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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#41

Post by wtbob »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #35
thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ens…

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her'

No, the correct pronoun is 'him.' Chelsea Manning, despite his self-perception and despite his name change, is and always will be a man. Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience.

There are people who believe that they are disfigured even though they are perfectly normal looking; they are not disfigured, even though they believe so. There are people who believe that their limbs are not their own; those limbs are theirs, whatever their perception. There are people who believe that they are the Messiah; they are not.

When talking to someone, it may be therapeutic (or simply kind) to use the words he prefers even if they are incorrect, but when talking about someone, there is no need to humour his error.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#42

Post by davidcollantes »

wtbob wrote: post #41
rebeccaskinner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ens…

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' No, the correct pronoun is 'him.' Chelsea Manning, despite his self-perception and despite his name change, is and always will be a man. Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience. There are people who believe that they are disfigured even though they are perfectly normal looking; they are not disfigured, even though they believe so. Th…

I understand what you are saying--your comment will be out of sight soon, by the way--but, does it hurts to "humour" someone? What do you lose or win? Why not just be nice to others?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#43

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

gambiting wrote: post #23
chinathrow wrote: post #15

> She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. No, we haven't. And we also haven't forgotten about the war crimes she published.

Hmm I'm not sure. I'm not from US, and while I am very familiar with Edward Snowden, I have never heard of Chelsea Manning, I had to do a wiki search to read a bit about her. I guess the international coverage just wasn't the same in her case.

She was more famous under "Bradley" before she came out as trans. Maybe that rings a bell?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#44

Post by woodman »

street wrote: post #20
woodman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...at a time when the army had trouble getting anyone literate... In 2007? Where are you getting that? For the USMC 01-09 were glory years when it came to enlistment quality, so much so that they tightened requirements - and practically banned recruits and reenlistees with visible tattoos... while doubling in size. I'd be surprised to learn that the Army didn't enjoy the same trend.

It's in the article he linked, sourced from military people quoted.

The guy who was also in the discharge unit, getting kicked out... we'll I guess that is as credible as an internet stranger's personal experience.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#45

Post by RankingMember »

davidcollantes wrote: post #42
wtbob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' No, the correct pronoun is 'him.' Chelsea Manning, despite his self-perception and despite his name change, is and always will be a man. Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience. There are people who believe that they are disfigured even though they are perfectly normal looking; they are not disfigured, even though they believe so. Th…

I understand what you are saying--your comment will be out of sight soon, by the way--but, does it hurts to "humour" someone? What do you lose or win? Why not just be nice to others?

Agreed. The world is not this black and white place we might sometimes try to make it. Rather than writing diatribes about how people are "objectively" wrong about matters of no consequence, why not save the effort and call people what they want to be called?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#46

Post by woodman »

pc86 wrote: post #31
woodman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...at a time when the army had trouble getting anyone literate... In 2007? Where are you getting that? For the USMC 01-09 were glory years when it came to enlistment quality, so much so that they tightened requirements - and practically banned recruits and reenlistees with visible tattoos... while doubling in size. I'd be surprised to learn that the Army didn't enjoy the same trend.

I enlisted in the USMC in 2007, there were a lot of recruits but the quality was low and they had trouble getting the higher AFQTs joining them as opposed to the Navy or Air Force.

Hmm, that is when I got out - two boot drops, both seemed fine. The infantry is much less likely to draw underachievers though, so we'd be less likely to see the low quality recruits.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#47

Post by riprowan »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #43
gambiting wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I'm not sure. I'm not from US, and while I am very familiar with Edward Snowden, I have never heard of Chelsea Manning, I had to do a wiki search to read a bit about her. I guess the international coverage just wasn't the same in her case.

She was more famous under "Bradley" before she came out as trans. Maybe that rings a bell?

Unfortunately you are pointing directly at a major reason why the world forgot about Bradley Manning the war crimes exposer: she changed her name to Chelsea Manning and the media story changed to transgenderism / trans rights.

So, basically the media story and the name changed / got more complex, and a lot of people got left behind / quit caring.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#48

Post by pc86 »

woodman wrote: post #46
pc86 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enlisted in the USMC in 2007, there were a lot of recruits but the quality was low and they had trouble getting the higher AFQTs joining them as opposed to the Navy or Air Force.

Hmm, that is when I got out - two boot drops, both seemed fine. The infantry is much less likely to draw underachievers though, so we'd be less likely to see the low quality recruits.

The guys going infantry were the best of the platoon by far. With the exception of one or two nobody seemed bad or outright undesirable, just slightly below what I had expected.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#49

Post by themartorana »

davidcollantes wrote: post #42
wtbob wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' No, the correct pronoun is 'him.' Chelsea Manning, despite his self-perception and despite his name change, is and always will be a man. Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience. There are people who believe that they are disfigured even though they are perfectly normal looking; they are not disfigured, even though they believe so. Th…

I understand what you are saying--your comment will be out of sight soon, by the way--but, does it hurts to "humour" someone? What do you lose or win? Why not just be nice to others?

To play Devil's advocate, how about because "humoring" is usually a way to hold off extreme self-righteousness, shaming, and so on from the humor'd party.

Moral discussions like these are not like most discussions on HN. People's opinions and comments come loaded with assertions of moral absolutism, and as above, are usually an attempt to shame the parent commenter.

If Chelsea Manning prefers to be called "her," that's fine with me. But I appreciate being brow-beaten by people who have placed themselves on a morally superior plane as much as I like being told I'm going to hell by any number of religious leaders who also like to place themselves on high, asserting that their beliefs make them inherently better than others.

I'm of the belief that what people do in a consenting, non-harmful fashion with, to, and about themselves and willing participants is not only fine, but none of my business. But the squeaky wheels are always those who believe that they have somehow been harmed by your discord with their moral self-righteousness - no matter which side of a position they find themselves.

Devil's advocate, though.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#50

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

Is Chelsea Manning in jail for being transgender?
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