Chelsea Manning, the US Army intelligence analyst who was given a 35-year jail sentence for leaking nationwide safety secrets and techniques to Wikileaks, has been accredited for US taxpayer-paid hormone therapy within the bodily transition to change into a lady.
The determination to grant Chelsea Manning, 27, who was born Bradley Manning, hormone therapy was revealed in a memo from officers at Fort Leavenworth jail, the place Manning is serving his sentence.
A day after sentencing in August 2013, Manning declared she had felt feminine since childhood.
During her trial, Manning’s legal professionals had argued that she had been disillusioned by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the general public had a proper to see the paperwork, which included army reviews and diplomatic cables.
But whereas in jail, Manning stays a soldier and so the problem of hormone therapy had to be handled by the US Army.
A memo obtained by the US media describes the choice of the commandant of Fort Leavenworth jail to permit the therapy for Manning’s full transition to change into a lady.
“After carefully considering the recommendation that [hormone treatment] is medically appropriate and necessary, and weighing all associated safety and security risks presented, I approve adding [hormone treatment] to Inmate Manning’s treatment plan,” Col. Erica Nelson, the commandant of the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks in Kansas, wrote in a Feb. 5 memo.
It was not clear when the therapy would begin, though Nelson wrote that Manning wouldn’t be allowed “female hair grooming.”
Manning had requested hormone therapy so he might reside as a lady. Transgender persons are not allowed to serve within the US army so the Defense Department can’t pay for hormone therapy however the Department of Veterans Affairs does present it.