NBC reporter Ken Dilanian repeatedly misgenders Chelsea Manning while reporting on the indictment of Julian Assange

Written by Kayla Gogarty

Published

After the Department of Justice (DOJ) released its indictment of Julian Assange for allegedly engaging in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to steal U.S. secrets, NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian repeatedly misgendered Manning, who is a trans woman. The indictment and DOJ's press release correctly gender Manning, but Dilanian misgendered Manning throughout his reporting during both MSNBC's Live with Stephanie Ruhle and MSNBC's Live with Hallie Jackson. Misgendering trans people is a tactic used by right-wing media and extreme anti-LGBTQ groups to invalidate trans identities. The act has been described as “completely draining to a trans person’s mental health,” and it “can trigger anxiety, depression and gender dysphoria.”

From the April 11 edition of MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle:

KEN DILANIAN (NBC NEWS REPORTER): [Julian] Assange conspired and encouraged [Chelsea] Manning to steal those top-secret documents. Recall that Manning was a private with the army in Iraq at the time, and he downloaded on disks, you know, 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.