Bradley Manning Wants To Become a Woman

The soldier, condemned to 35 years of prison for theft, fraud and espionage, wants to undergo treatment for a sex change.

The soldier Bradley Manning, condemned Wednesday to 35 years of prison for passing confidential documents to the site WikiLeaks, reacted to the sentence through his lawyer on Thursday. After expressing his hopes of being pardoned, he announced that he considered himself a woman and from now on wanted to live as one. “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,” indicated the 25-year-old soldier in a transcript read on NBC.

In the transcript, Manning explains that he has had this feeling for a long time. “Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible,” he explains. He adds that he wants to be called by his new name and be designated with a feminine pronoun. According to his lawyer, Bradley Manning waited until the end of his trial to make this announcement because he did not want to disrupt the proceedings.

Already Mentioned Gender Identity Disorders

Manning’s psychological profile has already led to several questions. His lawyer himself leaned on the character of the young soldier during the proceedings to seek the indulgence of the judges. Presenting him as a naïve and idealistic whistle-blower, he insisted on the fact that his client “had limited experience and good intentions” and highlighted his sexual identity struggles.

The family context of Bradley Manning, who grew up with alcoholic parents and was frequently the subject of mockery during his childhood, was regularly put forward to explain the soldier’s temperament, as was his homosexuality, a taboo subject at the heart of the army that led him to be harassed by the other soldiers. These abuses were discussed by Manning himself in conversations over the Internet with a gay activist posing as a woman.

In 2010, Bradley Manning, then an intelligence analyst based in Baghdad, sent more than 700,000 classified files, combat videos and confidential diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. He then propelled this organization and its founder, Julian Assange, into the spotlight.