Susan's is first and foremost a transgender support site. It is entirely possible that at this very moment, Ms. Manning is turning to us for support.
Therefore may I suggest that, whatever our personal viewpoints about her case, we refrain from posting anything that might make her feel she is not welcome here?
Well said. Although there is no need for us to hide our opinions about her actions, we must support her in her transition and identity.
I highly doubt she is on Susan's at this moment. Nonetheless, I will offer her support if she is in need of it. People can offer their support and still be in disagreement with one another's actions. We have all received criticism on this site for some of our actions, decisions or our judgement at times. It's a matter of how one is treated and spoken to. Criticism is not a bad thing in itself. No matter the disagreements one may have, I do agree that respect should be shown. However, I will disagree that we should stifle our political speech and or opinions because someone may not be in favor of it. As long as it is good spirited and done respectfully, in the proper forums and threads, there is no reason to take things to that extreme. She is welcome here as is everyone else and their beliefs. Should she become a member she will be given the same respect and privileges we all are granted on this site. But that's just my opinion.
There are so many forums out there where we can express our political views as openly and honestly as we like. Maybe this just isn't the place for it all the time. Maybe folks could even link to another forum to continue such discussions. Just a thought.
Meanwhile, I have nothing negative to say about her.
Had to Google the name.
If it is the army individual I located, hmm well I think being TG is the least of this persons worries.
I'm going back to ignoring the news though.
Quote from: Devlyn Marie on August 22, 2013, 03:06:44 PM
Well said. Although there is no need for us to hide our opinions about her actions, we must support her in her transition and identity.
Agreed.
Personally I think it sounds like she's a quite distressed and troubled young woman and that military life was not for her. I feel sorry for her as a human being and don't think she is deserving of this level of punishment for her mistakes. If I knew her I'd be happy to offer her support. However having said that, I can't say I don't appreciate the position of those who would call her a traitor. I'm not sure I disagree with them. Susans has a habit of being a very left leaning website, and that's ok, it's the nature of the position its population finds itself in. But not all of us share those positions and not all of us have much sympathy for the punishment she'll see for her actions.
Supporting her in her choice to transition is not going to mean supporting her as an individual for everyone. I don't think she's deserving from any more immunity from peoples opinions than any other transgender person to have committed a crime, what many including myself would say is a very serious crime.
Just my two cents on the issue.
Given the nature of her crime, I tend to doubt she has much access to the internet. But I do think the story is one worth discussing within the transgender community. It will ultimately have in some way or another a reflection on us.
I doubt she has access either. She *might* have been on here. I don't know. I don't if I recall anyone named Chelsea. But as for her gender identity, I support that. There are other sections to argue other politics.
--Jay
Consider, she is transgender, in a male prison, with no access to any transition or gender therapy services for the period of incarceration... which could be 35 years.
Regardless of how you may feel about what she did, the situation is sad. I think her biggest fault was being young and dumb, and not appreciating the full consequences of her actions.
Even in military prison, there is a good old fashioned mail call. If we can come up with her address, we could do a letter writing campaign.
Quote from: Antonia J on August 22, 2013, 09:52:03 PM
Regardless of how you may feel about what she did, the situation is sad. I think her biggest fault was being young and dumb, and not appreciating the full consequences of her actions.
I definitely agree. I was thinking along similar lines as I thought more about her situation after I posted before.
Almost all of us have probably made decisions in our lives at some point that we later look back on shocked that we could have been so stupid and reckless. The majority of us get away with our stupid mistakes with no serious repercussions, a few of us don't and pay dearly for it. I sort of see Chelsea as an example of the latter. I wish she weren't going to have to pay so harshly for hers, but it's of course not our choice to make.
Quote from: Antonia J on August 22, 2013, 09:52:03 PM
Regardless of how you may feel about what she did, the situation is sad. I think her biggest fault was being young and dumb, and not appreciating the full consequences of her actions.
it might also be a case of not caring about the consequences. i am young, but not dumb at all. if i were single and childless, i might do quite a lot of things which other people would think of as dumb, but to me are just a way of following my own principles. to myself, my life doesn't hold that much importance but because i have a child, my life has too much meaning for someone so i can't afford to do all of the things that i want to. like, how can i take care of my daughter if i'm in prison.
