Midge Potts

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Midge Potts speaks at a protest during the 2007 State of the Union Address.

Midgelle Regina Potts (b. Mitchell Eugene Potts in Gainesville, MO) - known as Midge Potts - is a transgender peace activist^[1] and Navy veteran primarily associated with Code Pink who gained media attention in 2007 after appearing in the background during Valerie Plame's testimony before a House panel on March 16, 2007. Potts sat a few rows behind Plame and repeatedly mugged for C-SPAN 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 and Potts was interviewed the following afternoon on CNN.

Potts is a Persian Gulf War veteran who served aboard the USS Yosemite (AD-19). Potts was injured by 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 disability benefits.^[2]

Potts married and fathered a child after his discharge, 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. She has not had surgery to alter her anatomy.^[3]

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. The three were protesting the United States government's alleged use of torture^[4] at places such as Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay detention camp, as well as the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as U.S. Attorney General. Later that same year, she was arrested with Cindy Sheehan and about 370 others in front of the White House protesting the war and occupation of Iraq.

She unsuccessfully ran in Missouri's primary for the 7th District Congressional seat^[5] as a Republican in 2006 against incumbent Republican Congressman Roy Blunt. Potts received 4275 votes which equated to 7 percent of the vote in the Republican primary in the southwest Missouri district.

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 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.

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.