[CWuestefeld]

This is clearly something that we as a society are going to have to wrestle with.

It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns.

There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdity. Just because I can claim descent from Henry VIII doesn't mean that I can reasonably expect people to address me as "lord".

So I'm interested in respecting people, but think we need to let this percolate through society first, and determine where to draw reasonable lines, before you accuse someone of disrespect for failing to honor someone's alternate world view.

[Pxtl]

There's a time and a place to be pedantic, and this really isn't it.

Transgendered people go through a heap of terrible, terrible crap and the least we can all do is give them the dignity of using their identified pronoun. If anybody has earned that respect, it's ms. Manning.

I mean really, how the heck does it hurt anybody to say "She" instead of "He" after you've been informed that's not how she identifies? Does it really matter that much? Obviously the extreme SJW flamewar reaction you usually see on misgendering is excessive, but after being politely informed that's not how she identifies, how are you harmed by going along with it?

Will the ghost of Plato arise and smite you down for failing to properly class something?

[xaa]

My personal value system (and perhaps milord grandparent's) rates the accurate use of words (aka, truth-telling) rather high on the scale of values. Clear thought is impossible without it.

When we, as a society, take words such as "war" and "gender" that previously referred to physical realities and make them highly metaphorical or even completely arbitrary, we dilute our vocabulary. We make it harder to think and communicate clearly.

I find it especially objectionable when the only argument in favor of blurring the definition of a word is "because someone wants me to" or "someone would be offended if I didn't". Our mere preferences don't change reality; why should they change words, which are meant to convey an accurate representation of reality?

[Pxtl]

Look, we're all coders here, I get the instinct to be precise with our words. But what about the cost/benefit trade-off? Is a small matter of personal policy related to definitions really worth hurting somebody who's already a member of easily the most downtrodden and crapped-upon group in modern society? Is preventing a tiny incremental shift in vocabulary really worth kicking somebody while they're down? I mean, I'm as grumpy as the next geek about the literally/not-literally thing, but this?

Also, think of it like an interface - the idea is that you should treat the transgendered person as their identified gender. So if you're planning on treating this person as a woman in every way in respect for her situation, wouldn't the pronoun/terminology actually make the matter clearer?

[xaa]

Obviously I don't condone any mistreatment of or discrimination against transgendered people and think they should have full legal protections. On a personal level, they should be treated ethically and equitably, just like any other person.

But regarding the use of language, and forgive me for invoking the slippery slope argument, where does it end? The two propositions, "Person X is a Y" and "Person X feels they are or wishes they were a Y", are not the same. In fact, they aren't even close. As a society it would be ridiculous and ruinous if we were to conflate the two.

I believe it is possible to respect people and linguistic accuracy ("truth", if you like) at the same time. Also, I don't think respecting someone necessarily means doing (or saying) everything they want.

[dinkumthinkum]

How far do we take this? This is a conversation about the actions of these people. It is not coder pedantry to refer to Manning with male gendered pronouns. Are we now required to know how everyone feels about their gender before we use any pronouns describing them in every context? In fact, we have to keep with everyone's opinions about their genders throughout their whole lives. This is impractical.

I think here, we just have delusion of persecution.

[LukeShu]

The word "sex" refers to physical realities; "gender" refers to social constructions. By conflating the two words, you are the one diluting our vocabulary.

Now, it wouldn't be totally unreasonable for you to assert that pronouns should be tied to sex, not gender; but that's not what you're saying here.

[xaa]

@LukeShu

I'm well aware of the current usage of "gender" in educated circles. That's why I chose it as an example.

"Gender" previously was essentially a synonym for "sex" (except in the field of linguistics). But now that it has been repurposed in some circles, half the American population thinks it refers to a state of mind and the other half thinks it refers to biology. The result: confusion and miscommunication.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a word to refer to what is now called someone's "gender identity". I'm saying the repurposing of an existing word which meant something similar, but distinct, has caused confusion. (I do expect the current sex/gender distinction to continue to be the accepted usage, though).

The same confusion is now happening with pronouns. And, yes, I would prefer if something as fundamental to the language as a pronoun referred to a physical reality rather than a mutable state of mind. That is a debate worth having, but all too often it isn't framed as a debate, it's framed as "you're insensitive and politically incorrect if you don't agree to our new terminology".

