TL;DR
- An 18-year-old trans girl was identified as the shooter in a British Columbia school attack that killed eight.
- Conservative figures immediately weaponized her identity to push anti-trans narratives.
- Data shows trans people are far less likely to commit mass shootings than the population at large.
- Authorities emphasized her history of mental-health interventions and prior firearm wellness checks.
- LGBTQ+ advocates warn against scapegoating the trans community during national tragedy.
Canada is reeling after a horrific school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia — but while the country mourns eight lives lost, anti-trans politicians and pundits are already hijacking tragedy for their own culture-war agenda.
Authorities have identified 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar as the shooter, who died by suicide after killing her mother, younger stepbrother, a teacher, and five children between the ages of 11 and 13. It is one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent Canadian memory, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been combing through Rootselaar’s history in an attempt to understand what led to the attack.
Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald confirmed that police had conducted multiple wellness checks involving weapons at Rootselaar’s home over the years. At least once, firearms were removed from the residence, and she had been detained under the Mental Health Act for evaluation. At the time of the shooting, Rootselaar held no registered firearms.
Rootselaar, who began her gender transition at 12, identified publicly and socially as a transgender girl. In alignment with Canadian law-enforcement practice, RCMP are identifying her according to that lived identity — though they emphasized that this case, like all others, demands careful investigation, not political exploitation.
But conservative commentators didn’t wait for facts.
THE TRANSPHOBIC NARRATIVE MACHINE SPINS UP IMMEDIATELY
Before police even released a name, anti-trans politicians were already blaming “transgender violence.” British Columbia MLA Tara Armstrong took the podium of online outrage, declaring an “epidemic of transgender violence spreading across the West” and calling gender-affirming care “neglect.”
Facts be damned.
Mass-shooting data obliterates the narrative. Of 172 U.S. mass attacks from 2016–2020, 96% were perpetrated by cisgender men. Out of more than 4,600 U.S. mass shootings over a decade, only six at most involved trans suspects — an astonishingly low 0.128%, far below their 1% share of the population.
But when the shooter is trans, the right suddenly discovers “patterns.” When shooters are cisgender men, white supremacists, or anti-LGBTQ extremists? Silence. Deflection. Anything but accountability.
The result is predictable: a grieving country is flooded with anti-trans fearmongering that does nothing to explain the crime — and everything to further endanger trans people, who already face elevated rates of harassment, violence, and discrimination.
THE REALITY: TRANS PEOPLE ARE FAR MORE LIKELY TO BE VICTIMS
While conservatives whip up hysteria, the truth remains unchanged: transgender people are overwhelmingly victims of violence, not perpetrators. Whether through hate crimes, domestic violence, police hostility, or systemic discrimination, trans communities — especially trans women and trans youth — face the highest levels of violence among LGBTQ populations.
As RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd said, the focus should be on supporting a shattered community:
“This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community.”
But right-wing opportunists would rather weaponize a tragedy than examine the documented issues of mental health care gaps, gun access, and family violence that far more commonly underpin these crimes.