Talk:Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet

message: The family of Sir Ewan, being aware of renewed interest in this case, were concerned to see this article being used to disseminate political & ideological ideas.  We are concerned that Sir Ewan's unique life is being used, entirely incorrectly, to push an ideology.  We do not wish to participate in any ideology, as this is not who Sir Ewan was.  Sir Ewan was not a "transgender man".  Sir Ewan was a man, who's birth was recorded incorrectly due to medical knowledge of the time.  We would, respectfully, ask that this article not be amended to record opinions as fact.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheHonGwendoline (talk • contribs) 21:35, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family Request 

message: Professor L. G. Gooren is described as a witness in the Forbes trial. He was not - the cited source appears to be in error. Gooren submitted a report to Sheffield & Horsham SHEFFIELD AND HORSHAM v. THE UNITED KINGDOM (31-32/1997/815-816/1018-1019) January 29, 1998, with his opinion based on reading the transcripts, which is likely the source of the error. Given that he was still a medical student in the Netherlands until 1970 the suggestion he was called as an expert in the Forbes trial in 1967 is fairly obviously false on its face, but referring to the primary source (the Forbes transcript) the full list of witnesses is: P. A. Jacobs, Dr. W. H. Price, Dr. N. McLean, J. A. C. Cumnock Forbes-Sempill, Dr. A. L. Stalker, Dr. A. A. Shivas, Dr. W.G.C. Manson, Rev; D. Reid, Baird. Matthews, Joan May Wright, Mrs Cordiner, Dr. A.I.I. Klopper, Dr. C. J. Dewhurst, Prof; M. Roth, Dr. C. N. Armstrong. Report of Proceedings in Summary Trial In Petition John Alexander Cumnock Forbes-Sempill and The Honourable Ewan Forbes-Sempill, National Records of Scotland, CS258/1991/P892  Void if removed (talk) 10:56, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, Gooren is not mentioned as a witness in Playdon's recent bookPlaydon, Zoë (2021). The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes. ISBN 9781526619136, which exhaustively lists the other witnesses.  Void if removed (talk) 17:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Then just remove the part of him being a witness, as I just did? He still directly makes a statement on the subject matter in the secondary sources and using the records from the case. SilverserenC 17:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I went through the Barnes reference and she does note that Gooren was called to the trial while an endocrinology student at the university, which fits with his timeline. Why they called a student to the case, I don't know, but they did. And then Barnes specifically cites Playdon for the info about the results of the medical investigation on Forbes being a trans man, but not the book source obviously. It was actually from the Gender Centre's Polare journal in 2004. I've corrected the reference in the article to that. SilverserenC 17:37, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You claim he was a student witness which I can find no corroboration for in the source. Who called him, Ewan or John? Please give some contextual text or  for this claim. The single reference to Gooren in the cited source I can find is as follows: "Professor L G Gooren, endocrinologist at Vrije Universiteit Hospital, Amsterdam, gave evidence in Forbes-Sempill and later submitted a paper in evidence to the European Court of Human Rights in Sheffield & Horsham v UK (1999) 27 EHRR 163 in which he concluded, with hindsight, that Forbes-Sempill was almost certainly a female-to-male transsexual. See also Playdon (n 39).". This is contradicted by both the list of witnesses in the summary trial, and Playdon's book which lists the same witnesses, but not Gooren. This appears to be an error on the part of Barnes. Also the dating in the article is wrong - Gooren wrote his submission in Sheffield v Horsham in January 1998, and it was not based on his notes, but from the same transcripts of the trial that Playdon's book is based on. Similarly you say "Barnes specifically cites Playdon for the info about the results of the medical investigation on Forbes being a trans man", but the Barnes citation is for the same 1996 blog that is already cited by this article, which predates Gooren's submission in Sheffield & Horsham by 2 years. What you're saying makes no sense. Void if removed (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You are doing original research to try and claim something isn't true without evidence. The list of witnesses in the trial doesn't say one thing or the other on if Gooren was involved in some manner. You need a secondary source saying he wasn't involved, particularly since Gooren himself clearly thinks he was involved and gave information to Barnes in that regard. You can't say Barnes was wrong of your own accord, as Wikipedia editors are not sources. As for Playdon, she republished an expanded version of her "The Case of Ewan Forbes" article from 1996 in the Polare journal in 2004. SilverserenC 17:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I am reading the secondary source - you say it contains an explicit reference to Gooren being called whilst a student. I can find no such reference, so I'm asking what I'm missing, is there any contextual text to help find what you're asserting the source says? Can you quote the line directly? I've quoted in full the only reference to Gooren. The main article says 12 medical experts were called, and all are accounted for in the witness list in the transcript and corroborated by those named in Playdon's book. Where are you getting the idea that Gooren gave information to Barnes? None of that is in Barnes' 2007 article that I can see. And you say Barnes cites Playdon in Polare, 2004, but at 39. I only see a citation for the 1996 blogpost: "Z J Playdon, “The case of Ewan Forbes” (1996), available at www.pfc.org.uk/node/390". Void if removed (talk) 23:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  The claim that Gooren was a witness is contradicted by the primary source and another secondary source. The claim that he was explicitly called while a student is invented, and not featured in the source. I have cited two existing sources, and quoted directly, stating that Forbes is not in contradiction with Corbett. Polare is a magazine, not a journal, it is not peer-reviewed, and the article in question is a retread of the previously cited 1996 blogpost, does not support the assertion that "the details that have since emerged of his treatment make it clear that he was a trans man", and contains basic errors such as giving the date of Re. X as 1965 instead of 1957. The article also refers readers back to this very wikipedia page for further reading. Void if removed (talk) 14:57, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Professor Gooren was not a witness