[Cushman]

There is no debate, because this isn't about correctness. It's about respect. Let me throw out some hypotheticals here:

My given name is Jonathan. I think this sounds childish, so I tell you that I go by Jack instead. But you've seen my birth certificate, so you keep calling me Jonathan.

I got married and changed my last name to my husband's. You think it's confusing to change names, so you continue to write me using my maiden name.

Although I'm married, I don't want to be defined by my marriage, so I go by Ms. You think that inaccurately reflects my relationship status, and introduce me as Mrs. instead.

I have told you that the use of the male-gendered pronoun "he" makes me severely uncomfortable, and ask you to call me "she" instead. You flip up my skirt, take a good survey, and decide it would be dishonest to represent me as if I didn't have a penis.

The issue in all of these scenarios is a moral one: Do I have the right to define my own linguistic identity, or am I stuck with the one I was assigned at birth? Are you going to be an agent of my liberation, or my oppression?

You can make a good case that each of these blatantly disrespectful behaviors is, by some robotic standard, "correct". To paraphrase a great man, maybe you aren't wrong, but you're still an asshole. You can say this is something you would like to debate, but you don't respect me and I don't like to spend time around you, so go ahead and debate by yourself, thanks.

[xaa]

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite the asshole you think I am.

If someone asked me to call them by a certain pronoun or salutation (names are different as they are completely arbitrary), I would do it, out of respect for them. But let's be clear about what's being asked: I am being asked to lie -- to misrepresent reality -- to that person, and possibly to other people for that person. That's a (small) favor being asked, and it is somewhat irritating to be asked a favor with the sort of sense of moral entitlement found in your last paragraph (especially when the favor being asked is a violation of my own morals).

Also, unfortunately, we don't have the right to define our own linguistic identities. I know it isn't fair, but this extends far beyond gender. I don't become "rich", "President", "Filipino", "Doctor", or "intelligent" just by willing it or even by asking other people to call me those adjectives. They are fuzzy categories, some people don't clearly fall inside or outside of them, but they do have non-arbitrary (i.e., outside your mind) meanings.

[dinkumthinkum]

I don't want to be too flippant here but you seem to be making case that we would not want to refer to you specifically in any context ever because you are determined to make it frighteningly complicated to avoid persecuting you.

[dinkumthinkum]

You're just wrong here. Whether "gender" is pure a social construction is a matter of debate. Your fallacy is in assuming a position you personally hold is a priori. You're just espousing one particular position.

[alex-g]

Which definition is being blurred, exactly? Definitions may be being changed, but that's in order to make our words more accurate and more practically useful.

It's actually quite hard to determine who is the intended target of a word like "he", since experience presents us with all kinds of difficult cases; appeal to appearance or behaviour or even chromosomes doesn't work universally. At some point, we either have to let people decide for themselves what they want, or impose our own arbitrary classification on them. Someone is making a judgement and I'd rather it be "I feel I am male" than "I feel you look male".

Sure, it might be nice if there were a simple flowchart, based on only objectively observable data, that we could follow to end up with either "he" or "she" in the end. But no such flowchart exists. I propose to drop the "objective" criterion and just ask the person what they prefer - especially given that the only reasons for having a he/she pronoun system are historical and social. If you want to talk about what's going on biologically, in great detail, then feel free, but the pronoun system doesn't have to correspond to that.

[orakle]

Here is just one sample of such a line. "fallon fox" he is an mma fighter who now fights in womans division. We could get into great detail of the biology, height and so on that a man keeps even after surgery. Hopefully you see some of the real unalterable issues that arise from such things, can't wait till shaq has gender reassignment and fights women.

I shall be called emperor of all, sadly simply saying it doesn't make it true. Facts are stubborn like that.

[wwweston]

> Transgendered people go through a heap of terrible, terrible crap and the least we can all do is give them the dignity of using their identified pronoun.

I think we'd do better to make sure they don't go through a heap of terrible crap (no bullying/abuse for personal choices) and leave people some personal freedom to have different views on pronouns.

> Will the ghost of Plato arise and smite you down for failing to properly class something?

Seems to be happening.

[sanxiyn]

It seems totally unreasonable to me to intentionally misgender anyone against their wishes even after such intention was communicated. What possible purposes such action can serve?

I think it's more comparable to calling someone by their old name even after someone went through a trouble of changing one's official name because they hated the name given by their parents. You'd agree that's a bad manner.

