Changing gender in the News - Bradley Manning wants to be called Chelsea Bradley Manning has, of late, been in the

news for all the wrong reasons. The United States soldier leaked around 0.7 million secret documents belonging to the U.S army to WikiLeaks and following a trial, is convicted of twenty charges, facing an imprisonment of thirty-five years at Fort Meade in Maryland. And now he is claiming that in actuality, he is a woman called Chelsea and not a man. In a statement given by him to NBC Newss Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, twenty-five years old Manning said that he considers getting sentenced as the second phase of his life and hence wants the World to know what he really is. He wants to undergo a hormone therapy that can eventually help him to undergo hormonal changes. David Coombs, the lawyer representing Bradley Manning has reportedly said that he expects that President Obama pardons his client on the ground that he was going through a difficult phase in combat. Also, at the time of leaking documents, he was not in a sound state. He also said that Manning was suffering from isolation and acute stress and even though he had shown warning signs, but it was blatantly ignored by his superiors. Hence even though his client did not seek to undergo plastic surgery or any other complicated treatment, Coombs expected him to be allowed at least for the hormone therapy. According to a testimony submitted by a prison psychologist, Manning was finding it extremely difficult to adjust to the environment of the Army owing to the environment being extremely hypermasculine in nature. David Moulton, a Navy Reserve captain, pointed out after assessing Bradleys condition that he is suffering from gender dysphoria, disorder of obsessive-compulsion as well as narcissism. But according to a source in the Army, there is no provision of plastic surgery or hormone therapy for inmates. But they are provided with other facilities like health checkup, counseling by professional experts, psychological treatments, and seminars by behavioral science experts as well as social workers. This is in contrast to the constitutions Eight Amendment that bars any cruel punishment for prisoners. According to American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Projects staff attorney Chase Stangio, in case Manning is not allowed to undergo hormone therapy, this is seriously going to be a complex constitutional issue. Even though there is a lot of debate going on over this particular subject, Bradley Manning wants everyone to address him as Chelsea and not Bradley since he considers that this is his true identity. His lawyer, Coombs, however says that Bradley does not want to go to a prison for women. Chelsea, according to Coombs, wants to get comfortable in her own skin. When Bradley was arrested in the year 2010, he had wanted to keep his sexual identity under covers, but since it is out, he has decided to go public with it. Concerned over security issues, Coombs said that most of the prisoners with Bradley are first time prisoners and awaiting their sentences to finish. Hence there is no need to be skeptical about his safety issues. Also the Army prison houses inmates who are charged with first time offences. Considering the knowledge of hierarchy and discipline imparted to these prisoners during their training period, it can be said that they are not dangerous and have no criminal intentions.

Asked whether Bradley will be allowed to undergo the hormone therapy treatment or not, military law expert Geoffrey Corn said that the army has no such precedent as of now and it is unlikely that Bradley will be allowed to go through it. According to Corn, the issue raised by Bradley is the first ever that came in the Army glare since gay members, who were open about their sexual preferences were barred from serving sentences until 2010. In the next year, the policy called dont ask, dont tell was repealed by the government that subsequently allowed gay members to be served as normal soldiers. But as of now, Army has never allowed its inmate to undergo any gender reassignment therapy and only time can say, whether there will be any leniency shown to Bradley or not.