Quotes from Chelsea Manning

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.

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.

From my perspective, the world's shaped me more than anything else. It's a feedback loop.

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.

There is a difference between a consumer - who passively receives the information that they are spoon fed - and a citizen - who engages with society, asks questions, does research, and works towards making a difference in their neighborhood, city, and country.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that when it comes to issues affecting the trans community, most people who are cisgender - a word describing those people whose gender identity is in alignment with the sex they were assigned at birth - focus too much on the administrative, legal, and medical aspects of trans identity.

We need to send a powerful message to the world in a unified voice: that we can fight for social justice for everyone, everywhere, and change the world, not just get married. We can continue to build our communities and address the root causes of queer and trans poverty and deaths.

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.

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.

As outrageously counter-intuitive as this might seem, the most hardened terrorists and criminals are often extremely willing to brag about the terrible things they've done, the unlikely places that they have been hiding, the important people that they know and deal with, and the plans they have been working on for the future.

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.

Unfortunately, prisons try very hard to make us inhuman and unreal by denying our image, and thus our existence, to the rest of the world.

There were a lot of points where I would start to come out, face stern resistance and mockery from people I thought were my friends, and then reverse course. I was scared. I don't think I ever said, 'I'm gay,' or, 'I'm trans.' It was more like, 'Is it normal for guys to crossdress a lot?'

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 disagree with Apple on many things - such as its exclusive use of proprietary software and arbitrary restrictions on users seeking to copy, share, edit, and create software on their devices. However, I strongly feel that defending its users' and customers' right to strong encryption in court is incredibly important.

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.

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.

I am not asking for a pardon of my conviction. I understand that the various collateral consequences of the court-martial conviction will stay on my record forever. I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside the U.S.D.B. as the person I was born to be.

I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I think it's safe to say.

Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine.

When you're a kid dreaming, anything seems possible.

In 2010, the iPhone was only three years old, and many people still didn't see smartphones as the indispensable digital appendages they are today. Seven years later, virtually everything we do causes us to bleed digital information, putting us at the mercy of invisible algorithms that threaten to consume our freedom.

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.