QueerDefenseFront

Yesterday, news broke of a deadly school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, a small town in the Canadian province of British Columbia, that claimed the lives of 10, including the perpetrator and two of the perpetrator’s family members, and injured 25 others. The first mass shooting in Canada this year and one of the deadliest in the country’s history, the tragedy quickly garnered international attention—something that only accelerated following reports earlier today that the suspect had been identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, a transgender woman.

Almost immediately after this was reported, anti-trans figures were quick to hold the entire trans community responsible: Elon Musk blamed gender-affirming care for being “rage-inducing,” Chaya Raichik posted about “trans violence,” Matt Walsh characterized trans people as “mentally ill, delusional, and self-destructive,” Benny Johnson called “trans violence” an “epidemic,” and the far-right account End Wokeness made numerous posts drawing attention to the fact that the shooter was trans.

This rhetoric isn’t new either. For the past few years, right-wing activists have latched onto tragedies like the Tumbler Ridge shooting to advance their anti-trans agenda. Then, after declaring trans people as inherently “violent” and “mentally ill,” they advocate for further restrictions on trans Americans. Recently, this trend has only worsened as conservatives broaden their attacks to target trans adults as well.

The escalation started in August 2025. Following the Annunciation shooting in Minneapolis, in which the shooter was identified as being a trans person, Trump administration officials, including Kristi Noem and Kash Patel, made a point to emphasize that fact. Meanwhile, Benny Johnson, Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., and others pinned responsibility onto ‘gender ideology’ and once again spread debunked claims that trans people were responsible for other major mass shootings like Uvalde and Milwaukee.