It costs me nothing to refer to Manning as Chelsea, or as a she, so I do.

That said, I don't fully understand this thing. You could say I'm slightly on the fence about the nature of transgender. But then, maybe that's partly because I don't see the distinction between gender and sex. I'm told the distinction is that one is a matter of biology, and the other is a matter of identity. Chelsea Manning may identify as female by identity, but biologically speaking is male.

So for me this issue boils down to a few different pieces. The first piece is whether or not transgenderism is in the same class as for example anorexia, which is an eating disorder, but more accurately, it's a person not perceiving their body in accordance with reality. Someone who is barely more than a skeleton held together by a few sinews can insist on being morbidly obese, when this can be easily proven to be false. Essentially I'm talking about body dysmorphic disorders.

Now, we don't indulge anorexics who identify as morbidly obese, by agreeing with them, at least not normally. So if transgenderism falls into this same category, then it seems to me to be a bit silly to indulge transgendered people in the same way, despite it not actually costing me anything.

It may be something entirely different, however, in which case I would have no real reason to judge it to be on par with anorexia and other body dysmorphic disorders. That raises the question of: If it's not a BDD thing, what is it?

The second piece is: If we accept that biologically speaking, Chelsea is male, and we simply squabble over the identity issue, it certainly doesn't impact me negatively to refer to Chelsea as a she, but nor do I understand why I have to respect what someone else self-identifies as. I can choose to do so, but why would I have an obligation to do so?

Anyway, I'm not advocating calling people like this mentally ill or even delusional, and refusing to acknowledge their view of themselves, but I'm not completely sold on this issue just yet. I try to keep an open mind, and in the meantime, I try to err on the side of respecting their wishes, and referring to them as what they self-identify as, at least as long as it's not too weird. When people start with this otherkin business, I really don't follow. Nor do I indulge people who think they're Napoleon or Jesus. I'm tentatively okay with referring to biological men as female, and vice versa for the time being.