I had to write this, but I didn't want to

So, Bradley Manning now wishes to be known as Chelsea Manning?  While I am sensitive to issues such as gender dysphoria, I am also possessed of a perceptive sense of appreciation for theater and timing.  DSM V discusses gender dysphoria as being a condition wherein  from “earliest childhood”  the subject has a keen sense of  incongruity between their emotional and physical gender roles.  It is all too convenient that PFC Manning grew to adulthood and voluntarily enlisted in the US Army while dealing with (whatever that might mean)  this psycho-physical contradiction  but now, hard  on the heels of a 35 year  prison sentence, feels compelled to share his alter ego with the world. Even more suspicious is his attorney’s statement of his hopes that he will receive hormone replacement therapy (HRT) while in Leavenworth.

Let’s get this straight. If PFC Manning  is a “good soldier” and completes his enlistment as a man, and is discharged honorably, he would, presumably have to then deal with HRT and such other alterations as he might desire, on his own dime. If he announces his gender dysphoria and attempts to live as a woman while in uniform, he will probably be administratively discharged, and again, have to foot the bill for lifestyle changes he might wish. However, if he is a traitor who decides that he is the arbiter of national intelligence and needs to release to the world information he is legally bound to maintain secure, he wants that government which he has betrayed to pay for HRT etc.?  

       This seems a desperate ploy to gain sympathy and perhaps impetus from whatever source for early parole and/or pardon.  Manning’s attorney had even hinted that he hopes for a Presidential pardon, which I hope with all my heart is not forthcoming. There is no debate over the illegality of Manning’s actions, since a military judge has ruled him guilty.  Even such a radical defense advocate   as F. Lee Bailey said years ago, that he would rather be tried in a military court than any other because of the burden of proof and due process.

       I and the Bradley Mannings of this world am allowed to live my life as I/we wish, and many of us choose to do so advocating for liberal issues in many areas. Taking the oath as Manning and many of us did, does hold us accountable to that oath while we remain subject to it and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If Manning had the perception from early childhood to realize he is gender dysphoric, as he would now have us believe, then he is certainly perceptive enough to have appreciated the consequence of his criminal actions as an adult. It would be a travesty if, in an era when the LBGT community is making strides in equal rights and opportunity in so many areas, if that community came to Manning’s aid in any sense. Years ago, in a darker time, a man named McCarthy and his ilk led a “crusade,” assisted by the religious right, to purge gays from government service as security risks. What a shame and huge step backward it would be now if anyone where to, in any sense, claim that Bradley Manning should be held even one iota less accountable (or due special treatment) for his  actions because he is gender dysphoric.