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Comment by rebeccaskinner | Hacker News Reader

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ensure that she is able to access appropriate treatment while she's in prison.

It seems like it would be very difficult for any civil rights advocacy groups to be able to do much for her though, since she's not a civilian or in a civilian prison.

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> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her'

No, the correct pronoun is 'him.' Chelsea Manning, despite his self-perception and despite his name change, is and always will be a man. Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience.

There are people who believe that they are disfigured even though they are perfectly normal looking; they are not disfigured, even though they believe so. There are people who believe that their limbs are not their own; those limbs are theirs, whatever their perception. There are people who believe that they are the Messiah; they are not.

When talking to someone, it may be therapeutic (or simply kind) to use the words he prefers even if they are incorrect, but when talking about someone, there is no need to humour his error.

wtbob: I vouched for your comment to un-kill it so I can post this response here where it should be rather than in a descendent comment. First and foremost, I vehemently disagree with you. But I think you made your point in a civil manner and supported it with an argument, and for that reason alone you deserve to be heard and responded to with civil arguments rather than by censorship. I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the end of my karma your right to say it, even here, as long as you're civil and advance an actual argument.

So:

> Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience.

You are wrong about this. It is both a biological circumstance (though not nearly as crisp a dichotomy as most people think) and a subjective experience, and some people have a mismatch between their biology and their subjective experience. It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify even if it does not conform to your prejudices about how the world ought to be.

> You are wrong about this. It is both a biological circumstance (though not nearly as crisp a dichotomy as most people think) and a subjective experience, and some people have a mismatch between their biology and their subjective experience. It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify even if it does not conform to your prejudices about how the world ought to be.

You are dogmatic about this. You are stating things without supporting them with proper arguments, and this is what everyone who defends that position does, while claiming that everyone else is wrong. (Or, at least, I have yet to see the opposite.)

Wtbob has not denied that people have subjective experience of their gender, but has instead claimed that this experience does not match biological reality, which is a fact everyone agrees with. Whether it is "simple human decency" to designate someone in a way that does not match reality because of their subjective experience is, I think, very doubtful. This is not prejudices about how the world ought to be, it is facts about how the world is. However, if we were talking about the name change from Bradley to Chelsea, I would agree because name is not tied to a biological fact but is only what is used to refer to someone. As long as everyone can understand who Bradley and Chelsea refers to, there is no problem with using the one preferred by Chelsea.

No, I'm not being dogmatic. Like it or not, subjective experience is part of reality. By dismissing someone's subjective experience as a consideration you are ignoring part of reality for no good reason.

Yes, Chelsea Manning has a Y chromosome. Yes, most (but not all) people with Y chromosomes self-identify as male. So what? Why should the fact that Chelsea has a Y chromosome prevent you from referring to her as "her" if that's how she self-identifies?

That subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness".

> It is simple human decency to defer to how someone chooses to self-identify

If I decide to wear a fancy hat and call myself King of the World, should I expect everyone to call me that? No, because I'm not the King of the World.

It turns out people can be wrong about themselves, and we shouldn't pretend they are not. The idea that subjective experience is somehow sacred and immune from criticism is absurd and harmful.

> The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness".

No, it runs much deeper than that. Gender roles are cross-cultural, and fundamentally rooted in the fact that females can get pregnant and males can't. That's why the stereotypes exist, because they are rooted in biological facts. But those facts aren't absolute. Most people who have male genitalia also have certain behavioral predispositions which we associate with "being a man." But not all people with male genitalia have those behavioral predispositions, and for those who don't there is no reason not to treat them according to how they feel rather than what happens to be between their legs. (For starters, if you want to cast your lot with "biological facts" and treat people according to what happens to be between their legs, then you have to deal with the fact that there are natural hermaphrodites.)

> If I decide to wear a fancy hat and call myself King of the World, should I expect everyone to call me that?

Sure, why not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton

> people can be wrong about themselves

They can't be wrong about their own subjective experiences. An individual is the ultimate authority on that by definition.

People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists. It's also why we have the concept of mental health.

When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem.

I understand the desire to not hurt people feelings, but we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception.

> When people say they have spoken to god, reasonable people think they might be deluded or have some sort of mental health problem.

Self righteous people who think they know it all might assume that. Reasonable people will think "that person experienced something I don't understand".

