Tuesday, March 13, 2012Last Update: 12:09 PM PT
Gender Politics in Manning-Wikileaks Case
By ADAM KLASFELD
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/13/44632.htm (http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/13/44632.htm)
MANHATTAN (CN) - The psychologist who wrote the study that Pfc. Bradley Manning consulted while considering a sex change urged observers to stop speculating about "anecdotal" evidence as the 24-year-old soldier's court-martial enters the discovery phase.
During hearings in December 2011, Manning's exploration of a female identity nearly eclipsed the substance of the case, which seeks to determine whether he sent more than 700,000 confidential government files to Wikileaks.
[...]
Coombs said that Manning consulted ex-military psychiatrist Dr. George R. Brown's 1988 study, "Transsexuals in the Military: Flight Into Hypermasculinity," which profiled 11 transgender soldiers who shared a "striking similarity."
"They joined the service, in their words, 'to become a real man,'" Brown wrote.