Chaos Computer Club Supports Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden

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.

> There is a lot to unpack in this statement. First, you should absolutely edit this to change the name and gender pronouns, you are clearly misgendering this person

I feel that's white-washing the record, when I think my intent was clear and honest. I was asking for how to deal with this, not stating a preference. Instead I'll apologize here with a clarification of intent (as I've done elsewhere). If I had known the correct way to refer to Chelsea Manning in the past tense, I would have done so. Since I didn't, I used the method I thought made the most sense, with explanation.

> However, it is rare to need to phrase something this way and usually such phrasings serve to portray being trans in a negative light.

How does it portray them in a negative light? Is Muhammad Ali portrayed in a negative light when he's referred to as Cassius Clay in the past? In what ways is that different? Is it different just because of the current state of social acceptance of transgender people? Does that imply that at some point in the future it won't be different? Does that strengthen the scheme of the status quo, or is it an argument towards a more normalized usage in past tense?

> It is not confusing whatsoever. People change names and aliases all the time for a variety of reasons but the world doesn't end and future generations aren't confused as to who someone is.

Well, obviously people are confused, because I just was when I first read the headline of this article, meaning there's at least one person in the world that's been confused by this. Do we need to argue this, or can we move on to something more useful, like trying to figure how many people are confused, how often, how likely they are to fix the confusion, if it's more or less confusing than other schemes, and other pros and cons?

> Moreover, misgendering someone isn't just ignoring their identity, it is a slap in the face and challenges the validity of their existence.

The issue here is, I think, that you label referring to someone in the past tense as they were in the past tense as misgendering, while I'm not sure I accept that. I think people can be expected to and have a right to control their current state, I'm not so sure I would extend that to them being able to change their past state.

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

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.

It's not about doing it in an orderly way, it's about doing it on purpose.

If I'm upset and download a bunch of documents onto a flash drive and send it to a person that is nice to me, and it just so happens that in amongst the hundreds of thousands of miscellaneous documents is some scrap of evidence of wrongdoing, it doesn't make me a hero for doing it.

If on the other hand I find that evidence and expose it purposefully because I have principles, that's another story.

Intent has meaning when you're defending a person's actions.