Gender is about your bodies intended ability to produce eggs or sperm, not a state of mind. It’s not an obsessions, it’s simple fact. Live life as you feel comfortable, but that’s not going to change the science behind it all.
Not necessarily better, but truth in advertising is important. If you’re going to hate somebody it should always be for the right reasons, it’s quite unfair otherwise.
Um, no. From the Oxford English Dictionary (emphasis mine):
- the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)
And also:
Although the words gender and sex both have the sense ‘the state of being male or female,’ they are typically used in slightly different ways: sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender refers to cultural or social ones.
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In the case of marriage, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t happen. There are 7 billion humans on this rock. Do you really think that there wouldn’t be someone somewhere in the world so eager (or perhaps even so fearful) for their wedding that they’ll want people to refer to them as their married name? It might be seen as unusual, but that still doesn’t make a friend or acquaintance immune to looking like a complete bell end if they decide not to respect their wishes and call that person whatever the hell they like until that wedding.
I was about to answer this, but Brainspore nailed it while I was grabbing the quote. 
Dang. I went to speak with my wife (who’s currently a medical student) about this immediately after posting, and she brought up the same point, about the difference between “sex” and “gender” and I came right back to correct my post, but responses were already made. 
(Hey, I accept it when I’m wrong!)
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To the second point: I just responded to Brainspore, and yes, I was incorrect for referencing gender, when I was thinking of sex.
To the first point; Yes, somewhere in the world this probably does occur, but we are discussing this from the point of view of the culture in which this is all occurring. As such, yes, it would be the polite thing to refer to him as “Chelsea”. I believe the quotation marks are acceptable as a common identifier of a nickname, rather than the legal name?
Except it’s not a nickname, is it? It hasn’t been given to Manning by another party, she’s taken and assumed it of her own accord.
Also from the Oxford Dictionary (emphasis mine):
noun
a familiar or humorous name given to a person or thing instead of or as well as the real name:
Mallender’s fair complexion gave rise to his nickname ‘Ghost’
Your use of “given” is purely semantics. Is the name given to him by somebody else, or did he give it to himself (vs take it himself)? In the end it’s all the same. If the name, or one of the names, you go by is something different than your legal name, then it’s a nickname, or an alias. So, yes, “Chelsea”, at this stage of things, is simply a nickname.
Also, to continue our use of the Oxford Dictionary:
he
pronoun
[third person singular]
used to refer to a man, boy, or male animal
male
adjective
of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
Sex denotes the adjective which denotes the pronoun. Therefore the correct pronoun(s) for Pvt Manning is still him/he.
It’s quite obviously not that simple, or there wouldn’t be 100+ comments here.
If you decided you wanted to be known as The State Of North Dakota and identify as a large swath of Midwestern land, great, people who knew you would probably abbreviate it somewhat or make up a nickname and know who they’re talking about, but would it be reasonable for newspapers to just start calling you that with no qualifier or explanation?
I’m actually aware of the history and circumstances of Prince’s stage name change. The point still stands, print publications used a special font just for his symbol thing.
What was brilliant about what Prince did is that people had to still call him Prince and records stores still put his album under P with the rest of the Prince albums. When people asked him what they should call him, he’d just say “Prince, that’s my name.” It was a good way for him to change his name without changing it in people’s minds.
A newly married straight women need only say she’s changed her name for people to start addressing her as such. No one asks her to produce the social security card. Just like they won’t ask for the marriage certificate to prove she’s legally married, nor will anyone ask for her birth certificate to prove that she’s female. No, this “papers please” stuff is reserved for certain people that some feel the need to give a hard time for whatever reason.
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Science understands that there are exceptions. Science understands that genetic diversity means sometimes outliers happen. Some people are left handed. Some people have six toes. Some people are attracted to the same sex. And some people identify with a gender that differs from the one that were assigned at birth by a doctor who only observed them from the outside. Some people are born intersexed, having physical sex characteristics of two sexes. Science indicates that we are ALL a unique combination of male and female.
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If the Oxford dictionary can include an up-to-date definition of “gender” but fails to keep their definitions of “he” and “male” in check, that just means Oxford Uni needs to get their act together and update those definitions. Languages change all the time. New definitions arise while old ones fall out of favour and into obscurity.
