From the Washington Post:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, who was previously known as Bradley Manning, wants estrogen treatments that would promote breast development and other female characteristics, which she’d be willing to pay for, while she’s incarcerated at the all-men military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., her lawyer said.
Attorney David Coombs told The Associated Press on Monday that Manning hoped the military prison “will simply do the right thing” based on their request for hormone treatment so the soldier will not have to sue in military or civilian court. Coombs said at this point, Manning does not want sex-reassignment surgery and expects to be kept with men in prison where she’s serving time for leaking mountains of classified material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks…
It wasn’t until they read a Courthouse News Service story that Manning decided to make the announcement. The story quoted prison spokeswoman Kimberly Lewis saying the prison would not provide hormone therapy. It was published Aug. 20, the day before Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the leaks.
“It was Chelsea’s intent to do this all along,” Coombs said. “It was only after Fort Leavenworth had said that they would not provide any sort of medical treatment that we decided not to wait.”
Coombs said at this point, Manning does not want sex-reassignment surgery and expects to be kept with men in prison. Also, Coombs said he had seen online people objecting to taxpayer-funded hormone therapy and said if the Army wouldn’t pay for it, Manning would…
“It’s just to be comfortable in her own skin,” Coombs said…
In related news, turns out the Army really does represent all America, though not always officially, per Slate:
Brynn Tannehill is a former Navy helicopter pilot who condemns the actions of Bradley—now Chelsea—Manning. Tannehill used to fly naval attack helicopters, not entirely unlike the Apache helicopters shown in “Collateral Murder,” the video Manning sent to WikiLeaks revealing U.S. air strikes in Baghdad that left two Reuters journalists and a number of unarmed people dead. But after working as a pilot and analyst over 10 years and four deployments, Tannehill had to drop out of the military in 2010, when she began transitioning from a man to a woman.
Tannehill, who is now the director of advocacy at SPART*A, an organization that advocates for the rights of trans men and women serving in the military, worries Manning’s actions reflect badly on trans service members. “If you’re wondering if she’s being embraced as a hero in the military trans community, she is absolutely not,” Tannehill says. “People in our group can empathize with the strain that being transgender and closeted in the military causes, but we do not in any way, shape, or form think this excuses or mitigates what she did.”
The U.S. military doesn’t allow openly trans men and women to serve, even though it’s estimated that 20 percent of trans people have served, compared to 10 percent of the general U.S. population….