Defence
secretary has given approval for army to try to work out transfer plan with
Federal Bureau of Prisons, officials say
theguardian.com,
Associated Press in Washington, Wednesday 14 May 2014
The Pentagon is trying to transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so that she can get treatment for her gender disorder.
Chelsea Manning, convicted last year of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, has asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman. Photograph: AP |
The Pentagon is trying to transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so that she can get treatment for her gender disorder.
Manning,
who was convicted last year of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks, has
asked for hormone therapy and to be able to live as a woman.
It was the
first such request by a transgender military inmate, and set up a dilemma for
the US defence department: how to treat a soldier for a diagnosed disorder
without violating longstanding military policy.
Transgender
people are not allowed to serve in the US military, and the defence department
does not provide such treatment, but Manning cannot be discharged from the
service while serving her 35-year prison sentence.
Some
officials have said privately that keeping the soldier in a military prison and
unable to have treatment could amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Last month,
the defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, gave the army approval to try to work out a
transfer plan with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which does provide such
treatment, two Pentagon officials said. The two agencies were just starting
discussions about prospects for a transfer, the officials said.
The
Pentagon press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, said: "No decision to
transfer Private Manning to a civilian detention facility has been made, and
any such decision will, of course, properly balance the soldier's medical needs
with our obligation to ensure she remains behind bars."
The army
has a memorandum of agreement with the Bureau of Prisons for use of several
hundred beds and has sent an average of 15 to 20 prisoners a year to civilian
prisons. But the circumstances are different in Manning's case. The army
normally transfers some prisoners to federal prisons after all military appeals
have been exhausted and discharge from military service has been executed.
Cases of national security interest are not normally approved for transfer from
military custody to the federal prison system.
Manning, a
former intelligence analyst, was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act
violations and 14 other offences for giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret
military and US state department documents, along with battlefield video, while
working in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
After the
conviction, Manning announced the desire to live as a woman and to change her
name from Bradley, which the military did not oppose and which was approved
last month by a Leavenworth county district judge.
The soldier
has been diagnosed by military doctors multiple times with gender dysphoria. By
November, a military doctor had approved a treatment plan including hormone
therapy, but it was sent higher up the chain of command for consideration,
according to a complaint filed by Manning in March over the delay in getting
treatment.
The plan
the military was considering has not been publicly released, but Manning said
in the complaint that she had specifically asked that the treatment plan
consider three types of treatment.
They were
"real-life experience" – a regimen in which the person tries dressing
and living as the gender they want to transition to (something not possible in
the Leavenworth men's facility); hormone therapy, which changes some physical
traits such as breast and hair growth; and gender reassignnment surgery.
Manning has not been specific about possible surgery, but experts in
transgender health say it can include any of a large number of procedures such
as chest reconstruction, genital reconstruction and plastic surgery such as
facial reconstruction.
Hagel said on Sunday that the prohibition on transgender individuals serving in the armed
forces "continually should be reviewed". He did not indicate whether
he believed the policy should be overturned, but said: "Every qualified
American who wants to serve our country should have an opportunity if they fit
the qualifications and can do it."
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