Quote from: Taka on August 23, 2013, 01:10:32 AM
it might also be a case of not caring about the consequences. i am young, but not dumb at all. if i were single and childless, i might do quite a lot of things which other people would think of as dumb, but to me are just a way of following my own principles. to myself, my life doesn't hold that much importance but because i have a child, my life has too much meaning for someone so i can't afford to do all of the things that i want to. like, how can i take care of my daughter if i'm in prison.
We all become mature at different ages in our lives, some of us don't get as much of a choice when we grow up.
Quote from: Devlyn Marie on August 22, 2013, 09:55:40 PM
Even in military prison, there is a good old fashioned mail call. If we can come up with her address, we could do a letter writing campaign.
NEW MAILING ADDRESS for Chelsea Manning:
Bradley E. Manning
89289
1300 N. Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304
(thanks Anonymous)
Quote from: Lesley_Roberta on August 22, 2013, 07:55:57 PM
Had to Google the name.
If it is the army individual I located, hmm well I think being TG is the least of this persons worries.
I'm going back to ignoring the news though.
I had to look it up too as lately she seems to be the talk of this forum. I was too lazy to go past headlines though. Something tells me I shouldn't even bother to read in depth. I think I'll go back to ignoring the news too.
Thanks, Flan! It's posted on bradleymanning.org (http://www.bradleymanning.org) (gotta get that renamed) There is a tab for writing to Chelsea, in short, don't expect a reply. I hope some of us send a note of support to her nonetheless, I intend to.
There are restrictions on mail to prisoners including no money http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/visiting.jsp
Quote from: Devlyn Marie on August 22, 2013, 09:55:40 PM
If we can come up with her address, we could do a letter writing campaign.
Oh, I love writing letters (mainly because I draw pictures on the envelopes. . . yes, total art dork)! I am in.
Are we able to send letters without our legal names and addresses attached? I'd feel more comfortable with that scenario.
I think her coming out already had a big impact already. Despite some of the ignorant jerks online, I have seen a shockingly large amount of support for her transition. Even my mom was talking to me about this today and she wasn't yelling or criticising me which is pretty huge. I owe her my thanks for that. Though it will be sad that she would have to transition behind bars and that's if it's allowed. I can't think of a worse punishment for a transwoman then denying hormone therapy for 35 years.
Then again, I don't know if it's right for me to send a letter because I'm in the unique position that supports her transition and wants her to be pardoned, but at the same time believes she did break the law as written even though I think she did release some information that should of seen the light of day. I'm kind of a loner in that view as everyone else seems to have a definitive side, and I don't know if my letter would be appreciated or not. I'm not a full on supporter nor am I detractor, so I don't know if the likes of me would piss her off. I have to think further about it because I don't want to do the wrong thing or upset her.
I've never been in prison...but I imagine if I were, and for a particularly horrible crime (like murder), and I came here looking for support because I was TG...
The last thing I'd want to read is yet another brow-beating about how evil I am, and how I deserve to spend decades in prison, being Bubba's new girl friend.
I agree with Suzi, we should restrain ourselves in our self-righteous holier-than-thou "HA! You're in prison because you deserve it you slimeball!" and think about lending support to people who need our support.
I believe Manning is being held at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, on the United States Army post at Fort Leavenworth.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fd%2Fde%2FPrison_cell%252C_Fort_Leavenworth.jpg%2F82px-Prison_cell%252C_Fort_Leavenworth.jpg&hash=07aa0f420911581958a07f295cdcfea5ae5d731f)
Typical DB prison cell
I cannot condone the crimes committed by this individual but feel it important to lend support to all members of the transgender community
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.
Quote from: Erik Ezrin on August 24, 2013, 05:25:49 AM
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.
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
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.
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.