PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. – The U.S. Army has announced it has reached a compromise with former Pfc. Chelsea (previously Bradley) Manning, the imprisoned soldier at the center of a landmark struggle to force the Army to pay for her hormone therapy for transition to a woman.
Following several weeks of negotiating with Manning's attorney, the Army and Manning both agreed instead to transfer her to the Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island. Army spokesmen have said that although the move "cannot give Private Manning the complete gender transition she seeks, we hope Marine Recruit Training will at least give her the full experience of being treated like a woman."
While the commandant of the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks where Manning is currently imprisoned agreed in February to pay for Manning's hormonal treatment, recent budget cuts have forced the Army to seek out a more cost-effective solution.
Despite Manning's fears that she had become "a joke" to Army leaders, Secretary of the Army John McHugh has insisted that Manning's treatment was "near the top of the Army's priority list, somewhere between dealing with Yemen's civil war and countering a Russian invasion of Estonia."
