Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier previously known as Bradley Manning who was court-martialed in 2013 for leaking 750,000 classified or sensitive documents to WikiLeaks, has been named Out Magazine’s “Newsmaker of the Year.”
“There’s a lot of commentators out there, but I don’t feel that’s my role,” Manning, a trans woman, told the publication Wednesday regarding the honor. “My role is to motivate people and remind them that there are ways in which we can defend ourselves.”
Manning’s 35-year sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama in January 2017 after spending almost seven years in confinement after her arrest in 2010.
Since her release, she has been active on the speaker’s circuit and social media about government transparency and trans issues, despite experiencing a public setback when Harvard University withdrew an offer of a fellowship due to heavy criticism over the appointment.
She and other transgender people face “struggles and challenges in so many aspects of our life that are about more than just visibility and being out there,” Manning said.
“This is not a new reality — this is what reality has been the whole time,” Manning added, referring to LGBT relations under the Trump administration. “It’s more in our face than it’s been before, but after this we’re still going to be facing the same threats — they just seem bigger now.”
“There’s no way they’re going to shut me up,” she continued. “The more they intimidate me, the louder I get.”
