Why LGBT Activists Everywhere Are Saying #FreeChelsea

If you've been online in the past few days, odds are you've come across the #FreeChelsea hashtag, and there's a really good reason for that.

Chelsea Manning is a United States Army soldier and transgender woman who, in 2013, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for disclosing/leaking classified documents to the controversial WikiLeaks website. She came out as trans not long after she was sentenced, but was still placed in a men's prison in spite of that fact.

A few days ago, authorities found Manning unconscious in her cell after a suicide attempt and sentenced her to solitary confinment because of it. Yes, Manning was sentenced to solitary confinment for being suicidal. If you think that sounds totally irrational and cruel, you're right.

Even before this, Manning had been fighting for gender affirming surgery and better treatment for her gender dysphoria. Earlier this month, she went on a hunger strike until officials finally agreed to allow her a surgeon, making her the first trans person in the U.S. to recieve gender transition surgery in prison. But now she has to represent herself in a hearing about her suicide attempt, along with other charges she's facing. She's not even allowed an attorney.

Chelsea Manning is a woman and there is absolutely no reason she should be in a men's prison. So many people who are trans deal with a rotten system that refuses to recogize their identities as if being misgendered should go with their punishment. This should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, but the goverment has shown us it doesn't see it that way at all. 

Just because someone is in prison doesn't mean they lose their humanity. It's entirely irrational and inhumane to place a non violent offender who is suicidal and known to have depression in solitary confinment (a known form of torture). She shouldn't even be punished for her depression at all, but instead, she should be treated and given the right amount of care so she doesn't become more of a harm to herself. And to go even further, many would argue that Chelsea Manning shouldn't be in prison in the first place. Campaigns to pardon Chelsea have been floating around since she was convicted. 

So I'll keep saying #FreeChelsea, for more reasons than one, and I hope you will, too.