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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#111

Post by EthanHeilman »

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.

>Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate for biological sex.

Most traits associated with sex are not universally determined by sex. One example in humans is males that have XX chromosomes[0]. For another example see AIS[1].

We observe more than two genders expressed in non-human animals:

>Side-blotched lizards are notable for having the highest number of distinct male and female morphs or "genders" within a species: three male and two female. [2]

It is extremely unlikely that given the diversity of phenotype expression we see in life there would be no cases in which sex does not match gender. A claim that sex and gender match perfectly in all cases requires enormous evidentary support as it contradicts much of current science and biology.

>No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

You can ask someone, that is generally how we determine how much pain someone is in.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard#Genders

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#112

Post by hendersoon »

arca_vorago wrote: post #56

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I w…

I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States.

Her case is certainly much less clear-cut than Snowden's, as she was not a contractor and was more likely to be covered by whistleblower protection going through channels.

But realistically, we all know that the US government was never, ever, going to release that "Collateral Murder" video.

The great shame of all this is that whistleblower protections and mandatory escalations haven't been expanded so the next generation of do-gooders can work within the system to right these wrongs.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#113

Post by Vraxx »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #109
Vraxx wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

Ah. Well it seems we agree almost entirely, to be clear, before I was not really talking within the context of forming laws, but more on individual interaction. I generally agree on the foisting of beliefs onto people, but have found that it is typically not much trouble (word choice mostly) to accommodate the beliefs that we were arguing over. I think your last sentence is very enlightening to your point of view and probably wouldn't have tried to pick an argument if I had interpreted that belief sooner.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#114

Post by throwaway929388 »

lisper wrote: post #88
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…

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…

> You are wrong about this. It is both a biological circumstance (though not nearly as crisp a dichotomy as most people think) and a subjective experience, and some people have a mismatch between their biology and their subjective experience. It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify even if it does not conform to your prejudices about how the world ought to be.

You are dogmatic about this. You are stating things without supporting them with proper arguments, and this is what everyone who defends that position does, while claiming that everyone else is wrong. (Or, at least, I have yet to see the opposite.)

Wtbob has not denied that people have subjective experience of their gender, but has instead claimed that this experience does not match biological reality, which is a fact everyone agrees with. Whether it is "simple human decency" to designate someone in a way that does not match reality because of their subjective experience is, I think, very doubtful. This is not prejudices about how the world ought to be, it is facts about how the world is. However, if we were talking about the name change from Bradley to Chelsea, I would agree because name is not tied to a biological fact but is only what is used to refer to someone. As long as everyone can understand who Bradley and Chelsea refers to, there is no problem with using the one preferred by Chelsea.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#115

Post by shkkmo »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #100
lisper wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness". No, it runs much deeper than that. Gender roles are cross-cultural, and fundamentally rooted in the fact that females can get pregnant and males can't. That's why the stereotypes exist, because they are rooted in biological facts. But those facts aren't absolute . Most people who have male genitalia also ha…

People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists. It's also why we have the concept of mental health. When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem. I understand the desire to not hurt people feelings, but we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deceptio…

> When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem.

Self righteous people who think they know it all might assume that. Reasonable people will think "that person experienced something I don't understand".

> we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception

We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than they know about themselves.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#116

Post by [deleted] »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #111
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.

>Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate for biological sex. Most traits associated with sex are not universally determined by sex. One example in humans is males that have XX chromosomes[0]. For another example see AIS[1]. We observe more than two genders expressed in non-human animals: >Side-blotched lizards are notable for having the highest number of distinct male and female morphs o…

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#117

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #111
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.

>Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate for biological sex. Most traits associated with sex are not universally determined by sex. One example in humans is males that have XX chromosomes[0]. For another example see AIS[1]. We observe more than two genders expressed in non-human animals: >Side-blotched lizards are notable for having the highest number of distinct male and female morphs o…

I don't think you've demonstrated the existence of biological gender as much as the well-known category of biological intersexuality.

I have no objection to the degree that someone wants to express themselves with stereotypical masculine or feminine traits. Elevating cultural stereotypes to the level of phenotype is not supported by anything you've linked to, though.

>> No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

> You can ask someone, that is generally how we determine how much pain someone is in.

This is true, but we don't create laws around someone's reported degree of pain. Doctors are also given then discretion to deny someone pain medication if they believe the patient is lying in order to get high (though I disagree with this on grounds of drug decriminalization).

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#118

Post by Idontagree »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #105
Idontagree wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ge…

You're right, it's not your genitals, you could lop mine off, and I would still relate to you as a man. It is something much deeper within us, something we don't yet know how to change. Being gay or trans doesn't change that fundamental thing, it's a different approach, but it's still not different. You can put a trans-woman in front of me, and I promise you, I would relate to her as a man, on that intrinsic level which is so hard to define. (This is kind of a dumb point in a text based conversation, as I really have no proof, but I do think you (as are others) are ignoring my point. How we think is very much related to how we are made).

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#119

Post by pdabbadabba »

DennisP wrote: post #104
pdabbadabba wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a pretty good answer, but I think there are at least two problems with it:

* It is often (though not always) quite hard to tell whether something the government is doing is or is not illegal even for well trained lawyers. Manning, Snowden, et al. are not lawyers.

* The information released by Manning, Snowden, et al. was dramatically broader in scope that what would have been required merely to reveal illegal activity. Most of it, especially in Manning's case, does not reveal any illegal activity at all.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#120

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

Vraxx wrote: post #113
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

Ah. Well it seems we agree almost entirely, to be clear, before I was not really talking within the context of forming laws, but more on individual interaction. I generally agree on the foisting of beliefs onto people, but have found that it is typically not much trouble (word choice mostly) to accommodate the beliefs that we were arguing over. I think your last sentence is very enlightening to your point of view and…

> I think your last sentence is very enlightening to your point of view and probably wouldn't have tried to pick an argument if I had interpreted that belief sooner.

This is a big problem with the growing predominance of "virtue signaling" in such discussions. Few people actually want to read/listen and understand someone's point of view before jumping on them for having the "wrong opinion."

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