Rumors have been floating around since early in the two year imprisonment of WikiLeaks whistle blower Private Manning that she is in fact a transgender woman. Yet her supporters continued to ignore the mounting evidence, using male pronouns and a name that, quotes attributed to Manning suggested, she did not identify with.
Over the course of Manning’s trial, it’s become fairly clear that yes, Manning is a woman named Breanna.
Emily Manuel has a much needed post up at Global Comment asking why Manning’s supporters are still not respecting her gender identity:
Nevertheless, the media and the vast majority of Manning’s supporters continue to refer to her as male (for instance, this Glenn Greenwald segment on Democracy Now still using male pronouns, and still conflating gay and transgender, or Michael Moore’s steady stream of supportive tweets and blog posts). But at what point will progressive media, those who are at least pay lip service to the idea of being LGBT allies, decide to respect the most likely scenario of Manning’s preferred gender ID? What does it mean that the burden of proof is this high to “prove” that a person is transgender? Why do we assume that “hero” and “transgender” are mutually exclusive, and are unwilling or unable to imagine rallying around a transgender woman rather than a bright-faced young man? If “Bradley” Manning deserves a medal, as Greenwald so eloquently argued last week, would Breanna? And lastly: what does it mean that acknowledging Manning’s identity would have in all likelihood exposed her to even more violence?
Private Manning has endured horrendous treatment in prison waiting for trial. But listen again to what she had to say, in chats whose validity would seem to have been proved over the weekend: “I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me… plastered all over the world press… as boy.”
This kind of “ungendering,” as trans theorist Julia Serano has argued in her landmark book Whipping Girl, is itself harmful, an act of violence by a world that has little inclination for respecting the self-identification of transgender people and exposes them to violence in every sphere of society.
I can begin to imagine the great pain of having a name, pronoun, and image of your gender presentation that you do not identify with spread around so publicly by your supposed supporters. The way Manning’s identity is being used in the trial is certainly disturbing, arguing that gender identity disorder made her mentally unstable and led to leaking classified information. But this is about fighting to free Manning within a criminal legal system that runs on oppression of marginalized groups. It’s sad, but I’m fine with any tactic Manning’s lawyers need to take (Edited to add: Kate points out in the comments, the lawyers’ approach could end up hurting other trans service members).
The conversation we have on the outside is another matter. The mainstream media’s coverage as the evidence became unavoidable over the weekend showed their continued failure to even try reporting on trans folks honestly or accurately – which is, you know, their job. Manning has repeatedly been referred to as a gay man suffering from gender identity disorder who has an alter ego named Breanna. Clearly, we still have a long way to go in getting the mainstream media to respect trans folks’ humanity.
If you consider yourself a supporter of Manning’s, why would you join this hurtful chorus? Why is it acceptable to continue referring to her in a way that we now know is inaccurate and hurtful to her? Are you really so afraid of how her trans identity might impact public perception that you refuse to respect her gender identity?
Free Breanna Manning!
Edited by DRUXXX ()
i've read like maybe a million articles about bradley manning but I had never heard of this !!!!!!!! is this related to the stuff that WIRED magazine had withheld from the published adrian lamo chatlogs?
DRUXXX posted:
well a mtf could dress like a man and call yourself a transperson. women can dress as men and still be women. so too could names that are traditionally male or female be assigned to any man or woman. for some reason, these things so rarely happen... hmmm...
the question is not why they rarely happen, which is obvious, but why there appears to be less of an intellectual movement to degender proper names as there is to degender other parts of language
germanjoey posted:
0_0
i've read like maybe a million articles about bradley manning but I had never heard of this !!!!!!!! is this related to the stuff that WIRED magazine had withheld from the published adrian lamo chatlogs?
i think i remember glenn greenwald alluding to this in his interview with adrian lamo, but i don't think he ever got into specifics
jamie
i can't think of any more
alex
chris
pat
slavoj
futurewidow posted:
so far has Manning made any kind of official statement or are we essentially outing somebody based off of what was said in a private conversation? cause that makes me pretty uneasy tbh!!
well she was outed months ago and now the defense is explicitly using as exculpatory evidence, so at this point it's more damage control than anything else. also,
(1:13:10 PM) bradass87:i just… dont wish to be a part of it… at least not now… im not ready… i wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me… plastered all over the world press… as boy…
Wired then followed this up a year later in published the full chat logs in which Manning very clearly states that she is trans, frets about accessing transitioning treatment and talks about being discharged as “adjustment disorder” rather than GID under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Finally, she gives us a female name for herself: Breanna, stating that she’d set up a Twitter and Youtube account.
Why didn't they link to these published chat logs. Where are they
e: oh here they are http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs search for breanna
Edited by christmas_cheer ()
discipline posted:futurewidow posted:
so far has Manning made any kind of official statement or are we essentially outing somebody based off of what was said in a private conversation? cause that makes me pretty uneasy tbh!!this was written by and is cause célèbre of a transwoman
you mean the original author of the global comment post?
discipline posted:
feministing is a fucking awful blog
word. some decent comments though:
I feel much the same. I am deeply uncomfortable with the context of this information. Private Manning revealed these thoughts and feelings in private conversations under the assumption that they would be kept in confidence. Then they were leaked, and everything snowballed from there… and the poor kid has never gotten a say in any of it.
So while I think advocacy on these issues is important and necessary, I feel kind of…uneasy, like we’re co-opting someone who has been denied all control over the situation as the poster child.
discipline posted:
insanity is probably a good defense to use for pvt. manning because understanding the ramifications of this action and doing it anyway and then bragging about it on aim to a stranger is definitely unhinged and attention-seeking self-hating behavior, not patriotism or revolutionary courage
insanity is an incredibly rare successful defence in the US and this would not probably qualify. trust me, i've been skimming a few websites about law school, so i know what i'm talking about.
Edited by gyrofry ()