Pvt Chelsea Manning. (Image via GoFundMe)

A recent photo of Private Chelsea Manning that she chose for use in a GoFundMe campaign to “capture the reality of her prison life.” (Image via GoFundMe)

Chelsea Manning is set to be released from military prison this Wednesday, and she has said in the past months she will move to Maryland.

Manning, a transgender woman, was arrested in 2010 for leaking classified diplomatic cables and other documents to Wikileaks. She was court-martialed and sentenced to 35 years behind bars in 2013 for espionage, theft, and other crimes. In January, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in January shortly before leaving office.

She expressed her gratitude to Obama, her legal team, and supporters in her first statement since the clemency was announced.

“Freedom used to be something that I dreamed of but never allowed myself to fully imagine,” Manning, now 29, said in a statement released by her legal team. “Now, freedom is something that I will again experience with friends and loved ones after nearly seven years of bars and cement, of periods of solitary confinement, and of my health care and autonomy restricted, including through routinely forced haircuts.”

Manning came out as transgender in 2013, shortly after her sentencing, and has since sought hormone-treatment therapy, and the ability to grow out her hair and wear cosmetics. Her fight has included a hunger strike and a lawsuit against the Department of Defense. After a suicide attempt in July linked to her ongoing transition, she was sentenced to two weeks of solitary confinement. In September, Manning won permission to receive gender transition surgery.

In an application for the commutation of her sentence, Manning wrote that she takes “full and complete responsibility for my decision to disclose these materials to the public … I have never made any excuses for what I did. I pleaded guilty without the protection of a plea agreement because I believed the military justice system would understand my motivation for the disclosure and sentence me fairly. I was wrong.”

Some of her supporters have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her meet her survival needs when she returns from military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and have raised more than $135,000 towards a $150,000 goal.

“The majority of Chelsea’s adult life has been spent under the control of powerful institutions,” the GoFundMe page says. “Upon her release she will need logistical, emotional, and financial support to safely transition into the free world.”

Manning will remain an active-duty, unpaid soldier after her release, meaning she will be eligible for health care, USA Today reports.

After the clemency announcement, Manning tweeted she planned on moving back to Maryland. While she is originally from Oklahoma, she lived in Potomac, Md. before enlisting in the military.

A spokesperson for Manning’s legal team declined to comment about where Manning will reside after her release.

“I hope to take the lessons that I have learned, the love that I have been given, and the hope that I have to work toward making life better for others,” Manning said in the statement.

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