> we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception

We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than they know about themselves.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If such evidence cannot be provided, I see no reason to just accept someone's claim at face-value.

I don't claim or believe I know it all, but I try to support any claims of knowledge with evidence.

> We do people a disservice by assuming we know more about them than they know about themselves.

Someone who knows more about human biology or human psychology than me may, in fact, know something more about myself than I do.

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If such evidence cannot be provided, I see no reason to just accept someone's claim at face-value.

I didn't say you should accept their claim at face value. I said you should not assume that the cause the the experience is mental illness, but rather accept that they had an experience that you don't understand. Was it god? Was it some sort of neuralogical event? Was it the onset of paranoid delusions? You don't know and assuming you do is arrogant.

> Someone who knows more about human biology or human psychology than me may, in fact, know something more about myself than I do.

Just because someone is an expert, or has more knowledge, doesn't mean they can't be wrong. When you dismiss someone's subjective experience because you think you know better (rather than just taking it with a grain of salt) you do them and yourself a disservice.

> People absolutely can be wrong about their own subjective experiences: that's a big component to why religion exists.

No, they can be wrong in their explanations of the cause of their subjective experiences, but they cannot be wrong about the experience. People who feel the presence of the Holy Spirit really do feel something. It's just that what they feel is most likely not caused by the Holy Spirit.

> we do people a disservice by agreeing with their self-deception.

And we do ourselves a disservice by dismissing spiritual experiences as mere delusion. See:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/n9y/is_spirituality_irrational/

particularly the resulting discussion.

>The subjective experience is merely an identity based on cultural stereotypes of "man-ness" and "woman-ness".

Why do you assume this to be the case? Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender? It would be really surprising if this didn't happen given what we know about genetics and how sex is determined.

Subjective != not real:

Pain is a subjective experience, does this mean that anesthetic should not be given during surgery. What if only some percentage of the population could experience pain? Would that make their suffering less real?

> Why would you conclude that it is impossibility that someone's biological sex may not be the same as biological gender?

Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate from biological sex. No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

So a non-insignificant number of people claiming it to be the case isn't a good enough reason to believe that it's a possibility? What is the threshold for you to consider this possibility? Do you not believe anything subjective then, because by definition "no one can point to it nor create a test for it"?

edit: It seems to me that it costs a person almost nothing to believe somebody about their subjective belief of their gender, yet it seems that a lot of people resist so strongly. Why is this?

I believe subjectivity exists, but not in its supremacy over objectivity.

My objections on the topic are fairly simple:

* We shouldn't create laws around activities or identities that cannot be objectively measured.

* Peoples personally held identities shouldn't be foisted up such that everyone must accept them unquestionably.

People should be free to love, fuck, marry whomever they want and express themselves in whatever degree of masculinity or femininity they are comfortable with. If we had widely known gender-neutral pronouns, I would use them.

Ah. Well it seems we agree almost entirely, to be clear, before I was not really talking within the context of forming laws, but more on individual interaction. I generally agree on the foisting of beliefs onto people, but have found that it is typically not much trouble (word choice mostly) to accommodate the beliefs that we were arguing over. I think your last sentence is very enlightening to your point of view and probably wouldn't have tried to pick an argument if I had interpreted that belief sooner.

> I think your last sentence is very enlightening to your point of view and probably wouldn't have tried to pick an argument if I had interpreted that belief sooner.

This is a big problem with the growing predominance of "virtue signaling" in such discussions. Few people actually want to read/listen and understand someone's point of view before jumping on them for having the "wrong opinion."

But don't we have to create those laws, sometimes? I'm thinking about the difference between homicide degrees, which include a subjective perspective: the intent of the accused.

We do develop standards for manslaughter versus murder 1, but my understanding is that the accused killer's mindset (their "intent") is an important distinction.

>Because I have no reason to believe biological gender exists separate for biological sex.

Most traits associated with sex are not universally determined by sex. One example in humans is males that have XX chromosomes[0]. For another example see AIS[1].

We observe more than two genders expressed in non-human animals:

>Side-blotched lizards are notable for having the highest number of distinct male and female morphs or "genders" within a species: three male and two female. [2]

It is extremely unlikely that given the diversity of phenotype expression we see in life there would be no cases in which sex does not match gender. A claim that sex and gender match perfectly in all cases requires enormous evidentary support as it contradicts much of current science and biology.

