I never thought I’d be tempted by those gender-neutral pronouns, hir and ze and so on. But the case of Chelsea Manning does give one pause. On August 22, The New York Times announced that Private Manning, who is transgender, had requested henceforward to be referred to as female and addressed as “Chelsea.”
Curiously, as many commenters noted, in reporting the story the Times continued to refer to the whistle-blower-formerly-known-as-Bradley as he.
I’ve always thought the rule of thumb was to address people the way they wanted to be addressed. In Breaking Bad, when Walter Jr. asks to be called “Flynn,” I think his parents should set aside the generational suffix and call him Flynn until he changes his mind. This attitude has been tested over the years. My former mother-in-law, seeing my name in print, used to cross out my surname with heavy black marker and write my…