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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#101

Post by EthanHeilman »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #97
lisper wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtbob: I vouched for your comment to un-kill it so I can post this response here where it should be rather than in a descendent comment. First and foremost, I vehemently disagree with you. But I think you made your point in a civil manner and supported it with an argument, and for that reason alone you deserve to be heard and responded to with civil arguments rather than by censorship. I may not agree with what you s…

That subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". > It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify If I decide to wear a fancy hat and call myself King of the World, should I expect everyone to call me that? No, because I'm not the King of the World. It turns out people can be wrong about themselves, and we shouldn't pretend the…

>The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness".

Why do you assume this to be the case? Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? It would be really surprising if this didn't happen given what we know about genetics and how sex is determined.

Subjective != not real:

Pain is a subjective experience, does this mean that anesthetic should not be given during surgery. What if only some percentage of the population could experience pain? Would that make their suffering less real?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#102

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #101
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". > It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify If I decide to wear a fancy hat and call myself King of the World, should I expect everyone to call me that? No, because I'm not the King of the World. It turns out people can be wrong about themselves, and we shouldn't pretend the…

>The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". Why do you assume this to be the case? Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? It would be really surprising if this didn't happen given what we know about genetics and how sex is determined. Subjective != not real : Pain is a su…

> Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender?

Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate from biological sex. No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#103

Post by [deleted] »

gaur wrote: post #96
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…

Thank goodness you're here to police other people's identities.

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#104

Post by DennisP »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #83
angelbob wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the highly unfair treatment of a whistleblower. Snowden gets a lot more publicity, but Manning's case wasn't well handled either.

I really wish we could elevate quality of our discourse about government whistle-blowers. It is very far from clear that Manning (or Snowden, for that matter) was treated "highly unfairly." This could make for an interesting conclusion to a well-thought-our argument, but it makes a pretty dubious premise. Yes, Manning et al. attempted to do a public service and got punished for it. That seems messed up. And it may be…

In a democracy, the voters, via their representatives, decide what's legal for the government to do. So if the government does things that are illegal and hidden, then I'd say anyone has the authority to reveal it. That authority was granted by the voters who made the activity illegal.

If the government's activity is legal, on the other hand, then it's harder to make a case. A whistleblower may still decide to reveal it as a matter of civil disobedience, but at that point he's trying to change the minds of the voters, rather than enforce their expressed wishes. He should expect more legal jeopardy, though if he succeeds in changing people's minds, then a pardon would be appropriate.

If our legal system doesn't make a distinction between revealing legal and illegal secrets, then I'd say our system is inconsistent.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#105

Post by ThrustVectoring »

Idontagree wrote: post #51
vertex-four wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender's not quite irrelevant - I'm reasonably certain Chelsea is happy that she gets the medication she needs (as she has written), and that in general, people accept her transition at this point. Humane treatment is a thing that's important, and for trans people, humane treatment partially involves treating them as the gender they are. Personally, I have no skin in this game, but I have a suspicion that the people…

Her medication doesn't change her biological makeup, science isn't that good yet. I'm happy to call anyone what they want, but surgery and drugs do not recreate your sex.

Being a man or a woman is more than just your biological makeup. It makes a very significant difference in what behavior people expect from you and how they interpret what you do. In other words, there's very much a sense in which men are those who get seen and treated as men.

And personally, I see no reason why having male genitals is necessary for getting seen and treated as a man. If you behave like you want to get seen and treated as a man, I'll see and treat you like a man. The only people who have a remote interest in the actual biological makeup underlying that behavior are people who are romantically involved or interested. Oh, and medical personnel.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#106

Post by drostie »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #83
angelbob wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the highly unfair treatment of a whistleblower. Snowden gets a lot more publicity, but Manning's case wasn't well handled either.

