NEW YORK – The Department of Justice has filed a brief in Chelsea Manning’s case against the United States government challenging her request to grow her hair beyond the two inches allowed by military regulation.
Chelsea Manning is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. In September 2015, military officials again denied her repeated requests to be treated as female for purposes of hair length and hair grooming regulations, a recommended part of her treatment for gender dysphoria.
The government’s brief argues that withholding this treatment is for Chelsea’s own good to protect her from alleged assaults if she is permitted to further feminize in accordance with her medical needs.
Chelsea Manning said, “I believe that defining ourselves in our own terms and in our own languages is one of the most powerful and important rights that we have as human beings. Presenting myself in the gender that I am is about my right to exist. What the government is basically telling me is ‘you cannot exist,’ that ‘you are wrong,’ and that ‘you do not exist.’ What they are doing is taking away our right to exist. I think this is the kind of situation that justifies all kinds of terrible things like ignorance, maltreatment, torture, murder, and genocide.
“Nobody knows your gender more than you do. No—one. You do not know my gender better than I do. A doctor doesn’t know it better than me. My parents don’t know it better than me. No one experiences my gender in the way that I experience it. Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are. When you lose control of your gender presentation you lose an important aspect of your identity and existence.”
Chase Strangio, Chelsea Manning’s lawyer in the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Project said, “The government is attempting to complicate and diminish Chelsea’s core constitutional rights to be treated equally and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Chelsea’s demand is simple: that she be treated with her medically necessary treatment and like all other women in military custody. Her fight is central to the pursuit for justice for transgender people and for those who are incarcerated and we are honored to fight alongside her.”
They Should Just STFHU And Let Her Grow Her Hair Out…The DOD & The Department of the Army Is A Joke…When It Actually Come’s To Transgender Right’s, And The Medical Need’s Of Transgender People In The United States Army…Damn, Grow Up Already This Is The 21st. Century…Stop With All The Bigotry & Hate Toward’s Someone Who Is Transgender, Whether They Are Male-To-Female Or Female-To-Male…Give It A Rest…So What, She Leaked Classified Documents To WikiLinks…Big Deal…She Did It To Show, What The The Army Was Actually Doin’ To Afghan Prisoners, And What Was Actually Happening When Our Government Was Bombing Village’s…Doesn’t Anyone Remember What A Naval Admiral Did During Vietnam, He Ordered The Sraying Of A Defoliant Of The Jungles, Which Also Was Known As Agent Orange…!!!. I Say, Let Chelsea Grow Her Hair Out, And Provide Her The Necessary Medical Treatment That “SHE” Request’s & Requires For Transitioning To Become Her Real Self…She Blew The Whistle On The Government…I Think There Need’s To Be Way More Transparency And Accountability On The Leader’s Of Our Country, And Our Military…Just Look At What The United States Government Did To Some Of My Native American Ancestors…They Either Ordered The Extermination Of The Indigenous People Or They Were Forced On Reservation’s And Persecuted…Remember The Massacre At “Wounded Knee”, The Long Walk Of The Navajo People…By Kit Carson…Our Own Government Is More Guilty Of Human Right’s Violation’s, Than Chelsea Is Of Bein’ A Whistle Blower…!!!.
Sincerely,
Kristi Parker-Jones