Essay: The Analysis of Chelsea Manning

18 November 2017
The Analysis of Chelsea Manning
There are over a billion of people on this earth within a variety. Each individual has a choice to make when growing up with what they want to do with their body. They can chose how they want to express themselves as individuals whether it’s their gender identity, or sexual orientation, or simply expressing themselves as someone they are proud of being.  Whether it’s either choosing to be feminine or masculine or what sex they are attracted to, or simply what makes them feel more like themselves. People drive to say, “this is who i’ve been born to be”. Everyone is different in their own way, whether it’s their characteristics, sexuality or biology that differ from one another. Within the billion of people on this earth, I will examine the connections that have been drawn by Chelsea Manning between the heteronormative and homonormative ideals that she was not constructed into and the dominance she faced in public spheres.
While facing the world with her gender identity, she stumbles upon many challenges such as misgendering which restricts her from expressing herself because just like society has a difficult time understanding her due to her unconformity, she also has a hard time fitting in. Chelsea Manning is a transgender, which she was born a man but transitioned into a woman, therefore, I will refer her as a women in this essay.  Growing up, which she states she was, “an easy target by kindergarten… grew up in a highly evangelical town with more church pews than people… so, I got pretty messed up at school … ‘girly boy’ ‘teacher’s pet’, etc” (MLCL, 5-6) I will begin to emphasize the word, ‘girly boy’ in this statement because we can see the confusion in Chelsea’s classmates from when she was younger. Many people saw how Chelsea, before named Bradley, was acting more feminine because of the way she expressed herself. In society, people determine others by their gender by distinguishing the way they act, the way they dress, speak and what culture has conform many people to think. With this being said, when we see a boy act feminine, we begin to make fun of what we cannot understand. These expectations that we link gender to sex are cultural conditioning. Explained by Margaret Mead in her article, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, “the differences between individuals who are members of different cultures, like the differences between individuals within a culture, are almost entirely to be laid to differences in conditioning, especially during early childhood, and the form of this conditioning is culturally determined.” (39) As children, we are grown into a culture, depending where we are from. Within this culture that we are conformed into, it conditions us to certain expectations. Just like our society has tied Men into being masculine and women being feminine, we are believed that that’s the only way we can determine each sex. If we see otherwise, we will not be able to understand it and simply see it as abnormal.
As difficult as this is for Chelsea to be bullied as a little kid, she had seen herself as abnormal as well and felt like she had to “fix” herself. Once she was out of high school, she wanted to join the army in order to fix her “identity issues”. She believed that if she joined the army where she was surrounded by men, she would be able to act more masculine and hopefully come to the conclusion of how she wanted to express herself. Once she had realized her gender identity was not “fixable” she accepted that she was a man in a woman’s body. Chelsea expressed to the mass media that, “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. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun.” (par 2.)  As Chelsea announced that she was female and requested to be referred by the feminine pronoun, media outlets turned to exposing deep seated transphobic attitude toward gender nonconforming people and continued the longstanding tradition of pathologizing and medicalizing transgender as a  psychological disease. The erasure of her transgender subjectivity and the prevalence of pathologizing and marginalizing discourses, confirm the reductionist, if not outright denialist idea of gender fluidity.
Following this gender fluidity, Chelsea Manning becomes isolated and demoralized by a heteronormative and homonationalism ideals. These ideals become obstacles that restrict her from transitioning into a woman, physically and mentally. Once Chelsea had released confidential information from wikileaks to the public about what was going in the Iraq war, the media tied speculations about why she sent WikiLeaks the nation’s ‘most guarded secrets’ to her struggles with her sexuality and gender identity. They focused on a troubled, unstable and bullied gay soldier coming from a broken home. The media tying Chelsea’s gender identity to being a criminal, is set to believe that transgenders are not stable, therefore, leading to the assumption that they are more likely to be criminal or unreliable people. Eventually once Chelsea wanted to continue her transition to a women, she requested to receive hormone therapy. Although, prison spokeswoman Kimberly Lewis told NBCA, “In regards to hormone therapy, such treatment is provided in civilian federal prisons when it is found to be medically necessary, but it is not available in military prisons.” Reading this obligation that the military prison had possessed on transgender, took the ability for Chelsea to continue her transition as a women and to express herself the way she wanted to. Chelsea later on filed a lawsuit due to her being denied access to medically necessary treatment following the army not granting her hormone therapy. They later on accepted this as a medical condition as Chelsea Manning having Gender Dysphoria, although they did not agree to let Chelsea to follow female grooming standards even though it was provided by her health care. With the military not complying with these standards, it shows their inability to conform to the needs of transgenders especially since such a request had not been asked for before. In Nancy Duncans article, Renegotiating Gender and Sexuality in Public and private spaces, Surveys have shown that the majority of respondents have no objection to homosexuals as long as they ‘do not flaunt their sexuality in public’ (Herek 1987 as quoted in Valentine 1993). Duncan argues that the binary distraction between private and public spaces and the relations of private and public spheres is problematic. Transgenders experience tensions between dominance and social practices. She explains how public and private conflict is made to construct and confine and suppress gender and sexual differences by using power structures. In this case, the military does not want to abide to letting Chelsea receive hormones, let alone let her practice feminine grooming because it is not heteronormative. People are confromed to bleieve that hetero sexuality is the only “normal” and “natural” orientation out there and if anyone sets out of this binary than they are seen as abnormal and wrong.
