Manning is transgender with a female psyche in a male body. There does not have to be bigotry in order for someone to reject the idea that Chelsea Manning is a “woman just like any other woman.” When we refer to someone as “she”, it is (virtually) universally understood to connote a person who has a female body, which Chelsea does not have.
There are already terms, for individuals who prefer sexual partners who have the same gender body as they do: gay and lesbian. No distinct pronouns, though.
Transgenders like Chelsea may wish to be called “she”, but that term is already taken and it means something else. I can accept that Chelsea is also not a “he”, though in every regard that might have an impact on how I relate to him, he is more “he” than “she”.
Chelsea wants us to know that she is a woman in a man’s body. Calling her “she” doesn’t do that unless I happen to already know that she has a man’s body, and if I don’t already know that, it would be misleading because Chelsea is not a “woman just like any other woman.”
Sometimes kids with cancer are sad, too, but they get marathons walked for them. Trans people get to hear everyone else’s opinion about their gender and bodies.
(edited to be less of an uppity twit after reading more posts by poster).
Thanks for clarifying your earlier posts. Whew! I definitely can identify with being anxious about posting doubts and questions in public forums.
I wanted to add that trans experiences are also even more diverse and unstructured than you may be able to see right now, and that multiplies outside the US, in countries with different laws and traditions about gender and sex. While it’s true that a lot of trans people have relied upon the metaphor of ‘trapped in the wrong body’ or claim to have ‘gender dysmorphic disorder’, a lot of trans people love and enjoy their bodies before and during or after transition. Transition can be a bureaucratic affair, a medical affair, a social affair and a political affair, and usually combines aspects of most of these categories (and others). You’re right that it requires gumption.
One thing that could make a difference is how politicized a person was before coming out/realizing/etc. their trans identity- queer lesbian activists who have read up on how the gender binary system is a tool of oppression that mostly just keeps straight cis (i.e. not trans) men in their prestige may find it easier to rebel hard enough to love themselves during transition than someone who was always conservative and heterosexual. But maybe not. I’ve met a few total squares who are transitioning (M to F) after age 50 and there’s no totally clear pattern. Of course the biggest determinant is the family and societal support network, which in turn seems to depend on a nation’s laws. Once you have a law that elected officials have passed saying that trans is legal, and A-ok, it just seems like good people can speak up easier and confused people can decide easier.
One thing which is a drag, and makes me anxious, is how gender determines just about everything in a kid’s day- and is getting more polarized from when I was a kid. I wore yellow corduroys as a tot- girls at my elementary school today feel humiliated not to be in pink constantly. The classes you take, the uniforms you wear, the color of your asthma inhaler, your toys, the groups you play with, everything is assigned to you based on your genitals at birth. I would love a world where the decision to use medical sex change technologies were no more weighty than deciding to get a tummy tuck. But, alas.
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See, this is the problem: people are so focussed on the body being the sole identifier of a person’s gender, that some might call it an obsession. An unhealthy obsession at that.
That is a perfectly silly thing to say. I do not care what religion (if any) you follow. That does not make me your oppressor. Likewise, the fact that I have no interest in anyone’s gender does not make me a bigot. It only makes me indifferent. The argument here only points to a difference in priority between varying viewpoints, not the all-or-nothing foolishness you conclude.
Tolerance means tolerance, not acceptance, adoption, or celebration.
There may be an interesting discussion behind your rhetorical question. So let’s assume I’ve answered it with the traditional responses. What’s the discussion you’d like to have?
Yes! Thank you for pointing out the “time and intelligence” aspects of this. We are in relatively new territory and it may take some time to learn how to appropriately deal with these issues. (Which should not be taken to mean that I am suggesting that the protection of people’s rights be delayed; rather, merely that cultural institutions be given some time to develop.)
That’s a great slippery slope you got going there. Also, it doesn’t have any science behind it. These days, most trans people know what’s up when they are kids. That’s why we have a lot more trans kids these days getting support at a much earlier age.
You do not need psychological counseling for breast implants, cosmetic surgery, even the the kind that makes you look like a cat, or gives you elf ears.
