Even when the person in question has butchered multiple people and wounded more, it is a Canadian priority to avoid misgendering at all costs.
That much was clear when Dwayne McDonald, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, updated the media on the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, where nine people, including the gunman, were killed and about 25 wounded, according to the BBC.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed a female teacher, two male students, three female students, his mother, and his stepbrother. Van Rootselaar then killed himself.
In Canada we don’t have mankind, we have People-kind. When a mentally ill man murders a bunch of school children we don’t refer to him as a gunman, we prefer “gunperson.”
This is all so dark and so far from reality, it’s difficult to comprehend. pic.twitter.com/BORFzHSXlT
— John-Paul Berg (@SemperVeritasX) February 12, 2026
RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd began the usage of curious words when he called Van Rootselaar a “deceased gunperson,” as shown in a video posted to X.
McDonald then doubled down on that by saying, “We identify the suspect as they chose to be identified in public and in social media,” in a video posted to X.
School shootings should be deemed Domestic Terrorism, and the culprits called terrorists not “gunperson”
— The Man In The Arena (@7_investor) February 12, 2026
“I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male, who approximately — the information that I have — approximately six years ago, began to transition to female and identified as female, both socially and publicly,” he said.
BREAKING: Canadian police reveal they are respecting the gunman’s preferred gender pronouns. He transitioned at 12. pic.twitter.com/F7sdRDX1qS
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 11, 2026
Rootselaar dropped out of school about four years ago, CNN reported. McDonald said police went to his home “on multiple occasions over the past several years, dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” most recently last spring amid “concerns regarding mental health, self-harm.”
The reluctance of Canadian officials to speak openly about Rootselaar’s gender issues led to a torrent of anger from the New York Post.
“In a small Canadian town today, families are grieving. Yet officials and journalists try to edit reality so no one feels uncomfortable. This is not compassion. It’s criminal,” an editorial said.
WOMAN?
It was a biological man. Facts matter. https://t.co/HHgoqq2Mv4— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 11, 2026
“If someone denies basic biological truths about themselves, that is evidence of distress — not a brave new identity to be endlessly affirmed,” the Post wrote, adding, “Constantly telling those who ID as trans that they’re under attack, let alone that they have to take up arms to defend themselves from abuse and violence, is all but programming them to lash out.”
How screwed is Canada.
A mass shooting, and the police call it a “gunperson” 10 people are dead, and you’re worried about this psychopath’s gender identity???
This only confirms it was a deranged trans shooter.
— We’re Offended You’re Offended (@wereoffended) February 11, 2026
“All of this ensures a reckoning. Every time the media refuse to report plainly, every time officials tiptoe around obvious facts, every time ideology is allowed to override common sense, we invite another tragedy,” the Post wrote.
Van Rootselaar is the third prominent transgender-identifying school shooter in North America in only three years.
Audrey Hale, a female who identified as a male named Aiden Hale, killed six at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, before being shot dead by police in March of 2023.
In August of 2025, two children were killed during a mass shooting inside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis as students of the Annunciation Catholic School were attending a school-wide Mass to mark the opening of the academic year. Robert Westman, a transgender-identifying male who had his name legally changed to Robin, was responsible for that shooting.
A 2025 analysis of planned or successfully executed mass school shootings by The Western Journal in the aftermath of the Minneapolis incident found that roughly 40 percent of them since 2020 involved transgender-identifying suspects.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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