Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).
When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you're a skilled intelligence professional, everything looks like a vital source for collection.
The past will always affect me, and I will keep that in mind while remembering that how it played out is only my starting point, not my final destination.
I think a lot of opportunities would have come easier to me if I had felt more comfortable and confident in my own skin and not terrified of the world around me.
Shortly after arriving at a makeshift military jail at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in May 2010, I was placed into the black hole of solitary confinement for the first time.
It can be so difficult to get people to think about systemic institutional problems. It is easier just to see the actions of one or two people and say, "That's wrong!"
While incarcerated, I had no bank statements, no bills, no credit history. In our interconnected world of big data, I appeared to be no different than a deceased person.
I used to get these horrible feelings; like, I just wanted to rip my body apart, and I don't want to have to go through that experience again. It's really, really awful.
Instead of trying to be 'radical,' I just try to be true to myself! Is it radical to be true to yourself? Maybe it is. I don't know, but it just makes sense to me, haha!
I don't believe that Freedom of Information laws, which have arbitrary time periods or broad blanket exemptions, meet the level of transparency that society needs today.
Gender presentation should reflect the person that you are. When you lose control of your gender presentation, you lose an important aspect of your identity and existence.
We are not safe and secure when the government uses us as pawns to perpetrate violence against others. Our safety and security will come when we organize, love, and resist together.
I believe that the trans movement is at a crossroads. We have achieved an unprecedented level of visibility in the last couple of years. However, that's not the same thing as equality.
There is an awful lot of work to do to protect trans folks. We are still disproportionally poor and administratively and institutionally discriminated against at all levels of society.
We can work to get queer and trans people out of the prisons and jails and off the streets, and to improve our access to housing, education, employment and gender-confirming healthcare.
We need to stop hoping that our systems will right themselves. We need to actually take the reins of government and fix our institutions. We need to save lives by making change at every level.
The one simple lesson to draw from President Obama's legacy: do not start off with a compromise. They won't meet you in the middle. Instead, what we need is an unapologetic progressive leader.
I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship.
Read everything. Ask your own questions. Be your own filter. Nobody is going to look at the world around you and tell you what important things are happening that affect you and the ones you love.
I began to fear that I was forever going to be living in a hot desert cage, living as and being treated as a male, disappearing from the world into a secret prison, and never facing a public trial.
Having a birthday around the holidays was never easy and, with every successive year, it felt more and more as if celebrating my birthday got thrown into the December holiday mix as an afterthought.
The most important people for me, at least in the last couple of years since I came out, are my supersecret trans friends and confidantes. I think I need to come up with a code name for this circle.
The one place I never felt at all comfortable in the military was in private circles of conversation. There's a tendency, especially among young men, to objectify and denigrate women behind closed doors.
Any increase in surveillance of marginalized communities for the sake of security theater have expanded the cycle of criminalization that queer people - especially queer people of color - are forced to navigate.
The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members.
Transgender folks have been part of the push for LGBT equality from the beginning, and we've spoken with loud and intelligent voices and have found political and personal success and advancement all over the world.
In my experience, working as an intelligence analyst with my own pool of sources numbering close to 100, by far the most effective forms of human intelligence collection are rapport-building and direct questioning.
The U.S. needs legislation to protect the public's right to free speech and a free press, to protect it from the actions of the executive branch, and to promote the integrity and transparency of the U.S. government.
There are very few distinctions between el bueno and el malo en la prisión militar. Instead of the good and the bad, there is the boring and la repetición - the repetitive. The routine is as endless as it is numbing.
I've been a huge fan of Marc Jacobs for many, many years, even going back to when I was wearing men's clothing. He captures a kind of simplicity and a kind of beauty that I like - projecting strength through femininity.
I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
I've been a fan of Taylor Swift for years - ever since I heard her song 'Love Story.' I'm also a really big fan of Selena Gomez - I really started listening to her a lot in the months before and during my court martial in 2013.
Let's protect sensitive sources. Let's protect troop movements. Let's protect nuclear information. Let's not hide missteps. Let's not hide misguided policies. Let's not hide history. Let's not hide who we are and what we are doing.
The evidence is overwhelming that it should be deemed as such: solitary confinement in the U.S. is arbitrary, abused, and unnecessary in many situations. It is cruel, degrading, and inhumane and is effectively a 'no touch' torture.
On a transparency front, I would say that I certainly dream of a world in which our local, state, and national and international governments and other organizations have a 21st century, digital-era transparency built into them by default.
The fight for justice for the transgender community is largely invisible to our fellow citizens, despite the rampant systematic discrimination of trans people - those whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
By the time I enrolled in the military at 20, I had spent years in denial about who I really was. I was openly gay and would go through periods of cross-dressing, and had even thought about transitioning, but I was in such complete denial.
I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.
The press and free speech landscape has totally changed. There is far less news reporting today. Instead, we have this endless stream of - largely meaningless and speculative - analysis by sideline commentators and self-proclaimed "experts."
I knew that I was different. I gravitated more toward playing house, but the teachers were always pushing me toward playing the more competitive games with the boys. I spent so much time wondering, 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I fit in?'
When I wanted to serve my country, I was forced to hide the most basic and human aspect of my life and my identity from the people to whom I was supposed to be the closest - and with whom I had to trust my life. I also had to hide from myself.
Investigative journalism and reporting has become much more dangerous. This is especially true for journalists and sources in National Security - but it has been getting pretty bad for beat reporters and small outlets doing local reporting, too.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be in business or politics, like a CEO of a big corporation or a U.S. senator. There were also times I wanted to be an astronaut or a military officer. Yes, there were moments when I thought about doing this as a woman.
I loved being in my sister's room. I really admired her and wore her clothes to play in, played with her dolls, played with her makeup. She had a mirror with settings to see what you would look like in different lighting. I thought that was amazing.
As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan.
The insecurity that comes from being behind bars with, at best, imperfect oversight makes us all feel responsible only for ourselves. We end up either docile, apathetic, and unwilling to engage with each other, or hostile, angry, violent, and resentful.
As a young kid, I spent a lot of time exploring the world around me. I lived a few miles outside of a tiny town in central Oklahoma. I would often run amok though the fields of wheat, the patches of trees, along the railroad tracks, and on red dirt roads.
After years of hiding and holding off because of the trial, I finally announced my intent to change my name and transition to living as woman on 22 August 2013 - the day following my sentencing - a personal high point for me, despite my other circumstances.
You start to forget about the world outside - it's not relevant or relatable anymore. The darkest part of solitary confinement is that you start to forget about cars and jobs and families and weather and politicians - and all the things that make up a society.