# Talk:Chi Chi DeVayne

Per MOS:IDINFO, I have reverted a change that switched to he/him pronouns throughout the article. Chi Chi was commonly referred to in all mainstream media interviews and references as "she" and most other articles on drag queens use she/her pronouns. I believe all cited sources refer to Chi Chi as "she"; there is no reason to use male pronouns against all evidence to the contrary. Goyston talk, contribs 20:48, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

The convention we tend to use at the Drag Race WikiProject is to use the person's drag name and drag pronouns when referring to work done in drag (e.g. in the Career section and in the lead) and to use their out-of-drag name and out-of-drag pronouns in sections like Early life and Personal life (stuff that doesn't pertain to work done in drag). However, this can obviously be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and should always be backed up with sourcing. Chi Chi DeVayne should always be referred to as "she", while Zavion Davenport—if we choose to use that name in relevant sections—would be referred to as "he" (unless we have sourcing for e.g. non-binary pronouns instead). Perhaps the more pertinent question is just which sections, if any, are more appropriately written with Davenport/he. I don't personally have a preference. Armadillopteryx 20:56, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
The Health issues and death section was inconsistently using "DeVayne" and "he", so I switched it to "Davenport" and "he" both there and in Early life for now, but I'm happy to go with whatever consensus we reach here. Another Believer, do you have a preference on how we should handle pronouns in this article?
Update: IPs keep coming and changing the pronouns back and forth; I reverted a couple of times to the type of usage I described above, but I don't want to revert anymore until we come to a consensus here. Armadillopteryx 21:12, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, I agree with your approach until there's reason to do otherwise. I'm sure the edits will decrease after the next 48 hours, so let's just be patient and continue to update and discuss. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:00, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. Also pinging GorillaWarfare, since I see you're editing pronouns, too. Do you agree with using drag name and drag pronouns for sections related to drag and with using out-of-drag name and out-of-drag pronouns for sections unrelated to work done in drag? This is different from a transgender queen who has the same gender ID both in and out of drag. Armadillopteryx 22:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
I was mostly trying to restore consistency. I'd be curious what the convention is for other drag queens (who aren't trans), since I don't think there's any guideline. However I do think switching pronouns partway through could be very confusing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:10, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
@GorillaWarfare: Fair enough. We don't have a written policy for pronouns in drag queen articles, though we were recently talking about making one. The working convention at the Drag Race WikiProject has been the one I described above (drag name/drag pronouns for drag stuff, out-of-drag name/out-of-drag pronouns for non-drag stuff), but that's not set in stone. A couple of higher-quality articles about non-trans queens where you can see this in practice are India Ferrah and Honey Davenport. I think for now a talk page consensus would suffice for this article. Armadillopteryx 22:14, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's fine with me. I didn't mean to imply there needs to be a policy/guideline to make a change to how this article handles it. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:28, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, I understand this convention may seem confusing, but we're talking about subjects who are often (but not always) notable as one gender but identify as another in their personal life. This can be any combination of gender identities in- and out-of drag. We must write the articles in a way which use both. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:25, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm aware of how drag queens work. My change was simply to restore consistency, which at the time of my edit varied even within the same paragraphs. I'm not sure I agree we "must" use both pronouns (there is no policy that I know of saying so), but if the best solution is to use the differing pronouns as Armadillopteryx mentioned, I'm fine with it. An invisible comment inline explaining the decision might be worthwhile to help future editors of the page. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:28, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, Sorry, I should clarify, I was saying "must" per Wikipedia:Gender identity and specifically self-designation. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)