>No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

You can ask someone, that is generally how we determine how much pain someone is in.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrom...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-blotched_lizard#Genders

I don't think you've demonstrated the existence of biological gender as much as the well-known category of biological intersexuality.

I have no objection to the degree that someone wants to express themselves with stereotypical masculine or feminine traits. Elevating cultural stereotypes to the level of phenotype is not supported by anything you've linked to, though.

>> No one can point to it nor create a test for it.

> You can ask someone, that is generally how we determine how much pain someone is in.

This is true, but we don't create laws around someone's reported degree of pain. Doctors are also given then discretion to deny someone pain medication if they believe the patient is lying in order to get high (though I disagree with this on grounds of drug decriminalization).

I understand what you are saying--your comment will be out of sight soon, by the way--but, does it hurts to "humour" someone? What do you lose or win? Why not just be nice to others?

I'm putting this here because wtbob's original comment was flagged to death and can no longer be replied to directly. Although I vehemently disagree with wtbob's comment, I think it was a mistake to flag it. It was a cogent and even a defensible claim. It was simply wrong, and flagging comments to death simply for being wrong is very, very dangerous. For one thing, it deprives people of the opportunity to explain to someone why they are wrong, instead saying, in effect, "You are so wrong that you are not even entitled to an explanation of what you are wrong about." That is not constructive. It instills a sense of martyrdom that causes these wrong views to fester and thrive, the exact opposite of what we should be striving for here.

So, for the record, wtbob:

> Gender is an objective, physical, biological fact, not a subjective experience.

> Although I vehemently disagree with wtbob's comment, I think it was a mistake to flag it.

For what it's worth: I didn't see the comment in question, but based on context, I assume that reading it would have made me want to cry.

Maybe that's an unpopular emotion to express on HN, but that's what happens when a place you think of as a home suddenly makes you feel unwelcome and conditionally accepted.

So thank you, community, for saying that if someone wants to make any more "cogent claims" about the validity of my existence, they're welcome to do so, elsewhere.

You can see the original comment by going to your settings page (click on your user name in the upper right hand corner of the screen) and set "Showdead" to "Yes". You really ought to read it. If you're going to support the suppression of a point of view you really should know what it is you are trying to suppress. Supporting censorship of things you haven't read based on "context" generally does not lead to good outcomes in the long run. Widespread frustration with that sort of attitude is one of the reasons that Donald Trump is getting so much mileage out of criticizing rampant political correctness.

You're being very dramatic. As you point out, the comment hasn't even been deleted. I simply choose not to read it, and the community nicely made that choice very easy for me.

Perhaps you believe I shouldn't have that choice, or it should come at a higher price. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. Just realize that what seems to you like a novel and reasoned argument could be, to someone closer, just one more voice in a screaming mob of rejection. And remember that when you shout back at a mob, you join it.

So I'm not going to tell you you have to be on my side here. But you could at least believe what I've already told you about my experience: it may be useful for you to read more about folks' opinions on my life, but not for me. Communities that respect that are going to see more of my participation, and those that don't will wonder why they have such a diversity problem.

> You're being very dramatic

Sorry about that. I'm trying very hard to be sober about this.

> the comment hasn't even been deleted

It was. I undeleted it.

> Perhaps you believe I shouldn't have that choice

Of course you should have that choice. But you wrote:

"So thank you, community, for saying that if someone wants to make any more "cogent claims" about the validity of my existence, they're welcome to do so, elsewhere."

That sounded to me like an oblique endorsement of censorship, and that's what I was objecting to.

> So I'm not going to tell you you have to be on my side here

Not knowing anything about you besides what you've written in this thread it's hard for me to know what your side actually is. (One of the things I've learned after years on the Internet is to never try to extrapolate someone's beliefs beyond what they actually say.) But I'm pretty sure I'm more on your side than you think. Please note that the reason I undeleted wtbob's comment was so that I could rebut it. I'm sorry if that caused you personal pain. But I really believe that the best way to fight bad ideas is to expose them to the light of reason.

> It was. I undeleted it.

Flagged is not deleted, as you have demonstrated. I didn't realize it's been vouched. In any case I still haven't read it, and still have no interest to, so don't worry about it.

> Please note that the reason I undeleted wtbob's comment was so that I could rebut it.

