cat Stevens would be like calling Sting primarily Gordon Sumner or calling Elton John primarily Reginald Dwight -- it'd be pretty stupid, because relatively few people recognize those original names, and yet they are all international superstars that just about everyone in the Western world recognizes.

Hemingway's change of identity, on the other hand, wasn't as drastic (well, not in terms of her name, anyway), because she still retained her last name, which is far, far more recognizable in and of itself than her first name. And yes, she did most of her work as a man, but she certainly got her share of publicity precisely because she changed her identity as she did. -- Captain Disdain 11:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a check of Google confirms that Gregory Hemingway is the most common name this person is referred to by, as the first name pulls up 604 references while "Gloria Hemingway" draws only 220. Removing allusions to Wikipedia from the search pulls the references even more in "Gregory's" favor. Google Books and Google Scholar are more of the same, but even more drastically tilted towards the use of Greg. Gregory Hemingway was pretty well known in Hemingway circles, since he published a memoir of his father and edited things such as the widely read Finca Vigia edition of Ernest's short stories --- all of these things were (and are) published under the name of Gregory. This article cites 4 references that were used in putting together this article --- all of them refer to this individual as Gregory Hemingway. The material there says that "for the most part" he continued to dress and present himself publically as a man after his sex change operation, i.e. remarrying in 1997 while putting himself as "Gregory" on his marriage certificate or appearing at the opening of a Hemingway museum in 1999 as Gregory, dressed in male clothes. I don't think there's very good justification to depart from the rule Delirium cited. 69.226.74.4 19:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

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This is ridiculous. Facts are facts--stop trying to politicize this or turn this into some kind of LGBT issue. You are mixing up your agenda about trans-gender issues with the need to present to readers and researchers a clear, easy-to-understand article about the life of this person.

For the bulk Hemingway's life he was known as a "he." He was published under his male name. He had a penis, he legally-recognized marriages with women, he fathered children. I daresay his children do not look back nowadays and think of him as "Mother." And most people looking for information on him are going to look under "Gregory," because, if nothing else, that's what he's listed under in his father's biographies. The fact he got his penis chopped off and changed his name to Gloria does not change history retroactively.

I agree with the person who made the Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam comment. No matter what the artist is known as now, no one has gone back and changed the names on his albums from Stevens to Islam. Let's also look at Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. He did his most noteworthy work and gained his greatest fame under the latter name, and that is rightfully how he will be remembered. A person should be listed in an encyclopedia by the name he or she was best-known, not by what he or she preferred to be called. Whether the name change resulted from a religious conversion or sex-change doesn't matter.

Also, please consult any standard work on Ernest Hemingway's life--Gregory was his third and youngest son. He didn't have four children. He had one son by his first wife and two by his second. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caractacus63 (talk • contribs) 10:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)