Overview
- Police named the shooter as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who killed his mother, his 11-year-old stepbrother, a teacher, and five students at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia before taking his own life, with roughly 25 others reported wounded.
- RCMP officials said Van Rootselaar was born male and began transitioning about six years ago, and they referred to the shooter as female because that is how the individual presented.
- A New York Post report highlights an archived 2023 Reddit post showing Van Rootselaar wearing makeup and describing it as a first try before hormone therapy, with the Reddit account link first reported by the Telegraph.
- Right-leaning opinion pieces in the New York Post, Washington Examiner, and Daily Signal criticize news outlets’ pronoun choices and assert a broader pattern of recent attackers identifying as transgender, framing these as arguments rather than presenting new evidence.
- Police said it is too early to determine whether the shooter’s gender identity is connected to the attack, and noted the shooter was a former student who left the school about four years ago.