For all their cagey and self-proclaimed sympathy after decades of neglect, DADT and DOMA, its truly a wonder that liberals have been able to fashion themselves into die-hard friends of the LGBTQ community almost overnight. (Of course, thats not what really happened, liberals only truly went to bat for LGBTQ folks after two things occurred: (1) some well-heeled members of the community turned themselves intogay ATMsfor the Democratic Party and then threatened to pull the plug; (2) PresidentObama was relentlessly mocked by activists for opposing marriage equality.) <\/p>\n
Enter: MSNBCs Joy-Ann Reid, Democratic pundit, host ofAM Joyand all-around bloviator on things she probably shouldnt. <\/p>\n
Last night, in a string of tweets that for some reason have yet to be deleted Reid decided to use Chelsea Manning as a foil to make some sort of point about President Donald Trumps proposed transgender military ban. <\/p>\n
Her first salvo was classic concern trolling. Reid pretended to care about an unnamed CNN guest using Chelsea Manning as an excuse to support the ban. Then it got uglyand howquick. <\/p>\n
Lets dissect this without mincing words. <\/p>\n
Joy-Ann Reid is using gender dysphoria as a pathology to account for Chelsea Mannings principled and heroic actions. <\/p>\n
Reid suggests Manning would have been less volatile and vulnerable if shed had earlier access to reassignment surgery. By this, Reid means maybe Manning would have been okay with the brutality of the U.S. militarys operations in Iraq. Thats gross and insulting. Mannings agency is removed, U.S. crimes are excused, and Mannings desire to live her life as she sees fit is turned into some kind of illness. <\/p>\n
Sensing that her horrific point hadnt been made quite clear enough, Reid dug in. Heres another shot: <\/p>\n
Of course, no decent person would follow up the above statement with a sentence that begins with the word but, but, wellheres the chaser: <\/p>\n
Here, Reid is peddling whole-cloth-created (and non-existent as a matter of record) sympathy for how Manning was treated by the U.S. military. Recall, Mannings treatment while under custody wasformally described by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture as cruel, inhuman and degrading. That same report asserted Mannings treatment under the Obama administration may have even risen to the level of torture itself. The report was issued in 2012. <\/p>\n
Around the same time Manning was being almost-maybe tortured, Reid attacked her. The liberal favorite dead-gendered Manning and first articulated the argumentrehashed last night, describing her as a a guy seeking anarchy as a salve for his own personal, psychological torment because of her gender dysphoria and sexuality. In that sameblog post, Reid characterized Mannings turmoil as TMI. <\/p>\n
So, in one sense, none of this is new. Joy-Ann Reid has been an open, Manning-hating transphobic bigot for awhile. Shes just now awkwardly attempting to spin her transphobia into some sort of Twitter win against the Trump administration. So, yeah, go ahead and count longtime observers as entirely not surprised. <\/p>\n
But Reids decision to weaponize Chelsea Manninga person she once thoroughly demonizedby turning Mannings desire to transition into some kind of sickness that made her deliver evidence of war crimes and other unseemly behavior by the U.S. government over to Wikileaks is sad and pathetic even by her own standards. <\/p>\n
Respect-your-betters liberal paternalism knows no bounds. At long last, chattering class libs will be prying shards of human bones from their teeth as they lecture others on dignity and restraint. Joy-Ann Reid is only symptomatic of this trend generally and liberal transphobia in particular, of course, and shouldnt merely apologize: she should delete her account. <\/p>\n
[image via screengrab] <\/p>\n
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher <\/p>\n
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author. <\/p>\n
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