Essentially she is now being tortured as punishment for an act of desperation.
— Nancy Hollander, lawyer for Chelsea Manning, September 24, 2016
It was not sufficient for US military authorities to sentence whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the onerous, disproportionate sentence of 35 years imprisonment for conniving with WikiLeaks in releasing classified material. (People have gotten less for gruesome, remorseless murders.) Punishment has a myriad of forms, and even within the carceral system, Manning has discovered that additional methods can be devised.
As with any penal system worth its brutal salt, minor infractions incite strong rebuke and hefty retaliation. Manning has previously been in hot water over the usual violations of the prison code, be they as innocuous as possessing an expired tube of toothpaste, or having inappropriately designated research materials used for the drafting of articles.
The three member disciplinary board at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas claimed that the punishment for Manning, which involves a fourteen day sentence with seven suspended days, was occasioned by an attempt to take her own life in July. A good deal of this gloomy effort was spurred on by official refusals to permit access to treatment for gender dysphoria. Manning has not merely been an aberration to US state security in her actions, but a transgender puzzle within the military establishment.
Left to such devices of desperation, the only form of meagre autonomy left…