[kbenson]

Is this a largely solved problem around the issue, or a solved problem in and around the community? I ask because I'm torn between wanting to respect the individual, but also as a computer scientist feeling somewhat offended that someone's later choice of how they want to refer to themselves caused altered accounts of historical information, which to my eyes is more confusing (and possibly less accurate, if that confusion isn't addressed promptly and often).

I'm not really sure how to square that with myself, but I think I lean towards preserving the data integrity of the public record. If someone referred to themselves in a specific way and identified themselves a specific way in the past, I think that's how they should be referred to when discussing that point in time.

[king_jester]

> Is this a largely solved problem around the issue, or a solved problem in and around the community?

That a community has solved a problem is no different than the problem being solved (unless of course you don't believe in the validity of trans people). Chelsea Manning has clearly stated that she is a woman and should be referred to as a woman.

> I ask because I'm torn between wanting to respect the individual, but also as a computer scientist feeling somewhat offended that someone's later choice of how they want to refer to themselves caused altered accounts of historical information, which to my eyes is more confusing (and possibly less accurate, if that confusion isn't addressed promptly and often).

If you say you are feeling torn, then you are not wanting to respect this person at all, so you really aren't feeling torn. Bottom line, Chelsea Manning is a woman and should be referred to as such. You say you are offended, but what you are really saying is that you feel that you know her gender better than she does. You don't. Your discomfort with trans folks is your own issue and to misgender someone is hugely disrespectful.

> I'm not really sure how to square that with myself, but I think I lean towards preserving the data integrity of the public record. If someone referred to themselves in a specific way and identified themselves a specific way in the past, I think that's how they should be referred to when discussing that point in time.

There is a difference between talking about past events and continuing to insist on misgendering someone in the present.

[kbenson]

You are projecting. Please re-read my original post, and followup. To assume I'm biased without at least asking some questions first to clarify my intent is disingenuous, unfair, and unappreciated.

> That a community has solved a problem is no different than the problem being solved (unless of course you don't believe in the validity of trans people).

I don't believe this is true. If a community solves a problem of how the public at large should act, but the public does not accept or follow that solution, the problem is not solved. I was simply asking what type of adoption the solution I was presented had seen. If it's seeing widespread adoption, then this discussion has little meaning (beyond discussing technical merits of different approaches), because I don't think anything would change. I'm fine with that, besides thinking that history gets a bit more confusing.

> If you say you are feeling torn, then you are not wanting to respect this person at

No, I'm trying to weigh my respect for the individual and their desires against societies desires and needs, as well as what we may perceive as best for society (even if it's not something they value at the time).

> Chelsea Manning is a woman and should be referred to as such.

That's fine, I never stated she shouldn't be. I'm simply torn on what I think should be the best way to refer to her in the past tense, for the same reason I refer to my sic year old self as a boy, and not as a man. I'm a man now, I was a boy then. I am open to arguments to sway me though. I'm not pushing an agenda, just trying to discuss something that I encountered.

> Your discomfort with trans folks

This is the projection I was referring to. I thought I was pretty clear that I was uncomfortable with the historical record changing on someone's future decision. That this decision is common to transgender people is irrelevant to be points. If you want to argue that gender and name are important enough to warrant the changes, that's fine. If you can't make the argument without referring to transgender people, that may be a sign the argument needs refinement, or may have some baked in assumptions that don't hold. For example, I personally hold name and gender to be of equal importance. Maybe that's not the case for you, or any number of others. That may be a bad assumption on either of our parts.

> There is a difference between talking about past events and continuing to insist on misgendering someone in the present.

And where was I saying we should misgender them in the present? I don't think it's misgendering someone to refer to them as "he" when referring to them at some point when they referred to themselves with that pronoun, and as "she" in the present when that's how they refer to themselves. But maybe my thoughts in that are tied to some assumptions that need to be shaken. Like I said, I'm open to discussion, but please keep the attacks to yourself, at least until you've given me the benefit of a doubt.

[king_jester]

A lot to respond to, so I'll just make it brief. How to handle someone who has transition is well covered on the internet. Also very common on the internet is bad faith arguments that fret over whether they should or should not accept certain aspects of someone's transition. Simply put, just accept that transition and use basic phrases if you must refer to something about that person's past presentation. However, don't always bring it up or bring it up without need as you are basically performing a subtle misgendering of the person by always throwing that past presentation in the face of their current presentation, which is something that happens a lot for trans folks.

[kbenson]

I'm not trying to reject anyone's transition, I'm trying to figure out when, where and why it was decided that the past description in this case gets rewritten for the current context instead of continuing to to exist in an accurate form.

For example, we don't refer to a block of marble as a statue until it has become one. When referring to its past, we don't generally refer to it as a statue until it has become one. I was a boy before I was a man, when referring to that period of my life, expect anyone to refer to me as a boy (or child), and not my current state.

To be absolutely clear, I have no problem referring to someone as they desire in the present or future, but I've yet to see a good reason (beyond "it's disrespectful!", with little or no explanation) why a change in name or gender requires a rewriting of history. I would be happy to have an argument put forth I could get behind, it would hopefully make this less confusing in the future, and cause less friction if I misstep.

