Chelsea Manning famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Struggle #Iraq #People
I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Support #Childhood #Transition
I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Country #Hurt #Regret
As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Military #War #Media
Sometimes You Have to Pay a Heavy Price to Live in a Free Society
-- Chelsea Manning

#Pay #Sometimes #Heavy
I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).
-- Chelsea Manning

#Names #Use #Mail
I want people to see the truth.
-- Chelsea Manning

#People #Want
I prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Fantasy #Painful #Painful Truth
I think we can achieve meaningful change, but only if we demand that the institutions themselves change their behavior.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Meaningful #Thinking #Demand
Visibility is not equality.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Visibility
I think that the next two generations of Americans will be grappling with the very real specter of finding themselves living in a new and bizarre kind of digital totalitarian state - one that looks and feels democratic on the surface, but has a fierce undercurrent of fear and technologically enforced fascism any time you step out of line. I really hope this isn't the case, but it looks really bad right now, doesn't it?
-- Chelsea Manning

#Real #Thinking #Two
There are just too many opportunities - and an increasing number of them - to hide systemic, institutional wrongdoing behind legal veils, legal theories, and arbitrary exemptions. I hope that we can start to chip away at this, but it sure looks like society is still sliding in the opposite direction.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Opportunity #Opposites #Numbers
The press and free speech landscape has totally changed. There is far less news reporting today. Instead, we have this endless stream of - largely meaningless and speculative - analysis by sideline commentators and self-proclaimed "experts."
-- Chelsea Manning

#Self #News #Landscape
Even if I didn't have the support that I have, I would still be fighting the same fights, and I would still be the same person that I am today.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Fighting #Support #Today
Anxiety, depression, and suicide don't discriminate based on how much money you have - though it might make it easier for you to get help.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Suicide #Anxiety #Might
I think that some of today's focus on freedom of information and trans rights have a tendency to focus on the actions of individuals and how they should be regulated by governments. However, I think it's important to remember that it is the institutions themselves - schools, tax collection services, banks, human resources decisions, health departments, police departments, prosecutors, courts, and prisons - where the most devastating and systemic problems occur today. The scale of these problems is simply unimaginable.
-- Chelsea Manning

#School #Thinking #Rights
It can be so difficult to get people to think about systemic institutional problems. It is easier just to see the actions of one or two people and say, "That's wrong!"
-- Chelsea Manning

#Thinking #Two #People
I think it's actually kind of sweet how there is a reciprocal effect that our stories can have on each other.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Sweet #Thinking #Stories
I think the increased ubiquity of the internet and networked computing in general allowed me to have some tether no matter where I was geographically. I could log in to a computer from anywhere in the world and access the same information and the same people. It allowed me to transcend the physical differences.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Thinking #Differences #Ubiquity
I believe that the trans movement is at a crossroads. We have achieved an unprecedented level of visibility in the last couple of years. However, that's not the same thing as equality.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Couple #Believe #Years
It's not my goal to be a leader or spokesperson, or anything like that.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Goal #Leader
There are still many homeless trans folk wandering the streets. They are still harassed on the street by bystanders and police officers. We still face many administrative hurdles in every aspect of our lives. If anything, things are actually getting harder for us, because now there are people who are using our visibility as an excuse to say that we are already receiving fair and honest treatment, when the reality is that we are still in bad shape as a community.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Reality #Bystanders #People
I don't believe that Freedom of Information laws, which have arbitrary time periods or broad blanket exemptions, meet the level of transparency that society needs today.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Believe #Law #Arbitrary
Disturbingly, the First Amendment, along with the Fourth Amendment - protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requiring warrants - have been the major casualties of the shift in government policy in the last two decades. Unfortunately, I think that the biggest consequences of this tragedy won't be clear until it is far, far too late.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Thinking #Two #Government
I didn't really have anyone in particular who inspired me or that I found fascinating as a kid. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I began to find people - and they were all historic figures - that I began to relate to and find some inspiration in.
-- Chelsea Manning

#Inspiration #Kids #People

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