LGBT News Judge grants Chelsea Manning name change

The repeal of DADT did nothing for transgender people. DADT was for LGB people only. I have talked to people that have been thrown out of the military for being transgender since the repeal of DADT.

I am glad that the judge granted the name change for her. I guarantee that the media will still refer to her as her birth name, which is really sad.

 

I agree that it's a positive thing that the court granted the name change. I think Chelsea is a nice name for her.

Also, reforms that help gay and lesbian people rarely also help transgender people. There's a political solidarity gap in which transgender issues are treated as separable and disposable when the going gets tough. I submit that this is a serious problem for movement building.

 

I'm glad that she was able to get the name change. Now to get her acquitted of the crimes she was convicted of, and to put some sort of law on the books protecting transgender military personnel.

 

Well, this is not surprising... Fox news is at it again..

 

Is it really that fucking hard just to use the correct pro nouns and the name Chelsea? What possible physical or mental harm would come to them if they did that? Would it be confusing at first because they're in the habit of using male pro nouns and the name Bradley? Probably yes, but I'm sure they're experienced enough to read a tele-prompter properly without having to think about it. I highly doubt an axe wielding lunatic is going to come charging into the studio and hack them to bits while shouting "YOU CALLED THAT TRAITOR CHELSEA YOU BASTARDS!" either.

What do they actually gain from misgendering her and calling her Bradley? Some brownie points with some of the idiots that watch their channel, Fox & Friends thought they made a funny worthy of Connolly, Todd Starnes gets to big up his "I'm not politically correct me!" credentials, I'm sure Gregg Jarrett felt like a big man when he said what he said and I'm not entirely sure how Keith Ablow gets to call himself an expert when, by the sounds of it, he's never met a transgender person in his life.

Dehumanising, denigrating and humiliating a much maligned and misunderstood minority just to stick the boot into a convicted spy. I'd have thought even Fox News would have been past this in the 21st century. Clearly I'm just that naive.

 

I'm happy for her that she got the name change approved. I do think the military should also have protections for transgender people, as should the rest of society.

She did however leak classified information to the public through wikileaks. I held a job in the US Army where I worked around people with her job. I also had to go through the background investigation and sign the Non disclosure agreement regarding classified information. That NDA is valid until 75 years after you separate from the service, and is punishable by the sentence she received.

When she found the "Collateral Murder" video, she should have reported it, first to her chain of command. If they did nothing there are other means, including the Inspector General. Even if that video were all that was leaked, it is still worthy of prison, even if it exposed war crimes. The fact that she released more classified information than almost any other person in history makes the conviction stronger in my eyes.

Was she picked on because of her transgender status, or sexual orientation. The answer to that is probably yes. I can say that because I was gay in the US Army for 12 years before, and during DADT. I held security clearances as high as Chelsea did, and never gave any thought to leaking information. If I had I would have deserved prison.

 

And that makes her a hero as far as I'm concerned.

 

She's no hero, she broke the law, and violated her agreement with the US Government. There were other ways of reporting crimes, that would have fallen within the law.

 

Illegal=/=immoral.

People should act in accordance with what is right. If that is against the law, then the law is wrong, and should be broken.

 

She was charged with safeguarding information entrusted to her. That is what the Inspector General's office in the military is for. You can report things, and they have to investigate them. They are not tied to the command, and therefore do not have a conflict of interest in protecting people who broke the law. This could have all been done without violating her oath to the government.

She also leaked a great many secret documents in addition to the "Collateral Murder" video. Most of those documents were secret to protect operations that were ongoing, and the people carrying them out. The few that did show criminal acts should have been reported to the appropriate authorities and not to the general public.

With the amount of material she leaked, she is lucky she only got 30 years.

 

Had they been investigated, they would have remained secret, and nothing would have changed. There is a responsibility by virtue of being human to do what is right, which outweighs any government or military duty.

 

The US Military, contrary to popular opinion is actually really good at policing it's members. It would have remained secret, but the people involved in the video for instance would have gone to jail. Doing what is right is good, and in this case it would have been more right to report through proper channels. Since she chose not to, she now has to live with the consequences of her decision, 30 years in jail.

 

So military before country then?

It's more important that you serve your dog masters than actually do what's right for the country and expose crimes?

I'm sorry I'm in favor of the leaks. Someone has to hold the military accountable for their wrong-doings, and where it stands today no one is doing that. If it weren't for people like Snowden and Manning we'd not even know about the corrupt evil deeds they were out there performing. So you can try to defend that bs all you want, but the one honest truth of the matter is that thanks to people like this we have been informed. Sadly, however, even with the information no one seems to have enough sense to actually take action and demand change. -.-'

---------- Post added 25th Apr 2014 at 07:26 PM ----------

Bullllllll!!!!

You know what government branch has a very abnormally high amount of rapes? Do you? I'll give you a guess. It's the one that kills stuff. Yeah the military. They've had an unforgivably high rape count for some time now and those numbers are going up not down.

Do you know why? Do you?

Its because chain of command trumps law in the military. If you have authority in the military you are immune to consequences.

Why #passMJIA? 50 Facts About Sexual Assault in the US Military | Soraya Chemaly


Don't sit there and tell me that 'the military will do what's right if you go through the proper channels' that's just not true, every chance they get to prove that it's again proven that they do the exact opposite.

Note: If you're wondering why exactly I bring this up...it's to demonstrate the military's history of properly investigating itself. There aren't exactly statistics floating around for their classified activities ( for obvious reasons ) so I chose this to highlight my point about the military and how 'going through proper channels' would work out.

 

She's a hero to me, too, as well as millions of others...not to mention the countless thousands of innocent civilians who died due to US intervention, and the ones that continue to die today from drones, bombs and bullets in wars like places like Yemen that we don't even call wars. We've killed hundreds of times as many innocent people in Iraq and elsewhere that died in 9/11...and for what? So Cheney, Halliburton & Co. could make millions rebuilding? It certainly has made the country even less stable then before.

I think we accord too much importance to our military, these days...I wish we had a force for peace, that was as well funded.

I can see if we got invaded, but nowadays, we just like to meddle, and try to maintain our crumbling hegemonic empire. It's not really about protecting our rights anymore, so much as it is about keeping global economic power, and helping the rich.

So she's my hero. And I like Glen Greenwald, too.

I'd love to slash the military budget by 75%.

 

She is definitely a hero.

 

We need to free this woman!