Chelsea Manning Joins Twitter From Prison

Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army soldier serving a 35-year prison
sentence for leaking thousands of secret, sensitive documents, is now
communicating with the world via Twitter.

From prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
Chelsea tweets using a voice phone to dictate to Fitzgibbon Media who then
posts in 140 characters or less for her.    

According to The Guardian, Chelsea does not have internet access in prison. Starting Friday afternoon, Chelsea sent out a series of tweets thanking her supporters, and letting her nearly 34,000 followers know she wanted to "tweet about more meaningful things."

After being sentenced in 2013, Chelsea announced a decision to undergo hormone therapy to transition to female. And, in a historic first, the U.S. Army agreed.  Legally changing her name from Bradley in April 2014, Chelsea's treatment plan involves hormones, possible surgery, and the right to live and dress as a woman. She is, however, not allowed to grow out her hair, a right given to female prisoners.  Wanting more control over how she was portrayed in the media, Chelsea worked with Philadelphia-based artist Alicia Neal on her official portrait, which is also her Twitter avatar.