US Army approves sex change treatment for jailed soldier

Washington, Feb 13 (IANS/EFE) The US Army has approved sex change treatment for transsexual soldier Bradley (Chelsea) Manning who is serving a 35-year prison term for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, the USA Today newspaper reported.

"After carefully considering the recommendation that (hormone treatment) is medically appropriate and necessary, and weighing all associated safety and security risks presented, I approve adding (hormone treatment) to inmate Manning's treatment plan," wrote Col. Erica Nelson in a report obtained by the newspaper Thursday.

Nelson is the commandant of the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas where Manning has been serving his sentence since July 2013 for violating the Espionage Act by leaking more than 700,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks.

The US military had asked the soldier, diagnosed with gender dysphoria, to be transferred from Fort Leavenworth to a prison in the federal system which provides such treatments to inmates.

The Department of Defense does not have experience in this type of treatment and so asked the Federal Bureau of Prisons to accept Manning.

Manning cannot be expelled from the army while he is serving his sentence, so authorities are obliged to provide the treatment requested by the soldier.

The day after being sentenced to prison, Manning confessed in a letter that he was a transsexual and was changing his name to Chelsea.

Manning has always maintained that he revealed the abuses of the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan for the public to know and to open a debate on the conflicts in those countries.

--IANS/EFE

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