Gender, Identity, and #FreeChelseaManning
Lauded and reviled in equal measure, Chelsea Manning is perhaps the most polarizing figure in recent news cycles, a hero to some and a traitor to others.
And then there’s the discussion about the top-secret government documents she sent to WikiLeaks.
Whether it more reflects the generalized shortening of attention spans or the increasingly present discourse and fascination surrounding non-heteronormative genders and sexualities, the news that Chelsea Manning chooses to be addressed by female pronouns has now overshadowed and replaced the trial of a totally unprecedented leak of government documents—more than 700,000 total, and the first time such a cache of classified information has been displayed in the public domain.
Manning’s gender dysphoria, or gender identity disorder (GID), was cited by her defense attorney during her trial as being a factor in her decision to leak information
about U.S. military strategies, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and a video of an attack on Baghdad by a U.S. helicopter gunship in 2007. It wasn’t until Manning sent a letter to the TODAY Show asking to be referred to as Chelsea and by female pronouns that the public started to pay attention, again, to a trial that seems to grow into a more comprehensive microcosm of bigger societal issues everyday.
Her decision to announce publicly that she identifies as female just after her sentencing, and just before heading into a men’s military prison for the next 35 years, has been decried by some as a death wish.
Those who work with transgender prisoners are quick to point out that there is no “good” time to come out as identifying as transgender while going through the court system.
“That line of scrutiny about when and how to disclose that she’s female, it really echoes to me a lot of my personal experience,” said Drake Justice Jones, a member of the leadership circle of Black and Pink, an organization that advocates for the rights of LGBTQ prisoners and those formerly incarcerated. “Having people doubt everything—she could’ve come out at any time and people would be throwing their two cents in as to what that meant.”
Jason Lydon, another member of the leadership circle of Black and Pink, does believe the timing was strategic, to avoid the “violence that the court can impose on someone” who identifies as transgender.
“People need to do what they need to do to avoid being in prison for 108 years,” he said.
“I don’t agree with how the defense presented the tortured experience of a trans identity as making ‘poor and bad choices,’ but that was a very strategic and appropriate decision, I imagine, between Chelsea and her lawyer to achieve the greatest possible outcome for her.”
Though, Lydon adds, he does believe that Manning’s identity had something to do with her “act of heroism.”
“It’s part of her whole self of releasing info about the terrible things the government has done to people around the world,” he said.
“I actually see it as a queer act to release information about U.S. violence and oppression,” since LGBTQ people themselves often face and can understand oppression.
And, as Lydon and Jones both mentioned, Manning’s non-heteronormativity has been known long before the letter was sent to NBC.
“Chelsea Manning’s queerness, whatever it may have been and has now come out as identifying as female, her queerness has been known since all of this began, and the Human Rights Campaign and other mainstream LGBTQ organizations have ignored that,” Lydon said.
“She was not free awaiting trial. She was detained awaiting trial,” Jones said. “It’s wrong to view this as coming out before going into confinement because she’s still going to be at Leavenworth.”
In practical terms, it means that Manning, despite her identity as a woman, will continue to be housed at a men’s facility, where as a transgender person she will face astronomically high risks of abuse.
One study found that they’re 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted while in prison, according to Jones, as well as increased rates of physical assault, harassment, and barred access to proper medical care.
In a precedent-setting court case last year in Massachusetts, a transgender prisoner won the right to obtain sexual reassignment surgery while incarcerated. Previous cases, such as a Wisconsin case in 2011, found that denying transgender prisoners access to hormone treatment violated their Eighth Amendment rights. These, however, were in civilian courts, so there is still no precedent originating from military courts to suggest that Manning will receive proper medical treatment—in fact, Ft. Leavenworth spokeswoman Kimberly Lewis stated she will not receive anything beyond psychiatric care.
The best way to show one’s support for Manning, or the other possibly “tens of thousands” of transgender prisoners, according to Lydon, is to ask how they’d like to take action, and then “write letters, make phone calls, and continuously target those who can go and make those decisions,” or to join an advocacy group such as Black and Pink.
And, as Jones pointed out, to shift our dialogue to what actually matters.
“People who do things that are heroic and exceptional and benefit humanity in major ways, as Chelsea Manning did, and speak truth to power, as Chelsea Manning did, that all shifts back to us being trans rather than who we are and what we’ve done,” they said. Let’s talk about the heroine’s actions, not how she was once called a hero.
