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This one just baffles me.
FBI sting on an army officer nets an spying bust. Dog bites man, except there's a lot more not mentioned in the press release. It's culture war because the accused is the first openly trans officer in the Army. However the baffling thing is, why is an openly trans officer willing to spy for Russia which is widely known for its anti-LGBT policies.
The other odd thing about this case is the DoJ's release uses a lot of pronouns that don't don't seem to be Henry's preferred pronouns.
Not just the first openly trans officer, but some articles specify the first enlisted service member to change their gender!
It’s possible that some instances of transgenderism are predicated on a fleeing from one’s true identity. If so, it makes sense that a person who changes their identity away from Male will also change their identity away from American. We can’t ignore this possibility as Bradley Manning changed their identity to Chelsea Womanning and also fled from their identity as an American and as an army officer (by leaking). The underlying psychological phenomena would either be a fear response to one’s identity or a fetishistic autogynephilia around subverting one’s identity (like the Canadian teacher who wants everyone to see his giant boobas).
a) The pun is not funny enough to justify the outgroup swipe, IMO
b) It was Snowden that fled to Russia. Manning was court martialed, and transitioned in prison.
Confused Snowden and Manning, thanks for correction.
The pun is imbued with negativity and swipe only if this is considered intrinsically negative by the reader. In other contexts such name punnings are totally innocuous and in fact used for thousands of years (“Karl Lumbard became a Lumbard-jack” would not be seen as denigrating Karl or his profession). Jesus used a name pun to liken Peter to a rock because the etymology is from Petros (rock), and this was his highest honor, not a swipe.
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