Convicted transgender soldier will stay on active duty

Manning was found guilty of leaking 700,000 documents, diplomatic cables, videos and battlefield accounts to Wikileaks while working in Iraq in 2010.

Pvt. Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army soldier convicted of leaking national security secrets whose 35 year sentence was commuted by President Obama just before he left office, will stay on active duty while her court-martial conviction remains under appeal, USA Today reports.

“And I don’t see her fading into a private life”, Strangio said, listing transgender youth, prisoners and women of color as potential causes.

“I’m sure she is excited and anxious because getting out of prison is a moment of anxiety for anyone who has been incarcerated as long as she has”.

‘Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine’.

Manning has indicated that she intends to live in Maryland after her release, a move that will bring her story full circle.

President Donald Trump was a vocal opponent of Manning’s release, calling her a “traitor” in a January tweet. According to the Army, she will serve on active duty as an unpaid soldier while her court martial conviction is under appeal. “Time, trauma, and survival have changed her and changed all of us”.

“I am Chelsea Manning”. Manning said the lack of care drove her to try to commit suicide at least twice and prompted her to go on a hunger strike.

Although Manning initially entered prison as a man named Bradley, he later transitioned to a woman and adopted the name Chelsea in 2013.

She will be released in to a world that is much more tolerant of transgender people.

She was convicted of violating the Espionage Act for her leak, which included video of us soldiers killing civilians in Baghdad.

In fact, the weather in Leavenworth County in Kansas is topping 30 degrees Celsius this week, so after seven years in military detention, this now famous whistleblower will finally step out of the Disciplinary Barracks at the US Army’s Fort Leavenworth base on a rather hot and sultry day. Manning is now appealing her court-martial conviction. Upon release, the idea of being able to “express her gender in her own terms” through her appearance has created an “incredibly powerful anticipation”, Strangio said. As an active duty soldier, she’ll be assigned to an Army post, although it’s unknown where or what that post will be. Her supporters have already raised over 4,000 for a “welcome home” fund, managed by Manning’s older sister, Casey, which will help pay for her food, housing, medicine, and other essentials once she is released.

In a statement her Welsh-Irish relatives said Manning had endured “seven years loss of liberty for her whistleblowing actions while those whose wrongdoing she exposed have gone unpunished”.