7 ms·

I think the "having been a whistleblower in the most powerful government on the planet" part of Chelsea's story is considerably more risky than the "is transgen

I think the "having been a whistleblower in the most powerful government on the planet" part of Chelsea's story is considerably more risky than the "is transgendered" part. There aren't many people running around "gunning for" trans people in the same sense that there are people "gunning for" informants. Primarily in the sense that in the latter case they use actual guns.

lawless123 9y ago
Id say there is some overlap between the two groups..
- datatan 9y ago
  And you would be wrong.
  - Posibyte 9y ago
    Can you elaborate on that, datatan? I'm not saying lawless is necessarily correct, but from the confidence of your statement, it sounds like you have data to show otherwise. Would you mind sharing that? I feel it would make a good talking point in this thread.
jacquesm 9y ago
Trans people are safe in very few places in the world.
- cmdrfred 9y ago
  No place is safe considering the majority violent cause of death among trans people is suicide.
  - aoeusnth1 9y ago
    I wonder why that is... Maybe the social isolation and pervasive hatred and mocking attitude of society has something to do with it?
    - self-diversity 9y ago
      It's very important to insist on the correct narrative at every juncture, otherwise people might look into the possibility that those who evince symptoms of mental illness (such as body dysphoria) may actually not be "cured" in any sense by getting drastic surgery.
      - eropple 9y ago
        Recent studies seem to peg the rate of regret of sex reassignment surgery as below five percent--a rate that has declined over time, which I presume is due to less ridiculous prejudice and hatred aimed downrange at them. I don't have journals access where I am at the moment, but one that I was able to track down on the Google machine: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262734734_An_Analysis_of_All_Applications_for_Sex_Reassignment_Surgery_in_Sweden_1960-2010_Prevalence_Incidence_and_Regrets https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262734734_An_Analys... (This study also omits the large proportion of transgendered folks who never get reassignation surgery and instead opt for HRT, or even no treatment whatsoever.) But you don't care about that, of course. This post is for the people you would otherwise offend and hurt out of some peculiarity.
    - mathw 9y ago
      Fear, confusion, rejection, hostility, being cut off from your family... I worried about all these things and all I was doing was coming out as gay. And I live in the UK, which has strong legal protection against discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender, and a relatively accepting culture. I can only imagine it was a thousand times worse to come out as trans. Or even to understand it in yourself - again, this took me years and I was "merely" discovering that I was gay.
- chx 9y ago
  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-introduces-bill-to-protect-transgender-people-1.3694649 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-introduce... gender identity and expression has been added to Human Rights in British Columbia. But even here it's a recent development and the so called BC Liberals (in reality, they are conservatives, hello weird Canadian politics where the provincial parties have nothing to do with federal parties) voted down Mr. Chandra Herbert several times before turning around and introducing the bill themselves.
- sknuds 9y ago
  Although there are some places where they're more accepted than gay people or than they are the western world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran
mason240 9y ago
Manning was not a whistleblower.
- zeveb 9y ago
  Yup, since nothing he revealed indicated anything to whistle-blow on. All he did was unlawfully share material which turned his stomach — none of it was illegal, none of it was criminal, none of it was even unethical.
angry-hacker 9y ago
But he was not a whistleblower, there was nothing important to leak besides bunch of state's secrets. The leaks held no value.
- badosu 9y ago
  Didn't she disclose the information on the video 'Collateral Murder' that was subsequently subject to a FOIA request?
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  I'd argue that the Collateral Murder videos triggered considerable controversy and criticism against the US military's attitude to airstrikes. The cable leaks also caused a fair amount of political embarrassment. So it depends on what you consider to be valuable - I'd say direct evidence of airstrikes being triggered against civilians with minimal oversight alone is valuable to a citizenry that wants to keep tabs on military accountability and push for change.
  - GVIrish 9y ago
    If Manning had only leaked the video in an attempt to bring light on what she perceived as a war crime, she would've had a case as a whistleblower. Indiscriminately leaking thousands of documents where she had no idea of the contents, is not whistleblowing. That's why she ended up with the sentence that she did.
    - beaconstudios 9y ago
      and yet her sentence was commuted where Snowden remains a fugitive.
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    Yeah, thats quite the wrong sort of airstrike. The good sort of airstrike is, where you sneak in the middle of the night in some village, where one bad guy sleeps - kill him, get caught - wake everyone up, and get in a chaotic shoot out with a medieval village, where raids by neighboring warlords are the norm. Then when you get wounded you call a airstrike and eliminate the village. One has to give it to the drone warriors- at least they send the commando duke of hazards to the unemployment office.
arglebarnacle 9y ago
You might be surprised at how dangerous it is to be trans. Wikipedia maintains a list of unlawfully killed trans people at this page[1] I guess there are more trans people than informants so maybe there's some statistical point to be made there, but frankly I'm not sure why you picked this nit to begin with. I think it's important to recognize, rather than downplay the risks faced by marginalized groups in the US and elsewhere. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...
- lucb1e 9y ago
  > unlawfully killed trans people As a Dutch person I was very confused for a minute, but then I remembered there are indeed lawfully killed people in other countries. (And while writing this, I remembered euthanesia is legal here, but that's not killing in my mind because the person chose it for themselves and the given reason cannot be an external, solvable condition.)
  - diet_mtn_dew 9y ago
    There are also accidental deaths, in which a person is killed, but it is not ruled unlawful.
    - aoeusnth1 9y ago
      Looking through the list, they're not considering suicide as unlawful.
    - lucb1e 9y ago
      Ah, right, the opposite of unlawful is not necessarily lawful but also just accidental (which is legal but doesn't follow any law).
- jimmyk 9y ago
  It looks like it's particularly dangerous to be trans and black, and also very dangerous to be trans and hispanic, at least in the US over the past few years. It looks like Manning doesn't have much to worry about, at least for being trans.
rmc 9y ago
Plenty of trans women are murdered around the world on a daily basis, and yes, including the USA.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  I'm going to have to ask for a citation confirming that trans people (there are trans men too) are killed on a daily basis in the USA. That sounds like hyperbole.
  - sigmar 9y ago
    "including the USA" can be read as a qualifying statement that those murders include people in the USA, not necessarily that trans people are murdered on a daily basis in the USA.
    - beaconstudios 9y ago
      oh right, I understand. That makes a lot more sense.
  - rmc 9y ago
    Yes there are about as many trans men as trans women, but trans women are at a higher risk of violence. Here's some more reading: https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2017 https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgend... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...
amyjess 9y ago
Sophie Labelle was hacked and forced out of her home by Nazis the other day. Openly trans people are very much in danger even in 2017. https://www.facebook.com/sophievlabelle/posts/1884795725128609 https://www.facebook.com/sophievlabelle/posts/18847957251286...

