This needs to get way more exposure, because: exactly.
Also: http://terminallysnarky.com/2013/08/22/guest-post-omg-my-friend-is-trans-what-do-i-do/
1 Like
If you are that stressed out that your language usage exactly conform to someoneâs physical (genital and chromosomal) sex, I hope you are prepared to ask for a panty check and chromosome smear from everyone you ever interact with, because seriously: you have NO IDEA who in your life might be stealth trans, intersex, or ambiguously gendered. Have a go at âSexing the Bodyâ by Anne Fausto-Sterling if you want your mind blown.
What the hell is your fetish for gender-policing other people? Itâs⌠weird and creepy, to be honest.
3 Likes
Yes, itâs almost always the work of a writer who doesnât give a crap - and like every other form of prejudice, thatâs how all the needless damage to human lives is done. You damn well should give a crap about this one.
But then, youâre not trans, so you share with me the wonderful option of ignoring prejudice against trans people. Iâm guessing you also donât have to deal with prejudice against women, or gay people, or similar⌠or youâd understand that itâs the insults which arenât intentional which do all the real damage. Having it taken for granted that you should be insulted as background noise is way more damaging than having one asshole out to do it on purpose.
4 Likes
Well, yes, but Ms Manning has hardly been in a position to change her name legally, being a little busy fighting for daily survival instead. That bears a little extra consideration and common sense.
1 Like
So very late to the party . . . and not responding to any of the ongoing conversations. But I am very glad that NPR rethought their stance so quickly. I was listening to the radio at work today, and was annoyed that two of the three commenters on this topic persisted in saying âBradleyâ and âhe,â and then went beyond annoyed when the moderator broke in to specify that this would also be NPRâs policy. They were so going to get a letter from me. I expected better from them in the first place, but Iâm pleased that they were quick to adapt. I think how the media handles these issues is really important, as a lot of people will take their cues from that.
2 Likes
I was replying to a suspicion that Manning was being persecuted more heavily by the courts because he was trans. Considering that anyone who regularly dwells in reality would inform the author that Manning was clearly persecuted for political reasons revolving around him haphazardly deciding to dump gigabytes of classified information onto the internet, I think any assumption/suspicion that his sentencing is a secret trans witch hunt is laughable. His treatment by the judicial system was almost entirely dependent on the nature of his actions, and had zero to do with his personal life. He may have been treated harshly and cruelly, but any malice was due to spite because of his ACTIONS. It wasnât particularly motivated by his trans nature.
I donât know if the slope is that slippery. Do you not think it would be a good idea to have people seeking elective cosmetic surgery to seek psychological counseling or at least require they have a discussion with a mental expert to assess their mental health state before they have any surgery?
As far as BIID, I think it is an apt analog to the trans issue. BIID is a condition where people believe that their body is incorrect. They feel as if they have an excess limb or appendage. They have a crisis, because despite society telling them that their body is perfectly healthy, they feel a desire to be something different. In both GID(gender identity disorder) and BIID(Body Integrity Identity Disorder), the most effective treatment for the disorder has been found to simply allow the person to reassign. In the case of GID this takes the form of reassigning to a different gender. In the case of BIID it takes the form of amputation. If this is not done, people with both disorders can become severely depressed and have a high rate of becoming suicidal. So, how is it apples to oranges? BIID and GID seem very similar.
As far as the fact that most trans people âknow what is up when they are kidsâ, this also is strikingly similar to BIID. Most people with BIID start to at least be familiar with their desire for realignment of their form at a young age.
It is a medical issue, though. At least if you are taking pills, getting surgery, or doing anything of that nature.
As far as the first name, I understand why you might be upset, but this is just normal treatment of a prisoner by the press. Criminals are always referenced by their legal name, not their preferred nickname. If Manning wants to go by âChelseaâ and has not legally changed the name then it is a ânicknameâ.
Manning is a criminal. Therefore the press is going to treat Manning just like any other criminal. It doesnât matter that everyone on BoingBoing thinks that Manning is some kind of wikileaks-trans-Jesus. Manning is technically guilty of a crime and was convicted of that crime. The âmainstream mediaâ is not going to go out of their way to be kind to Manning. If they did, they could be accused of bias. In journalism schools âbiasâ is still a 4-letter word. Many of these media outlets are also concerned that the decision to live as âChelseaâ came amazingly close on the heels of the conviction, and therefore might be part of manipulation. They probably donât want to be party to the manipulation(once again-bias). So none of this is a real issue.