[king_jester]

> It seems reasonable to me that this person, having XY chromosomes and all the hardware that go with them, may be correctly referred to using masculine pronouns.

Gender != your chromosomes and gender != your "hardware" or any other body part for that matter. Gender is about social identity and structure.

> There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdity. Just because I can claim descent from Henry VIII doesn't mean that I can reasonably expect people to address me as "lord".

Laying claim to a royal lineage is not the same as having a gender. Also, lord is a title and we are talking about pronouns, things used when talking about anyone.

> So I'm interested in respecting people, but think we need to let this percolate through society first, and determine where to draw reasonable lines, before you accuse someone of disrespect for failing to honor someone's alternate world view.

We already know where to draw reasonable lines: Manning has already publicly stated her gender. You have disrespected this person by misgendering them. Manning's world view is not an "alternate" world view and you are being incredibly transphobic.

[CWuestefeld]

While I really do tend to lean in the direction you suggest, I don't think it's quite a cut-and-dry as you claim. Here are a few things to consider.

First, we're only talking about language. We get those gendered pronouns not because of a need to distinguish between how a person views his gender (or how the world views it), but because of stupid linguistic convention going back to English's Indo-European roots. You'll see that in many languages in the same family, nouns all have gender, even absurd ones like "airplane" or "shoe". These genders have absolutely nothing to do with sexual identity, they're essentially randomly assigned, conferring no additional meaning (but providing a parity check in communication, helping ensure clear transmission). Coming from this history, we shouldn't be too concerned with the way pronouns correspond to individual humans.

Second, I don't think it's hard to imagine socially-undesirable consequences of honoring anyone's own claimed gender. I'm thinking of a biological-male claiming to self-identify as female, so that he can use the women's locker room at the gym. So under what circumstances do we want to honor their self-image (or, for that matter, to believe their claimed self-image)?

Third, with identity politics still having legal bearing in our system, it seems that self-identification of gender may derail efforts to ensure gender equality. Given that there are legal structures in place to protect females, may I (as a biological male) claim to self-identify as female, and achieve those same protections? May I at least self-identify on official forms (thereby making enforcement of workplace protections unenforceable)?

Not that these things are insoluble, but I think that we need to give thought to the repercussions should we choose to take any person's claims of gender at face value.

[alex-g]

You appear to be something of a newcomer to this issue. I can tell you that everything you raise as a concern has been very extensively discussed - certainly in those places which afford legal recognition to gender transition, discrimination protection for trans people, and so on. Systems exist, and, to an extent, they work.

Still, calling somebody by their preferred name and pronouns does not grant them admission to the women's locker room, or anything else like that. It is a matter of courtesy.

The other thing is that often, in order to have a gender change legally recognized, or to access surgery and so on, one has to prove that one has already been living as a member of the appropriate gender. What this means is highly contested, but stuff like "people know me as Alice, not Bob" is part of it. It's difficult enough without people setting themselves up as linguistic gatekeepers, and deciding that they know better than Alice.

[king_jester]

> These genders have absolutely nothing to do with sexual identity, they're essentially randomly assigned, conferring no additional meaning (but providing a parity check in communication, helping ensure clear transmission).

Sexual identity != gender identity. Gendered pronouns do have a long and interesting history in languages that have them, but that is besides the point. We are talking about an individual who has clearly expressed their gender in a public and visible way, to disregard that to use other pronouns is disrespectful.

> Coming from this history, we shouldn't be too concerned with the way pronouns correspond to individual humans.

Actually we very well should be concerned with pronouns and gender. Individual people have their to define their own identity, including their gender, and to be referred to with the pronouns they identify with. That gendered pronouns have their own history is besides the point, that history is not immutable nor is it the same for different languages and cultures. Indeed, there have been cultures and languages with built in support for many different kinds of gender and gender expression throughout history.

> Second, I don't think it's hard to imagine socially-undesirable consequences of honoring anyone's own claimed gender. I'm thinking of a biological-male claiming to self-identify as female, so that he can use the women's locker room at the gym.

This is a tired argument. Gender identity is a big deal for trans* people, it isn't something that someone just up and decides to do so they can perv out in a locker room.

> So under what circumstances do we want to honor their self-image (or, for that matter, to believe their claimed self-image)?