### Lead
How should we handle the lead in particular? There we mention a mix of details related to the subject both in and out of drag. I personally find it jarring to switch name/pronoun use within the same (sub)section, so I lean toward using only the notable (drag) identity in the lead. However, I see that others may feel differently. Pinging Coffeeandcrumbs, since I don't disagree with the logic in your edit summary, either. Armadillopteryx 16:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Armadillopteryx, I think what WP:RPDR needs is a hatnote. Similar to Template:Chinese name. It could read something like.
This article about a drag queen uses both female and male pronouns to refer to the subject. He / him are used to refer to Davenport and she / her are used to refer to DeVayne.
I can design it for you if you like. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 16:58, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
@Coffeeandcrumbs: Oh! I think that's a great idea. I can't speak for other editors, but I think that would be useful to have. We would need a few variants for performers with different combinations of gender identities, though. For example, Sasha Velour is female in drag but non-binary out of drag. Then we have artists like Peppermint, who is female both in and out of drag, and Aja, who is non-binary both in and out of drag—though those last cases probably wouldn't need the hatnote at all. Armadillopteryx 17:10, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
No hatnote would be needed for cases where the same pronoun is used in both drag and not. But I will work in the case of O'Hara. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:13, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
@Coffeeandcrumbs: Yeah, I think that would be fine. I'm trying to think through the other combinations we may have in our BLPs. Certainly one for female in drag/male out of drag and female in drag/non-binary out of drag would be a start.
Edit: I can think of a third case as well—subjects who have the same gender identity but different names in an out of drag. In those articles, we still use the out-of-drag name in Early/personal life and the drag name in Career-related sections, so that probably warrants a hatnote despite not switching pronouns. Thanks for offering this btw! Armadillopteryx 17:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
That is actually very common on Wikipedia even outside this subject area. I do not think that is surprising. Think for example musical artists like Jay-Z or The Weeknd. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
@Coffeeandcrumbs: That's a good point. I do notice that, in the Jay-Z article, for example, the lead does use only the subject's notable name even when discussing his early life. It's only between (not within) sections that this usage varies. I still think we should decide whether to use DeVayne or Davenport throughout the lead section here. My preference is for DeVayne since the lead is just an overview of the notable person, but what do you think? Armadillopteryx 17:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, I am not dead set on my opinion on the matter. But I think I like getting people used to the idea in the lead. Feel free to change back. Just note in the edit summary that we discussed it on the talk page so you are not accused of edit warring. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:45, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I think it would be good to have more opinions. Another Believer and GorillaWarfare, would you like to weigh in? Armadillopteryx 17:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
If that's the convention that will be followed throughout the article, then I think it makes sense to follow it in the lead also. I think the hatnote is an excellent idea. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:04, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, are you sure about Velour? The article says she "does not have any preferred pronouns". Can you think of a different example? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
@Coffeeandcrumbs: Gigi Goode and Laganja Estranja would be a couple examples of "she" in drag and "they" out of drag. For Sasha, Steinberg is genderqueer and does not have any preferred pronouns when not in drag. Her drag persona, Sasha Velour, is referred to as "she" (emphasis mine). Note that not all of these articles are of equal quality, so many are sloppier with pronouns than they should be. In principle, I think most of the people in Category:Non-binary drag performers should be referred to as "she" in drag and "they" out of drag—with the exception of those who have stated that they use "they" all the time. Armadillopteryx 17:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 I can say that I was very confused when I read the lede, so changed it to all she/her pronouns—obviously please revert as needed, but I expect that other readers would be confused by the unexplained shift as well. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:14, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
@AleatoryPonderings: Oops! I came to the article page on my watchlist before the talk page and reverted before I saw your post here. Personally, I think the hatnote that was (IMO unhelpfully) TfD'd made this so much clearer. Armadillopteryx 05:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, Yeah, that would make it a lot clearer. One second-best solution would simply be to hard-type the following at the top of the article as a workaround: This article about a drag queen uses a different pronoun for the subject out of drag. She/her refers to Chi Chi DeVayne, and he/him refers to Zavion Davenport. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
@AleatoryPonderings: I have a feeling it would draw complaints for still being a hatnote (even if coded differently). I have no objection if you want to try it, though. Armadillopteryx 05:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Hm, I see what you mean. After a glance at the long, acrimonious TfD, I personally feel that WP:IAR is the applicable policy here, regardless of what WP:HATNOTE might say. I strongly suspect I am not in the minority of readers when I say that I am confused when I see two different sets of pronouns in one paragraph used to refer to one person (although the question of whether they really are the same is, I suppose, the entire point). Though as it seems there is global consensus against a hatnote, I won't add it back. Wish I had had a chance to participate in the TfD. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 05:40, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
@AleatoryPonderings: Yeah, I fully agree with you. I tried, more or less, to make those points at TfD. The way we left it was actually that we would try to have a pair of wider RfCs about this: first, one about the use of multiple pronouns in drag queen articles in the first place, and second, one about whether the hatnote is indeed the best way to handle that. Admittedly, I was the one who was supposed to initiate the former RfC, but around that time I was having several draining interactions with people I know will be active participants in that RfC, and in the end I just didn't feel up to dealing with it. Armadillopteryx 05:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Should we add "African American" or "Black" to the article, along with appropriate categories? I'm not seeing coverage using either. This says "Black" but I'm not sure GLAAD would be considered journalistic coverage. Thoughts? ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Another Believer: Hmm, that seems borderline to me. On one hand, GLAAD is obviously not known to fabricate information, and this particular identifier is not their advocacy focus (if it were, it would more clearly be a case to not use the source). That said, a journalistic source is probably always better than an advocacy group when possible. It seems GLAAD has only ever been mentioned in passing at WP:RSN, such as here. I feel like Chi Chi must have mentioned this in a taped interview or confessional or something—though that's obviously be harder to find than a searchable string of text. Google certainly doesn't bring up any great hits on a cursory search. Armadillopteryx 18:22, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
@Another Believer: How about this? Armadillopteryx 07:58, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, I'm comfortable using if you are, but also I'd not be surprised if someone else removes the source for not being reputable journalistic coverage. ---Another Believer (Talk) 12:55, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
@Another Believer: Yeah, I know it isn't great, either—just wanted to share as an option. Let's keep our eyes open. Armadillopteryx 16:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Armadillopteryx, Definitely, will do. ---Another Believer (Talk) 22:40, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Armadillopteryx: I assume somewhere along the way we decided it was okay to use "DeVayne" throughout the article as if it is a true last name? ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

My memory is a little foggy on this, but I believe it was because we have a source indicating that it's the surname of her drag family (in the beginning of the Drag section), so she was on record stating that it's a family name. Armadillopteryx 18:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
OK, thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:27, 1 September 2023 (UTC)