Chelsea Manning

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Through every struggle that I have been confronted with and have been subjected to - solitary confinement, long legal battles, and physically transitioning to the woman I have always been - I manage not only to survive, but to grow, learn, mature, and thrive as a better, more confident person.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that when it comes to issues affecting the trans community, most people who are cisgender - a word describing those people whose gender identity is in alignment with the sex they were assigned at birth - focus too much on the administrative, legal, and medical aspects of trans identity.

Many queer and trans people live - and lived - in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn't help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

Transgender folks have been part of the push for LGBT equality from the beginning, and we've spoken with loud and intelligent voices and have found political and personal success and advancement all over the world.

In the years preceding my imprisonment, I worked as a software programmer, designing and developing web interfaces, secure databases, and communication software; later, I was employed as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army. Throughout each of these jobs, we used different kinds of encryption to keep prying eyes out of information we handled.

Having a birthday around the holidays was never easy and, with every successive year, it felt more and more as if celebrating my birthday got thrown into the December holiday mix as an afterthought.