© Reuters/US ArmyU.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier convicted of giving classified state documents to WikiLeaks, is pictured dressed as a woman in this 2010 photograph obtained on August 14, 2013
The announcement by Pfc. Bradley Manning comes one day after a military judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison for leaking more than 700,000 classified files. The sex change he would like to undergo can take a long time.Pfc. Bradley Manning intends to live as a woman named Chelsea Manning, he announced in a letter provided to
NBC's
Today show on Thursday morning.
Manning's statement comes one day after a military judge sentenced him to 35 years in prison for leaking more than 700,000 classified government files to WikiLeaks.
"As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am female," Manning told
Today.Manning's avowed transgender status is no surprise given that testimony during his trial indicated a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, meaning he wants to live as the opposite sex. Prior to his arrest, he created an alternative identity known as "Breanna" and sent his military therapist a photo of himself wearing lipstick and a blond wig.
Some
profiles of Manning published prior to his trial included extensive information about his struggles with gender identity.
But during the trial, Manning's lawyers referred to him as male. Now he says he would like to switch. Will the military prison system accommodate such a change?
After all, the process Manning would like to undergo can take a long time. It involves therapy, a period of hormone therapy, and perhaps eventual surgical change. And Manning will be behind bars for a long time - at least seven years, and possibly much longer.
Right now it appears that during incarceration, he will have to live as a male. According to the Army, inmates in military prisons are allowed wide access to mental-health professionals. But the military system is under no obligation to help Manning or anyone else change genders, according to Defense Department officials.
"The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder," Kimberly Lewis, a spokesman for the Army's Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas,
told NBC News.
If Manning were a civilian convicted in the federal court system, the situation could be somewhat different. According to the
American Civil Liberties Union, since 2011, federal inmates have had a right to receive an evaluation of their gender status, and where applicable, a treatment plan for gender identity disorder (GID) that is consistent with the current standards of care.
In federal prisons, "even inmates who had not been diagnosed with GID prior to incarceration are entitled to an evaluation and possible hormone therapy," according to an
ACLU summary of transgender legal rights.
State prisons are stricter, however, and they house the vast majority of US prisoners. Transgender inmates in state prisons are frequently denied transition-related health care, according to the ACLU, and courts are reluctant to order medical care not deemed necessary by prison medical officials.
Manning is also likely to be housed with male prisoners. Courts generally support the decisions of prison officials as to where prisoners should be housed, and unless a transgender person has already undergone surgery, that housing is likely to be with their birth gender.
Manning's lawyer
David Coombs told
Today that his client's goal is not to be assigned to a woman's prison.
"I think the ultimate goal is to be comfortable in her skin and to be the person that she's never had the opportunity to be," Mr. Coombs said.
"Manning's avowed transgender status is no surprise given that testimony during his trial indicated a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, meaning he wants to live as the opposite sex."
No, it does not mean that he merely -wants- to live as a woman; it means he -needs- to live as a woman.
"Will the military prison system accommodate such a change?"
Not likely, and my God that girl has balls of frickin' steel.
"Transgender inmates in state prisons are frequently denied transition-related health care, according to the ACLU, and courts are reluctant to order medical care not deemed necessary by prison medical officials."
Amoung perhaps a lot of other things prison officials might do well to consider the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's take on the matter. Full text of WPATH's position paper is at this [Link];some pertinent excerpts follow:
The WPATH Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders were first issued in 1979, and articulate the, "professional consensus about the psychiatric, psychological, medical and surgical management of GID." Periodically revised to reflect the latest clinical practice and scientific research, the Standards also unequivocally reflect this Association's conclusion that treatment is medically necessary.
Medical necessity is a term common to health care coverage and insurance policies in the United States. A common definition among insurers is:
Health care services that a Physician, exercising prudent clinical judgment, would provide to a patient for the purpose of preventing, evaluating, diagnosing or treating an illness, injury, disease or its symptoms, and that are:
(a) in accordance with generally accepted standards of medical practice;
(b) clinically appropriate, in terms of type, frequency, extent, site and duration, and considered effective for the patient's illness, injury, or disease; and
(c) not primarily for the convenience of the patient, physician, or other health care provider, and not more costly than an alternative service or sequence of services at least as likely to produce equivalent therapeutic or diagnostic results as to the diagnosis or treatment of that patient's illness, injury or disease. [ . . . ]
The medical procedures attendant to sex reassignment are not "cosmetic" or "elective" or for the mere convenience of the patient. These reconstructive procedures are not optional in any meaningful sense, but are understood to be medically necessary for the treatment of the diagnosed condition. [ . . . ]
These medical procedures and treatment protocols are not experimental: decades of both clinical experience and medical research show they are essential to achieving well-being for the transsexual patient. [ . . . ]
Available routinely in the United States and in many other countries, these treatments are cost effective rather than cost prohibitive. [ . . . ]
Professionals who provide services to patients with gender conditions understand the necessity of SRS, and concur that it is reconstructive, and as such should be reimbursed, as would any other medically necessary treatment. [ . . . ]