CHICAGO, May 17 — To welcome Transgender whistle-blower and anti-war activist Chelsea Manning back into freedom today, Chicago LGBTQs will host a house party to help raise funds to support her following her release from prison Fort Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary today.
The house party, sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network, will take place at 6 pm to 10 pm tonight at the home of GLN co-founder, Andy Thayer and his husband Aldo P. Hernandez, 4745 N. Beacon Street, Apt 3S, Chicago. Thayer recently published a widely-circulated article on Chelsea Manning and the LGBTQ movement entitled, "The LGBTQ Movement is an Intersectional Fail."
Chelsea Manning is the longest-ever imprisoned whistleblower in the U.S., and frequently suffered conditions internationally recognized as torture. Besides long bouts of solitary confinement, she was stripped naked for long periods and as a transgender woman, forced to conform to male dress code and grooming standards.
Among her achievements, she:
* Exposed felonious conduct, including murder, by U.S. occupying soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, under both the George Bush and Barack Obama administrations;
* Exposed the U.S. dealings with dictators and oligarchs in the Middle East, information that helped spark the "Arab Spring" against a series of despots all over the region;
* Exposed the role of then-Sect of State Hillary Clinton in assisting the 2009 military coup in Honduras, the first 21st Century coup in Latin America. After the coup, the regime and its oligarch allies murdered numerous LGBTQ, campesino, indigenous and trade union activists, journalists and attorneys, and the nation attained highest murder rate in the world.
"Chelsea Manning is the LGBTQ movement's greatest-ever anti-war activist and whistleblower about government crimes, and yet she was shunned by virtually every large LGBTQ non-profit," said Thayer. "The reason is simple: her revelations deeply embarrassed not only the Republicans, but especially the Obama administration, and since the Gay Inc. organizations have a revolving door between themselves and the Democratic Party, they were loath to support anyone who their party."
The result is that Ms. Manning will be leaving prison with virtually no institutional supports. To help her in her new freedom, the house party will give all funds raised to Ms. Manning. The suggested donation is $20-$50, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Besides Chicago, other cities hosting Chelsea Manning welcome home events include: Auckland, New Zealand; Beer Sheva, Israel ( near where Palestinians prisoners are on hunger strike ); Berkeley, California; Berlin, Germany; Boston, Massachusetts; Dublin, Ireland; London, UK; Manchester, UK; Mannheim, Germany; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington.
