I skimmed the comments in this thread, searching for references to "he" or "they" (and the instance of "guy" I found) in reference to Manning. I found 3 "he", 1 "guy", and one "they". All were downvoted, two of them flagged dead. Admittedly this isn't comprehensive: there are currently over 500 comments. This doesn't include discussion of the use of "they" in general, or reflection on the use of "they" when the gender is unknown. Given that people regardless of whether you think it's reasonable or not have not come to a universal consensus on this issue, I think it's understandable to have civil discussion on this, which it nearly wholly has been.