Is 'Wikileaker' Switching His Sex?

The soldier arrested for allegedly providing secret Pentagon material to Wikileaks may be undergoing more than one crucial transition. Boing Boing has analyzed an IM dialogue between busted Army PFC Bradley Manning, 22, and a hacker who turned Bradley into the feds for signs that the soldier is about to undergo a sex change. The effeminate-looking Manning says he wouldn't mind serving life except for "having pictures of me plastered all over the world press ... as a boy." He adds: "I just wanted enough time to figure myself out ... to be myself."

Bradley also comments that "the CPU is not made for this motherboard." Manning was reportedly about to be discharged from the army because of an unnamed "adjustment disorder." The statements aren't conclusive, acknowledges Xeni Jardin in Boing Boing, but a representative in the transgender community says the dialogue is "packed with with trans code words and lingo and analogies," particularly the glitchy "motherboard" comment. What does it all mean? Maybe nothing, But it could "suggest the profile of a person clearly at a crossroads," who has "taken a very troubling path," noted the transgender source.
(More WikiLeaks stories.)