Chelsea Manning has recalled the first day she stepped out in public as a woman while still serving in the US military, at a time when the controversial ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy was still enforced.
The former US soldier announced her transition in August 2013 after being sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking more than 700,000 classified military documents to Wikileaks.
Manning has successfully sued the US Government for the right to receive hormone therapy in prison.
Writing in the Guardian, Manning described passing as a woman in public for the first time in February 2010 after her experiences in Iraq led her to reevaluate what mattered.
Manning, who was on leave from her deployment in Iraq at the time, said she was able to blend into the crowd easily as her authentic self.
“I’d long known I was a woman,” she writes, “but I’d been afraid, and a bit embarrassed, to appear publicly as myself before this. Not only was I worried that I could lose my already-tenuous connections with my family, but I was terrified that I could face administrative, or even criminal, charges from the military.
She says choosing make-up was easy because it was something she had done before.
Clothes proved more difficult, writes Manning, which led her to pretend to be shopping for a girlfriend.
“Being myself for a whole day taught me a few lessons: trying to meet the expectations that I believed were placed on me by society was unsustainable. I was miscast in the play of life, and it was urgent that I admit that, sooner rather than later. Joy, confidence and security can’t begin until we are able to just be ourselves.”
In July, Manning was hospitalised after trying to take her own life. She could face solitary confinement for an indefinite period or charges relating to the suicide attempt, according to The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
