Chelsea Manning Sues for Hormone Therapy
Is Manning entitled to hormone therapy?
Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning, is suing in federal court over allegations that the U.S. Army is delaying her hormone therapy treatment.
Manning, who is currently serving a 35 year prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kansas, alleges that her diagnosed gender dysphoria will cause her mental state to spiral if left untreated:
Via the ACLU:
“The government continues to deny Ms. Manning’s access to necessary medical treatment for gender dysphoria, without which she will continue to suffer severe psychological harms,” said Chase Strangio, attorney in the ACLU Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender project and co-counsel on Ms. Manning’s case. “Such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
Ms. Manning is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital, the ACLU of Kansas and civilian defense counsel David E. Coombs. Last month, Ms. Manning’s legal team sent a letter to the DOD and Army officials demanding that she receive treatment for gender dysphoria in accordance with medical standards of care, including hormone therapy and permission to follow female grooming standards. Her treatment needs have continued to be unmet and her distress has escalated.
“I am proud to be standing with the ACLU behind Chelsea on this very important issue.” said David E. Coombs, “It is my hope that through this action, Chelsea will receive the medical care that she needs without having to suffer any further anguish.”
After Manning announced her plans to live as a woman, (which happened just after she was convicted for turning over classified secrets to WikiLeaks,) her attorneys initiated a full media blitz about her transgender status, her diagnosis, and the consequences of not providing Manning with hormone therapy.
In addition to seeking access to the hormones, Manning is also demanding intensive psychological therapy to help deal with the emotional effects of gender dysphoria. Her current therapist admitted in a statement to the court that she isn’t qualified to treat the condition.
This is the kind of situation where no one wins. The idea that taxpayers should be expected to provide hormone therapy for a transgendered person makes less sense than forcing taxpayers to pay for birth control pills. On the other hand, allowing an inmate of a government facility to mentally devolve to the point of self-harm is something that no one should feel comfortable with.
Manning announced her intentions to live as a woman the day after she found out that she’d be spending the next 35 years of her life in prison. She immediately began demanding not only the hormones, but attention from the media and the LGBT community. I don’t think it’s out of line to question the severity of Manning’s condition, but I wouldn’t go so far as to deny psychological treatment to a federal inmate because of the nature of her condition.
So let her doctors and her attorneys prove a need without resorting to impassioned pleas based on gender discrimination and sexual orientation. When that happens, I’ll be more than willing to listen.
You can read Manning’s complaint here:
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Too bad cyanide is not a hormone…
Paying for *his* hormone treatments is only furthering his delusions.
It is a scandal that he didn’t get the firing squad or the rope…let’s not make it worse by engaging in the latest insanity of “sex change procedures”.
If it’s not illegal, Chelsea can have whatever Chelsea can afford
Wrong! Chelsea will have whatever the taxpayer can afford!
Old joke warning..
Know how to make a hor’mone’?
Slap her ass a time or two.
In this case, that be a he/she/it thingy.
Slut.
Why doesn’t Manning just accept what he is? He is a man who prefers sex with other men. Why the apparent need to think he is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Perhaps he feels guilt and thinks this will make him feel better by assuming God made the mistake.
Manning’s psychopathy is a concern if it is evidence of a progressive condition. The immediate concern is that the ACLU is sponsoring normalization of this psychopathy and is one of several groups preventing its treatment.
No, he isn’t a man who likes to have sex with other males, but a male who likes to have sex with other males. He will always be male, even if he gets his wish to be castrated and have a quack plastic surgeon build him some faux female organs, but he is not, and never was, a man.
What’s the difference between a hormone and a vitamin? You can’t hear a vita min.
Is gender dysphoria the cause or symptom? It seems that they prefer it were the former, but they cannot provide evidence to support their assertion. The orientation of the social complex reveals a particular bias and perhaps prejudice.
That said, gender fluidity, right? Anything less is discriminatory and creates moral hazards. The same moral hazards which they created through selective normalization of homosexual behavior, abortion/murder, minority classes, etc.
dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria, so it is the opposite of extremely happy or profound well-being. Basically he is upset that he was born a male. However, there is zero medical evidence that this is a real condition, just like there is no evidence that sexual preference is anything but a choice.
My concern is two-fold. First, their preferred treatment of this condition is justified by an assertion. It is reasonable to assume that the product of nature, of evolution, is the de facto standard, which should not be dismissed lightly. Similarly, they prevent consideration of other perspectives through hate-crime legislation. Second, whether it is a choice or intrinsic, they are not seeking tolerance but normalization of the condition and its expressive behavior. Normalization of behaviors under sane circumstances is reserved for behaviors which have a redeeming value to society or humanity. Then again, these people are pro-choice rationalized by a false myth. So, their priorities and motives are already suspect.
I’ll donate a K-Bar and a band aid to him/her/it.
He needs therapy, all right – psychotherapy. People who can’t handle the reality of being either male or female have some mental issues, to say the least. The last thing they need is coddling.
The only thing Pvt. Manning is entitled to is the short end of a long rope.
