In 2009, Bradley Manning was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer in Iraq, an isolated site near the Iranian border. Manning’s duties as an intelligence analyst gave her access to a classified computer network and subsequent classified information. Some of this information horrified Manning, and so she made the decision to leak files in the hope that they would incite worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. She copied hundreds of thousands of military incident logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which, among other things, exposed abuses of detainees by Iraqi military officers working with American forces and showed that civilian deaths in the Iraq war were probably much higher than official estimates. The files she copied also included about 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies showing sensitive deals and conversations, dossiers detailing intelligence assessments of Guantanamo detainees held without trial, and a video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in which two Reuters journalists were killed, among others. WikiLeaks disclosed the…show more content… Manning stated, “As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.” While advocacy groups encouraged media outlets to refer to Manning by her self-identified name and feminine pronouns, Fox News broke the story with the background song of “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)”. Despite coming out as transgender, Manning was then sent to the all-male United States Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Male prisons are notoriously dangerous for transgender women, with 40% of transgender adults being sexually victimized while in