In the nicest possible way: I don't care. I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful, truly. But I think I've been clear on my perspective, and I hope you'll continue to think about it.

To play Devil's advocate, how about because "humoring" is usually a way to hold off extreme self-righteousness, shaming, and so on from the humor'd party.

Moral discussions like these are not like most discussions on HN. People's opinions and comments come loaded with assertions of moral absolutism, and as above, are usually an attempt to shame the parent commenter.

If Chelsea Manning prefers to be called "her," that's fine with me. But I appreciate being brow-beaten by people who have placed themselves on a morally superior plane as much as I like being told I'm going to hell by any number of religious leaders who also like to place themselves on high, asserting that their beliefs make them inherently better than others.

I'm of the belief that what people do in a consenting, non-harmful fashion with, to, and about themselves and willing participants is not only fine, but none of my business. But the squeaky wheels are always those who believe that they have somehow been harmed by your discord with their moral self-righteousness - no matter which side of a position they find themselves.

Devil's advocate, though.

There's always a balance to strive for, but we live in such an imbalanced culture (homogeneous, unrepresentative).. sometimes we don't realize some issues until we have kids and see what they go through [1]. It's easy to dismiss people as cry-babies, and there are always crazy exceptions, but if people say they are harmed, it doesn't hurt to listen and find out why :)

[1] like those republican politicians who are suddenly OK with homosexuality because they find out that one of their kids is homosexual, or many friends who are suddenly the biggest feminists on the Internet because they have daughters. I don't mind, but I do wish they had not been such dicks before having their epiphany.

Specifically about that type of person you mentioned that is against something vehemently until they are personally related to the side of the issue they opposed, I can't help myself but feel more disdain for these individuals than if they had continued holding their prejudiced/bigoted views because their transformation seems incredibly intellectually dishonest. I liken it to the type of person that apologizes profusely after they have been caught red-handed with some wrongdoing, but they never once apologized or confessed during the time they were doing it. In other words, they aren't sorry they did it, they're sorry they got caught doing it.

Maybe my views on the issue are too harsh, but those are my own prejudices. I do think that people can have genuine transformations of views, but it doesn't sit well with me when it only came about because they were cornered into it.

I think asking someone to refrain from speaking (what they believe to be) the truth is one thing, especially if they are doing it simply to cause controversy, draw attention to themselves, or signal some sort of tribal loyalty. If that is what the flagged comment was doing, then perhaps flagging them was the appropriate response.

However, asking someone to actively say something (that they believe to be) false is not within the scope of what I would call "politeness".

For instance, I have friends and acquaintances who have religious beliefs that I do not, and those religious beliefs are essential to their identity. I don't constantly tell them that they are deluded idol worshipers (that's rude). However, I don't participate in their observances and I don't hide my disagreement when the subject comes up.

Agreed. The world is not this black and white place we might sometimes try to make it. Rather than writing diatribes about how people are "objectively" wrong about matters of no consequence, why not save the effort and call people what they want to be called?

What's the point of titles, adjectives, pronouns if they can be manipulated by the subject?

Statement:

"Dr. Smith ran across the street. She was terrified of what would happen next"

What actually happened:

"A burly transgender man who believes he is a doctor ran across the street."

This isn't a police report. In matters of consequence, I'd expect you would call things by whatever is most conducive to the target audience understanding what you're talking about.

Because it supports the delusion they have put themselves into.

What is a delusion in this context? Is being gay a delusion because penises are meant to go in vaginas and people putting them in anuses are delusional and just need to wake up?

It seems the point they are trying to make is that for (wrong, according to them) reasons, a person's internal gender perception is privileged over other types of internal identity, such as the false belief that one is the messiah or Napoleon, or one has missing limbs. It's an interesting enough point, which deserves careful thought, although perhaps this is not exactly the right forum for it.

Also, note that they did say in their comment that the correct pronoun to use when talking to Manning was 'her', which seems like being nice to others, and respecting their choices. I'm guessing it's probably considered unhelpful to reinforce delusions such as believing oneself to be Jesus, but would be interested to know where psychiatrists draw the line in such things.

Thank goodness you're here to police other people's identities.

> The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her'

The correct pronoun is whatever people deem the correct pronoun is. Personally, I don't see a lot of value in referring to people as their preferred gender. I see more value in referring to them based on their biological sex.

