Private Manning

Private First Class Manning

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, eradicating the stigma of mental illness from the lives of gays and lesbians. Presently, this development seems like a moment of elementary understanding that declares an obvious truth, a “well, duh” in the struggle for gay and lesbian equality. Though public perception took decades to catch up, the idea of declaring gays and lesbians mentally unfit by virtue of their sexual orientation alone seems laughable, mere fodder for the discredited organizations that still advocate and practice reparative therapy.

Transgender people have yet to experience such a watershed moment. Because gender identity disorder is often considered a mental illness, many trans men and women must endure a great deal of scrutiny, subject to strict evaluations of their mental fitness in the workplace. As more and more government agencies and private employers develop policies related to gender identity issues, those who would discriminate against transgenders often rely on the specter of mental illness that still haunts us, interpreting normal emotional reactions to stress as signs of dysfunction to justify dismissal or demotion.

At Private First Class Bradley Manning’s preliminary hearing in December, prosecutors and defense attorneys revealed that Manning was struggling with gender identity disorder when his alleged crimes had been committed. This causes me great alarm. Apparently, both prosecution and defense are focusing on Manning’s gender confusion as a contributing factor in the release of hundreds of thousands of government documents to the WikiLeaks website.

If Manning’s gender identity disorder becomes a major issue during the court martial proceedings, it may amount to an insanity plea, one of the worst scenarios for those of us who advocate for transgender equality in the work place and/or the United States...