Can I suggest that we not speak unkindly of Chelsea Manning?

[Erik Ezrin]

It's kinda logical we support her, right? As a transgender myself, and member of a transgender forum I haven't even THOUGHT about not supporting her decision and gender identity.
I don't even know exactly what she did, but I think it's brave of her to come out with this now (being trans in prison must be insanely hard), and I really hope she'll be allowed to transition and become herself.

[DriftingCrow]

It's kinda logical we support her, right? As a transgender myself, and member of a transgender forum I haven't even THOUGHT about not supporting her decision and gender identity.
I don't even know exactly what she did, but I think it's brave of her to come out with this now (being trans in prison must be insanely hard), and I really hope she'll be allowed to transition and become herself.

I don't think many people in the trans community is against her coming out and being herself. Everyone who comes out deserves love and support during what is inevitably going to be a hard time.

Though, we are allowed to have differing opinions on transitioning in prison and whether or not we support what she did (she got over 700,000 docs showing horrible things the military did during Iraq and Afghanistan while she was in the US military and gave them to wikileaks, so "leaker" or "whistleblower"? has been the debate among the American population). Just when expressing our opinions on a trans support sight, we just should be mindful of who could be reading and what the impacts of our words can have.

[spacerace]

I actually wasn't completely aware of the nature of everything that she leaked. I think she may fall more into the whistle blower category than I previously gave her credit for.

Saw this post someone made and figured I would share it -not in an attempt to be political, but to provide context for people who maybe don't know the story well. It is a (partial) list of what the documents she leaked revealed:

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2013/06/as-debate-continues-what-manning.html

[Taka]

to me, as a citizen in a country that has cooperated with usa in the so-called war against "terror", manning is definitely a whistle blower. she probably broke some laws to do it, but i'm more interested in usa's war crimes than the crimes of a young and troubled woman who witnessed horrible things and had too much of a conscience to just let it slide. and of course, usa's treatment of this woman is also of great interest to me. someone dares tell a truth that usa hid from it's allies, how i wish my own government wasn't too cowardly to offer her amnesty.

sorry i got political about it, i'm just a weird kind of anarchist. i admire manning for her courage, both in sharing the information and coming out when her sentence is a fact. i sincerely hope she'll find happiness as soon as at all possible. i truly hope usa will regain some of my trust in any government at all by making sure she's treated well in prison, and giving her everything that she needs to develop into a confident woman who can fight for her own causes in less self destructive ways.

well, there i ended up voicing my opinion (the very short and moderate version). please don't comment on it in any way, whether you agree or disagree, just like i don't say anything about anyone else's opinion in this post. i really don't want any threads locked just for becoming too flaming political.

[Lesley_Roberta]

If I had a dollar for every news item that clearly wasn't a complete story, well not only would my transition expenses be paid for, but I'd likely be taking several of you along with me too.

That all said, I am not really in a hurry to ask for the specifics of what she did, as I don't actually expect to get a proper and complete picture either.

Fact, she joined the military and broke a major rule of being in the military. And after that, all the 'facts' get real hazy real quick. Would I have done the things she has done? Well again, without decent facts how can I respond?

I know this much, I would not have committed myself to a course of action, that I knew likely ended in incarceration and for a long time, and in a military penal facility, and then made the choice to acknowledge a gender identity shift in the middle of the process of being incarcerated.

I simply wouldn't have done that to myself. And I can say that, as I AM TG so it is not like I will be many of millions of opinions out there that will be coming from persons that will not really understand anything about why this Chelsea person is doing all of this seemingly (to them) unusual stuff.

I only see Chelsea, as a person that has likely 'come out' under the worst conditions I could even imagine in my worst nightmares. And that being regardless of what she might have thought her actions were as she saw them. Sorry, but there isn't a reportable war crime I can think of, that would have mattered to me personally, that would get me to put MY life where hers currently is.