Biological sex isn't binary, even if socially ascribed gender is, and is often based on one aspect of biological sex (external genitalia.) If you think what's between someone's legs is more important than the person themself, that's your preference, but don't be surprised if outwardly subjecting people to that kind of objectification produces negative responses.

> Biological sex isn't binary

For the vast, vast majority of people, it is. Which is what makes it a useful metric.

Most people may seem to fall tolerably close to one of two stereotypes, but that doesn't make biological sex binary, not does it make it sensible to ignore the fact that it is not in the case of those people who do not, and, surreptitiously enough, there's a significant overlay between people whose experienced gender doesn't match their socially ascribed gender and people whose biological sex-related traits other than external genitalia don't line up with external genitalia in the most common way.

Male and female are not "stereotypes". Biological sex is the most binary thing since zero and one.

> Biological sex is the most binary thing since zero and one.

It is really not, though for most of human history a reasonably informed person could justifiably believe that; but even that hasn't been true for decades, at least.

At that point the female/male distinction loses its meaning altogether. If anyone can pick their gender, what makes someone masculine and what feminine? Nothing. There's no difference between genders, so lose gender-specific words.

I'm not against transgender, I'm just arguing on technical grounds. I don't see value in using gender-specific words if people can pick their gender, but I do see value in using them purely to distinguish between people by what is between their legs.

> If anyone can pick their gender, what makes someone masculine and what feminine?

I don't think this really follows. There are still traditionally masculine and feminine traits, this is unchanged by people self-identifying as a gender other than the one they were born with.

Species isn't a fixed concept. If you think what's expressed as someone's phenotype is more important that the person themselves, don't be surprised if refusing to refer to someone as a dragon, and subjecting them to objectification as a human being, produces negative responses.

What's between our legs matters most.

If I am biologically male but identify as female, then guess what? I'm never going to become pregnant and give birth, no matter what mutilation of the English language I use to refer to myself.

Wait, are you arguing external genitalia matter most, or are arguing that having (or not having) fully functional female internal reproductive organs matters most? Because you first sentence seems to say the former and your other paragraph the latter. While there is obviously a correlation between those things, it's not an absolute one.

>Biological sex isn't binary

It most certainly is. XY and XX are two things, therefore binary. Anything else is a defect in the individual's chromosomes.

XX and XY have a strong correlation with sex traits, but not a 1:1 correspondence. (And neither those chromosome configurations nor other biological sex traits map 1:1 to external genitalia, which is Italy the basis of socially ascribed gender.)

So the fact that XX and XY configurations exist and other configurations are considered "defects" doesn't make biological sex a binary trait that correspondence to the manner in which gender is usually digitally ascribed and for which people are labeled "transgender" when their gender identity differs from that social judgement.

"civil rights" are, despite the common etymology, not "civilian rights".

"Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic.

What you're saying is people's genders are now up for debate but the pronouns are not?

Completely illogical.

And somehow people still believe the "slippery slope" is a fallacy.

> "Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic.

How about "polite"?

It's exactly as rude to use the wrong pronoun about a person, as it is to use the wrong name. It's common decency to call people what they want to be called, and it's not exactly hard to do either.

Politeness is culturally contingent. For example, I have lived in places where making a special effort to hold open doors for women is a social obligation, as well as places where it is deeply offensive.

Is it appropriate sometimes to violate those norms? Certainly, when those norms involve a violation of higher moral principles. Principles such as not saying things you believe to be false.

> How about "polite"?

So, you're saying that people should not openly disagree merely because it is impolite?

- Hello, my name is Henrik.

- I disagree, I'm going to call you Steve.

- ???

I agree that your interlocutor is being ridiculous.

But the analogy doesn't hold because your interlocutor doesn't have any reason to disagree with your statement; they're just being a troll.

In any case, someone might rationally object to any such analogies because they disagree that there is an equivalence between names and pronouns.

Ok, that makes sense.

However, hypothetically speaking if someone wanted to be called a name that I considered to be vulgar or offensive, I would not call them that.

Yes, but we're not talking about a vulgar name, we're talking about a person that presents as female, has a female name, looks female, but was born a male, who simply wishes people would adress her as a "she".

This is not burdensome. This is not onerous. This does no harm. Just honour her wish. Why wouldn't you?

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