Chelsea Manning begins tweeting from prison

Within minutes of her first tweets, Ms Manning had recruited more than 5,000 followers under the handle @xychelsea.

Ms Manning already writes occasional commentaries for The Guardian newspaper's American edition, offering her take on US foreign policy.

The former army intelligence analyst was convicted in August 2013 of espionage and other offenses after admitting to handing over more than 700,000 classified documents, including military intelligence reports and State Department cables, to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

US officials describe the document dump as the biggest leak of classified files in American history.

On Ms Manning's request, judges have ordered the military to address her in gender-neutral or feminine terms in court documents as she completes her transition to life as a woman.

After months of legal wrangling, the US Army recently approved hormone therapy for Manning's gender "reassignment," an unprecedented step for the military.

Ms Manning, who was formerly a male enlistee known as Bradley Manning, is serving out her sentence at Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas.

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Chelsea Manning begins tweeting from prison