[sesqu]

While a single entity can have multiple identifiers, one is usually canonical in a communication environment. For example, we say "Istanbul was founded in the 7th century BC" when speaking of the present-day city, But we say "Byzantium was founded" when we wish to limit the discussion to the pre-Constantine era. If we wish to span multiple eras, Istanbul is the only choice, as that is the canonical identifier.

As such, I believe you should refer to Manning as Chelsea if she is the subject, but may refer to her as Bradley if the leak is the subject. It would be helpful to qualify her name as "Chelsea Manning, who was at the time known as Bradley", "Bradley Manning, who later changed her name to Chelsea", or some similar construction for audiences who are not well aware of her, to help them connect historical knowledge to your topic.

[kbenson]

This is perfectly sensible, and exactly what I was looking for. It chooses the most relevant and least confusing identifier for the context it was used in. The question then becomes, "Is this acceptable to the transgender community?" and "Is this in common use?"

[sp332]

Your accusations are a little harsh, king_jester. kbenson just got some new information and is probing to find out how trustworthy it is.

[thanatropism]

Isn't this what "née" is for?

[lilsunnybee]

Or the much more common singular they.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Usage

[waterhouse]

"née" isn't a pronoun; it's used to identify someone's birth name as distinct from her current name, as in "Hillary Clinton, née Rodham". A French-to-English dictionary says it literally means "born". (And when conjugated with a male noun, in French it would be "né".)

[lilsunnybee]

Thank you for this explanation! I was not aware.

[doublering]

Think of it as a database. A table of events with foreign key references to a table of people. Now if someone's name changes, you only need to update a single entry, eliminating both redundancy and inconsistency in our database. If I look up events about Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, I sure hope that I find things like when she was born! If you insist on tying events to name at the time of the event, you have a much greater propensity for losing information whenever anyone changes their name for any reason! Therefore, from a data integrity standpoint, I think every database engineer would prefer the one name for all history approach. You could even store the name change event itself!

[kbenson]

That's one possible schema, which assumes the name is the primary key. Now that we've established that the name can change, I think it makes a bad choice for a primary key. Instead, I would think you look up a name, and get a link to the primary record, allowing multiple names in use (whether active currently or not). I personally think any schema that requires going back and changing primary keys on a record (and thus anything that links to that record by it's key) because of an action that record takes if poorly designed, and likely to have errors, which I think sums up my thoughts on this nicely.

[doublering]

I never said anything about using names as a primary key. Of course, you could expand the schema to handle aliases, but in the end, people have names that they prefer. You are kbenson, and if you were able to change your username, the proper action is to change the username on all of your comments.

[lilsunnybee]

IMO Wikipedia-esque redirects seem to be a perfectly valid, respectful, non-confusing way of handling cases such as this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_manning

[kbenson]

Wikipedia uses something similar to what I described under the covers. There's a unique id assigned to a page, but it's ALSO accessible by a title. Internally, the page id is used to refer the page from other items, not the title[1]. This is sort of equivalent to having one or more names associated with your SSN, if you are in the US. Which makes sense, because names are not unique.

1: http://goo.gl/T7DfoC

Edit: HN garbled the wikimedia URL, so I used a shortener.

[Torgo]

You are confused because you are seeing gender how it is currently used, which is a social construct that is assigned to people largely beyond their control that affects how others see and interact with them; and what some people want gender to be: solely an expression of one's personal gender identification, that to be respectful everyone else must acknowledge.

[kbenson]

I'm actually not even going into how people want to identify, which I see as largely their own choice. I'm more interested in why we are supposed to change the past tense pronoun and name. Really, my question is the same when the pronoun argument is excised from it. Consider Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali. Do we say Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight title in 1964, or do we say Muhammad Ali did, knowing he changes his name afterward. There are cases where it is more confusing both ways, but from a historical record perspective, it feels more correct to me to say Cassius Clay did, simply because that also denotes who he identified as at that point in time.

[JeremyNT]

The key way to think of this is that the pronoun is an honorific which always signifies the current state of the individual, and it is not a historical fact. If facts related to the individual's gender at an earlier time are germane, such facts should be explicitly stated rather than overloading the pronoun, which (remember) is simply an honorific which the user has selected.

The question of gender earlier in one's life in most stories is not even relevant and there is really no need to discuss it at all. However, in Manning's case the question of gender does appear to be somewhat relevant, since her motive appears to have included concerns about how the Army treated (or failed to treat) her own gender disorder.

[kbenson]

> The question of gender earlier in one's life in most stories is not even relevant and there is really no need to discuss it at all.

Except that gender neutral singular pronouns are not used much in English where they exist (there is a singular they, but it's uncommon it's used). But I think focusing on this is missing the point. Note my reference to Cassius Clay. I'm more interested in that an identifier changes. That the gender specific also changed is just an additional complication, but once the rules on the name are clear, the rules on the pronoun would be obvious, I think.