"The episode of Chelsea Manning and the Harvard Institute of Politics fellowship is instructive. You may recall that Bradley Manning, as he was known back when serving as a low-level United States Army intelligence analyst, chose to violate his oath and betray his country. He downloaded an astonishing quantity of classified information about the American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and sent it all to WikiLeaks. Manning was tried, convicted, and imprisoned for nearly seven years. Deservedly so. From a reputational standpoint, that probably should have been the end of it. But it was not: the prisoner Bradley Manning became Chelsea Manning, a transgender woman, and the societal forces that endorse and celebrate victimhood transformed a wartime traitor into a persecuted hero. When Chelsea Manning emerged from prison in May 2017, the perceptual transformation was complete."