Chelsea Manning misgendered by NBC reporter

NBC reporter Ken Dilanian has come under fire for misgendering US intelligence leaker Chelsea Manning during a news report.

Dilanian misgendered Manning on MSNBC’s Live with Hallie Jackson and MSNBC’s Live with Stephanie Ruhle, according to MediaMatters.org.

In the reports, Dilanian referred to Manning as “he” and “him” while reporting that Julian Assange allegedly engaged in a conspiracy with Manning to steal US secrets.

Dilanian misgendered Manning in two reports

“Assange conspired and encouraged Manning to steal those top-secret documents,” Dilanian said in one broadcast.

“Recall that Manning was a private with the army in Iraq at the time, and he downloaded on disks tens of thousands of highly classified documents relating to both the military and the State Department, and what these charges say is that Assange encouraged him to do that in a criminal manner.”

In a later report, Dilanian said: “He was downloading hundreds of thousands of top-secret U.S. government files from the military and from the State Department, and he was sending them to Assange and WikiLeaks to make public.”

Media Matters has heavily criticised Dilanian for misgendering Manning in the report, and said: “Misgendering trans people is a tactic used by right-wing media and extreme anti-LGBTQ groups to invalidate trans identities.”

A 2014 study in the journal Self and Identity asked transgender people about misgendering and how it made them feel.

32.8 percent said they felt very stigmatised when they were misgendered. Those who were frequently misgendered reported experiencing lower self-esteem around their appearance.

Chelsea Manning (LARS HAGBERG/AFP/Getty)

Chelsea Manning underwent gender confirmation surgery last year

Transgender whistleblower Chelsea Manning underwent gender confirmation surgery last year.