WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning is looking forward to getting married and having a family some day. You know, after his 35-ish years in prison are over.
We’re mostly kidding (Manning will likely serve about a decade and no more ), but his lawyer said that the former intelligence analyst isn’t letting prison time prevent him/her from planning for the future.
“She wants to get a degree,” David Coombs, Manning’s attorney, told Today on Friday . “She wants to hopefully find somebody that she loves. Get married. Perhaps have a family.”
Manning has begun his sentence inside Fort Leavenworth’s disciplinary barracks after being convicted on 20 counts for his part in the WikiLeaks controversy of 2010. Almost immediately after the sentence was handed down, a number of twists started coming out to the pres.
First and foremost was Manning’s desire to identify as a woman (and as such, we’ll refer to Manning with female pronouns for the remainder of this article), take on the name Chelsea, and begin hormone therapy while she is imprisoned.
The Army simply said in a statement that it does not provide sex-reassignment surgery, though Manning didn’t ask for it.
Reactions to the “Chelsea Manning” part of the WikiLeaks saga have been pretty polarized on social media:
I’ll make this very clear: I don’t care if it’s Bradley or Chelsea Manning, you are a traitor. Period.
— Shane Arrington (@shanearrington) August 23, 2013
Pretty much in awe of Chelsea Manning’s bravery, on so many fronts. Inspiring. — kade (@onekade) August 22, 2013
Of course, this all just takes the focus off the conversation we should still be having about government transparency, but hey, let’s keep focusing on Chelsea Manning’s sexual orientation. That’s news!
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