Showing posts with label transgender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transgender. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2015

Melissa Harris-Perry Loses Her Mind Over Rachel Dolezal

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Previous Related Posts:
Twitter Mocks Rachel Dolezal
Rachel Dolezal: Con Artist Passing as Black Causes Confusion

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It's a strange thing that sometimes people will agree with a notorious person as long as their philosophies or narratives somehow mesh. I guess that's what is meant by "strange bedfellows" in politics.

In the case of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman posing as a black woman, things are more muddled than that.

For some reason, Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC (#nerdland) decided to defend Dolezal in an very hypothetical and even nonsensical way, using the analogy of transexuals who seek to find their "real" identity. What she avoided was any semblance of a news story with facts.

From The Root

On Saturday, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry met the ire of social media after seemingly asserting that Dolezal could actually be black, despite the fact that Dolezal’s parents have said that their background was everything but black—Czech, Swedish and German.
“Is it possible that she might actually be black?” Harris-Perry questioned.
“I want to be very careful here, because I don’t want to say it’s the equivalent of the transgender experience,” she said. “But there is a useful language in ‘trans’ and ‘cis,’ which is just to say some of us are born cisgendered and some of us are born transgendered.”



Okay, now first of all, while Harris-Perry believes that "race is a social construct," it is clearly different from judging someone's gender identity - how they perceive themselves sexually in a subjective personal way. Dolezal is by all accounts objectively lying about facts and details of her life, travels and resume. Facts are facts in the real world, and not everything is conjecture. Her real white parents know who they are. Her adopted black brother knows who she is. Other people did not know the reality of Dolezal's life, and her own spin has simply been dishonest on many levels.

What infuriated Harris-Perry's viewers was that she seemed to breeze right past the idea that Dolezal is a rampant liar, as if that wasn't relevant to the story. Harris-Perry mainly wanted to make some larger point about racial identity being a personal choice. And maybe that's true for anyone who isn't a public figure. But the fact is, Rachel Dolezal has chosen to become a public figure, a university professor, and the head of the Spokane NAACP. Someone can "pass" as anything but a public figure has to bear scrutiny by the public, and cannot just keep lying to the point of being delusional.

The real world isn't make-believe.

The following day, Harris-Perry did another segment defending her first piece, defending herself while admitting that Twitter reaction was nearly unanimous - that it was "inherently problematic" to ask if Dolezal could actually be truly black. But she kept referring to "race being policed" because it is perceived as "fixed," and that shows she was missing the point again.

Trans-activist Cherno Biko made the important point that "Dolezal made a decision to start acting, while trans-folk need to stop acting."  But Harris-Perry then had another "derp" moment:

What if she (Dolezal) is not pretending? And not Rachel in particular . . . Is it possble to be born into a body that is not an authentic expression of your racial identity? And what words that might look like?

Her panel seemed dumbfounded and stared in disbelief, and no one responded because they could tell the crazy train had left the station. When Jamelle Bouie pointed out that some racial identity is imposed, then Harris-Perry asked whether gender identity wasn't also "imposed," which is also nutty considering several people on the set with her were transexuals who had "chosen" to find their "real" identities. Truly one of the most awkward moments on a talk show I've seen in my 55 years.



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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Huckabee Jokes That Transgenders Want to Shower with Opposite Sex

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Previous Related Post:
TLC's Popular Duggar Family Has Incest Problem

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Ex-Arkansas Governor and GOP Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee didn't mind apologizing for the incestuous child abuse of Josh Duggar last week, but this week someone found a speech Huckabee made back in February in which he joked that Transgender people must be pretending so they can use bathrooms and gym showers to spy on the opposite sex.



The latter was probably a slam at Bruce Jenner, the high-profile celebrity Dad of the Kardashian family, who recently announced his intention to live as a transgender woman.

In Huckabee's world of sexual arrested-development, adult orientation is all about leering at underage girls in the shower, right? No wonder Huck supports Josh Duggar, who liked to crawl into bed with his little sisters. But he implies that actual transgender people are just fakes - not like self-righteous creepers who pretend that their own sexual activities are pre-forgiven by God.

From Huffington Post
"We are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your seven-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended, and you can’t be offended, if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man,” Huckabee said in February at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville in comments that were first reported by BuzzFeed on Tuesday.
“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” Huckabee said. “I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’"

From The Guardian
“There is something inherently wrong about forcing little children to be a part of this social experiment,” Huckabee said. “I’m not against anybody. I’d just like for somebody to bring their brain to work some day and not leave it on the bedstand when they show up to govern.”
While speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Huckabee was asked what he thought about the latest cover of Vanity Fair, which features Caitlyn Jenner, in the latest stage of former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner’s transition to a female identity.
“I’m not going there,” Huckabee replied.


