Recently, I was reading through this thread and I stumbled upon a tangential conversation from November of last year, between Shodan and several others, about the pronouns he was using to refer to Chelsea Manning. He was purposefully using male pronouns to refer to her, despite the fact that she identifies as a woman. He justified this by saying that as a “traitor” Manning lacked the right to be treated with common decency.
Here is part of the conversation:
Later in the thread, Miller equated this with refering to a Jew using an ethnic slur
Because their conversation was veering off-topic, a moderator told them to continue it in a new thread if they so desired. They didn’t (as far as I know, so apologies if there is another thread about this), but I’m interested in this issue and would like to see it discussed on the board.
Is it okay to refer to an individual using their non-preferred pronouns, solely because you don’t think the individual deserves to be treated with respect? Or is it disparaging to all trans-gendered people to ignore a individual’s gender identify just because you deem them a “traitor”? Is it analogous to referring to that person using an ethnic slur? I would like to know the opinions of my fellow Dopers.
I had considered starting this thread in the Pit, as I suspect it could provoke some strong emotions, but I thought I would give the topic a shot at being discussed with civility. The mods are be free to move it to the Pit if it gets out of hand.
I think it’s highly obnoxious to trans people in general (perhaps not akin to “kike”, but maybe similar to calling a Jew a gentile deliberately, over and over again, or a straight person gay, over and over gain, because you don’t think this particular Jew, or this particular straight person, is worthy of the respect of calling them by their declared religion or sexual orientation).
I think I made my reaction clear in the other thread, but for clarity’s sake I don’t see any reason, even past traitorous conduct, to use the wrong gender pronoun to refer to a person. I can remain free to call her a traitorous, disloyal scumbag (if that’s my evaluation) without needing to call her ‘him.’
By the same general logic, I wouldn’t call her an arsonist or a car thief…because she’s not an arsonist or a car thief. It’s unclear how her traitorous actions relate in any way to her entitlement to a correct pronoun.
Although, one thing I’ve never been clear on, is what is her gender when she did the whole leak thing?
Should she still be referred to as female, as she is female now, and I assume, felt a female identity at that time, but was legally and socially known as male.
I ask, becuase I was talking to a friend of mine who does not follow things all that closely, and I found myself talking about her leaks, and finding that it was confusing keeping pronouns straight, if they are to be adjusted for what she was at the time.
Seems like the larger infraction is using the term “traitor”. If someone isn’t going to be careful enough about that, why would one expect the person to be careful about using the proper pronoun?
He didn’t use “it”, so I’d hardly say that using “he” instead of “she” wasn’t treating the person as a human. Besides, we’re not talking about “lots of people” here. We’re talking about a specific individual.
But just taking Shodan at his word, I think that if someone (for instance) killed several of my loved ones and then got a sex-change, I doubt I’d give much thought to which pronoun I’d use when talking about him/her.
I think a person is entitled to be called by the name or pronoun they choose … as long as there’s legal continuity … If I live 35 years as “Joe Blow” and then want to be called “Jackie Rattie” … that’s fine as long as I’m still held responsible for my actions as “Joe Blow” … if I was once a “he” but now am a “she” … that’s my business …
However … if the intent is derogatory … then open the flood gates … Josephine Stalin was one ugly girl that’s for sure … it doesn’t deserve parole … Tarzan was in fact half ape …
Similar to the use of married vs. maiden names when discussing something that happened before marriage… if you’re talking about something Mrs. Brown (nee Smith) did in high school, you’d say “Mrs. Brown was active in flower arranging in high school,” not “Miss Smith was active in flower arranging in high school.” I expect in the long run we’ll come up with a shorthand phrase similar to “Mrs. Brown (nee Smith)” for saying the equivalent of “Ms. Manning (who was assigned male at the time but has since transitioned to female)”, but right now, any attempt to come up with a standard term takes away some of the momentum these people have built up to get recognized as their preferred gender at all, which is also demonstrated by the fact that we have this thread at all.
Speaking of the actual thread topic, referring to someone by the wrong pronouns, when you know they’re wrong, is, at least, name-calling. Shodan seems to be OK with name-calling in this case.
Miss,Mr,Ms Manning can be called by whatever pronoun she/he/other perfers.
The only exception is where it might cause confusion in the circumstances, then a qualifier for would be appropriate.
Is it wrong to ignore a religious person’s statement of fact that God exists? No. Bradley Manning believes he is a woman. He is factually incorrect: a creature’s sex is defined by its physical attributes, not by what it believes, or whether it even has a nervous system to believe with. What is wrong is the demand that all of society must give the politically correct answer over the factually true answer.
The general principle here is “Don’t be a dick to people who don’t deserve it.” If you’re calling a trans person by their pre-transition name, or deliberately using the wrong pronouns, you’re attacking them for being transgendered - and implicitly attacking all transgendered people. Much the same way that if you imply that Barrack Obama is a bad president because he’s black, you’re insulting black people in general.
This is a weak defense. Presumably Shodan would say that Manning deserves it, and that he’s only using the wrong pronoun with Manning, not all transgendered people.