Gosh! If only Adrienne had tapped into an infinite well of patience and politeness maybe some of the folks here who very literally equate trans people with dangerous mental instability will come around.

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.

Yet you continue to post. In all honesty, why do so? This is not meant in any way as a criticism. You've expressed this opinion of the HN community many times, so I'm genuinely interested why you continue to do so.

Think of me as a particularly disapproving Greek chorus.

As I pointed out in my initial comment, I personally value your comments when you're civil. I think they add to the overall discussion. I don't think anyone on Hacker News needs a "particularly disapproving Greek chorus" of any particular opinion. Less charitable people might argue it's indistinguishable from trolling. It's distracting and leads to bad faith and flamewar discussions, and is explicitly against community guidelines. I sincerely wish you the best and hope that you continue to engage constructively and positively, even when you disagree or believe people to be unreasonable. Best wishes.

From what I've seen, you're the sort of person who "values" the input of marginalized opinion so long as you're firmly in control of the conversation and are allowed to shout them down at any time.

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."