{"id":26515,"date":"2013-03-11T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=26515"},"modified":"2015-03-23T11:10:23","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T11:10:23","slug":"how-bradley-manning-became-a-gay-martyr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/03\/how-bradley-manning-became-a-gay-martyr\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bradley Manning Became a Gay Martyr"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ideologically speaking, supporters of Bradley Manning\u2014the 24-year-old army private expected to face a court martial beginning either in November or January for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks\u2014are a fairly predictable bunch: libertarians, antiwar activists, hackers, whistleblowers. (As one Manning supporter put it to me: \u201cBradley is Welsh, so we started looking around in Wales.\u201d) But what\u2019s sometimes escaped notice is that much of the public support that Manning has received has actually come from certain segments of the LGBT community.\u00a0After it publicly emerged that Manning was gay (the rumors that circulated after his arrest were confirmed by a New York Times<\/em> profile<\/a> in August 2010), many activists offered him their support. In the\u00a0Washington Blade<\/a>, Rainey Reitman, a digital freedom activist who is also gay called for the gay community\u2019s engagement: \u201c[A]s queer activists have long known, there is power and transcendence in choosing truth, even when that truth makes others uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if Manning\u2014who has endured an extended period of difficult detention conditions, including several months in solitary confinement at the military prison at Quantico, and more than a year in a medium-security facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas\u2014has become something of a gay hero, it has not been without heated debate. At New York City\u2019s gay pride parade in June, a motley crew of about 25 assembled under a banner that read \u201cComing out with the Truth is Never Easy,\u201d and wore neon pink stickers emblazoned with a black silhouette of Manning\u2019s face and the slogan \u201cgay hero.\u201d One onlooker called out \u201cTraitor!\u201d as the threadbare group marched down Fifth Avenue. Clearly, not everyone in the gay community is happy about the association. In fact, the debate over Manning illustrates the discord among gay activists about the direction in which the movement\u2014beyond Manning\u2014is headed.<\/p>\n

To his supporters, Manning is an emblem of something larger\u2014a classic symbol of struggle and oppression.\u00a0Lieutenant Daniel Choi, a gay soldier and outspoken opponent of Don\u2019t Ask Don\u2019t Tell (DADT), expressed solidarity with Manning on \u201cCountdown with Keith Olberman.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m proud of him, as a gay soldier, because he stood for integrity\u201d Choi said, \u201cthe gay community is [the] only one that bases its membership \u2026 on integrity and telling the truth.\u201d\u00a0Zack Pesavento, the spokesperson for the non-profit Bradley Manning Support Network, says members of the LGBT community identify with Manning because \u201cmany of us have first hand experience with being abused by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning\u2019s personal history, in particular, resonates. As a recent biography by journalist Denver Nicks and an extensive profile in\u00a0New York\u00a0magazine <\/a>recount, Manning had an unpleasant childhood. His father was verbally and physically abusive, and his mother struggled with alcoholism. Manning came out of the closet at 13\u2014a brave act in the conservative Oklahoma town where he was raised\u2014and left home at 18.\u00a0 He later joined the military, but once enlisted, he suffered intense bullying; he was fairly transparent about his sexuality and was beginning to question his gender. The harassment wore on Manning, and he responded with angry outbursts\u2014behavior that prompted superiors to question whether he could be trusted with his security clearance. \u201cTo gay people who have faced the kind of hyper-masculine bullying that [Manning] endured in the military,\u201d says Larry Goldsmith, an historian and gay activist, the \u201cdetails of his case \u2026 were recognizable as the experiences of many gay people at schools, at work, and in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manning\u2019s gay supporters believe in gay activism that connects the mistreatment of gays, the plight of poor people, and the injustices of war. \u201cWar is about traditionally, historically, masculine, gender role approach to resolving conflicts through violence and aggression,\u201d says Goldsmith. \u201cGay people at one time had a critique of that.\u201d For his supporters, Manning\u2019s radical action is a symbol of the anti-war, anti-establishment values the gay movement used to champion before becoming more narrowly focused on marriage equality and the repeal of Don\u2019t Ask Don\u2019t Tell. \u201cI thought it was a cornerstone of gay sensibility to oppose wars,\u201d Jim Fouratt, a prominent New York City Gay activist who participated at Stonewall, told me. \u201cManning represents to me that part of the gay spirit.\u201d There is a also a sense, among gay supporters, that Manning does not represent the kind of photo-ready figure that gay activists would like to have at the forefront of their movement. \u201cManning doesn\u2019t fit into the affluent, we-are-just-like-you vision of gay normalcy,\u201d says Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? \u201cHe\u2019s not the poster boy for the campaign they\u2019ve been running for gays in the military,\u201d says Goldsmith.<\/p>\n

