Gender != your chromosomes and gender != your "hardware" or any other body part for that matter. Gender is about social identity and structure.
> There's something to be said for respecting the wishes of the individual in how they'd like to be addressed. But there's definitely a point at which that drifts off into absurdity. Just because I can claim descent from Henry VIII doesn't mean that I can reasonably expect people to address me as "lord".
Laying claim to a royal lineage is not the same as having a gender. Also, lord is a title and we are talking about pronouns, things used when talking about anyone.
> So I'm interested in respecting people, but think we need to let this percolate through society first, and determine where to draw reasonable lines, before you accuse someone of disrespect for failing to honor someone's alternate world view.
We already know where to draw reasonable lines: Manning has already publicly stated her gender. You have disrespected this person by misgendering them. Manning's world view is not an "alternate" world view and you are being incredibly transphobic.
First, we're only talking about language. We get those gendered pronouns not because of a need to distinguish between how a person views his gender (or how the world views it), but because of stupid linguistic convention going back to English's Indo-European roots. You'll see that in many languages in the same family, nouns all have gender, even absurd ones like "airplane" or "shoe". These genders have absolutely nothing to do with sexual identity, they're essentially randomly assigned, conferring no additional meaning (but providing a parity check in communication, helping ensure clear transmission). Coming from this history, we shouldn't be too concerned with the way pronouns correspond to individual humans.
Second, I don't think it's hard to imagine socially-undesirable consequences of honoring anyone's own claimed gender. I'm thinking of a biological-male claiming to self-identify as female, so that he can use the women's locker room at the gym. So under what circumstances do we want to honor their self-image (or, for that matter, to believe their claimed self-image)?
Third, with identity politics still having legal bearing in our system, it seems that self-identification of gender may derail efforts to ensure gender equality. Given that there are legal structures in place to protect females, may I (as a biological male) claim to self-identify as female, and achieve those same protections? May I at least self-identify on official forms (thereby making enforcement of workplace protections unenforceable)?
Not that these things are insoluble, but I think that we need to give thought to the repercussions should we choose to take any person's claims of gender at face value.
Still, calling somebody by their preferred name and pronouns does not grant them admission to the women's locker room, or anything else like that. It is a matter of courtesy.
The other thing is that often, in order to have a gender change legally recognized, or to access surgery and so on, one has to prove that one has already been living as a member of the appropriate gender. What this means is highly contested, but stuff like "people know me as Alice, not Bob" is part of it. It's difficult enough without people setting themselves up as linguistic gatekeepers, and deciding that they know better than Alice.
Sexual identity != gender identity. Gendered pronouns do have a long and interesting history in languages that have them, but that is besides the point. We are talking about an individual who has clearly expressed their gender in a public and visible way, to disregard that to use other pronouns is disrespectful.
> Coming from this history, we shouldn't be too concerned with the way pronouns correspond to individual humans.
Actually we very well should be concerned with pronouns and gender. Individual people have their to define their own identity, including their gender, and to be referred to with the pronouns they identify with. That gendered pronouns have their own history is besides the point, that history is not immutable nor is it the same for different languages and cultures. Indeed, there have been cultures and languages with built in support for many different kinds of gender and gender expression throughout history.
> Second, I don't think it's hard to imagine socially-undesirable consequences of honoring anyone's own claimed gender. I'm thinking of a biological-male claiming to self-identify as female, so that he can use the women's locker room at the gym.
This is a tired argument. Gender identity is a big deal for trans* people, it isn't something that someone just up and decides to do so they can perv out in a locker room.
> So under what circumstances do we want to honor their self-image (or, for that matter, to believe their claimed self-image)?
As a society we generally honor people's personal decisions about their identity. We do so for religious change, name change, adoption, interracial marriage and dating, and so on. Gender is no different, people should be free to express their gender as they see fit.
> Third, with identity politics still having legal bearing in our system, it seems that self-identification of gender may derail efforts to ensure gender equality. Given that there are legal structures in place to protect females, may I (as a biological male) claim to self-identify as female, and achieve those same protections? May I at least self-identify on official forms (thereby making enforcement of workplace protections unenforceable)?
It is really clear you have no background knowledge on the kinds of difficulties trans* people face. Trans* people face discrimination, violence, and employment difficult at high rates. You are trying to make it sound like trans* women aren't women, when they in fact are. Official gender identity on forms is a long standing problem for the trans* community at large. There are many places where you cannot change your officially recognized gender at an institution without jumping through a variety of hoops. There are many places where even attempting to do so will get you verbally abused by a clerk. In many places even existing as visibly trans* invites violence.
> Not that these things are insoluble, but I think that we need to give thought to the repercussions should we choose to take any person's claims of gender at face value.
Gender identity has been written about for decades and there is a huge amount written on the social and legal structure of our society as it relates to gender and gender expression. That you aren't familiar with it is not an excuse to make a bunch off the cuff remarks that, whether you realize it or not, are transphobic. So please, don't try to justify your disrespect of someone who clearly identifies as a woman as Manning does.
Now wait just a moment. Surely if Manning's own identity can only be understood from his/her own perspective, then my own meaning -- whether I am being disrespectful -- can only be seen from my perspective. How dare you project disrespect into what I am communicating.
You are trying to make it sound like trans women aren't women, when they in fact are.*
I never said anything of the kind. What I said was that someone who is not transgendered might claim that they are in order to get some sexual kicks, or to subvert legal protections afforded to women. I'm not trying to take away from the genuinely transgendered, I'm saying that the claim of being transgendered can be misused.
That you aren't familiar with it is not an excuse to make a bunch off the cuff remarks that, whether you realize it or not, are transphobic.
I believe that I made clear in my post that I was largely in agreement, but was playing devil's advocate in order to draw out some deeper understanding -- just vanilla Socratic method stuff. Your reply seems to indicate that someone who is not fully up to speed ought to just shut up, and accept what his betters are telling him.
that history is not immutable
Ummm. How is history mutable?
As a society we generally honor people's personal decisions about their identity. We do so for religious change, name change, adoption, interracial marriage and dating, and so on.
Something I don't get here. I'm married to someone of a different race. I don't see what that has to do with my identity. The fact that my wife and I are married and of differing races, has nothing to do with who I am or who I expect people to see me as. She's my wife, I'm her husband, and that's all there is to it. I fail to see how this is expecting someone to change, or even have, any view of my personal identity.
If this had been known before the news story, no problem at all. It's just hard to use "Chelsea Manning" or even "Private Manning" to refer to actions undertaken far prior to this.
Ironically I think this was one of the things bradass87 brought up in chats with Adrian.
PFC vs. Private is just as complex. I think there's a military way to deal with that (because ranks usually do increase); e.g. in some contexts is it "Captain (now Major) Snuffy..."