Later on, San Francisco Pride Board of Directors, planners of the city’s annual LGBT Pride parade held in June, announced the names of the grand marshals for San Francisco’s 2013 Pride Parade. SF Pride president Lisa Williams blamed a rogue employee for Manning’s nomination, selection, and announcement as a grand marshall. “A mistake and should never had been allowed to happen… even the hint of support for actions which placed in harm’s way the lives of our men and women in uniform– and countless others, military and civilian alike– will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride.” (par. 4) Chelseas shifting identities throughout the trial made it difficult for people to see her as an activist. Even though her intentions from leaking confidential information was made in good intentions to bring out political and social change, people thought otherwise. For this reason, she gave a rise of questions and assumptions to the LGB community. Autumn Sandeen, a transgender activist and US Navy veteran, argued that, “Chelsea didn’t respect the trans community– the trans community of which I am apart– in how she came out… There is no honor in harming the community to which you are entering.” Sandeen felt that Chelsea defended herself but made the community question the LGB community because of how she came out and that she did not consider other people’s lives. Chelsea’s gender nonconformity was seen as detrimental to the LGB movement because she did not represent ideals of homonormativity. The way Chelsea demonstrated herself, Sandeem felt as if people were going to question the LGB community because of her actions. Chelsea was not part of the mainstream gay and lesbian agenda which included gay marriage and was number one priority for the homonormative ideal. The mainstream queer community seemed to be silent in defending Chelsea when she was placed in prison and treated poorly. The LGB community focused more in lesbian, gay and bi sexuals rather than trans due to the hierarchy that was established in the mainstream. Not only were hierarchies established in the LGB community but it was also integrated in masculinity.
The gender that Chelsea expressed created homophobia by diminishing the ideals of masculinity. Since Chelsea was born a man and is transitioning into a woman, men around her, especially in the army, were making fun of her. Lida Maxwell, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science stated that, “She was also very lonely. She came out to her fellow soldiers, but wasn’t particularly closeted about her SEXUALITY. She kept a fairy wand on her desk, posted fearlessly on FB about her sexuality and opposition to DADT. So she was ignored and disliked by her soldiers.” (par. 7) Chelsea found it difficult to fit in with the other guys due to traditional masculine gender and hetero-sexuality. The men try to enforce these normalities through harassment because they see her as improperly gendered, therefore they don’t see her as a person that is powerful which leaves her without a voice. The men around her felt the need to harass her due to homophobia. They picked on what they did not understand, which went against what they know as men or what they felt like made them a man. Michael S. Kimmel explained in his article, Masculinity as Homophobia, that “Homophobia is the fear that other men will unmask us, emasculate us, reveal to us and the world that we do not measure up, that we are not real men.” (215)  Men have been set into a gender boundary that if they set foot out of it then they are seen as “sissies” which makes them seen as less of a man. Men are constantly competing with each other for power. Whoever shows to be the most aggressive, showing no emotion, and seemed to act less of a girl, was seen to be more of a man. Men built up structural hierarchies for each other which brought a lot of men pressure to conform to. Therefore, when the men in the army seen Chelsea Manning acting more feminine, they felt empowered. Masculinity was a defense of their fear of humiliation to being perceived as gay.
Following these connections to Chelsea Manning’s experience has lead to important societal conversations. Although one thing is certain, even though we are all human and deserve the same respect that’s given to each person despite each other’s differences, Chelsea had to fight for her rights as a human and to achieve happiness in order to become who she wants to be. She had to face societies conformities and the inability of others understanding and accepting the way she wanted to live her life. She had to overcome power structures and hierarchies in order for her voice to become heard and bring her private sphere into the public and make it into something that is acceptable.