The Bradley Manning case just got weirder today. Because apparently he (she?) is now Chelsea Manning. He had been diagnosed with gender identity disorder back in Some Year I Don't Care To Spend Time Looking Up and admitted to a counselor that he wanted to be a woman in 2009, well before he started dumping classified documents. Suddenly, old and new media blew up with stories about Bradley. Or Chelsea. Or whatever.
There was much speculation and debate. Why did he wait until just now, if he thought about becoming a woman four years ago? Is it because women don't serve in Leavenworth, only men? Do taxpayers have to pay for his hormone treatment, (If his lawyer gets his way, we will) and should we have to? In response to these questions, the PC Gestapo launched into action. Merely asking these questions was bigotry. Also, anyone failing to refer to "her" as "she" was immediately dubbed Hatey McRacist. Members of the press who failed to comply were decried by lib/progs.
I, like many people, don't care what he does with his junk. I don't care to know anything about his various personal habits. He can take all of the hormones he wants, but we shouldn't have to pay for it. Nor should he be able to use this to dodge Fort Leavenworth. What I'm amazed by is just how upset the lib/progs of the world are that we haven't all decided to say "she" or "her".
Failing to adhere to the canons of sensitivity is apparently a crime against humanity. Lib/progs finger wag and lecture about transgender rights and say that Manning claims to be a she, therefore she is. This sounds surprisingly similar to someone screaming that "the science is settled!" The science isn't settled. Psychology is still more art than science, meaning there is a lot of judgment involved. Issues such as transgender are not based solely on empirical evidence, but also on the opinions of various psychologists.
There is even such a thing as "transgender regret." This is where someone undergoes sex change therapy, and then has second thoughts. Don Ennis, a producer at ABC, is a recent example. He went through the therapy, and changed his name to "Dawn". Recently, he told the world he wants to be Don again. Apparently, to mention that there might be this sort of regret is hateful to Manning supporters. I think some dude regretting this seems like an entirely plausible reaction. Especially if he went the whole way (Ennis didn't, apparently) and lopped off his unit.
No one I've spoken to (Read: gotten into a shouting match/twitter war) with on the left cares that don't care what Manning does to himself. Failing to accept everything and use the right pronouns makes me automatically hateful and homophobic and blah blah blah. Not that I'm bothered by this. Recent experience with the extreme left suggests that when one calls me a bigot, it doesn't mean I am a bigot. It just means they've run out of intelligent things to say. But what does annoy me slightly is that it's fairly clear that lib/progs assume that their way is the only way, despite the fact that there's still plenty of unsettled science. We must call Manning "her" or "she". Bradley is now Chelsea. Any who fail to accede to the wishes of the lib/progs does so on pain of death.
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