theroguefeminist answered:

Um no. Chelsea Manning came out as a woman in August 22nd: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/08/28/when-did-chelsea-manning-become-chelsea-manning/ [tw: for transphobia and transmisogyny in that shitty fucking article, I’m using it as evidence as the date but it actually thinks that gender not being the same as “biological sex” is debatable and makes shitty jokes and is shit]

Cumberbatch’s interview was published on september 13th - it’s pretty much inconceivable that it would have been held prior to August 22nd. Here’s the interview. Here’s the original transcript of the section addressing Manning [tw: for both links misgendering, also rape apology for the first link] And given that the questions was “how did you feel watching Manning’s trial” that suggests he made the statements AFTER the trial.

So it REALLY looks to me like he fucked up. Unless you can find proof that the interview was done prior to August 22nd and for some reason published over three weeks later. Edit: no he DEFINITELY fucked up. this interview was definitely held after the trial. look, a quote from the interview:

As for Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning, the young US army officer who leaked hundreds of thousands of war logs, diplomatic cables and other US state secrets to Assange and has just been sentenced to 35 years, Cumberbatch is sympathetic on a human level. “But he broke a law. He knew what he was doing.”

[emphasis mine] He was commenting on the fucking sentencing AFTER the trial. So you are full of shit.

And, why are you referring to Chelsea manning as “trans*” with an asterisk? I’ve been reading more about why the term “trans*” with an asterisk is problematic (which admittedly a lot of people don’t know about), but it’s obvious that you shouldn’t refer to someone who is a trans man or trans woman as “trans*” because the term was intended to include binary and nonbinary people and obviously…a binary woman wouldn’t identify as a trans* with an asterisk. Like referring to any individual as “trans*” is weird because the term was intended to be an umbrella term anyway.

Also who cares if some people on tumblr don’t like him? He has a huge fanbase on here already, so if some faction on tumblr are critical of him for doing shitty things like misgendering a trans woman, playing a POC villain as a white actor, saying sexist/paternalistic shit about his female fanbase, among other things, then I don’t see how that’s “scary” or “misinformed.”

To be fair, it looks like he didn’t say shit that was damning of Chelsea Manning like the press made it out to be. I still don’t like how he misgendered her and characterized her as a “boy confused about his gender” and justified her sentencing and the US government’s violation of privacy, though, while praising and jerking it off to Assange, whose rapes he characterizes as “sexual misconduct.”

So no, I don’t like Benedict Cumberbatch and there is plenty of reason not to. You can like him as an actor I guess, but to defend this shit is heinous.