Chelsea Manning reassures Twitter followers about account: 'It's really me'

Chelsea Manning has posted a handwritten letter on her new Twitter feed explaining how her tweets are communicated from military prison in a move designed to quash a welter of internet conspiracy theories claiming the feed is a fraud.

The US soldier is serving 35 years in military prison for leaking state secrets to WikiLeaks. As the Guardian reported when the account was set up, since the conditions of her custody do not extend to internet access she dictates comments by phone to supporters who then post on her behalf.

In a candid letter, the army private says that she had reserved the handle @xychelsea two years ago and explained to almost 50,000 followers:

I wanted to set up this account a while ago, but I didn’t really have the time or energy to until I began to start taking hormones a few months ago.

Manning revealed that she wanted to transition from her male birth gender to begin living as a woman after her conviction in 2013 for charges related to her passing of US state secrets to WikiLeaks.

In the tweeted note, written in small cursive handwriting in black ink on lined paper, she said that she had asked a friend, Trevor FitzGibbon, a few weeks ago to set up the Twitter account. Manning confirms in the statement:

The tweets are verbatim and dictated over the phone to someone that I can call from here in Kansas.

This was a temporary arrangement, she said, until she found a way to access the account more easily or “find someone else willing to put in the labor of managing the account”.

She named Courage to Resist, an organisation that helps private soldiers in the US army who are critical of the government’s current policies, as a potential volunteer to tweet on her behalf in the future.

She thanked Twitter users for the support she had received on the social media site and said: “It was pretty amazing to get so many followers so quickly!”

Manning signs off at the end with the message: P.S #it’s really me =P