Chelsea Manning’s next chapter: a small ray of sunshine at Leavenworth

Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, in wig and make-up. Photo: AFP/US Army

Last December, when Chelsea Manning turned 27, she received birthday greetings from Michael Stipe, JM Coetzee, Slavoj Zizek, Terry Gilliam, Edward Snowden, and Lupe Fiasco: not a bad group of friends for any young woman. Vivienne Westwood sent her a card, too, a handsome graphical map of red and green, marked up with scribbles of support in the loose but confident scrawl of a fashion designer. Manning received it, of course, in Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas, where she is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government documents to WikiLeaks as a soldier in the US Army. She replied to Westwood, "I am working a lot, studying, working on the appeal and a lawsuit on fundraising, writing articles and trying to stay healthy."

In February, in her capacity as an article-writer, Manning landed a new gig: contributing opinion writer at the Guardian US, focused on "war, gender, freedom of information". Days later, the United States military approved hormone therapy for Manning's gender transition, a first. And last Wednesday, in Washington, the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals issued an order saying that references to Manning in all future decisions, filings and orders should use female or gender-neutral pronouns. The US government is unlikely to champion her as a whistleblower-but Manning and her attorneys have managed to make the government see things her way when it comes to her gender, which is its own accomplishment.

Manning has long presented herself as a kind of public moralist. When she pleaded guilty, she did so by reading out a statement explaining her actions. It ran to some 35 pages, and took more than an hour. After her sentencing, she made a formal request for a presidential pardon. She wrote that the decision to leak secret documents was made "out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in". Her time in Iraq made her "question the morality" of America's military activity since 9/11. "I realised that in our efforts to meet the risks posed to us by the enemy, we had forgotten our Humanity," she said.

The US Army private then known as Bradley Manning at Fort Meade, Maryland in August 2013. Photo: Reuters

Last September, after publicly coming out as transgender, Manning sued the US military, charging that the denial of her medical treatment for gender dysphoria was a violation of her constitutional rights. The suit said that, without treatment, Manning each day "experiences escalating anxiety, distress and depression. She feels as though her body is being poisoned by testosterone."

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In December 2014, the month of her 27th birthday, Manning wrote an op-ed in the Guardian (she had previously been published in that newspaper, and in The New York Times), about her identity and the violations of her rights as a trans person. She wrote of "unfinished business when it comes to protecting civil rights for many people", from immigration reform to police brutality and racism to rampant discrimination faced by people like her. "We're banned from serving our country in the armed services unless we serve as trans people in secret, as I did," she wrote. She argued for self-recognition, the "absolute and inalienable right to define ourselves".

Chase Strangio, an ACLU staff attorney who represents Manning in her gender dysphoria case, told me that in Fort Leavenworth, Manning is not allowed to browse the web. But she consults print news, remains "a voracious reader" and has access to new gender theory texts, too.

Manning's relationship with The Guardian is one kind of recognition. (The Guardian, which won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the NSA's mass surveillance program-revealed by Edward Snowden-has a special relationship with leaks.) She will not be paid for her contributions. Strangio said that she believes this is by choice.

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Chelsea Manning's next chapter: a small ray of sunshine at Leavenworth