WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bureau of Prisons has rejected the Army's request to accept the transfer of national security leaker Pvt. Chelsea Manning from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to a civilian facility where she could get better treatment for her gender-identity condition. The military will instead begin the initial treatment for her. 
 
 FILE - In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Army, Pfc. Chelsea Manning poses for a photo wearing a wig and lipstick. The Bureau of Prisons has rejected the Army’s request to accept the transfer... (Associated Press) 
 
 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved the Army's recommendation to keep Manning in military custody and start a rudimentary level of gender treatment, a defense official said Thursday. The initial gender treatments could include allowing Manning to wear some female undergarments and also possibly provide some hormone treatments. 
 
 The decision raises a number of questions about what level of treatment Manning will be able to get and at what point the private would have to be transferred from the all-male prison to a female facility. 
 
 Manning has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man's body. Civilian prisons can provide treatment, and the Defense Department has argued repeatedly that it doesn't have the medical expertise needed. As a result, the Army tried to work out a plan to transfer Manning to a federal prison. 
 
 Officials said Thursday that federal authorities refused the proposal. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly by name. 
 
 Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was encouraged that the Army will begin medical treatment. 
 
 "It has been almost a year since we first filed our request for adequate medical care," Coombs said. "I am hopeful that when the Army says it will start a 'rudimentary level' of treatment that this means hormone replacement therapy." 
 
 If hormone therapy is not provided, he said he will have to take "appropriate legal action to ensure Chelsea finally receives the medical treatment she deserves and is entitled to under the law." 
 
 In May Coombs had also contended that civilian prisons were not as safe as military facilities. 
 
 In a statement, he had said, "It is common knowledge that the federal prison system cannot guarantee the safety and security of Chelsea in the way that the military prison system can." 
 
 The Army sends an average of 15 to 20 prisoners a year to civilian prisons. But Manning's appeals have not been exhausted, she's still in the military and her case is of national security interest. Those are factors that normally could prevent a transfer. 
 
 According to a complaint filed by Manning, she asked that a treatment plan consider three types of measures: "real life experience," a regimen in which the person tries dressing and living in the new gender; hormone therapy, which changes some physical traits such as breast and hair growth; and sex reassignment surgery. Manning has not publicly said whether she wants surgery, and the proposed plan was not released. 
 
 Manning's treatment request was the first by a transgender military inmate, and it set up a dilemma for the department of how to treat a soldier for a diagnosed disorder without violating long-standing military policy. 
 
 The former intelligence analyst was sentenced in August for six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offenses for giving WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents, along with battlefield video, while working in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. 
 
 After the conviction, Manning announced the desire to live as a woman and legally changed her name to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning from Bradley Edward Manning. 
 
 Manning cannot be discharged from the service while serving her 35-year prison sentence. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Michelle Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report. ||||| New Army Fight Likely as Chelsea Manning Comes Out FT. MEADE, Md. (CN) - The Army private responsible for the massive WikiLeaks disclosure of military secrets set the stage for a new court battle Thursday by announcing a female identity called Chelsea Manning. 
 
 Gender dysphoria had been a major focus of the sentencing for the soldier who was born Bradley, but up until now Manning requested to be indentified as a male. While transmitting thousands of files to WikiLeaks in the Army, Manning had taken secret photos dressed in women's clothes and sometimes used the name Breanna. 
 
 Hours after a military judge handed down the 35-year sentence for the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. history, Manning's lead attorney David Coombs told reporters he would be fighting to secure a pardon and any necessary medical care in Ft. Leavenworth for the WikiLeaks source. 
 
 "In addition to becoming the smartest person on presidential pardons, I'm going to become the smartest person on ensuring that a soldier that who is in confinement, who has gender dysphoria gets appropriate medical treatment," Coombs said yesterday. "I know that recently there was a story, I think Courthouse News ran it, where I think a Ft. Leavenworth spokesperson said, 'I don't think we have certain treatment. That's not what we give.'" 
 
 While a broad range of psychological treatment is available to all soldiers imprisoned at Ft. Leavenworth, hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery is not, spokeswoman Kimberly Lewis said in an interview. 
 
 Referring to those policies, Coombs cryptically added, "I'm gonna change that." 
 
 He explained that remark this morning while delivering a statement from Manning. 
 
 "I am Chelsea Manning," the statement read. "I am a female. Given the way I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible." 
 
 Coombs told the Today Show that Manning would not be seeking a transfer from Ft. Leavenworth, an all-male facility that is reportedly the only military prison for service members sentenced to 10 or more years. 
 
 Yesterday, Coombs said in an interview that he was aware of the federal district and appellate precedent ordering prisons to provide their inmates with transgender medical care. 
 
 Indeed, the jurisdiction of the Maryland courtroom where the WikiLeaks source has been tried is subject to a 4th Circuit decision from Jan. 28 this year guaranteeing the possibility of sex-reassignment surgery for all federal inmates in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and North and South Carolina. 
 
 The Chicago-based 7th Circuit ruled similarly in 2011, striking down a Wisconsin law banning such medical care. A Boston federal judge granted surgery to a convicted wife-killer last year, and the 1st Circuit is currently mulling that decision on appeal. 
 
 Manning, however, is being held in a military prison in Ft. Leavenworth, out of reach for all of these jurisdictions. 
 
 Hayley Gorenberg, deputy director of the storied LGBT advocacy group Lambda Lega, said Manning's sentence should not involve the "deprivation of any medical treatment she may need." 
 
 "Pvt. Manning should have the right to be evaluated for any and all of her medically necessary treatment," Gorenberg said in an email. 
 
 Manning's fight comes at a time when the Pentagon is trying to paint a more inclusive image about transgender people in the military. 
 
 Under a recent executive order, Veterans Affairs must provide "culturally and clinically competent care" to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender former service members. The Pentagon even hosted an LGBT Pride Month celebration this year, with the "T" included. 
 
 In a surprising turn, Manning's prosecutors even argued in court that the WikiLeaks source's gender dysphoria diagnosis should not have stopped the soldier's deployment, taking a position against the Army's existing regulations. 
 
 Retired Army Col. James Pritzker's Tawani Foundation recently awarded the University of California's Palm Center $1.35 million to establish a Transgender Military Initiative investigating the topic. 
 
 Palm Center director Aaron Belkin had this to add about the treatment of transgender troops in prison: "Without addressing the specifics of one case or another, it would nevertheless be a sad day if the military denied necessary medical treatment to a prisoner."
– The private formerly known as Bradley Manning is about to become the first person ever given gender reassignment treatment by the US military. The federal Bureau of Prisons has rejected the Army's request to transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison, and defense officials say Manning will instead receive "rudimentary" gender treatment while in military custody, reports the AP, which notes that initial treatments could include allowing Manning to wear female undergarments. It's not clear when or if Manning will be transferred from an all-male prison to a female one. "It has been almost a year since we first filed our request for adequate medical care," Manning's lawyer says. "I am hopeful that when the Army says it will start a 'rudimentary level' of treatment that this means hormone replacement therapy." The treatment will raise a few issues for the military, the BBC notes. The Pentagon bans transgender people from serving openly, but Manning will not be discharged from the military until she finishes her sentence. She was sentenced to 35 years for passing classified documents to WikiLeaks and will be eligible for parole in about six years.