Chelsea Manning Requests Hormone Therapy To Transition, No Longer Wishes To Be Referred To As Bradley Manning

Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, released a statement on Thursday that revealed the soldier’s intention to transition to fully become a woman. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday on espionage charges for leaking military documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks.

Manning, 25, intends to undergo hormone therapy and wishes to be seen as the woman she’s felt like throughout her life.

"As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female," Manning said in the statement read aloud on the Today show. "Given the way that I feel and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," Manning continued in the statement. "I also request that starting today you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun."

Manning’s lawyer David Coombs had cited Manning’s gender dysphoria during the trial, alleging that she had been under severe stress and self-imposed isolation when she leaked the classified documents. Coombs, for his part, has vowed to do all he can to ensure that his client can get the hormone therapy she desires while imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth.

"I'm hoping that Fort Leavenworth will do the right thing and provide that. If Fort Leavenworth does not, then I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that they are forced to do so," Coombs said.

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Unfortunately for Manning, Fort Leavenworth has already released a statement shutting down her request. "The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery," an Army spokesperson said.

The Army has never had to deal with a request like Manning’s, however, which lends to the possibility that she could motivate a new standard – albeit a slim one. "We don't have any precedent for the application of military medical care for elective gender reassignment therapy," said military law expert Geoffrey Corn, according to the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t see it happening.”

If Coombs is true to his word, Fort Leavenworth will have to back up their refusal for treatment with more than a cursury statement of rejection and that this particular battle is only beginning.

– Chelsea Regan

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