Itâs not like the mainstream media goes out of their way to avoid bias in the first place. Theyâre all guilty of it, and most of the time, they donât really give a damn. Not Fox News, not NBC, nobody. They all have as many opinions as they have anuses.
Secondly, Manningâs gender identity struggles were revealed long before they were even included in her defence. This isnât some ploy to get an easy ride in prison, as some, both here and on Facebook and Twitter, have suggested. Itâs Chelsea Manning taking that one opportunity sheâs had in a long time to open up to the world.
4 Likes
Oh, please. Apathy is simply apathy. âIf youâre not with us, youâre against usâ has always been a bullshit statement. People are allowed to simply not care, regardless how other people perceive the importance of a situation. In the previous posts example/statement of âItâs none of my business that a black man got lynchedâ itâs only bigotry if the poster would suddenly care if the lynched man was any specific race but not others.
1 Like
I noticed that as well, but I would have written it the same way. I view one purpose of the BB article as convincing the news agencies to use the correct pronouns. When youâre trying to educate someone who isnât familiar with transgender persons, or might even be transphobic, I think you need to gently ease them in to the correct pronoun usage. Perhaps this why they are using terms like âPrivate Manningâ initially, to avoid confusing or alienating less enlightened readers?
I donât think itâs only about alienating the bigots. Itâs a jarring transition for a major news outlet like the NYTimes or CNN to make all at once, for any reader/viewer. The gender transition itself is gradual, so why shouldnât the pronoun adoption be?
Well, being trans, Iâve had people get it positively wrong before, but Iâve never had anyone argue that wanting reconstruction surgery is the same as wanting to remove a hand, leg, finger, etc. Thatâs a first. I could pull up studies, links, and facts until I was blue in the face. However, thatâs not really a good use of my time here since you seem think you to already have a deep understanding of both the transgender experience, and one of those suffering from something like BIID. If you were interested in that, the internet is a great resource for transgender 101.
Let me cut to the chase, and just say, nope. What you got there is not it.
My gender identity is NOT a psychological illness.
5 Likes
I feel like part of the issue here is an attempt to avoid confusing readers. Up until about a week ago, the person on trial for being a whistleblower was âBradley Manningâ, and was referred to by male pronouns. The first time I read an article talking about âChelsea Manningâ being involved in the trial I was incredibly confused, since it didnât include any sort of transitional language to explain what had happened.
I was thinking âWho is this Chelsea person? Why is she involved in the Bradley Manning trial? Is she like his sister or his wife or somethign? Probably not wife since I know heâs been talking about identifying as female, and I feel like his wife would have been mentioned in the articles discussing thatâŚâ
I ended up having to re-read the article two or three times before I realized that âChelsea Manningâ was actually the same person as âBradley Manningâ, and was left wondering why they couldnât be bothered to include a âChelsea âBradleyâ Manningâ or âBradley âChelseaâ Manningâ somewhere in the article to clear things up.
I get that being respectful of a personâs gender identity is important, but the job of a newspaper is also to be informative and report facts, even if the person being reported about doesnât like the way they do it. From a factual perspective, Bradley Manning is the legal and historical name of the person who is on trial, but that person prefers to be called Chelsea Manning as of last week. This person is biologically male, but identifies as female.
From a purely professional perspective, they should probably be referring to âBradley âChelseaâ Manningâ, since Chelsea is an assumed non-legal name that is not in common usage yet. Just using âChelseaâ would imply that it was a legal name or that it was an assumed name that was the primary historical way of referring to the person, which it isnât.
Which pronoun to use in this case really comes down to what âhe/sheâ refers to, i.e. whether it is an indicator of gender or sex or some weighted average of the two (since neither is really as binary as we like to pretend). Our culture as a whole has not found a definitive answer to this question, so any choice made is going to be âwrongâ to some large segment of society. I suspect that if our language had a convenient gender-word and pronoun to accommodate a male person who identifies as female, every news source would be using it to avoid making a choice where they canât possibly win.