But others within the gay community have balked at this association. Mainstream national gay organizations have not offered public support. The Human Rights Campaign did not respond to my request for comment on Manning. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Defamation (GLAAD) politely declined to comment via e-mail. Even Lieutenant Daniel Choi, once a vocal Manning supporter, would not talk to me.<\/p>\n

In fact, national organizations have only addressed the case critically. To them, his polarizing potential is of limited use\u2014and may even damage their cause. Back in a December hearing, when Manning\u2019s defense lawyers implied that his struggles with his sexual orientation and gender identity could be used as a defense\u2014reportedly suggesting the emotional trauma caused by DADT made Manning unfit to handle classified information\u2014the lawyers were immediately challenged. Army Captain Clarke Cooper, a reserve officer and the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, wrote in an op-ed:<\/a> \u201cThis shameful defense is an offense to the tens of thousands of gay service members who served honorably under \u2018don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell.\u2019 We all served under the same law, with the same challenges and struggles. We did not commit treason because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transgender activists also took umbrage at the lawyer\u2019s implication that Manning\u2019s ostensible struggles with his gender identity precipitated his illegal actions. Mara Keisling, the head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told the Washington Blade: \u201c[W]hether he\u2019s trans or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether he committed treason or whatever he\u2019s accused of doing.\u201d When I spoke to Keisling she said she sympathized with critics of the national gay movement\u2019s increasingly limited agenda, but she didn\u2019t see the point in extending support to Manning: \u201cI\u2019m not sure what I\u2019d be promoting or helping,\u201d she told me. Dru Levasseur, a transgender rights attorney at Lamda Legal, said on MSNBC: \u201cOur opinion is there is no correlation between anything he has done and gender identity disorder. This plays into stereotypes that are not true. There are a lot of people with gender identity disorder fighting for their lives to be respected and understood as human beings who need equal access to the law. This type of scenario just confuses the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I attended one of Manning\u2019s recent hearings in June, I didn\u2019t encounter any of Manning\u2019s gay supporters. It was a short hearing that drew a smaller crowd than usual, I was told. Perhaps the upcoming hearings set for next week will be different. But the major national gay organizations aren\u2019t likely to weigh in on Manning\u2019s plight any time soon, much to the dismay of the activists still fighting for Manning and, more importantly, for their vision of justice for LGBT people in America. As Andy Thayer, a gay anti-war activist co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network put it to me: \u201cIf we don\u2019t have the solidarity for our own community, then how are we going to go farther than that? I would hope that we would at least look out for our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 newrepublic.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTo gay people who have faced the kind of hyper-masculine bullying that [Manning] endured in the military,\u201d says Larry Goldsmith, an historian and gay activist, the \u201cdetails of his case \u2026 were recognizable as the experiences of many gay people at schools, at work, and in sports.\u201d As Andy Thayer, a gay anti-war activist co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network put it to me: \u201cIf we don\u2019t have the solidarity for our own community, then how are we going to go farther than that? I would hope that we would at least look out for our own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,59,57,65,139,60,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-nonviolence","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-justice","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","category-sexualities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}