Chelsea Manning: Free Chelsea Manning!

The Next Stage of My Life

I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years. Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong. I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to my defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.

Thank you,

Chelsea E. Manning

Chelsea’s mailing address remains:
Commander, HHC USAG
Attn: PFC Bradley Manning
239 Sheridan Ave, Bldg 417
JBM-HH, VA 22211

Via a statement Chelsea gave to her lawyer, David Coombs. 

As ever and always, thinking of you, Chelsea, with thanks, solidarity, respect and much love.
x

• What If Chelsea Manning Were Russian? An excellent piece by Michael Arria on the double standards and hypocrisy of those all-American gay boys, James Kirchick and Dan Savage.

Update: Trans Media Watch respond to Chelsea Manning coming out. Daily Mail and Independent good, others not so...

Update2: And a list of which media are using Chelsea's preferred pronoun, and who isn't...

Update3: Send Chelsea Manning a book!

Transphobia: 15 Points

1. The media has a long history of humiliating and undermining trans people

2. Transphobia cuts across left/liberal and conservative media

3. Most commentators (grudgingly) accept the right of individual adults to transition

4. Commentators disproportionately “monster” trans individuals
 
5. Editors and commissioners can no longer use the "complexity" of transgender issues as a gatekeeping tactic

6. The refusal of trans language, culture and history is ideological

7. The focus on the cost of gender reassignment to the NHS is ideological

8. Commentators “monster” efforts of trans community to organise

9.The battleground has moved to the lives of children

10. Liberal/libertarian constructions of “freedom of speech” preserve this status quo

11. Going to the PCC is understood to be pointless

12. The structures of online journalism should be considered in any analysis

13. The "outrage fatigue" generated by this model is particularly dangerous

14. This situation is self-perpetuating

15. Compromise is neither desirable nor possible

An excellent article for the New Statesman by Juliet Jacques.  
Please click here to read her analysis and explanation of these points.


PS The above photo is the one used to illustrate the article in the NS, and captioned; 'April Ashley, who was "outed" by the Sunday People in 1961, poses with her MBE in December 2012.'

PCC: Julie Burchill Ruling

The Press Complaints Commission have decided not to take any action over Julie Burchill's disgusting transphobic article in The Observer in January.
Here's the ruling in full on the Changing Journeys blog.
In fine the PCC just repeated what they always say, they only act if an invidual had been attacked, not a category of people.

The Commission first considered the complaints, framed under Clause 12, that the article had contained a number of remarks about transgender people that were pejorative and discriminatory. It noted that the Observer had accepted that these remarks were offensive, and that it had made the decision to remove the article on the basis that the language used fell outside the scope of what it considered reasonable; however, the Observer denied a breach of Clause 12 because the article had not made reference to any specific individual. Clause 12 states that newspapers “must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability”. However, the clause does not cover references to groups or categories of people. The language used in the article did not refer to any identifiable individual, but to transgender people generally. While the Commission acknowledged the depth of the complainants’ concerns about the terminology used, in the absence of reference to a particular individual, there was no breach of Clause 12.

For what it's worth, I agree with this position.
My disgust and anger over this is that a supposedly "liberal" newspaper such as The Observer presumably thought it would be amusing and provocative to publish this hate-filled trash in the first place.
But this is the economy of the mass media; outrage gets publicity which sells papers. 

• Thanks to Trans Media Watch. Here's their submission to Leveson on how the tabloids demonise the trans community.

Transphobia: Freedom Of Information

A very interesting/scary piece on Pink News by Jane Fae about how newspapers have been using FOI [Freedom Of Information] requests to generate "stories" about trans people.

'The most recent example surfaced in the People a fortnight ago, in a story about the number of transgender officers in the Metropolitan Police. This originated in a FOI request made on the popular WhatDoTheyKnow website in May, which turned up the fact that some 582 Metropolitan Police officers identified as LG or B (or 8.5% of those who expressed a preference). In addition, 8 identified as intersex, and a further 6 as transgender/transsexual... *

'Similar issues arose earlier this year when The Sun claimed that the Ministry of Defence was paying for troops’ gender reassignment surgery. This arose from an FOI inquiry that revealed that over a possible two year period, the MOD had spent around £7,000 – out of a budget in excess of £100bn – to support military personnel in gender re-assignment.

'While accurate, this piece was condemned at the time by members of Trans Media Watch for stirring up controversy by running a story out of all proportion to the actual impact of the money involved...'

Jennie Kermode of Trans Media Watch told Pink News; "In the absence of any other context for the story, we can only conclude that the FOI use in this case was speculative and was intended to acquire material for a negative story about vulnerable minority groups. The negative intent in this case is clear from the paper’s choice to change the word ‘intersex’ in the police data to the inaccurate word ‘hermaphrodite’ which most intersex people find offensive.
“The deliberate omission [of background] suggests that the intent is to mislead readers.”
Quite rightly, Kermode says she does not wantto see any restrictions placed on FOI requests.
But what to do?