Dr. Drew Pinksky had this to say on CNN, via Transcript
Well, look, he's entitled to his opinion, but it's insensitive. He's now bled over into misogyny and sexism in the course of his being insensitive to these issues. And whether or not it's a social experiment, whether or not psychologists or psychiatrist have this wrong, listen, he's not the one to say. The fact is there's a human being here, these are human beings that deserve sensitive care and the best possible care by experts, not attack by their politicians.
. . . He's not helping the process. As we're saying, there's a cultural moment here -- when the issues are coming to the fore. People want to be sensitive. They want to get their head around. They want to understand this. This sounds very much like the kind of sort of frankly knuckleheaded notions that people had about gay and lesbians not that long ago. And this is the same phenomenon.
Should we not allow a gay man into a man's room either, Mr. Huckabee, is that what you're saying? I mean, for goodness sakes --

From Mashable
In one fell swoop, Huckabee dismisses the entire notion of being transgender as "ridiculous" and suggests that legislators who recognize it have "left their brains on the night stand."
Huckabee is a former presidential candidate and often mentioned as a potential GOP contender for 2016. But in his transphobia, he appears to be out of step even with another right-wing Christian conservative potential candidate: Rick Santorum.
"if [Jenner] says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman,” Santorum told CBS News in South Carolina on Tuesday, screwing up his pronouns, but still. “My responsibility as a human being is to love and accept everybody," he added. "Not to criticize people for who they are.”

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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Bradley Manning is now Chelsea Manning

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Previous Related Posts:
Wikileaks Associate Bradley Manning Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison
Bradley Manning Apologizes at Trial



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Complete Statement from Chelsea Manning from NBC Today Show
Subject: 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

While Fort Leavenworth, the prison where Manning will serve her sentence, does not offer hormone therapy, (Attorney David) Coombs told host Savannah Guthrie he would fight to ensure his client received the medical treatment she needed. He also said he and Manning had not discussed sex reassignment surgery, and that getting her access to the needed hormones is his priority at this time.
Asked why Chelsea Manning had not made a statement about her gender before the trial was over, Coombs said, “She didn’t want this to be something that overshadowed the case.”
~ MSNBC

The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder.
~ Statement from the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth










































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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Bradley Manning Apologizes at Trial

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Complete Apology Transcript Via Huffington Post
First, your Honor. I want to start off with an apology. I am sorry. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I am sorry that it hurt the United States. At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues -- issues that are ongoing and they are continuing to affect me.

Although they have caused me considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions. I understood what I was doing and the decisions I made. However, I did not truly appreciate the broader effects of my actions. Those effects are clearer to me now through both self-reflection during my confinement in its various forms and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here.

I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was gonna help people, not hurt people. The last few years have been a learning experience. I look back at my decisions and wonder, 'How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority?'

In retrospect I should have worked more aggressively inside the system as we discussed during the Providence Statement and had options and I should have used these options. Unfortunately, I can't go back and change things. I can only go forward. I want to go forward. Before I can do that though, I understand that I must pay a price for my decisions and actions.

Once I pay that price, I hope to one day live in the manner I haven't been able to in the past. I want to be a better person -- to go to college -- to get a degree -- and to have a meaningful relationship with my sister's family and my family.

I want to be a positive influence in their lives, just as my aunt Deborah has been to me. I have flaws and issues that I have to deal with, but I know that I can and will be a better person. I hope you can give me the opportunity to prove -- not through words, but through conduct -- that I am a good person, and that I can return to a productive place in society.

Thank you, your Honor.



Complete Response from Wikileaks HERE
EXCERPTS:

. . . Mr. Manning has been an emblem of courage and endurance in the face of adversity. He has resisted extraordinary pressure. He has been held in solitary confinement, stripped naked and subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment by the United States government. His constitutional right to a speedy trial has been ignored. He has sat for three years in pretrial detention, while the government assembled 141 witnesses and withheld thousands of documents from his lawyers.

The government has denied him the right to conduct a basic whistleblower defense. It overcharged him until he faced over a century in prison and barred all but a handful of his witnesses. He was denied the right at trial to argue that no harm was caused by his alleged actions. His defence team was pre-emptively banned from describing his intent or showing that his actions harmed no one.

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But Mr. Manning’s options have run out. The only currency this military court will take is Bradley Manning’s humiliation.

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Mr. Manning’s apology is a statement extorted from him under the overbearing weight of the United States military justice system. It took three years and millions of dollars to extract two minutes of tactical remorse from this brave soldier.

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Bradley Manning’s apology was extracted by force, but in a just court the US government would be apologizing to Bradley Manning.

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Public pressure on Bradley Manning’s military court must intensify in these final days before the sentencing decision against him is made.
WikiLeaks continues to support Bradley Manning, and will continue to campaign for his unconditional release.
Free Bradley Manning.

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