We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13379559 and marked it off-topic.

I'm a little disappointed, honestly, because now the original comment that I responded to is still on the parent thread, without any response that suggests that it's not okay to misgender a trans person.

Please don't post like this on Hacker News. We're trying to have a civil discussion here and this doesn't pass muster.

Chelsea Manning isn't reading the HN thread, so why does it matter what gender you use? It's like telling someone to use Kolkata instead of Calcutta.

> It's like telling someone to use Kolkata instead of Calcutta.

No, it's not like that for everyone.

Part of having a civil discussion within a community is understanding and accepting our differences—especially ideological ones. That means recognizing when what you say has the effect of moving us away from our shared goal of gratifying our intellectual curiosity and adjusting accordingly. It might not be possible to succeed in this all of the time, but we have to try, and this is a case with an obvious path forward.

Rude.

A trans person other than Chelsea could be reading this right now. If you do not respect her identity then it could be (and should be imo) interpreted as disregard for trans people in general

It's possible to support transpeople without having to change the English language.

Chelsea Manning may not be reading HN, but other trans people are. Misgendering one of them is misgendering all of them by proxy.