By BRIAN STELTER
Published: August 22, 2013
Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army private who pleaded guilty to leaking government files to WikiLeaks and was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in military prison, said in a statement Thursday that “I am female” and wants to begin living life that way.
In a letter to supporters titled “The Next Stage of My Life,” Private Manning wrote, “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.”
The letter went on to request that Private Manning’s supporters “refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).” It was signed, “Chelsea Manning.”
Private Manning has described himself as gay in the past, and some of his supporters have described him as transgender. In an online chat conversation, published by the Web site of Wired magazine in 2010, Private Manning told the man who eventually turned him in to the authorities, Adrian Lamo, that “I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press as a boy.”
Private Manning’s apparent struggles with gender identity were invoked during by his defense team at his trial. A widely circulated photograph showed Private Manning wearing lipstick and a blonde wig; Manning had e-mailed the photo to an Army psychologist with the subject line, “My Problem.”
In an interview on the “Today” show on Thursday, Private Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, said his client waited to speak publicly about being a woman until after the sentencing.
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