NEW YORK (AA) – Whistle-blower Chelsea Manning ended a hunger strike Tuesday after the U.S. army agreed to provide her with gender reassignment surgery.
“I am unendingly relieved that the military is finally doing the right thing. I applaud them for that. This is all that I wanted – for them to let me be me,” Manning said in a statement to her legal team. “But it is hard not to wonder why it has taken so long.”
Psychologists recommended in April that she have the sex change operation due to having been diagnosed with gender identity disorder.
Manning tried to take her own life in July and is still facing solitary confinement as a preventative measure.
Last Friday, she began a hunger strike over the conditions of her imprisonment.
The 28-year-old soldier was convicted in 2013 of leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
The U.S. army in July lifted a ban on transgenders serving in the military.
There has been no comment from the army over a surgery pledge.
