Chelsea Manning

Manning as she was in the Army (S)

Wikileaks had access to over 1.2 million pages of information in its first year alone - ranging from the inane (the US ambassador to Britain writing back to Washington to say "Dickens described the squalor, overcrowding and poverty in Britain's cities over a century ago”) to the very important (proof that two American military helicopter strikes on a group of people who were armed also targeted two Iraqi journalists after their cameras were mistaken for guns). But with Julian Assange still hiding from his extradition to Sweden in the UK Ecuadorian embassy and Edward Snowden chilling (pun mostly intentional) after being granted asylum in Russia, most people seem to be getting off lightly.

So why is this relevant to this blog? That’s simple – a US soldier called Bradley Manning was charged on Wednesday for leaking a lot of classified documentation. Well, the day after being sentenced, Bradley Manning came out and stated “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female”.

My Trans Ex-Girlfriend

WARNING: SERIOUS FEELS AHEAD.
Please enjoy this picture before delving
into the FEELS

Just over a month ago, my first girlfriend dumped me. It seems like it's been half a year. I guess it was one sided, because I learned more about myself than she ever did. I ended up confronting a lot of big questions that you, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereof and none of the above, might profit from.

I can't tell you how we met or where. None of that is important anyway. I will tell you, even though it hopefully won't be important in the future, that she was MtF transgender. She had begun hormone therapy a few months before. Her face alone was already beginning to feminize so much that a daub of makeup and a dress would let her pass all but the most careful inspection. She was slowly coming out to her classmates and professors as female although she wasn't yet living as a woman full time.

There are those, reading this article, that will want to commend me, a lesbian, for dating a trans woman, for keeping an open mind. For these people, I have a quick remark:

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

The Daily Failure of the Daily Mail to Take Responsibility

(S)

Anyone who lives in Britain, has lived in Britain, or just generally pays attention to British media will have heard of the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail, a long-time supporter of the Conservative Party, enjoys whipping its readers, also generally long-time supporters of the Conservative Party, into a blind frenzy with its writing. Usually it involves minorities or (cover your eyes if you happen to read the Mail) lower class people, and in most cases this is because readers of the Mail are incredibly scared of everyone who isn't exactly like them. If you don’t want to hear about some truly disgusting examples of hate speech against trans* people, then don’t read any further. 

Another Take on the Restroom Thing

Something my husband ran across in Orlando Florida last week caught my eye. Especially after Kal’s post this week:

This was posted in the NASPA Conference in Orlando earlier this month.

I love gender neutral restrooms, so does husband. I would go further to remark that I also prefer gender neutral locker rooms--but that is another post.

Yes, I am cis-gendered, but I am also a mom.  What strictly gendered restrooms mean to me is that I have had to hover outside the men’s room while waiting for my six or seven year old son uses the restroom. Or take him to the ladies room and have said ladies glare at me.

The same thing happened to my husband when he took daughter out.  Worse yet, when she was tiny, he discovered that most men’s rooms didn’t have things like changing tables,so he would be stuck changing daughter on precarious counter or filthy floor.

Patriotism, nationalism, and freedom

Keep driveway free.
Freedom for all driveways! (by christophheinrich)

To me, patriotism while being a transgender person is something like religion is for other LGBT people. Those aren't exactly the most compatible things. Obviously, I have a difficult time with it. If you would ask the people that know me to describe me, words like "patriotic" probably wouldn't make the list. "Good student", "talented", "smart", "friendly"... Heck, maybe even "fun"? But "patriotic"? No, not me... They'd probably say that I'm simply too queer forward-thinking to be into such "conservative and traditionalist" things like patriotism. Well, it's just who I am!

Dictionary calls Gay a "Perversion" and a Transphobic slur "Popular"

Recently there has been scandal and uproar in the French LGBT blogosphere after the online version of the Larousse dictionary defined homosexuality as "a perversion" and "a deviation", and called a transphobic slur "popular".

Larousse is one of the top online dictionaries in France. It is the French equivalent of Webster's dictionary and is used by thousands of French internet surfers every day since its launch in May 2008.

Making Me Illegal Won't Make Me Go Away

Over here in Lithuania, transgender healthcare and medical transitioning is a bit of a hot topic. The European Union is pushing our government to fix the laws that prevent trans people from having access to trans healthcare, but most politicians aren’t too enthusiastic about it. Local politician, Vida M. Cigriejiene, even proposed to make transitioning illegal in order to “save the money” we need to make it legal and accessible, perfectly illustrating how completely clueless a lot of politicians are about transgender healthcare. Several other conservative politicians, such as Antanas Matulas, teamed up with her, and now this is pretty much the moment of truth for transgender people in Lithuania. Both of the politicians are doctors, which makes it even more depressing. Since I have seen some of the most ridiculous and dehumanizing transphobia from our politicians, my hopes aren’t very high for this law. That's why I decided to write this article/open letter, about why it's a bad idea.

"We don't need no education"

Source

Pink Floyd may have said the wrong thing - we definitely need general education on the LGBT spectrum, regardless of how opposed so many of society seem to be.

Thus far a huge amount of prejudice has been thrown at the LGB part of the orientation spectrum. Right now, though, I think we need to be focusing on the T. Homophobia – the kind of homophobia that makes people go out and attack anyone who isn’t almost stereotypically straight – is declining. It happens, and certainly verbal homophobia is a huge issue that needs to be addressed, but transphobia is something that I can only see increasing.

Look at history, if you don’t believe me. Increased awareness of homosexuality led to an increase in homophobic crimes and attacks. As soon as a minority stands up and asks for equal rights, you can be damn sure that the majority will stand and oppose it.

So why make history’s mistake twice?

The Internet is a Scary Place: Education and Bigotry

Photo courtesy of Gnarls Monkey.
  

There exists an ancient tenet, some may revere it as a sacred code, handed down through the ages. This maxim implores all who would seek knowledge to never read the bottom half the internet. Needless to say, trigger warnings abound...

I spent the past two days poking around the internet, looking for an idea for an article. Instead, my search turned into a mind-numbing, soul-crushing exercise in futility. I'm not quite certain what's going on in North America right now (perhaps some sort of perfect storm created when slumping economies team up xenophobia and plunge headlong into conservative politics) but almost every article I perused was accompanied by a comment section that resembled an Ed Wood film--sure it's bad at the start, but it can't get any worse, can it?