The visibility of lesbians in Wikipedia II

For more than forty years Marie Corelli lived with Bertha Vyverthe one who left everything when she died. Joe Cartais lived a rather picturesque life.

These types of examples, literal phrases taken from Wikipedia, illustrate the article. Visibility of lesbians on Wikipedia which we published last year. In it we collected examples and analyzed what the community of editors of Wikisphere we meet when we create, translate or improve biographies of lesbian women, one of our points of interest when working on the free encyclopedia. 

Given the absences, euphemisms or biases that appear in many articles, we are applying various strategies that we have been learning throughout our 10 years of existence as a group, especially discussing specific cases at Wikisphere meetings. So we wanted to write a second part, another article that went from analysis to strategies, both to rethink and structure them among us and to share them with the community. And here we have it. 

> Strategies and good practices

• Although there is more and more information in this regard, the main difficulty in including the sexual orientation of the biographer in her article is to find sources that confirm it, especially if she did not live explicitly and openly as a lesbian. Following the saying of “When the river sounds, water carries”, rumors, indirect allusions... usually (or can) enclose truths, so it's time to get to investigate and do so also with the couple or couples, because perhaps in the information about them appears our protagonist. Of course, in profiles of women from non-Spanish speaking countries, searching in other languages is essential.  

• Once the information has been found, we move from euphemisms or absences to clarity and forcefulness. From friends to couples, from housemates to lifemates. And claiming the use of the word lesbian. 

• It is interesting to consider that, if finally we do not find sources that confirm but others that express doubts, we can leave the suspicions expressed in the article. Taking into account, in addition, that this could be modified in the future if verified information about it were to come to light. 

• To strengthen the presence on Wikipedia of these profiles is strategic link some articles with others. This is called not leaving an “orphan item”, i.e. without links to others. For example, name other women and generate a hyperlink to your article. And vice versa. This strategy generates a kind of spider web that, in addition to being real when drawing the network of relationships that were established between them (and that, in the case of lesbians, we know how fundamental it is) allows jumping from one to another increasing the number of visits and, therefore, their visibility. 

• In Wikidata can include your partner or partners and add sexual orientation as an item (statement). In addition to the presence in the data repository that is Wikidata (so useful, for example, for artificial intelligence, with the multiplication of impact that that implies), that the name of your partner or your sexual orientation appears on the page of the article is an element of great visibility.

• For the same purpose, we can use paragraph See also, a place to put other Wikipedia articles to redirect, including there other people, and especially other lesbians, with whom the biography can be related by profession, by time, by country ... Similarly, we can include your article in the section See also of other biographies. 

• It is also important categorize correctly, knowing that there are already many categories of lesbians, by profession, by country ... but taking into account that this categorization can only be done if the information is justified in the text. 

• It is possible to create a Personal life section. Something more common in the English Wikipedia than in the Spanish one, is a way to emphasize this part of his biography. Although his lesbianism can be added in the sections of Biography or Trajectory. 

• A common issue that often generates confusion and doubts about how to act is the inclusion of many women in the bisexual category, probably being lesbians. It is usually applied to women who have been married or have had sex with men. This is the case of the writer Gloria Fuertes, who names her fourteen-year-old boyfriend in a poem and then relates it to Charles Edmund of Ory, also by a few verses (although in his article, she is not even named). Our criterion is, even knowing ourselves in complex territories and without pretending to undervalue bisexual identity, that if you have had a stable relationship with a woman, you should also put the category of lesbian. 

• Finally, we must monitor these items, follow them up. It has happened to us that people, sometimes linked to biographies, want to erase that part of their history and try to reverse our editions. Keeping an eye on them and, therefore, receiving a notification when the articles are modified, is strategic to defend the information we have added and the way in which we have done it. The case of the singer-songwriter is significant Mari Trini. Although their relationship with Claudette Loetitia Lanza, who was also his secretary, is a proven fact since a biography of the singer was published in 2024, a paragraph that affirmed it was eliminated with the argument of not having references. Our colleagues included the sources, which exist in abundance and we will be aware of possible changes in the article. 

> A reflection to finish

Is it necessary to say that she is a lesbian? We are asked many times in the thread of our specific work with this topic on Wikipedia. 

There are, at least, two arguments that we usually make. On the one hand, that There is consensus that in a biography personal relationships are significant.. And, although this could be a debate in itself, if it is such relevant information or if it always is, the truth is that this is usually done with heterosexual people, with which we understand that it must be in the same way with those homosexuals.

On the other hand, it is clear that we need referents, create genealogy, and that for this it is important to find this information in as many biographies as possible and also in as many profiles as possible. Doing so also serves to confirm, among those who may doubt it, that love and desire between women is neither a contemporary fashion nor a Western phenomenon but something intrinsic to the human being and his ways of relating.

All that is not named, not described in pictures, all that is omitted in biographies, all that is censored in collections of letters, all that is disguised with a false name, all that has been made difficult to reach and all that has been buried in memory for having distorted its meaning with inadequate or lying language, will become not only the unsaid but the ineffable.
Adrienne Rich