Latest Chelsea Manning Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• It can be so difficult to get people to think about systemic institutional problems. It is easier just to see the actions of one or two people and say, "That's wrong!"

  Chelsea Manning

  Thinking, Two, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that some of today's focus on freedom of information and trans rights have a tendency to focus on the actions of individuals and how they should be regulated by governments. However, I think it's important to remember that it is the institutions themselves - schools, tax collection services, banks, human resources decisions, health departments, police departments, prosecutors, courts, and prisons - where the most devastating and systemic problems occur today. The scale of these problems is simply unimaginable.

  Chelsea Manning

  School, Thinking, Rights

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think we can achieve meaningful change, but only if we demand that the institutions themselves change their behavior.

  Chelsea Manning

  Meaningful, Thinking, Demand

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There is an awful lot of work to do to protect trans folks. We are still disproportionally poor and administratively and institutionally discriminated against at all levels of society.

  Chelsea Manning

  Levels, Awful, Poor

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There are just too many opportunities - and an increasing number of them - to hide systemic, institutional wrongdoing behind legal veils, legal theories, and arbitrary exemptions. I hope that we can start to chip away at this, but it sure looks like society is still sliding in the opposite direction.

  Chelsea Manning

  Opportunity, Opposites, Numbers

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I believe that the trans movement is at a crossroads. We have achieved an unprecedented level of visibility in the last couple of years. However, that's not the same thing as equality.

  Chelsea Manning

  Couple, Believe, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't believe that Freedom of Information laws, which have arbitrary time periods or broad blanket exemptions, meet the level of transparency that society needs today.

  Chelsea Manning

  Believe, Law, Arbitrary

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• If an organization produces a document, it should be made public as soon as possible.

  Chelsea Manning

  Organization, Made, Should

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• On a transparency front, I would say that I certainly dream of a world in which our local, state, and national and international governments and other organizations have a 21st century, digital-era transparency built into them by default.

  Chelsea Manning

  Dream, Organization, Government

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I am really passionate about transparency and trans rights issues, so I embrace these opportunities to speak. I try to stay in touch with those who are prominent in both the trans and transparency movements, but more often than not, I am speaking out on a particular issue on my own. I certainly hope that people listen to me and think about these issues. But regardless of whether I had a public venue to speak in, I would still be passionate about them.

  Chelsea Manning

  Opportunity, Thinking, Issues

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• It's not my goal to be a leader or spokesperson, or anything like that.

  Chelsea Manning

  Goal, Leader

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't think that I'm embracing any kind of leadership for transparency or trans advocacy.

  Chelsea Manning

  Thinking, Kind, Advocacy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I didn't really have anyone in particular who inspired me or that I found fascinating as a kid. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I began to find people - and they were all historic figures - that I began to relate to and find some inspiration in.

  Chelsea Manning

  Inspiration, Kids, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think the increased ubiquity of the internet and networked computing in general allowed me to have some tether no matter where I was geographically. I could log in to a computer from anywhere in the world and access the same information and the same people. It allowed me to transcend the physical differences.

  Chelsea Manning

  Thinking, Differences, Ubiquity

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• While being tossed around the world from place to place as a teenager, I wasn't really tethered to any place or anyone.

  Chelsea Manning

  Teenager, World, Around The World

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think the embryonic digital world had the same affect on me as the openness of the old American frontier.

  Chelsea Manning

  Thinking, World, Digital

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• As a young kid, I spent a lot of time exploring the world around me.

  Chelsea Manning

  Kids, Exploring The World, Young

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I lived a few miles outside of a tiny town in central Oklahoma. I would often run amok though the fields of wheat, the patches of trees, along the railroad tracks, and on red dirt roads. This had a profound effect on my view of the world - vast, open-ended, full of opportunity, and ready for exploration.

  Chelsea Manning

  Running, Opportunity, Oklahoma

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think it's actually kind of sweet how there is a reciprocal effect that our stories can have on each other.

  Chelsea Manning

  Sweet, Thinking, Stories

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The most important people for me, at least in the last couple of years since I came out, are my supersecret trans friends and confidantes. I think I need to come up with a code name for this circle.

  Chelsea Manning

  Couple, Thinking, Circles

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Anxiety, depression, and suicide don't discriminate based on how much money you have - though it might make it easier for you to get help.

  Chelsea Manning

  Suicide, Anxiety, Might

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There is far more to transitioning in the public eye than money, public relations, and logistics.

  Chelsea Manning

  Eye, Logistics, Public Relations

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that the next two generations of Americans will be grappling with the very real specter of finding themselves living in a new and bizarre kind of digital totalitarian state - one that looks and feels democratic on the surface, but has a fierce undercurrent of fear and technologically enforced fascism any time you step out of line. I really hope this isn't the case, but it looks really bad right now, doesn't it?

  Chelsea Manning

  Real, Thinking, Two

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Disturbingly, the First Amendment, along with the Fourth Amendment - protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures, and requiring warrants - have been the major casualties of the shift in government policy in the last two decades. Unfortunately, I think that the biggest consequences of this tragedy won't be clear until it is far, far too late.

  Chelsea Manning

  Thinking, Two, Government

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Investigative journalism and reporting has become much more dangerous. This is especially true for journalists and sources in National Security - but it has been getting pretty bad for beat reporters and small outlets doing local reporting, too.

  Chelsea Manning

  Journalism, Outlets, Beats

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com