Being transgender is a medically and psychologically recognized phenomenon that can and often does lead to a multitude of secondary mental health issues, with the only proven âcureâ being allowing the person to live as their chosen gender. Gender dysphoria can lead to anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts- but the fixes for these issues are not the usual remedies for anxiety, depression, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts- itâs allowing someone to live as their chosen gender. I work with transgender teens and itâs amazing how all these lifelong problems just melt away as soon as theyâre given the freedom to start transitioning.
This is different from, say, someone who feels like they need cosmetic surgery, because cosmetic surgery addresses a feature, not an identity. People donât say âI feel like inside me is someone with a smaller noseâ, they say, âI wish my nose was smaller.â Transgender people are dealing with a very basic concept of identity. (There are people who get ridiculous and/ or repeated cosmetic surgery, but this is not analogous because the surgery in most cases only leads to more surgery, more anxiety, etc.)
Another difference is that being transgender is a pattern that has existed historically for pretty much as far back as history goes. Additionally, while we donât know the one cause (and there may not be one cause), there are some very interesting neurological studies pointing to chemical and structural differences in transgender people. There is not the same type of pattern with someone feeling âtransraceâ or âtransnameâ or anything else youâve mentioned.
Youâre also looking at transgender people as being binary- either a man who wants to be a woman and gets hormonal and genital surgery to do so, or vice versa. Gender isnât binary- like sexuality, itâs a spectrum, and some trans people feel perfect in conditions where they havenât been surgically altered, or only partially, or what have you.
In the past, being gay was thought of as âa cross to bearâ (and still is in some religious communities), but you man (or woman) up and get married and have kids and donât have same-sex relationships. Iâm hoping being trans becomes as accepted as being gay is now (and more so, since there are plenty of homophobes out there.)
3 Likes
How is someone with BIID not getting âreconstructive surgeryâ but you are getting reconstructive surgery? Because you want your surgery more? Because you think your gender dysphoria is a more legitimate mental state? That is just being assholish to people with BIID.
You both perceive yourselves differently than the world perceives you. Any action taken to adjust your appearance to match your own internal perception could be labeled reconstructive or destructive depending on perspective. Getting on a high horse and labeling your GID as ânot an illnessâ and BIID as an illness is the the pot calling the kettle black.
So, you donât think even Fox News(the news department, not Bill OâReilley) go out of their way to avoid openly demonstrate bias? I am not saying that they donât have a bias, I am saying that they attempt to avoid displaying it.
Changing the name and gender pronouns of Manning is simply respectful towards Manning. I imagine you could turn it into a larger issue, but I think the subject has to enter into a little bit.
Let me put it this way. If Jay-Z drops a new album you will hear: âJay-Z has a new albumâ. If Jay-Z murders his wife and child, you will hear: âShawn Corey Carter, better known as rapper Jay-Z, is being charged with the murder or his wife and childâ. If you think I am lying, google an example of any rapper or other media star who committed a serious crime. They will immediately start talking about his real name. Why? Using anything besides the legal name is considered a polite courtesy, and no one wants to be seen as extending a polite courtesy to Manning. Except for everyone on this website, because apparently he is the second coming of Christ.
Whitey Bulger
OJ Simpson
Lil Wayne
blah blah blah HTH
6 Likes
Fox News has shown a tendency to spout some utter crap about minorities and other groups, if not from its own newscasters, then from the guests they invite, and they have a nasty habit of showing data in some of the dodgiest formats possible, for example, charts that, while correctly sourced donât even start from zero, or consist of data picked out at random from those sources, in both cases exaggerating trends in their favour. I think itâs safe to say they have a serious addiction to bias. Fair and balanced, they are not.
Manningâs status as a hero or villain is irrelevant right now. This is about the few basic rights she has left for the duration of her sentence.
Youâve hit the nail so hard on the head itâs now suffering a debilitating migraine. 
2 Likes
This is just so right on and straight forward. Bravo and thanks for posting it.
The thing is, that one does not always have to experience something to empathize and understand⌠sometimes all it takes is sitting down and listening to others who have different experiences. I think often our problem people have with others with differences (whether they be differences based on orientation, trans, gender, race, religion, etc and so on - obviously a non-exhaustive list of possible differences and variability in human life) is that we arenât willing or able to just LISTEN to people and their views and realities. Our culture is heavily invested in us not listening to each other and the cacophony we live in only exacerbates that problem. We are encouraged to shout louder our own views and to shout down those who disagree. Itâs such a shame that we canât even be bothered to listen to each other.
1 Like