And truth be told, relegating someone’s gender identity to the status of a “nickname” isn’t correct. Deliberately misgendering someone isn’t correct. It’s actually insulting and hurtful to disregard someone’s wishes and deny them their identity on the basis of, what, less than thirty or forty bytes on a disk somewhere in the arse end of a government file server? Some neatly-arranged blots of ink on a piece of paper? Whatever bibbity-bobs happen to be between their legs?
And news outlets are even more guilty of inflicting that hurt by misgendering Manning and other transgender individuals to the world. The news outlets are not bound by “legal” names, putting aside the fact that there used to be a time when legal documents didn’t set our names and identities in stone. They are addressing Jo Public on a general basis, not a government employee working on a task that would actually require her old name. If they’re so worried about confusing people, it’s not hard to add “(formerly known as *)” in the next few stories or, as The Guardian currently does, change an article category to say the same.
To (poorly) paraphrase Batman, it’s not what we have underneath, it’s what we do that defines us. Chelsea Manning has asked to referred to by the name Chelsea and by the pronouns she and her. She did that, and that has defined her.
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I see. My original statements can be declared wrong by you and Brainspore quoting the Oxford, but when I do it then the Oxford is “out of touch”?
Yeah, sorry, but no. Certainly, language is a somewhat dynamic thing, but you don’t get to change it on the fly just to meet your ends or keep from hurting somebody’s feelings. One problem with language change is that so much of that change is due to sheer ignorance or laziness. How many words have had their meanings change just because some group decides that using the word ironically is cool or funny? As it is, the dictionary officially changes when a significant enough portion of society recognizes a word or a particular usage. For now, the pronouns are still attached to sex, not gender.
News isn’t supposed to be tailored to not hurt people’s feelings, it’s supposed to be pure information. Once you start tainting it with “political correctness” it starts losing value. Yes, it should not be inflammatory, but information on it’s own is not inflammatory in the first place.
I am curious just prior to what point in history did legal documents not contain our names and identities (when pertaining to individuals)? The entire purpose of the creation of surnames was to eliminate confusion and make identifying individuals easier. Even prior to that descriptions on legal documents contained some sort of information identifying individuals. It’s practically a hallmark of civilization.
If Bradley’s friends wish to refer to him by his nickname of choice, that’s perfectly fine. If I ever happen to engage in conversation with him, I’d even do the same. But currently, his given, legal, name is Bradley, and sexually he is male. Until those things change, news services should be reporting the facts.
Over, out, and done.
Nope. You brought attention to an anomaly. “gender” has an up-to-date definition, but it’s not matched by up-to-date definitions of “he”, “male” and likely “she” and “female.” That’s pretty anomalous.
Which is beyond nonsensical. We, as humans, are attaching pronouns to things most of us don’t even see 99.99999999999999999% of the time we’re working or speaking to someone. We’re identifying people on the basis of anatomy that has absolutely zero bearing on an individual’s personality. What lies beneath someone’s underwear is the absolute very last thing I would be thinking about when I meet someone, if at all.
Wikipedia is supposed to be all about pure information, but I don’t see relocation, retitling and mass pronoun replacement across her article, all in light of her announcement to live as a woman, diminishing in value as a result. It still details everything that existed before that announcement with the same level of accuracy and citations, and it will continue to be updated as future events in her life unfold and reach the public eye.
Civilisations have existed just fine without them, albeit civilisations that weren’t as dependent on data and information as we are today, but they were still civilisations.
I’m finding it to be extraordinarily disingenuous that people can’t tell the difference between nouns and pronouns.
What, what? o_O
I have no idea what you’re asking me.
I’m asking who was mixing up their nouns and pronouns, because known my luck I was probably one of them. 
Based on you ‘mixing up’ your interrogatives, I wonder what role luck plays in it. Regardless, nothing to do with you.
Wow- you just put into words a lot of what I go through working in an elementary school. I do believe that we need to make schools into a DMZ for gender and orientation diversity, but oh high hell is it going to be a long hike wadding through eel-infested waters. Welcome to BB comments, ChickieD! I’ll be looking forward to your posts.
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