Unfortunately you are pointing directly at a major reason why the world forgot about Bradley Manning the war crimes exposer: she changed her name to Chelsea Manning and the media story changed to transgenderism / trans rights.

So, basically the media story and the name changed / got more complex, and a lot of people got left behind / quit caring.

Also, it's harder to make the case that Manning was a whistleblower. Manning just dumped as much classified intel info wikileaks as she could. More of a disgruntled employee than freedom crusader IMO.