And Hacker News will downvote tone and civility, regardless of the opinion. It's very easy to see that as an attack when it's happening to you. I see the same behavior on all sides of issues. When I find myself getting particularly heated, I find it better to refrain from commenting at all, not because I'm afraid of getting downvoted, but because I know it's not going to lead to any useful discussion.

Civility is content, language itself is arbitrary. Pretend I were to say, "Sir, the fact that you're a cishet man makes you incapable of rational thought on this matter. I hope that the new administration gives you the electroshock therapy you need to normalize to a rational being and not a dangerous predator."

That is a civil set of words, but a profoundly uncivil and dangerous tone. And that's being repeated over and over in this forum and NOT being rated down.

Further, it's absolutely hypocritical that we cheerfully upvote the most uncivil of emails by Linus Torvalds and banal screeds about "Getting Shit Done" but the instant someone uses energized language when talking about racism or sexism, then suddenly a completely different set of standards apply because this is politics and that's different.

Civility is entirely removed from the playing field when someone's human rights and dignity are in question. That is a final line before we convert someone into something akin to an animal. And that is a very real line that Manning has faced throughout this entire ordeal. In the same sense that were you to try and stab someone, they should not apologize if they hurt you while defending themselves.

Examine who and what you are defending here. You've desperate clung to this driftwood of a "rational" debate, which is of course a complete charade. What "constructive" and "positive" debate can be had here?

I have prepared a nice play which sums up the transphobic part of this thread. Forgive me the formatting, HN is a bit difficult to coerce. Please do consider auditioning for the part modeled after your actions.

C: "Hello. I am attempting to live my life as a woman. To live any other way is unbearable."

HNA: "You are a man and a bad one at that!"

HNB: "Your particular brand of mental illness must be painful."

HNC: "The objective reality is that you have a penis therefore are a man."

HND: "Can you even have a period? Everyone knows all women can have periods. HA!"

HNE: "These snowflakes, we should round them all up."

Someone Sane: "This is vile. This is totally wrong. You are fucking monsters."

You: "Now now, watch your language."

Someone Sane: "Really? My language."

You: "One cannot hope to have a civil discourse with one so emotional and foulmouthed. How can you hope to debate your betters with such language? Tut tut."

Someone Sane: "I wasn't planning on debating them. Their points are beneath contempt, unscientific, and dehumanizing."

You: sighs smugly "That, my little snowflake, is the problem. They've already won by logic, all you bring to the table is curse words. Why can't you be more fair?" sips box wine "Now run along and play."

It is wrong to misgender people. It is unacceptable. Why is it somehow more terrible to point that out than it is to do it in the first place?

Where did I use those words?

Responses like this make it hard for me to learn from the other person. Maybe you feel like we should all already know these things, but that simply is not reality. It is not always because the person is "transphobic", as you put it, but simply uneducated on a particular topic.

I would think anyone who wants to help educate others on these issues would welcome such a discussion.

  s/guys here/HN members/