Chelsea Manning to get sex change treatments at military …

Under Pentagon approval, national security WikiLeaker Chelsea Manning is set to start undergoing sex change treatments in military prison and won't be transferred to a civilian prison, officials said.

The transgender ex-intelligence analyst will begin receiving early-stage gender reassignment treatments at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where she's serving 35 years for leaking a trove of sensitive state secrets to the whistleblower site in 2010 and 2011.

The decision comes as federal prison officials said they were rejecting the U.S. Army's bid to move Manning to a civilian jail, where she would reportedly get better treatment for gender dysphoria.

The condition makes her feel as though she's a woman trapped in a man's body, she's said.

The treatments were likely to include psychological counseling and a loosening of jail regulations that would allow her to wear women's underwear.

Hormone treatments were also on the table something Manning has asked for since announcing after her 2013 conviction that she wanted to live as a woman and be called Chelsea, not Bradley.

Leavenworth is an all-male prison.

The decision to treat the 26-year-old disgraced soldier, approved by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, raised questions about whether she would eventually be moved to a women's jail.

Earlier this year, the Army began working on a proposal to transfer Manning to a facility run by the Bureau of Prisons, which provides gender reassignment treatments. Army prisons don't offer such therapies.

Manning's request for the treatments was the first ever by a military inmate.

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