Manning, WikiLeaks mole, sues US military seeking sex change

A year after being sentenced to a 35-year prison term in the biggest confidential document leak in US history, Chelsea Manning is suing the military seeking a sex change.

In an 180-page complaint filed on Tuesday, former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who now uses the name Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, alleged having been "denied access to medically necessary treatment for her gender dysphoria."

Since she was imprisoned August 21, 2013, she has been seeking hormone treatment; she says she feels that she is a woman in a man's body.

With the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Manning sued Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Pentagon, alleging that her US constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment, is being violated.

"The government continues to deny Ms. Manning's access to necessary medical treatment for gender dysphoria, without which she will continue to suffer severe psychological harms," said Chase Strangio, attorney in the ACLU Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender project and co-counsel for Manning.

"Such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment."

Manning, now held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has acknowledged releasing more than 700,000 classified documents to WikiLeaks.

In 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing 250,000 American diplomatic cables and 500,000 classified military reports, covering both American diplomacy and the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

© 2014 AFP