Jon
Stewart is still away on a movie-making sabbatical. The Daily Show has gone on
its end-of-summer vacation. These were the pieces of information that came into
my head as I read this headline: "Bradley
Manning plans to serve WikiLeaks sentence as a woman." Well okay. I needed
some sort of reality check, so I went to my wife with this news, and she
laughed aloud. "This is from The Onion, right?" No,
I assured her, this is real news. The kind that would be easy pickings for Jon
Stewart and friends. Just a few moments of reflection made my head hurt.
This person, the previous Bradley, now
Chelsea, Manning would like us to now address him as her. Furthermore, she
would like to have hormone replacement therapy while she is in prison. Military
prison. The military, for its part, is dealing with things as they tend to:
straight down the middle, with the emphasis on "straight." “The
Army doesn’t provide sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy,”
says George Marcec, a spokesman at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and
Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As for this
whole "Chelsea" business, Marcec says, “The Army
doesn’t let you be called by whatever you want to be called.” Not exactly the
safe and caring environment that one might hope for while suffering from
a “gender identity disorder.”
I have no doubt that this is a real thing,
and that Chelsea is experiencing a wide range of emotions, not the least of
which is guilt, having confessed to the crime for which she has been found
guilty: leaking classified military and diplomatic materials to the
previously mentioned WikiLeaks. The punishment for this crime is thirty-five
years in jail. He wasn't brought before a firing squad, as traitors have been
in the past. Happily, we live in more enlightened times, and the thought of
executing someone because they sold some government secrets seems hopelessly
antiquated. For most. And there will be those who will insist that Chelsea
should be given her rights, as a woman, as a human being, to live her life the
way she feels fit. In federal prison.
I'm still stuck on that whole timing
thing, however, since Bradley chose to sell those classified documents in some
fit of pique that, according to his lawyers, was brought on by an ugly breakup
with a boyfriend back in early 2010. If Chelsea had chosen to address her
gender dysphoria at that time, she would have been "chaptered out" of
the Army and then would have been left with the difficult path toward living
her life as the woman she always believed she was. Instead, she lied, stole and
lied some more from the very people she would now like to provide relief from
her predicament. Corporal Klinger associations aside, I believe she made an
error in her timing. At least she's got some time to figure this mess
out.
1 comment:
First of all: all the most interesting news happens when The Daily Show is on sabbatical! Wonder what he'll do with this when he gets back? As for me, I'm fascinated and think it would make a great screenplay or spy novel. A double-agent for two camps: the Hoi Polloi AND women - (so undercover it's under their skin)! This is truly stranger than/more interesting than fiction! If I wrote it the leaks would be about chauvenist pig stuff and it would just be too 'pat.'
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