US Army Private Bradley Manning, sentenced to 35 years for leaking classified documents on Wednesday, announced that he would like to live out the rest of his life as a woman. The whistleblower has asked to refer to him by the name Chelsea Manning.
“As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back,”
theneedleblog 
Gojam: you’re just another anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic and transphobic privileged *member* of the white male establishment. Some of us know you’re just another faker, really my ‘good’ man?:)!
There are two issues here:
1. The ghastliness of war. Now whether Manning was right to leak all that he did I have questions about. However I have absolutely no question about that ghastly helicopter clip, and just apparently shooting people in a “gungho, this is sport” way makes us feel- rightly- physically sick. I think much of what was leaked was right, and that this sentence is way over the top. Also the reasons for the war were ghastly in the first place.
2. So called “gender dysmorphia”. Personally I think that anyone who thinks that the gender you are is something so important that it is worth spending tens or hundreds of thousands of medical peoples’ attention on you to be effectively mutilated and become a disproportioned and seventh rate infertile parody of the opposite sex when they could have been a convincing specimen of their own sex has got things way way way out of proportion, and has serious mental health problems and narcissistic tendencies that are being left unaddressed. Just think what that money and that medical expertise could have done for hundreds or thousands of others who are limbless or disfigured by fire, or such.
As part of this question it is not impossible that Manning sees a female prison as a softer option, or the support of “political correctness” and LGBT as a card worth playing for a pleasanter life.
The essence of humour is, as Kierkegaard noted, incongruity. Those who cannot spot incongruity here are being somewhat unobservant. Gojam is doing fine.
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Nuggy, it’s the video. It makes fun of transgender people. That’s seriously uncool in 2013 and worse when it mocks an individual. Especially when you stop and think about how awful prison will be for Manning. Gojam- how do you justify it?
i will try to be clear
nothing about this is funny,manning was brave but niave about the reactions of his former employers.
his/her gender issues should be unimportant to anybody but manning but due to widespread bigotry about such things to emphasise them in the media would be a good tactic to discredit the good work done in exposing some of those using very dark ways of doing global war and business.
hero or heroine dont matter to me but i can see parallels to other “whistleblowers”or “enemies of the state” and attempts to discredit them and therefore what they have said or done with the public by emphasizing any real or pretended “difference” from “normal” .
Manning is more ‘man’ than I.
All I have to say!
Well dpack, the way they are discrediting Julian Assange is how they turn someone queer when they are kids especially, and who would gain from that?
i cant see what gojams done wrong here.
hes only repeated what manning said.
he hasnt made any nasty comments about it.
Manning stood up Gojam, did not hide – admittered what he did – stood proud – what are you? – you are to scared to even stand by your own name
Hi John,
If you’d like to talk that is fine. I’ve got no secrets from you.
it would seem that you have run out of news on the abuse scandal.
Far from it.
I may be holding back but it is not for lack of material.
I put victims first, not cheap headlines.
Oh so you claim to “put victims first” yet you think a woman like Chelsea Manning being locked up in a men’s prison where she is likely to get raped on a constant basis is a subject fitting to dismiss with light humor. For some reason, you are trying to erase the experience of LGBTQ abuse and rape victims here – an already marginalised group of people who form a disproportionate amount of rape and sexual abuse victims. Now explain to us all how that makes you that much different from the powerful establishment figures whom you claim the whole purpose of your blog here is to expose…?
Gojam, you need to remove the video. You can see from the above comments was it has unleashed. Ugly stuff. It’s not OK to make fun of Manning’s gender dysphoria. It would be like if he came out gay and you played a clip of ” Are you being Served”. ,I am often uncomfortable with some of the commentary on the CSA blogs when it degenerates into homophobia. l know that you are not homophobic and you care about the vulnerable and powerless. This incudes transgender people. This is an error that you can easily rectify. Please remove the clip.
Hmmm…I smell a rat: the writer of this blog claims to be on the side of the abused and against the abusing establishment yet here exhibits all the hallmarks of being a member of that very sexist, abusing and uber-privileged male-dominated establishment himself. Don’t worry, it’s a dead give-a-way that this is a far-right blog which hides behind anti-paedophile activism.
