Regardless of my feelings for the crime and the criminal they deserve, whatever they’ve done, to be treated with a measure of human dignity. That includes using the correct pronoun for their gender status, in Manning’s case she.
By doing so you’re in no way indicating approval of what she did, nor does it mean you respect her, other than with the basic modicum of respect that you would accord any human being. I think Shodan’s error lies in thinking of her gender transformation as a privilege rather than a basic right.
No, I don’t think I am wrong. This is an argument from authority, and I don’t think Wikipedia is a good authority in matters such as this.
In the specific case, as I said, if it hurts Bradley Manning’s feelings to be called “he”, tough toenails. He’s a traitor.
In the general case, it can’t be resolved. Transgender people want to tell me what I mean when I say what I mean. I don’t care to play along. And “my feelings are sacrosanct - how DARE you not care about them!!!” is not all that convincing.
Manning’s gender identity should be treated the same as any other convicted criminal’s. Using the preferred pronoun to avoid disrespect to other trans people seems reasonable. As far as the law goes, though, she should remain legally whatever gender she was at the time of conviction, and if that means being in a male prison or not receiving gender reassignment surgery until release, that’s fine.
It should also all be irrelevant, because she should have been shot for treason…
In the context of that previous thread, I thought Shodan’s use of “he” was clearly a personal insult directed solely at Ms. Manning … Shodan even specifically said the insult was because he thought the young woman was a traitor to her country … at worst it was threadshitting but I didn’t read any broad categorical commentary on the trans-gender community …
When I call the neighbor lady a bitch, I’m not insulting all women, I’m just insulting her … sometimes I have to wonder at all this oversensitivity and think what’s being hidden …
To me, it’s not a matter of decency or anything else other than that is what someone chooses to be called. Making pronoun mistakes should be tolerated despite the annoyance in the same way name mistakes should be tolerated (then again, I’m bias since I’m terrible with names and have had my name pronounced 100000 different ways).
But intentionally calling someone a pronoun they do not wish to be called is wrong for two reasons: it’s factually incorrect to do so, and acting out of such negative motivations is not in our own psychological best interest. We shouldn’t need to find moral obligations to act in a positive or at least neutral manner, particularly in such a trivial matter for those who are being asked to call someone by a different pronoun.
This, as a person of color, sounds a lot like the notion that some black people deserve to be called niggers, or Latinos wetbacks, but just the ones that deserve it (“Not you, you’re not like them.”)
It doesn’t harm me anymore than calling the person “Napoleon” harms me. And in contrast, calling that person by their legal name would severely distress them. So I would choose to address them as they wish to be called.
As I said, it’s not a direct equivalency. And I doubt transgendered people are any more likely to be delusional as anyone else. I had a transgendered friend many years ago (we’ve since lost touch) and she had no illusions about her biology, it just had nothing to do with her gender identity. In all honesty it would have felt weird to me calling her a “he” as much as it would to call a self-identified and biological female “he”.
It was a hypothetical situation only. I guess it was a bad example though.
I’ve heard it opined that calling any woman a “bitch” is misogynistic. I don’t subscribe to that and I don’t think the cultural majority would either but there are people who would.
Since you seem to just be running through this thread arguing semantics and picking apart examples, I’ll suggest that since, presumably, Chelsea Manning didn’t kill several of your loved ones, therefore you actually should be giving much thought to the pronoun used to refer to “him/her”.
But, as I said before, if this how you feel, imagine it applied to yourself, even on a smaller scale. Get a speeding ticket, you get your name published in the newspaper along with some adjective you don’t agree with. Hey, you broke the law, therefore I have no respect for you, so I’m going to call you out as supporting a political party you hate or preferring a gender that you don’t, just cuz.
This is a warning for personal insults. If you feel you must, the Pit is right around the corner.
As a side note, I’ve noticed a recent escalation in rhetoric you’ve employed. Please take this as a recommendation that you stay within the rules of the forum.
Exactly. You know what the respectful thing to do is, and you admit that while knowing better, you’re going to punish him by deliberately using the disrespectful term. Again, you know using “him” is wrong. You just want to do it anyway.
As to whether it’s wrong to be disrespectful to a convict, that’s a different question. But you do know using male pronouns with a trans female is wrong.
If it’s not insulting to refer to transgender people as “he”, then it is not insulting to refer to me as “her” and I shouldn’t take offense. And I don’t - I don’t care.
But I don’t have any gender issues. I know perfectly well that I am male, and referring to me as “her” or “she” or whatever is stupid. And I suspect that, on some level, transgender people are not nearly as sure that they are what they claim to be. Therefore it is much more threatening to their self-image or their gender construct or whatever you want to call whatever they are trying to create, if someone doesn’t want to play along.
Plus the thing tends to be self-refuting. Calling someone “she” who has a moustache (and a penis and XY chromosomes) - I am not the one who looks silly.
“Ngger" or “bitch” or "fggot” - sure, those are inherently insulting. “He” or “she” or “wman" or "mle” - no, they aren’t, they are descriptions.
I began the post you quoted by saying that no, I don’t believe I am wrong. So I don’t “know” anything of the sort.
“Don’t be a dick to people who don’t deserve it,” was a bad formulation on my part. What I was trying to say was, if you’re going to insult a person, be careful to only insult that person. If you’re want to be a dick to Obama, call him an idiot, or a motherfucker, or a socialist piece of shit. Don’t call him a nigger, though, because then you’re not just being a dick to Obama, you’re being a dick to black people in general.
If you want to be a dick to Chelsea Manning, call her a traitor. Call her scum that deserves to be shot. Call her Traitor McTreasonface. But if you call her Bradley, that’s going to be perceived as an attack on the validity of transgender identity as a whole, and will be interpreted, by most trans people, as broadly insulting to trans people in general.
It’s a difference that is wholly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. There are any number of terms that are not intrinsically slurs, but are still considered insulting to specific demographics. “Boy” isn’t intrinsically a slur, but is perceived as widely derogatory when used to describe black people. “Jew” isn’t a slur, except when used as a verb. “He” isn’t a slur, except when it’s used to deliberately elide the existence of trans people in general.
I’m not arguing that, if you don’t like someone, you’re free to insult them in any terms you want. I’m arguing the opposite of that: if you don’t like someone, you still need to be careful about how you insult them, because you want to make sure you’re only insulting them, not broad demographic groups to which they belong.
No shit! You think? That’s what gender dysphoria is. Imagine if the whole world, from your parents and spouse and children and friends and coworkers, to your doctor and strangers on the internet, called you “she” and “Mary”, day in, day out, from birth until death? You probably wouldn’t be so damn confident in your maleness.
The point of disagreement is that when Shodan calls Manning “he”, it’s not a slur against all trans people. It’s an insult aimed specifically at Manning.
Shodan, have you ever known someone who had a legal given name that they hated? And they insisted that you call them by a nickname. Like “William” being “Bill”, or “Theodore” being “Ted”. You might be factually correct in calling them by their full, given name, but doing so pushes their buttons. Maybe their abusive parent was the only one who called them “William” so it’s painful to be called that. Would you insist on doing it just to prove a point?