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Following a school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, online discourse has quickly turned into a platform for anti-transgender rhetoric, highlighting a disturbing trend where mass shootings become vehicles for targeting transgender communities.
When police identified the suspect as Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old transgender woman, right-wing media outlets immediately connected the violence to transgender identity and LGBTQ+ acceptance. During a Rebel News livestream, commentator Lise Merle declared that pride flags at schools now signify “danger,” referring to them as indicators of “trans madness.”
This pattern of blame isn’t new, according to Alejandra Caraballo, an American lawyer who tracks online hate against transgender people. “Within minutes of a mass shooting, there would be random people on social media who would falsely claim that the shooter was trans,” Caraballo explained. She traces this phenomenon back to the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting, where social media users circulated images of an unrelated transgender woman, falsely identifying her as the perpetrator.
Similar misinformation spread after the Tumbler Ridge incident. An X account posted photos of an uninvolved transgender woman, which quickly spread across platforms and were briefly included in a Radio-Canada report before being retracted.
The rhetoric contrasts sharply with statistical evidence. GLAAD, an organization combating LGBTQ+ discrimination, released data showing that of 5,748 mass shootings in the United States between 2013 and 2025, only five—just 0.1 percent—involved transgender perpetrators. Their fact sheet “Debunking ‘Trans Terrorism'” explicitly states there is no evidence of increasing radicalization or violence among transgender individuals.
Steven Rai, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who examined Van Rootselaar’s social media history, found that while the shooter documented struggles with depression, OCD, drug-induced psychosis, and autism, there was no indication that her transgender identity motivated the attack.
Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, believes the current discourse meets Canada’s legal definition of hate speech. “The Canadian courts have recognized that people who are promoting hate will often use real news stories or incidents or tragedies,” Balgord said. “What becomes hateful is when they’re using those real incidents to demonize an entire group of people.”
Political figures have joined in connecting the shooting to transgender identity. Tara Armstrong, an Independent member of the legislative assembly formerly with the BC Conservatives, has published numerous social media posts attributing the violence to the shooter’s gender identity.
Balgord draws parallels to other forms of discrimination: “We have learned that it is not acceptable when there is some kind of terrorist attack that might be done by ISIS or just by a Brown person, to blame Muslims, writ large, for that. We recognize that blaming all Jews for the actions of Netanyahu and the State of Israel is antisemitism.”
Many right-wing figures are using this rhetoric to advocate for rolling back human rights protections for transgender people, including calls to end British Columbia’s sexual orientation and gender identity policy in schools.
The narrative contradicts decades of evidence showing that gender-affirming care and community acceptance improve mental health outcomes for transgender individuals. Jaigris Hodson, a professor at Royal Roads University specializing in digital communication, notes that while anti-trans rhetoric has dominated platforms like X, there has been significant pushback on other social media sites like Reddit.
“What’s troubling to those of us who study online hate is the degree to which the transgender community has been scapegoated,” Hodson observed. “Not just in this incident but more broadly.”
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8 Comments
It’s concerning to see how quickly the narrative shifted to attack the LGBTQ+ community instead of addressing the real issues behind this tragedy. We need to be vigilant about fact-checking and not let hate speech and biases distort the truth.
Absolutely. Spreading misinformation and targeting minority groups is never the answer. We should approach these situations with empathy, nuance, and a commitment to the facts.
Tragic events like this shouldn’t become platforms for pushing hateful agendas. We should be seeking to understand the real causes and circumstances, not spreading dangerous misinformation that puts vulnerable groups at risk. This kind of scapegoating is unacceptable.
Agreed. It’s important we maintain a fact-based, compassionate approach and avoid knee-jerk reactions that only serve to further divide us. Targeting minority communities is never the answer.
This is a disturbing trend. Scapegoating the transgender community after a tragedy is not only inaccurate but deeply harmful. We should focus on the facts and avoid spreading misinformation that further marginalizes vulnerable groups.
This is a disturbing pattern that we’ve seen play out too many times. Jumping to unfounded conclusions about the shooter’s identity and using that to demonize the transgender community is unacceptable. We need to focus on the actual facts and causes of these tragedies.
The rush to connect this tragedy to the transgender identity of the suspect is extremely troubling. We should be focusing on the actual facts and causes, not spreading misinformation that scapegoats vulnerable groups. This kind of rhetoric is unacceptable and only serves to divide us further.
This is a deeply concerning development. Exploiting tragedies to attack transgender people is not only inaccurate but actively harmful. We need to be vigilant about verifying information and not let biases distort the truth and lead to more marginalization.