Not Happy

(take that one second poll, which should say "get her ears pierced"!)

I am not happy about Chelsea Manning.

I'm sure you know by now that, post-sentencing, Bradley Manning announced.  "I am female.  I am Chelsea Manning."

Ms. Manning will cause serious harm to transgender causes.  The ignorant are going to say "oh, 'she' acted irrationally by leaking documents.  This explains it." Or  'She' is just going for an insanity appeal now that he's been sentenced."  Or "'She' wants to run amok at a women's prison."

I'm very conflicted ~ I'd hate to see someone live an untruthful life because it makes our lives more complicated.  Maybe she could have found a more private way to come out, although considering her history (see: WikiLeaks) she doesn't seem to act very privately.  Even for a private.

I'm working on this.  I'm thinking about this.

In the meantime, if someone is NOT working on a song that starts "Woke up, I was Chelsea Manning..." I'll be shocked.  Capitol Steps?  Bob Rivers?  I think it's not Weird Al's kind of thing.

In one of the many articles about Ms. Manning I picked up the following gem:

The American Psychiatric Association — in its most recent edition of the guidebook the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians — revised “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria.” The term is used to diagnose people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with. A psychologist who evaluated Manning in Iraq diagnosed him with a gender identity disorder in 2010.

Kim [Grace Kim, a District-based psychologist], who has a number of transgender patients, said the change in terminology represents a shift away from gender issues being pathological and removed the connotation that the patient is “disordered.”

“Questioning your gender identity isn’t of itself a problem,” she said.

D.C.-based psychotherapist Mike Giordano agreed: “People need to understand that someone else’s gender identity and their expression is actually not up for debate, and people are who they are.”

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