It's strange though that Pink News has headlined this article; 'Concern over ‘pernicious’ Freedom of Information requests on LGBT issues' - why not specify here this is a trans issue?
I can't think of any similar cases involving, say, gay men.
As Fagburn keeps repeating, trans people now occupy the same place in tabloid demonology as gay men once did.
So someone being trans is a story in itself - they hold a particular fascination if they work in "manly" professions, such as the police, the fire service or armed forces.
The tabloids think it is quite legitimate to out trans people.
And trans people are - almost always - only allowed to be presented as either a joke or a threat.
It really is quite dreadful, shameful, hateful stuff.

PS Worth stating again how vastly improved Pink News is since Stephen Gray became editor last year.
It's great to have a UK-based gay news where I can find out some things I didn't know were going on, rather than scream at all the things they've got wrong.
Pink Paper seems to have given up - the whole thing now appears to be written by interns...

* The Pink News article also details several “material inaccuracies, use of pejorative language and disingenuous statements”.

Leveson Inquiry: Tabloid Transphobia

'Belcher says in her witness statement that the tabloid press has sustained a "climate of prejudice" against transgender people.
'Families have had to relocate or have received death threats after appearing as the subject of a transgender story in the press.
'Most transgender people "don't bother" complaining to the PCC any more because of a string of instances where it has failed to adequately deal with their worries, Belcher says.
"It appears that nothing ever changes as a result of those complaints … The transgender community has walked away from the PCC...
"Belcher said there is no "public interest" defence for reporting that a transgender person is to undergo a medical operation."

Helen Belcher from Trans Media Watch at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday.
Via The Guardian's live News Blog.
There is a full transcript here - starting on page 36.

You can read Trans Media Watch's submission to the inquiry on their website.
It shows - and deconstructs - ten of the worst examples of transphobic press stories (From page 12).
Four are from The Sun.
One from The Scottish Sun.
One is from The Daily Express.
Four are from The Daily Mail.

Further: Helen Belcher said the Daily Mail publishes six times more transgender stories than any other newspaper.
She said many Mail stories are attributed to "a staff reporter" but are sourced from a news agency, and the paper says it is the fault of the agency if there is a complaint, and this causes "huge problems".

Leveson Inquiry: Trans Media Watch

Trans Media Watch are appearing before the Leveson Inquiry today.
The Guardian will be live bogging - I think they are due on around 3pm.
As Fagburn keeps saying trans people now occupy the same place in the tabloids as gay men once did; where they're only allowed to represent danger or be a joke, and where someone being trans is considered news in itself.
More on this later...

Update: 'Does Today Mean Change For The Trans Community?', Jane Fae, comment piece on Pink News, and longer piece on her blog; 'Does Today Mean Change...'

My Transsexual Summer: The Shock Of The New

"Fancy getting sozzled tonight? Try the Trans Documentary Drinking Game, something of a transgender community in-joke. The rules are simple: for every cliche, take one shot of tequila. US writer Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty, lists 35 classic clangers, including: trans woman putting on makeup (two shots for reverse camera shot into mirror); showing "before" photos; any reference to genital surgery that includes "finally becoming a woman"; and anything with a trans woman sitting in an above-the-knee skirt, "posed so you can see what great gams she has". Camera in the operating room? Down the whole bottle.
"All these silly tropes appear in the first episode of My Transsexual Summer, Channel 4's new primetime reality doc. Yet MTS does have something original to offer: it gives trans people – at least seven – a voice..."

Paris Lees writing in The Guardian about My Transsexual Summer.
"The first major piece of trans-themed output since Channel 4 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with my campaign group, Trans Media Watch...
"The document suggests treating trans people with accuracy, dignity and respect. Pretty radical, huh?"
So Channel 4 has got Paris Lees, a transsexual, to work as a consultant on the series, and The Guardian asked a transsexual to write about the programme.
Do you think these crazy new-fangled ideas will catch on?

• Watch My Transsexual Summer here.

Transphobia: Funny Girls

This week Trans Media Watch launched their Memorandum of Understanding.
They hope other media organisations will follow Channel 4's lead and sign up to improve their coverage of transgender people and issues.
Fagburn really hopes the tabloids take notice; for them if someone is trans they're only ever frightening or funny, often both.
Coverage is almost always gratuitous, offensive, disrespectful, ill-informed and cruel - and someone being transsexual is a story in itself (By way of example here's a story from The Sun that ticks every box).
Coincidentally, this week Comic Relief launched its official single for 2011, a cover of I Know Him So Well by Susan Boyle and the Peter Kay character Geraldine (formerly Gerry) McQueen.
Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with having a transsexual comedy character.
But how often does TV Land allow trans people to be anything else but mere figures of fun, to provide some comic relief?