Midge Potts
Encyclopedia
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
peace activist and Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
veteran who ran as a Progressive Party (Green Party
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
) candidate in the 2010 Missouri Senate election
United States Senate election in Missouri, 2010
The 2010 United States Senate election in Missouri occurred on November 2, 2010 alongside 36 other elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. Primary elections were held on August 3,...
. Potts has primarily been associated with Code Pink
Code Pink
Code Pink: Women for Peace is an anti-war group that is mainly composed of women. It has regional offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C., and many more chapters in the U.S. as well as several in other countries...
, who gained media attention in 2007 after appearing in the background during Valerie Plame
Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame Wilson , known as Valerie Plame, Valerie E. Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson, is a former United States CIA Operations Officer and the author of a memoir detailing her career and the events leading up to her resignation from the CIA.-Early life :Valerie Elise Plame was born on...
's testimony before a House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
panel on March 16, 2007. Potts sat a few rows behind Plame and repeatedly mugged for C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
cameras wearing a shirt labeled "Impeach Bush Now." Plame was seen looking back at Potts after her testimony. Photos of the protest appeared almost immediately on the Drudge Report
Drudge Report
The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles Hurt, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many...
and Potts was interviewed the following afternoon on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
.
Biography
Potts served aboard the USS Yosemite (AD-19)USS Yosemite (AD-19)
USS Yosemite was a destroyer tender which served with the United States Navy during World War II through to the 1990s.The third USN ship to bear the name, Yosemite was laid down on 19 January 1942 by the Tampa Shipbuilding Company at Tampa, Florida; launched on 16 May 1943; sponsored by Mrs....
off the coast of Kuwait during the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
. It was there that Potts was exposed to evaporated mercury in an engine room aboard the ship, and was offered an honorable discharge after failing to get treatment. She now lives off of Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
disability benefits.
After her discharge Potts reportedly married and fathered a child, but divorced in 2003. After the divorce, Potts began living as a woman full-time, and while she began her transition by taking supplements to alter her body's hormones to be more female, she is now undergoing conventional hormone therapy.
On February 9, 2005, Potts was arrested on the lower steps of the Supreme Court, along with two other DC Anti-War Network activists, David Barrows and Pete Perry
Pete Perry
Peter Perry was born in Washington, DC on October 31, 1969. He is a peace and social justice activist who has been affiliated with the DC Anti-War Network and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance ....
. The three were protesting the United States government's alleged use of torture at places such as Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
and Guantanamo Bay detention camp, as well as the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
as U.S. Attorney General. Later that same year, she was arrested with Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...
and about 370 others in front of the White House protesting the war and occupation of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
She unsuccessfully ran in Missouri's primary for the 7th District Congressional seat as a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in 2006 against incumbent Republican Congressman Roy Blunt
Roy Blunt
Roy D. Blunt is the junior United States Senator from Missouri. He is a member of the Republican Party. His Senate seat was previously held by Republican Kit Bond, until his retirement....
. Potts received 4294 votes which equated to 7.2 percent of the vote in the Republican primary in the southwest Missouri district. In April 2008, Potts officially became a member the Progressive Party of Missouri which is an affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. At the PPMO annual meeting in May 2008, she was chosen to be one of two state co-coordinators heading up the Progressive Party of Missouri's 5 person steering committee, and was also chosen as a Missouri delegate for the Green Party of the United States.
After losing her bid for Southwest Missouri's Congressional seat, Potts returned to Washington, DC and began attending Congressional hearings to protest the Iraq War. Potts claims she is "representing herself" in the nation's capitol. The first instance in which she was part of a disruption was on January 30, 2007 when she was helping to hold a banner that said "END THE BACK DOOR DRAFT" behind Tina Richards, mother of a twice deployed U.S. Marine, in a Senate Judiciary sub-committee hearing. The next day, January 31, 2007, Potts interrupted the testimony of Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by standing and yelling, "The American people voted to end the war in Iraq" which was caught on video by CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
. In February 2007, Potts was arrested twice for protesting inside the halls of Congress; first, she was arrested, along with Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly
Kathy Kelly
Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has been described as "probably the most respected leader in the...
and 9 others, for participating in non-violent civil disobedience protesting the US Occupation of Iraq in Senator John McCain's office; the next week Potts was arrested after yelling "The American People Voted Against the War" from the visitors gallery in the US Senate during a rare Saturday session in which the Senators were debating President Bush's proposed troop surge. On April 19, 2007, Potts was captured by a New York Times photographer unfurling a banner behind Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
during the US Attorney General's testimony in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. About a month later a picture was published in USA TODAY
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
of Midge Potts standing behind Secretary of Defense Gates while she held a sign that read END THE WAR. In April 2008, Potts interrupted Senator McCain's opening statement in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing by standing on her chair and holding up a banner that read "There is no military solution" behind General Petraeus; photos of the incident appeared in The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
and several other publications.
She now lectures at universities on her expertise of Transcending Traditional Politics. Her first presentation was October 18, 2007 at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an independent city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, USA. As of the 2010 Census, the city had an estimated population of 14,068. It is bordered by James City County and York County, and is an independent city...
.
Potts announced on June 27, 2009 that she would run for the seat being vacated by retiring senator Kit Bond
Kit Bond
Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond is a former United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, he defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53%-47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004...
in 2010.
On November 5, 2009, Potts was arrested in Washington DC with eight other 'universal health care' advocates demanding that Senator Lieberman stop accepting campaign contributions from the insurance industry. The ABC News footage showed her being arrested, and caught her saying, "Health care is a human right" as she was being led away from the senator's office in the Hart building on Capitol Hill.