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| Bradley now Chelsea Manning |
Carol Forsloff---What is an aberration and what is a right continues to dominate discussion about sexuality in the modern world. One of those areas where comparatively the least is known is transgender identity, an issue that creates considerable pain and misunderstanding for those people who are a significant minority, and whose sexual orientation and difference often causes them to be physically abused or killed or to attempt suicide. Governments now try to determine how the laws on equality should be applied, as one case demonstrates, although the transgender community maintains the struggle is not over yet.
In the State of Maine a recent legal decision is said to have made an important breakthrough in identifying human rights and equality for transgender persons. Nicole Maines had been denied use of the girls' bathroom at her school, despite her chosen identification as a girl and her biological definition as a boy. Her family sued and and won with the court concluded that Orono, the school district in Maine, violated the Maine Human Rights Act. That Act bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The pain that comes from being different is exhibited in different ways. Being in a sexual minority for which there is considerable prejudice and misunderstanding, makes it difficult to conform to social mores and to be accepted in social groups. And to be doubly condemned for espionage as well as that sexual difference is even more painful, which is why Bradley Manning, who was convicted of stealing security documents and passing them along to a blogger news outlet, had a difficult childhood and expressed the interest in having the operation that to make his chosen identity, a woman, established through surgery
What causes this phenomenon of transgender identity is debated among medical scientists and psychologists. One theory is that in the womb an imbalance occurs creating a female embryo that may have a masculinized brain. On the other hand, psychologists like Eric Vilain, have been quoted as saying, “There is no evidence of a biological influence on transsexualism yet.” Still he admits they continue to expect to find some biological component.
