I'd suggest a more innocuous explanation: those who view her actions favourably are more "up to date" with her situation (including coming out as trans), while

I'd suggest a more innocuous explanation: those who view her actions favourably are more "up to date" with her situation (including coming out as trans), while those who don't are less up to date and might not be aware. In my personal situation, I feel that while some of the leaks were very justified, a lot of the material had no reason to be released [1]. Anyways, I don't pay much attention to the case, and wasn't aware that Manning was no longer a "he". If I had just skimmed the page before commenting I might have made the same mistake. I'm sure some people are doing it on purpose, but it's important to remember that for the highest-profile parts of the case Manning was still a "he". [1] I'm not sure what camp that puts me in - I'm not opposed to the leak of a certain subset of the leaked material, but I do feel that by not redacting anything what Manning did was irresponsible. Side note: is there no way to escape asterisks on HN?