A petition to formalize the name change of the American former soldier Bradley Edward Manning to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning was approved on Wednesday by a U.S. judge, local media reported.
With this ruling, Manning, who was condemned for leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks and is serving a 35 years in prison sentenced in an Army jail in Kansas, might change his military records; however, the ruling does not force the military to treat him like a woman, according to BBC.
According to the same source, last August, Manning, from Oklahoma, revealed that he wanted to start hormonal treatment and live like a woman and since Wednesday, shortly after the Judge's ruling, he emitted a press release saying that he hopes that his name change might raise awareness in the US on people like him.
According to The Washington Post, the Department of Defense fobids transgender people from serving, and routinely discharges soldiers who undergo hormonal therapy; however, Manning's case has forced the Pentagon to deal with complex legal matters, since the former soldier is serving out a sentence in an Army prison.
This situation has led Manning, who seeks to receive hormonal treatment equal to professional standards, to say that he feels "optimistic" regarding the possibility of getting the treatment he seeks, which would create a preedent in the way the Army manages the cases of soldiers seeking to change their gender.
Last June, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning was found guilty of stealing and leaking 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks in what is considered to be the largest leak of classified material in the history of the US, according to CNN.
Currently, Manning, who was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, is serving out a 35 years sentence in the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas military prison.