Oops, My Bad Breanna

I'm sure by now every single one of you has heard about Wikileakes and PFC Manning, who is still in jail, has suffered horrible treatment at the hands of the US government while awaiting to even be charged, and might spend an amount of time in jail that is unprecedented for a whistle-blower.

Here's something that you may not have heard about PFC Manning, which I only found out thanks to one of our favorite FreeThought Bloggers Natalie Reed

It turns out that PFC Manning is most likely a transgendered woman, who is finding it extremely troublesome that her face is being plastered all over the place and that she might go down in history with everyone remembering her as a boy.

“ I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me… plastered all over the world press… as boy…”

o.O?! Why have I not heard about this before?!! I find it horrificly tragic that this was chosen to be kept a secret for fear that there would be far less support for her had people known about this.

Wired then followed this up a year later in published the full chat logs in which Manning very clearly states that she is trans, frets about accessing transitioning treatment and talks about being discharged as “adjustment disorder” rather than GID under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.  Finally, she gives us a female name for herself: Breanna, stating that she’d set up a Twitter and Youtube account.

So let me say, my bad Breanna. I am sure that many of those protesters with your face and the signs "I am Bradley Manning" meant no harm by it, and while they seem to have royally shoved their collective foot into their collective mouth while they were trying to show support, I honestly hope that they support you because you are a human being, and your human rights are being violated, not because they thought you were a man.

If all of this is true, I would really love for this story to become more widely known, and for a new rally to be held with the slogan "I am Breanna Manning" instead, to demonstrate support for her regardless of her gender.

It saddens me to know that there would be less people at that rally than at the previous one. Think not? Prove me wrong, and start organizing one!