lawless123 9y ago

Id say there is some overlap between the two groups..

datatan 9y ago
And you would be wrong.
- Posibyte 9y ago
  Can you elaborate on that, datatan? I'm not saying lawless is necessarily correct, but from the confidence of your statement, it sounds like you have data to show otherwise. Would you mind sharing that? I feel it would make a good talking point in this thread.

jacquesm 9y ago

Trans people are safe in very few places in the world.

cmdrfred 9y ago
No place is safe considering the majority violent cause of death among trans people is suicide.
- aoeusnth1 9y ago
  I wonder why that is... Maybe the social isolation and pervasive hatred and mocking attitude of society has something to do with it?
  - self-diversity 9y ago
    It's very important to insist on the correct narrative at every juncture, otherwise people might look into the possibility that those who evince symptoms of mental illness (such as body dysphoria) may actually not be "cured" in any sense by getting drastic surgery.
    - eropple 9y ago
      Recent studies seem to peg the rate of regret of sex reassignment surgery as below five percent--a rate that has declined over time, which I presume is due to less ridiculous prejudice and hatred aimed downrange at them. I don't have journals access where I am at the moment, but one that I was able to track down on the Google machine: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262734734_An_Analysis_of_All_Applications_for_Sex_Reassignment_Surgery_in_Sweden_1960-2010_Prevalence_Incidence_and_Regrets https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262734734_An_Analys... (This study also omits the large proportion of transgendered folks who never get reassignation surgery and instead opt for HRT, or even no treatment whatsoever.) But you don't care about that, of course. This post is for the people you would otherwise offend and hurt out of some peculiarity.
  - mathw 9y ago
    Fear, confusion, rejection, hostility, being cut off from your family... I worried about all these things and all I was doing was coming out as gay. And I live in the UK, which has strong legal protection against discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender, and a relatively accepting culture. I can only imagine it was a thousand times worse to come out as trans. Or even to understand it in yourself - again, this took me years and I was "merely" discovering that I was gay.
chx 9y ago
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-introduces-bill-to-protect-transgender-people-1.3694649 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-introduce... gender identity and expression has been added to Human Rights in British Columbia. But even here it's a recent development and the so called BC Liberals (in reality, they are conservatives, hello weird Canadian politics where the provincial parties have nothing to do with federal parties) voted down Mr. Chandra Herbert several times before turning around and introducing the bill themselves.
sknuds 9y ago
Although there are some places where they're more accepted than gay people or than they are the western world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexuality_in_Iran

mason240 9y ago

Manning was not a whistleblower.