As for BIID? Chopping off a limb is not reconstructive surgery. That’s apples to oranges. Very slippery that slope.
What true fact would make calling Chelsea by her pronouns factually incorrect or “considerably misleading”?
The only part you’re responding to that wasn’t demonstrably true (with sources cited!) was clearly a suspicion (and labeled as such). So, what’s your reality check on this?
If only 1% of the world is trans*, there are 70+ million trans* people. How many millions do there have to be before trans* people are significant enough?
[quote=“Samthebutcher, post:74, topic:8056”]
That is a perfectly silly thing to say. I do not care what religion (if any) you follow. That does not make me your oppressor. Likewise, the fact that I have no interest in anyone’s gender does not make me a bigot. It only makes me indifferent.[/quote]
If your indifference to my religion actively contributed to my harm, it would make you at the very least complicit. At any rate, refusing to call someone by their preferred pronouns isn’t act of indifference.
Cisgender people are often very offended when they’re misgendered and they don’t have the fun of having their lives threatened if someone perceives them as the wrong gender. If you were truly indifferent, you would call everyone by whatever gender you felt like at the moment … and you’d see how passionately people react.
I just want to pop in to say that it feels like a lot of people who have no understanding at all of what being trans is like are saying wrong, inaccurate, offensive things about me, a real live actual trans person, as if trans people aren’t around or only exist in labs to be studied and puzzled over. Trans people are in comment sections. Trans people read the things you say. Trans people are real people with lives and loves and emotions - and an inherently better understanding of what it means to be trans than most of you. When you say things like “this is so new, we really have to figure this out” - hey, I had to figure it out just to continue being alive! There are people who are experts in this experience, and you’d probably do a lot better to listen to what they have to say than to crowd around making confused noises like this is something nobody could ever comprehend.
This is BoingBoing, so maybe some of you are gay. Surely you can remember a time when you were trying to tell a straight person how it feels to be gay - how natural and matter-of-fact it is, how it’s not something you chose, etc. - and the straight person just did not believe you. They substituted their lived experience, which is only relative to their context as a straight person, for your own lived experience. And yet, you still know at the very core of your being that how you described yourself is accurate - you know, because you’re gay. You know for sure that you’re correct, and you know for sure that not only are they wrong, but they don’t even have the standing to challenge you - but they do. So you know something for certain that other people deny because they don’t want to listen, and they assume things are different than the way they are.
That’s exactly what’s going on here. Telling a trans person they aren’t who they say they are, that they must jump through your own arbitrary hoops (and of course everyone is holding their own set of arbitrary hoops) for you to recognize their identity - that’s the same thing as a straight person not believing a gay person about what being gay is like, and instead handwringing all over the internet about how this is totally a thing that needs to be looked into, who knows!
I kind of rambled some. I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that a lot of you are making me feel really gross with the awful stuff you’re saying. It would be great if you could try to consider your words knowing that trans people are here, in this conversation and most conversations like it happening across the internet, and that they are real actual people with real valid identities, and they aren’t some mystery population practicing some arcane gender magic waiting for cis people to tell them who they are.
“What true fact would make calling Chelsea by her pronouns factually incorrect or ‘considerably misleading’?”
The fact that Manning is physically a man.
There are two competing values at work here. Objective, factual reality and respect for individual rights and preferences. We need to figure out how to respect both of these and I think we can. Ignoring one completely is clearly not the answer.
None of the biological stereotypes of people with xy chromosomes are inviolate so you are factually wrong. Even if they weren’t, I don’t see how it would matter.
The only time it should matter to a stranger is when that stranger is a doctor in an emergency situation where your chromosomes might have some impact on what course of treatment should be taken. The audience of mainstream media doesn’t fit that category and just a mention that Chelsea is trans* would be enough to clue said doctor in.
Is the truth harmed by showing basic human decency? Certainly not in this case.
I know why I’m adamant about this*. Why are you?
* I’m trans*. This is not an academic discussion for me.
I think we’re conflating normative and positive statements. A common source of disagreement.
I don’t think I’m being adamant. I’m open to being persuaded and am certainly empathetic to the feelings of those who feel trapped in a physical body that does not fit their self-identity.
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