I really wish we could elevate quality of our discourse about government whistle-blowers. It is very far from clear that Manning (or Snowden, for that matter) was treated "highly unfairly." This could make for an interesting conclusion to a well-thought-our argument, but it makes a pretty dubious premise. Yes, Manning et al. attempted to do a public service and got punished for it. That seems messed up. And it may be…

If you want to open these sorts of questions you'll quickly run into the fact that there are a bunch of different judicial opinions out there. I recommend the following link:

http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/csepref.htm

It is the preface and introduction to Peter Suber's book The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions; as the introduction discusses, the original Case, posted online here:

http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/lawspelunk.html#fuller

...was published by Lon Fuller in 1949 and contains a statement of facts in a (fictional!) case where a bunch of explorers get trapped for many days, ultimately eat one among their number, and are tried for murder and found guilty, sentenced to be hanged: this case is the final appeal of their sentence to the Supreme Court. In general people are sympathetic to the explorers, who faced death had they not acted.

This statement-of-facts is followed by the opinions of 5 court judges, who come to very different conclusions with very different reasonings. For example the chief justice says "Well, it's my job to apply the law as correctly as I can -- not to evaluate whether hanging these people for doing what they needed to do to survive is important. They broke the law, the law says that the punishment in this case is hanging, therefore I must rule that they should be hanged. Whose job is it to make sure that these laws are good to these people? Well, that's what we have lawmakers and an executive branch for. I'm going to sentence these people to death and hope that the President commutes their sentence." In response the second opinion says, "Seriously? That's a cop-out. Obviously if our hearts are saying that these people shouldn't be hanged, then that's not justice and they shouldn't be hanged, and in this case it's because there's a deeper Law from Nature which takes priority over our lawbooks." And so forth.

Then Pete Suber's book offers 9 more opinions, and there are even a few more in some other law reviews. Gives you a large question of how we should be balancing all of these different interests.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#107

Post by Vraxx »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #102
EthanHeilman wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". Why do you assume this to be the case? Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? It would be really surprising if this didn't happen given what we know about genetics and how sex is determined. Subjective != not real : Pain is a su…

> Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate from biological sex. No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

So a non-insignificant number of people claiming it to be the case isn't a good enough reason to believe that it's a possibility? What is the threshold for you to consider this possibility? Do you not believe anything subjective then, because by definition "no one can point to it nor create a test for it"?

edit: It seems to me that it costs a person almost nothing to believe somebody about their subjective belief of their gender, yet it seems that a lot of people resist so strongly. Why is this?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#109

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

Vraxx wrote: post #107
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate from biological sex. No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

So a non-insignificant number of people claiming it to be the case isn't a good enough reason to believe that it's a possibility? What is the threshold for you to consider this possibility? Do you not believe anything subjective then, because by definition "no one can point to it nor create a test for it"? edit: It seems to me that it costs a person almost nothing to believe somebody about their subjective belief of…

I believe subjectivity exists, but not in its supremacy over objectivity.

My objections on the topic are fairly simple:

* We shouldn't create laws around activities or identities that cannot be objectively measured.

* Peoples personally held identities shouldn't be foisted up such that everyone must accept them unquestionably.

People should be free to love, fuck, marry whomever they want and express themselves in whatever degree of masculinity or femininity they are comfortable with. If we had widely known gender-neutral pronouns, I would use them.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#110

Post by Vraxx »

mgbmtl wrote: post #86
themartorana wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's always a balance to strive for, but we live in such an imbalanced culture (homogeneous, unrepresentative).. sometimes we don't realize some issues until we have kids and see what they go through [1]. It's easy to dismiss people as cry-babies, and there are always crazy exceptions, but if people say they are harmed, it doesn't hurt to listen and find out why :) [1] like those republican politicians who are sud…

Specifically about that type of person you mentioned that is against something vehemently until they are personally related to the side of the issue they opposed, I can't help myself but feel more disdain for these individuals than if they had continued holding their prejudiced/bigoted views because their transformation seems incredibly intellectually dishonest. I liken it to the type of person that apologizes profusely after they have been caught red-handed with some wrongdoing, but they never once apologized or confessed during the time they were doing it. In other words, they aren't sorry they did it, they're sorry they got caught doing it.

Maybe my views on the issue are too harsh, but those are my own prejudices. I do think that people can have genuine transformations of views, but it doesn't sit well with me when it only came about because they were cornered into it.

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