Quotes from Chelsea Manning

When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

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 had always known that I was 'different.' I didn't really understand it all until I got older. But there was always this foreboding sense something was 'wrong.' I never knew how to talk about it. I just remember feeling terrified about what would happen if someone found out. It was a very lonely feeling.

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.

Health care is something that prisoners have a right to, you know? They don't get to pick and choose whether or not you get this health care plan and this health care plan. It's provided to you by the prison. The prison has a responsibility to provide you with necessary health care, and trans health care is necessary.

Being me is a full-time job.

The military is diverse and large, and it's public: it serves a public function; it serves a public duty.

Day-to-day life is as simple as it is routine - though my days are often long and very busy.

I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside the [U.S. Disciplinary Barracks] as the person I was born to be.

Many queer and trans people live - and lived - in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn't help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

As a young queer kid growing up, I explored my identity through the Chicago and Washington, D.C., club scene.

We need to continue to build and support queer and trans communities and end the profiling and criminalization that so many face.

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 spent a lot of time denying the idea that I could be gay or trans to myself. From the ages of 14 to 16, I was mostly convinced that I was just going through 'phases.' I ran away mentally, especially at night with access to the Internet and the labyrinth of anonymous communications.

No one knows my gender more than I do. You do not know my gender better than I do. A doctor doesn't know it better than I do. My parents don't know it better than I do. No one experiences my gender in the way that I experience it.

By December 2009, I had come to terms with my gender identity just as I was deployed to Iraq.

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?'

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.

Owning my identity... ties into my value of dignity.

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.

Privacy is not a luxury in America: it is a right - one that we need to defend in the digital realm as much as in the physical realm.

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.

Through every struggle that I have been confronted with and have been subjected to - solitary confinement, long legal battles, and physically transitioning to the woman I have always been - I manage not only to survive, but to grow, learn, mature, and thrive as a better, more confident person.

As a young kid, I spent a lot of time exploring the world around me.