As a society we generally honor people's personal decisions about their identity. We do so for religious change, name change, adoption, interracial marriage and dating, and so on. Gender is no different, people should be free to express their gender as they see fit.

> Third, with identity politics still having legal bearing in our system, it seems that self-identification of gender may derail efforts to ensure gender equality. Given that there are legal structures in place to protect females, may I (as a biological male) claim to self-identify as female, and achieve those same protections? May I at least self-identify on official forms (thereby making enforcement of workplace protections unenforceable)?

It is really clear you have no background knowledge on the kinds of difficulties trans* people face. Trans* people face discrimination, violence, and employment difficult at high rates. You are trying to make it sound like trans* women aren't women, when they in fact are. Official gender identity on forms is a long standing problem for the trans* community at large. There are many places where you cannot change your officially recognized gender at an institution without jumping through a variety of hoops. There are many places where even attempting to do so will get you verbally abused by a clerk. In many places even existing as visibly trans* invites violence.

> Not that these things are insoluble, but I think that we need to give thought to the repercussions should we choose to take any person's claims of gender at face value.

Gender identity has been written about for decades and there is a huge amount written on the social and legal structure of our society as it relates to gender and gender expression. That you aren't familiar with it is not an excuse to make a bunch off the cuff remarks that, whether you realize it or not, are transphobic. So please, don't try to justify your disrespect of someone who clearly identifies as a woman as Manning does.

[CWuestefeld]

So please, don't try to justify your disrespect of someone who clearly identifies as a woman as Manning does.

Now wait just a moment. Surely if Manning's own identity can only be understood from his/her own perspective, then my own meaning -- whether I am being disrespectful -- can only be seen from my perspective. How dare you project disrespect into what I am communicating.

You are trying to make it sound like trans women aren't women, when they in fact are.*

I never said anything of the kind. What I said was that someone who is not transgendered might claim that they are in order to get some sexual kicks, or to subvert legal protections afforded to women. I'm not trying to take away from the genuinely transgendered, I'm saying that the claim of being transgendered can be misused.

That you aren't familiar with it is not an excuse to make a bunch off the cuff remarks that, whether you realize it or not, are transphobic.

I believe that I made clear in my post that I was largely in agreement, but was playing devil's advocate in order to draw out some deeper understanding -- just vanilla Socratic method stuff. Your reply seems to indicate that someone who is not fully up to speed ought to just shut up, and accept what his betters are telling him.

that history is not immutable

Ummm. How is history mutable?

As a society we generally honor people's personal decisions about their identity. We do so for religious change, name change, adoption, interracial marriage and dating, and so on.

Something I don't get here. I'm married to someone of a different race. I don't see what that has to do with my identity. The fact that my wife and I are married and of differing races, has nothing to do with who I am or who I expect people to see me as. She's my wife, I'm her husband, and that's all there is to it. I fail to see how this is expecting someone to change, or even have, any view of my personal identity.

[king_jester]

> Now wait just a moment. Surely if Manning's own identity can only be understood from his/her own perspective, then my own meaning -- whether I am being disrespectful -- can only be seen from my perspective. How dare you project disrespect into what I am communicating.

It is clear that Chelsea Manning is a woman and should be referred to as such. She had a very public message about this. Continuing to refer to Manning with him/his pronouns is being disrespectful. It doesn't matter if you don't understand or believe in trans* as an identity or that people can actually switch their gender, you are intentionally ignoring what someone publicly asked others to do in a way that is most certainly disrespectful.

> What I said was that someone who is not transgendered might claim that they are in order to get some sexual kicks, or to subvert legal protections afforded to women. I'm not trying to take away from the genuinely transgendered, I'm saying that the claim of being transgendered can be misused.

The reality is that nobody does this. The kind of discrimination and violence trans* people face makes it unlikely that someone would pretend to be trans* for a period of time. Without actual evidence of this happening in a way that systemically abuses legal protections or considerations (of which trans* people get less than the rest of us), this is a false argument.

> I believe that I made clear in my post that I was largely in agreement, but was playing devil's advocate in order to draw out some deeper understanding -- just vanilla Socratic method stuff. Your reply seems to indicate that someone who is not fully up to speed ought to just shut up, and accept what his betters are telling him.