zeveb 9y ago
Yup, since nothing he revealed indicated anything to whistle-blow on. All he did was unlawfully share material which turned his stomach — none of it was illegal, none of it was criminal, none of it was even unethical.

angry-hacker 9y ago

But he was not a whistleblower, there was nothing important to leak besides bunch of state's secrets. The leaks held no value.

badosu 9y ago
Didn't she disclose the information on the video 'Collateral Murder' that was subsequently subject to a FOIA request?
beaconstudios 9y ago
I'd argue that the Collateral Murder videos triggered considerable controversy and criticism against the US military's attitude to airstrikes. The cable leaks also caused a fair amount of political embarrassment. So it depends on what you consider to be valuable - I'd say direct evidence of airstrikes being triggered against civilians with minimal oversight alone is valuable to a citizenry that wants to keep tabs on military accountability and push for change.
- GVIrish 9y ago
  If Manning had only leaked the video in an attempt to bring light on what she perceived as a war crime, she would've had a case as a whistleblower. Indiscriminately leaking thousands of documents where she had no idea of the contents, is not whistleblowing. That's why she ended up with the sentence that she did.
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    and yet her sentence was commuted where Snowden remains a fugitive.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Yeah, thats quite the wrong sort of airstrike. The good sort of airstrike is, where you sneak in the middle of the night in some village, where one bad guy sleeps - kill him, get caught - wake everyone up, and get in a chaotic shoot out with a medieval village, where raids by neighboring warlords are the norm. Then when you get wounded you call a airstrike and eliminate the village. One has to give it to the drone warriors- at least they send the commando duke of hazards to the unemployment office.

arglebarnacle 9y ago

You might be surprised at how dangerous it is to be trans. Wikipedia maintains a list of unlawfully killed trans people at this page[1] I guess there are more trans people than informants so maybe there's some statistical point to be made there, but frankly I'm not sure why you picked this nit to begin with. I think it's important to recognize, rather than downplay the risks faced by marginalized groups in the US and elsewhere. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...

lucb1e 9y ago
> unlawfully killed trans people As a Dutch person I was very confused for a minute, but then I remembered there are indeed lawfully killed people in other countries. (And while writing this, I remembered euthanesia is legal here, but that's not killing in my mind because the person chose it for themselves and the given reason cannot be an external, solvable condition.)
- diet_mtn_dew 9y ago
  There are also accidental deaths, in which a person is killed, but it is not ruled unlawful.
  - aoeusnth1 9y ago
    Looking through the list, they're not considering suicide as unlawful.
  - lucb1e 9y ago
    Ah, right, the opposite of unlawful is not necessarily lawful but also just accidental (which is legal but doesn't follow any law).
jimmyk 9y ago
It looks like it's particularly dangerous to be trans and black, and also very dangerous to be trans and hispanic, at least in the US over the past few years. It looks like Manning doesn't have much to worry about, at least for being trans.

rmc 9y ago

Plenty of trans women are murdered around the world on a daily basis, and yes, including the USA.

beaconstudios 9y ago
I'm going to have to ask for a citation confirming that trans people (there are trans men too) are killed on a daily basis in the USA. That sounds like hyperbole.
- sigmar 9y ago
  "including the USA" can be read as a qualifying statement that those murders include people in the USA, not necessarily that trans people are murdered on a daily basis in the USA.
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    oh right, I understand. That makes a lot more sense.
- rmc 9y ago
  Yes there are about as many trans men as trans women, but trans women are at a higher risk of violence. Here's some more reading: https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2017 https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgend... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_transgender_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...

amyjess 9y ago

Sophie Labelle was hacked and forced out of her home by Nazis the other day. Openly trans people are very much in danger even in 2017. https://www.facebook.com/sophievlabelle/posts/1884795725128609 https://www.facebook.com/sophievlabelle/posts/18847957251286...