By JoNel Aleccla
NBC News
Bradley Manning may want to live as a woman, but the young man sentenced to prison this week for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret government documents will face a difficult — if not impossible — task of beginning to switch his gender behind bars.
Manning, 25, announced through his lawyer on TODAY Thursday that he intends to request hormone therapy while at Fort Leavenworth prison.
“I am Chelsea Manning. I am female,” the Army private wrote in a statement read on TODAY Thursday.
Throughout Manning’s court-martial for divulging government papers to the website WikiLeaks, the soldier’s gender confusion was a factor used by the defense.
The move raises a host of questions about Manning, about transgender inmates in the U.S. -- and about the treatment itself. Here are answers from experts and advocates familiar with sex-change issues.
Full story: Beginning gender change in prison is a long shot
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