Bradley manning is a woman!

[Eskimo]

Bullshit. He's obviously been feeling this way for quite a while, the news reports have been all over this for a long time now, but the paying for hormones stuff? That's pure "I know I have zero chance of being acquitted, might as well stir up a shitstorm of controversy as they're putting me away".

[XYlophonetreeZ]

I agree that it's not ideal, and hopefully someday it will be different. But it isn't now.

With the recent progress being made among the gay and lesbian community, it seemed we were closer to accepting that men may want to act "effeminately" (this word always sounds like a pejorative to me, but I'm not sure how else to say it) and vice versa. I think there's now a danger to getting further away from that.

I feel like when you and Richard talk about Manning not being a woman or whatever, it's uhh... smashing identities. She didn't grow up in 2050, in the world we live in I think it's important to acknowledge and identify people like Manning the way they wish to be identified. You know, so that someday we can break down these social constructs and just let people be the way they want to be. That doesn't just happen, you don't go from the shitty world we live in to a genderless utopia, you know?

I support Manning's right to call herself what she wants, and for her friends and family to do the same. I'm even using the feminine pronoun myself, because I don't know her and have no reason not to accept her desire. I think a grown-ass human being can make that decision, as well as the decision to get hormone replacement, surgery, whatever. I just hope that, in every case, it's a well-informed decision, and that the person at least tries to accept their ENTIRE identity, and NOT smash it. If I were a dude with a penis who feels like a female, I would try, first, to happily be a dude with a penis who feels like a female. If that didn't work out, I'd change my gender. I was just steering the conversation to the subject of preemptively deciding our children's genders, which I don't think I can support.

As far as the Manning issue is concerned, my only issue with the entire debacle is that I don't think Wikipedia should have hastily edited the page- not because Manning shouldn't be recognized as a woman, but because Manning is still legally a man. As an information source, I think Wikipedia has more of an obligation to be official rather than to be sympathetic toward any individual.