‘I am Chelsea Manning’: Bradley Manning announces an intention to start hormone therapy to transition to a female

Bradley Manning has revealed that she wants to live as a woman named Chelsea and intends to undergo hormone therapy to begin her transition to a female. The 25-year-old soldier, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, made the shock announcement through her attorney on the Today show on Thursday.

‘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 wrote in the statement entitled, ‘The Next Stage of My Life’. ‘Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.’ She added that she now wishes to be referred to as Chelsea and as a ‘she’ rather than a ‘he’.

During the 12-week trial, the Army released an image showing Manning wearing a blonde wig and makeup in a photograph she had taken herself. Manning had sent the picture to her therapist in an email with the subject ‘My Problem’ as she struggled with her gender identity in April 2010. ‘She never really wanted this to be public,’ Coombs added of Manning’s identity and the photograph. ‘Now that it is, unfortunately, you have to deal with it in a public manner.’

In a press conference following the hearing, Coombs said he was saddened by the sentence, adding that it didn’t represent the harm his client had caused. He said: ‘When I heard the sentence I thought to myself “I have represented hundreds of clients some of them have committed murders and some have molested children and those clients received less time than private Manning.”‘ The sentence was more severe than many had expected, and is much longer than any punishment previously given to a U.S. government leaker.

In a statement, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has taken refuge at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, decried Manning’s trial and conviction as ‘an affront to basic concepts of Western justice.’ But he called the sentence a ‘significant strategic victory’ as Manning could be free as early as 2021. The leaked material included video of a U.S. helicopter attack that killed at least two civilians — a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
‘I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people,’ Manning said in a courtroom apology.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2399923/I-Chelsea-Manning-Bradley-Manning-announces-woman-intends-start-hormone-therapy-transition-female.html