You are not the only one that thinks that and you seem male to me. I think it is more like the Gay Stasi and the Gaystapo working within the Neo Nazi movement and blagging it. One of Hitler’s Bodyguard was a Gay man and that was at his Eagle’s Nest I think on the Mountain. I think that if you are not male then you are as devious as these Uber-privileged men you speak of. I does not matter whether they are Nazi or Gay or Femin-Nazi or what? They are more akin to the people who seek to abuse children men and women. I have encountered such extremism in many places and especially within the Child sex abuse survivor community. I am now seeking to change my description from survivor to plain victim. Because within http://www.incas.org.uk I have not only found the same abusers who abused me as a child but some were also children when they abused me and or sold me to other children and adult pedophiles. It is also business, I am seriously damaged, although not the worst off, and yet these people in http://www.incas.org.uk and other services for “survivors” do so well they have wives husbands children and Jobs some are professionals. They claim to have suffered so much yet when you ask if they were coshed with medications as children they say no and also jump in fright. They are trying to molly cuddle the NHS and health and social care people for sympathy incase their devious plans backfire. I am a victim of all care services. My sister died aged 41 years after many years of extreme self harm that was brought about by medication firstly and maintained with medications to the end. Two children died in care with me. Human rights are pissh too what you support has to be popular to bring in the money.
I feel sorry for your experience but honestly you need help. Homophobic froth
@gw are you someone who hates men? what is that called heterophobe or just monophobe? that all sounds queer doesn’t it, I wonder who has influenced my world from my year dot. you people have said all men are gay yet I have never heard anyone say all women are gay. Maybe that’s because you would alienate yourself from your last defence, I know plenty people who know more about life and what lurks behind the eyes of people who throw around words like homophobe. The help you suggest is what makes me say these things and they are part of the sum of the total of my experiences to this date.
“You are not the only one that thinks that and you seem male to me.”
Since your first reaction is to misgender me then you seem transphobic to me. Then, since this is followed by your second reaction which takes the form of an outrageous godwin which seems to consist of some kind of Irving-esque revisionist argument that gays and communists are the real Nazis you really do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out where your political sympathies lie.
“One of Hitler’s Bodyguard was a Gay man and that was at his Eagle’s Nest I think on the Mountain.”
Don’t tell me, he was black and Jewish as well – in fact the entire SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler was an entirely and exclusively black, Jewish, gay unit well known for its liberal tendencies(!)
I actually for a few times thought bradley was a FTM Transgendered person anyways, as it is mainly the LGBT who have been defending him/her but anyways If bradley has this issue and it can be shown to be chromosomal or due to being a victim of child rape then he will not be behind bars for long. The LGBT are a powerful lobby in the USA. Personally I knew something was not right from the word go in this affair and I stick to my opinion that as Assange is expected to be extradited for rape then the sex-sexuality business fits well. These cowards on all side are capable of all. I was the LGBT Agenda from the start. And nope I did not bill and bend anyone in reality so go fuck yourselves I am still not helping junkie hetero pedo scumbags nor LGBT junkie pedo scumbags nor Dutch pedophile party member’s defence that people who do things do it because of the drugs because you take them and victimize people similarly to try and prove your point. You deliver the counter argument in doing what you do. Eat Shit and die.
you are jim davidson and I claim my £10
maybe it has always been her feeling that he was misgendered by birth but it is a convenient way to distract from the details of war and diplomacy he felt he needed to share with us all.
he may be brave but it was also rather naive of him and slack of wikileaks for bradley not to be safely relocated as chelsea before they went public with such data.
reminds me of david shayler.
in a cynical mood i could consider it almost a fluffy version of a “tragic and embarrassing fatal misadventure into auto eroticism” or the old chestnut of “hitler has only got one ball”
dpack – just stop and think how brave Manning was to stand up to the American war machine. Manning was offered a plea-deal to rat – would have done little prison time – person of honour – refused.
Still laughing now? – if the chips were down could you be relied on? – would you stand up for your fellow man? – not say, against your countries government who were acting illegally – but your sweet old Mum – would you be to scared to tell her she is in the wrong – knowing she would slap your arse and send you to bed early without your tea, champ?
The thick certainly plottens!
Orwell comes to mind.
Andy
Why take the mick out of Manning?
Cheap shot at one very brave person
Brave or not, it’s an odd, odd situation, which requires humour as well as other emotions. Lighten up.
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