Her
I'm definitely not a journalist. I think it's reasonable to refer to someone as their actual gender during an actual event , it would seem rather more accurate, no? Also, as long as people are being reasonable I don't think we remotely need that level of language policing.
What actual gender? You mean legal sex/gender (which is a form of externally-ascribed gender)?
Or do you mean gender identity and, if so, on what basis do you assess it?
'Sex' is their biology.
I usually do 'gender' - which is an identity thing, I mean, that's the polite thing to do.
But Manning was a 'he' when the disclosures happened, so when talking about that, I usually use 'he'. It seems fair to me.
But this is HN and we like not to consider empathy here (no offence, I exhibit this exact thought pattern too), we need a "logical" explanation. So what about: a person with a third arm does not have that defect anymore after it is surgically removed. You won't refer to someone like that as a person with 3 arms, for a couple of reasons.
Gender identity is how people identify.
(gender disphoria is a mismatch between gender expression and gender identity)
It's possible that at the time of disclosures, Manning would already identify herself as woman, even if her gender expression was entirely masculine. Using the feminine gender is a matter of respect.
We don't alter history because of how someone possibly may have felt at the time. We don't know how 'he or she' may have internally identified back then.
Esp. because we're talking actual, objective facts, and not 'to them' or whatever, I think it's reasonably to use the gender that they used to identify to the world at that point.
I also think it's a little absurd the level of linguistic policing we have to get in. I think that we're only scratching the surface of how far you could take it.
Point - your language is fairly 'gender binary normative' - and a bunch of people are now even offended by that. There's so many ways to 'identify'.
The Uni of Oxford student union is now recommending that you haver use 'gendered pronouns' i.e. 'he/she' until the person you are talking about has specifically expressed to you their gender preference.
Meaning - that person with a big beard, beer belly, deep voice name 'Joe' - you can't say 'he' - until he has specifically told you 'he prefers' 'he'. Or you're 'not being respectful'.
It's getting absurd.
Manning seems to identify as a 'she', I'll have no problem referring to her as 'she' if I see her or talk about her presently - but I'm really not interested in being policed or moralized beyond that.
If the etiquette rules for pronouns are confusing, just use the same rule you would use for any other name. For example, you would say "Pope Francis used to work as a nightclub bouncer" even though he was called Jorge Bergoglio at the time.