“With no racism card to play, U.S. Army private Bradley Manning plays the LGBT card” …
Provide access to a therapist who explain to him the reality of the situation. He is a male, he did violate the law and he’s going to be prison for a very long time. Manning can believe he’s the Queen of Norway for all I care but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to pander to his delusions.
“Such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
There are no “well-established medical protocols” for this because Gender reassignment is still considered and elective procedure at best and medical mutilation at worst. I am in the former school of thought myself. So since it is an elective procedure, can female inmates now make the taxpayers pay for breast implants?
The only thing that his freak needs is a 20 foot drop with an 10 foot rope.
“well-established” over the period of last 5 years in Portland, OR.
“Manning, who is currently serving a 35 year prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kansas, alleges that her diagnosed gender dysphoria will cause her mental state to spiral if left untreated”
__________________
LOL. We certainly wouldn’t want to let this guy’s mental state deteriorate any further. Just think of all the damage he could do . . . . oh, wait . . . .
I found during my 25 years in the Army, the best way to get them to pay for elective medical procedures was to NOT commit treason.
I am no fan of gay rights, but the identity issues associated with transgender are not about sexual orientation. There are a huge number of “Men of Valor” that have now identified as transgender. For example Kristin Beck served in Seal Team 6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Beck
These individuals have assessed themselves and are changing their total identity, a huge challenge. If they can accomplish that, they might be able to handle your project at work easily. They are not asking to date you, but to just coexist in society. About 1 in 200 are probably transgender.
Gays and lesbians I can understand – not everybody likes chocolate, not everybody likes vanilla. The idea of being required to modify and mangle parts of your body in order to satisfy some mental illness you have, on the other hand, is beyond the pale.
When someone decides that they can’t live a sane life without the addition of two more functional arms, will we be working on some body modification surgery that will allow that?
This is what happens when you treat a mental illness with physical therapy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Penner
It is not a physical issue, it’s a mental disorder.
I object to the Army’s treating him as a woman and placing him in prison with female inmates. He committed his crimes as a man and that’s how he should serve his time.
Specifically with Manning, this is probably a charade. But the HRT is far, far less than having a fleet of lawyers at $400/hr argue about this.
As I understand it, gender dysphoria is related to a fetus’s brain and genitals specifying for gender at different times, and that sometimes changes in the fetal environment between those times will result in the genitals being male while the brain is female (or vice versa).
If so, then the gender identity is fixed from birth, and the only effective way to get rid of the dysphoria is to change the body. Think of it as Manning’s being a deformed woman who wants the government to provide plastic surgery so that she can feel better about herself. Whether it should depends, legally, on whether it provides plastic surgery for other women in the federal prison system.
I doubt there are any credible scientific studies to support this theory.
Science is settled.
Then a genome test should reveal XX instead of XY and if so? Well…Hmmm that would certainly be very interesting
OK, went back and realized the claim is for hormone therapy and not an operation. My bad, but it doesn’t really change the substance of my comment.
For God’s sake, are there no women in our miitary penal system? Teach that boy how to apply makeup and choose a wig.
Transgenderism (gender dysphoria) is a mental illness that must be treated with mental therapy – the idea of pounding drugs and cutting off bits of a person because of a mental problem is barbaric.
If someone insisted that they were a tall black person stuck in a short white person’s body, would we be on the hook for leg implants and skin coloring treatments?
http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120
Johns Hopkins, which pioneered sexual reassignment surgery, stopped doing it after follow up studies. Based on current medical research, if the government did perform the operation, he/she/it could later sue- because it was known to be harmful.
Copy/pasted from another blog I posted on.
But does he have a thigh gap? This is the current important question .
I would expect him to be fairly muscular, so yes. Unless the hormones cause him gain weight.
No, he’s not “entitled” to hormone therapy. Now, seeing a prison psychologist or psychiatric therapy, yes, he’s in need of that. Whatever is standard in prison.
It’s not supposed to be a good time.
Bradley Manning committed crimes and was convicted.
I don’t know any woman named Chelsea Manning.
Janitor, you are anticipating Manning’s netx legal ploy, after the hormone therapy is completed: “I’m Chelsea, not Bradley. You cannot incarcerate me for his crimes.”
It puts the lotion on its skin
or else it gets the hose again.
Calm down, Bill.
He is a he, you cannot change your genetic make-up. He is clearly crazy, thinking he is a woman, but endorsing his insanity is not a treatment. Treatment would be intensive counseling and whatever medication that can reduce his detachment from reality. In any event, this is all about getting easier treatment in prison as a “woman.”
Miss Miller, you should not go along with the professional media’s habit of referring to Mr Manning using the feminine pronouns. Mr Manning, regardless of his new legal name, is still male. If I decided that, somehow, I wasn’t human but was actually a Vulcan, does anyone think that any (serious) person or news organization would actually treat me as a Vulcan and use Vulcan references toward me, apparently sincerely and seriously?
Nope, none would; I’d be regarded as a whacko, whose fantasies ought not to be indulged . . . and the same is true of Mr Manning. He was born male, has male genitalia, male chromosomes, was reared as a male, had all of his previous experiences as a male, and remains male today. If he gets his fondest wish, and is castrated and has a plastic surgeon craft him some faux female organs, he will still be male.