You have to give the state’s propaganda arm credit, they known how to cover up an important story with a unimportant one. If you were to believe the media you would think the news that the person formerly known as Bradley Manning is now Chelsea Manning is new. Truth be told, everybody who has been following this story has known that, during her deployment to Iraq, Chelsea had communications with a gender councilor. Manning even contacted her master sergeant, Paul Adkins, and informed him that she was suffering from gender dysphoria. So this news isn’t new.
But the media is giving it wall-to-wall coverage. Why? I’m unable to read minds but I’m guessing the reason major media outlets are covering this story is to discredit Manning. In the United States people suffering gender dysphoria are often treated as weird or somehow lesser. This attitude is strong enough in some people that they will now view Manning negatively no matter what good deeds she did or does.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Manning, regardless of her gender identity, is a hero. She provided proof that supported the accusations of war crimes being made against the United States. In my opinion she was executing a warrant against a suspected wrongdoer. Now that the collected evidence has been sifted through and proof has been found of criminal activity we should be focusing all of our attention of prosecuting the evildoers. Instead we’re wasting our time with nonissues, such as Manning’s preferred gender, and prosecuting the person who brought us the evidence.