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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

"civil rights" are, despite the common etymology, not "civilian rights".

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#132

Post by emerongi »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
ythl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

At that point the female/male distinction loses its meaning altogether. If anyone can pick their gender, what makes someone masculine and what feminine? Nothing. There's no difference between genders, so lose gender-specific words.

I'm not against transgender, I'm just arguing on technical grounds. I don't see value in using gender-specific words if people can pick their gender, but I do see value in using them purely to distinguish between people by what is between their legs.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#133

Post by ythl »

RankingMember wrote: post #45
davidcollantes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's the point of titles, adjectives, pronouns if they can be manipulated by the subject?

Statement:

"Dr. Smith ran across the street. She was terrified of what would happen next"

What actually happened:

"A burly transgender man who believes he is a doctor ran across the street."

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#134

Post by na85 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
ythl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

What's between our legs matters most.

If I am biologically male but identify as female, then guess what? I'm never going to become pregnant and give birth, no matter what mutilation of the English language I use to refer to myself.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#135

Post by ythl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
ythl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

> Biological sex isn't binary

For the vast, vast majority of people, it is. Which is what makes it a useful metric.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#136

Post by ythl »

angelbob wrote: post #67
pdabbadabba wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am afraid world has already forgotten. Forgotten what? I think I'd like Chelsea personally, and I'm sorry for all that she has had to go through. But what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to be remembering and talking about here?

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

Literally anyone leaking classified information would be regarded as a hero whistleblower. At what point are you betraying your country and leaking secrets to enemies?

"I feel morally obligated to blow the whistle on this new secret superweapon the US is developing. So many lives could be at risk in the future. Here are all of the plans on how to create it, my work is done."

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#137

Post by ythl »

niccaluim wrote: post #76
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…

> And transgender rights activists are more busy with right gender pronouns then with him/her [sic]. Speak for yourself.

[sic] indicates a spelling error in context, not a political correctness "error" that is still being debated

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#138

Post by mixedCase »

dragonwriter wrote: post #130
ythl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her' The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

>Biological sex isn't binary

It most certainly is. XY and XX are two things, therefore binary. Anything else is a defect in the individual's chromosomes.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#139

Post by dragonwriter »

ythl wrote: post #135
dragonwriter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

> Biological sex isn't binary For the vast, vast majority of people, it is. Which is what makes it a useful metric.

Most people may seem to fall tolerably close to one of two stereotypes, but that doesn't make biological sex binary, not does it make it sensible to ignore the fact that it is not in the case of those people who do not, and, surreptitiously enough, there's a significant overlay between people whose experienced gender doesn't match their socially ascribed gender and people whose biological sex-related traits other than external genitalia don't line up with external genitalia in the most common way.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#140

Post by frogpelt »

henrikschroder wrote: post #66
frogpelt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic. What you're saying is people's genders are now up for debate but the pronouns are not? Completely illogical. And somehow people still believe the "slippery slope" is a fallacy.

> "Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic. How about "polite"? It's exactly as rude to use the wrong pronoun about a person, as it is to use the wrong name. It's common decency to call people what they want to be called, and it's not exactly hard to do either.

Ok, that makes sense.

However, hypothetically speaking if someone wanted to be called a name that I considered to be vulgar or offensive, I would not call them that.

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