{"id":10993,"date":"2026-02-13T23:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T04:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=10993"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T04:12:10","slug":"canadian-mass-shooting-shows-its-high-time-for-news-outlets-to-stop-bending-the-knee-to-transgender-orthodoxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=10993","title":{"rendered":"Canadian mass shooting shows it\u2019s high time for news outlets to stop bending the knee to transgender orthodoxy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Canadian mass shooting shows it\u2019s high time for news outlets to stop bending the knee to transgender orthodoxy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Published on

It is a journalist\u2019s duty to report the truth, yet so many news outlets covered themselves in shame by bowing and scraping to honour the \u201ctransgender identity<\/a>\u201d of the man who carried out of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Tyler O\u2019Neil <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reprinted, by kind permission, from<\/strong>
The Daily Signal<\/em> (Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC),
February 12, 2026.
URL: https:\/\/www.dailysignal.com\/2026\/02\/12\/shameful-news-outlets-refer-man-who-massacred-children-woman-transgender\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, was born a man and he died a man. He spent his last day on Earth killing his 39-year-old mother, his 11-year-old stepbrother, a 39-year-old teacher, three 12-year-old girls, and two boys, 12 and 13, before taking the coward\u2019s way out and turning the gun on himself. He reportedly wounded about 25 others at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and critically injured two more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initial reports on the shooting described Van Rootselaar as appearing female, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police erased all doubt<\/a> Wednesday at a press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who approximately six years ago began to transition to female and identified as female, both socially and publicly,\u201d Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understand the impulse to treat people with respect when they claim to identify as the gender opposite their sex. Many consider it common courtesy to refer to a person by preferred pronouns<\/a>, rather than insisting on biological truth. In some circles, it is a faux pas \u2014 if not sacrilege \u2014 to state the naked truth that a man is still a man, regardless of what gender he claims to adopt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, if ever there were a situation where common courtesy need not apply, it would be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you really want to extend \u201ccommon courtesy\u201d to a school shooter<\/a>? Do you really want to say, \u201cI know he slaughtered children, and his own mother, but we\u2019ve got to be nice and call him a girl, now\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For crying out loud, let\u2019s stop this insane charade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of mass shooters are male<\/a>, so the initial news reports that the shooter was a woman immediately invited skepticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the RCMP\u2019s update clarified that the shooter was really a man dressed up as a woman, every journalist following the story learned the truth. There is no excuse, at that point, for calling the shooter a woman or using female pronouns for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, outlet after outlet did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News outlets gaslight readers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

CNN \u201creported\u201d<\/a> that \u201cthe suspect is an 18-year-old woman.\u201d The very next sentence? \u201cShe was born biologically male and transitioned about six years ago, police said.\u201d CNN also referred to the shooter as \u201can 18-year-old female resident of the town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times<\/a> used female pronouns for the shooter, stating that \u201cshe killed her mother and stepbrother before fatally shooting several others, and later herself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press<\/a> merely referred to the shooter using female pronouns, without even disclosing to readers that police identified him as male. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reuters\u2019s headline<\/a> ran, \u201cCanadian police identify 18-year-old woman as suspect in mass school shooting.\u201d Reuters did acknowledge that the shooter had been \u201cborn male,\u201d but not until the 11th paragraph, and only after describing Van Rootselaar as a \u201cwoman\u201d and using female pronouns for him throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today acknowledged<\/a> the transgender identity in the second paragraph of the story, but still used female pronouns for the shooter throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the pervasive bias in favor of the shooter\u2019s \u2018identity\u2019?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Why did news outlets do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, McDonald, the deputy commissioner, set the stage for it by saying that police would refer to the shooter as a woman because the shooter had presented himself that way. Apparently, accuracy about biological sex takes a backseat to political correctness, even when it means honoring the ravings of a mass murderer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, The Associated Press Stylebook<\/a>, which many outlets use as a benchmark for how to report the news, has taken an aggressively pro-transgender activist position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stylebook urges journalists to \u201cidentify people as transgender only when relevant, and use the name by which they live publicly.\u201d It recommends avoiding \u201cmention of a person\u2019s gender transition or gender-affirmation surgery in news coverage\u201d unless \u201cit is central to the story.\u201d Why? Because this might be \u201cintrusive and insensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This guidance helps explain why The Associated Press appears to have considered the shooter\u2019s transgender identity irrelevant enough to be excised from the coverage entirely. The AP, you see, didn\u2019t want to be \u201cinsensitive\u201d to Mr. Van Rootselaar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgive me if I don\u2019t care about being insensitive toward a mass murderer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AP Stylebook goes out of its way to silence dissent against transgender orthodoxy<\/a>. While the \u201cguidance\u201d on transgender issues is steeped in transgender ideology, it flatly declares that journalists should \u201cnot use the term transgenderism, which frames transgender identity as an ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Signal appreciates the clarity of the AP Stylebook on matters such as spelling protester with an \u201cer,\u201d but we emphatically reject its \u201cguidance\u201d on issues like this where it takes a leftist partisan stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reckoning on transgender insanity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This horrific shooting comes shortly after a jury ordered doctors to pay $2 million to a detransitioner<\/a> who regretted having her breasts removed. It comes after the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended against transgender surgeries<\/a> for minors, and even said the data doesn\u2019t support hormones for minors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tide is turning against transgender orthodoxy, and this moment should shame news outlets into reconsidering their near-religious devotion to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is reproduced by kind permission of the Daily Signal Media Group, Washington, DC. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

About the author <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler O\u2019Neil is senior editor of The Daily Signal<\/em>, published by the Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, and the author of two books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian mass shooting shows it\u2019s high time for news outlets to stop bending the knee to transgender orthodoxy Published on February 13, 2026 It is a journalist\u2019s duty to report the truth, yet so many news outlets covered themselves in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3313,2310,6208,1882,270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10994,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10993\/revisions\/10994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}