Google Scholar is built around a trans-exclusionary and sexist design that assumes people never change names. This is particularly harmful to trans authors.
We need Google to change this, and we need everyone else to stop using Google Scholar until they do.
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Google Scholar, unlike competing platforms (such as ResearchGate, Semantic Scholar, and IA Scholar), provides no meaningful way for an author to update their name throughout the service.
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While it is possible to update your name and references on your profile page, these changes have no effect on Google Scholar search results.
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Google Scholar frequently requires that you deadname a trans author to give any relevant results for them. Even after an author creates a profile page with their correct name, searching for that name does not yield their papers as search results.
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Google Scholar is incompatible with policies and processes that publishers have created to allow authors to change names.
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When an author updates their paper in a published repository, the paper and correct citations of it will be missing from search results or ranked unreasonably low for a while.
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Google Scholar provides citations (in BibTeX and other formats) that are outdated and contain an author’s deadname, even when the paper has been updated. Authors who believe the information on Google Scholar end up citing trans authors in ways that harm them.
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Google Scholar can be convinced to update its belief about your name, but it is a very lengthy process that seems to require getting a majority of people to cite you by your correct name and then waiting several months. This is an unreasonable burden, and is unattainable by many authors.
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Google is the most influential organization in scientific publishing to not enter a partnership affirming the ability of trans authors to change their names.
Deadnaming is hate speech. It violates the code of conduct of many communities and creates a hostile work environment.
Deadnaming -- deliberately calling a trans person by their deadname -- is done to trans people by their transphobic harassers to deny their ability to transition. Sadly, it is also done by bureaucracies and corporations, but this does not make it right.
Scholar’s combination of deadnaming and burying relevant search results, over a long period of time, denies the ability of transgender authors to participate in research the way they would if they were cisgender (the opposite of transgender).
The correct way to refer to a trans author is by their chosen name. Google Scholar is very regressive compared to other research repositories on this issue.
Many trans authors consider it easier to change careers than to change their name within academia, and Google Scholar is the most prominent reason for this.
This issue can affect other authors as well. Many people change names, for many reasons. The unrealistic assumption that people don't change names reflects that the system was largely designed by and for cis men.
There are workarounds that work for some people, such as married cis women who choose not to change their names for the sake of their academic careers. But because of the harm that is built into deadnaming, it is trans authors who are most harmed and have the fewest options.
In 2019, the Google Scholar team responded to an employee who raised the issue internally: "We don't support name changes."
Google seems to see their affirmation of trans rights as a perk that they offer to their highest-paid employees. It took a campaign by the Alphabet Workers' Union to get them to #DropTheDeadnames for their numerous temporary, vendor, and contract workers.
Non-employees, such as most trans researchers, are of course at the mercy of their product decisions.
Google employees are losing control of the ethics of their products. In 2019, five employee activists (three of whom were trans) were fired for their activism. In 2020, Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, who among their many accomplishments had advocated internally for proper representation of trans authors in Google Scholar, were fired by Jeff Dean for their ethics research.
We demand that Google fully support the ability for trans authors to change their names, in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics' principles on name changes.
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Google must allow authors to claim their papers, and use that information in organic search results.
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If an author wishes to change their name and deprecate their old name, Google must update their displayed name in all search results for and references to those papers.
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Google must allow authors to report erroneous, harmful results about them, and empower an actual person to act on these reports.
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Google must document this process so that authors who change their name in the future can more easily follow it.
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Because legal name changes are difficult, expensive, and in some places impossible, Google must not require legal documentation of name changes.
Google has ignored these issues for years. Until Google takes these steps, we cannot recommend the use of Google Scholar. It is a trans-exclusionary site that harms the ability of trans authors to succeed in their careers.
- Instead of Google Scholar, use alternatives such as Semantic Scholar, and recommend that others do as well.
- Share this petition so that it gets more attention and acquires more signatures from authors.
- Sign this petition by opening a GitHub pull request to add your name, or by e-mailing Robyn Speer (rspeer @ arborelia.net) with the subject "Google Scholar petition" and the information you would like added. You do not necessarily need to be trans to sign and show your support.
- Jana Dunfield (Queen's University)
- Lilian Hunt (EDIS, Wellcome Trust)
- Robyn Speer (ConceptNet and explosion.ai)
- Katta Spiel
- Danica J. Sutherland (University of British Columbia and Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute)
- Theresa Jean Tanenbaum (University of California Irvine)
- Z Toups (New Mexico State University)
- Sam Vente
- B.M. Watson (University of British Columbia; American Psychological Association Consensual Non-monogamy Committee)