Nobody needs to play devil's advocate for transphobic viewpoints, those ideas and actions happen all the time in society today. There is very real data and anecdote about all the things we've talked about. There is no deeper understanding being drawn out here, the arguments you made are common transphobic arguments that don't hold up (confusing gender with sexual identity, confusing gender with biology, unalike comparison with a gender pronoun and a title, appeal to society at large to define trans* identity, gender pronouns as unimportant, straw man arguments about people pretending to be trans, separation of trans women from other women as an identity, etc.).

> Something I don't get here. I'm married to someone of a different race. I don't see what that has to do with my identity. The fact that my wife and I are married and of differing races, has nothing to do with who I am or who I expect people to see me as. She's my wife, I'm her husband, and that's all there is to it. I fail to see how this is expecting someone to change, or even have, any view of my personal identity.

That is fine if you don't consider such a relationship to be a part of your identity in that way. That is for you to define. For some people, their relationship with others does form a part of their identity in a way they consider meaningful. The point is that we don't automatically disqualify that part of said person's identity. When we do disqualify those things, those attitudes are tied to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on.

Chelsea Manning is a woman and asked everyone to refer to her as such. That is all there is to it. There is no need to try and justify misgendering this person for any reason.

[rdl]

My difficulty with referring to Manning now as female is that most of the actions which I care about were from when it was PFC Bradley Manning. It's like anyone who changes name partway through a major news story. Chelsea Manning is in prison now, but saying "As an intelligence analysis, Chelsea Manning had access to classified files and got into disputes with her chain of command over both work-product issues and personal conduct." seems incorrect.

If this had been known before the news story, no problem at all. It's just hard to use "Chelsea Manning" or even "Private Manning" to refer to actions undertaken far prior to this.

Ironically I think this was one of the things bradass87 brought up in chats with Adrian.

PFC vs. Private is just as complex. I think there's a military way to deal with that (because ranks usually do increase); e.g. in some contexts is it "Captain (now Major) Snuffy..."

[king_jester]

It is still the same person. Ultimately something like Manning or private/PFC Manning is the most generic way to describe things if you want to cover that era, but something like "Chelsea Manning, then Bradley Manning,..." is also fine. Ultimately if we are talking about Manning in the present, there is no confusion over the gender pronoun to use (the original thing I was responding to).

[umanwizard]

It seems pretty simple to me. If you ask me to describe my best friend, I might say he's smart, studied this or that in school, speaks such-and-such languages, likes such-and-such music, and so on. His height and weight would be pretty far down the list of things I find important.

Similarly, we think of our mind as being our "self" in a much more fundamental way than our toes.

If a person is female in their mind but has a male body, it seems very clear that we should consider the former to be their "real" gender. Why should the body matter more or be more fundamental?

[hrjet]

I would say the the catch phrase in your argument is "best friend". If the person you were describing wasn't your best friend, you might automatically focus more on the physical aspects, since you wouldn't know the intimate details of their mind.

That said, I am not advocating deliberate misuse of pronouns; I am just saying the topic may not be as simple as it seems.

[wavefunction]

In polite society we respect the ways that others wish to be addressed, as long as the request isn't unreasonable (I want you to call me 'Doctor wavefunction' yet I lack the credentials).

It is not absurd to refer to someone by the gender they prefer.

[handsomeransoms]

This posts reeks of cisgender privilege [0]. Gender is a social construct, not a biological inevitability, and it is disrespectful to refer to someone as a gender that they have explicitly stated they do not identify with.

I'll let you fill in the comparisons to widespread sexism, racism, and homophobia for yourself. Go back to the leaders of the American civil rights movement and tell them to let things "percolate through society" so they can know "where to draw reasonable lines".

[0] http://www.t-vox.org/index.php?title=Cisgender_privilege

[TillE]

> Go back to the leaders of the American civil rights movement and tell them to let things "percolate through society" so they can know "where to draw reasonable lines".

Better, read the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which deals sharply and directly with exactly those sort of suggestions from white people. It's quite wonderful.

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...

> We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never."

[pitt1980]

people have a long history of taking offense when you don't address them as they prefer to be addressed

from Mohammed Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, not wanting to be referred to by their given names

to all sorts of doctors and professors wanting to be address by their professional titles

to all sorts of adults not wanting people under a certain age referring to them by their first name

you to intend to offend, by all means, offend away

but don't act under the pretense that referring to someone other than how they prefer to be referred to won't cause offense