Conservatives Escalate False Claims of ‘Trans Violence,’ Declare All Trans People ‘Dangerous and Unstable’ Following News of a Trans Suspect in Deadly Canadian Shooting

Anti-trans figures are once again taking advantage of a tragedy to push for more restrictions on trans people. With every claim of a ‘trans shooter,’ their rhetoric grows more hateful.

Matt Walsh, Elon Musk, and Benny Johnson have all expanded their attacks against trans people following the Tumbler Ridge Shooting | Images: Wikimedia Commons

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.

And this narrative had political implications. Former House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene used the shooting to advocate for her trans youth care ban, which passed the House last December. House Republican and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (MN-6) called for his state to repeal its trans protections. And the Department of Justice began considering restrictions on trans Americans’ ability to purchase firearms.

Then, after Charlie Kirk was killed in mid-September, conservatives once again sought to blame trans people and propagated the ‘trans shooter’ myth even after it was debunked. Despite that, the myth sparked further Republican attempts to restrict the rights of trans people: House Republicans Nancy Mace (SC-01) and Ronny Jackson (TX-13) called for the mass institutionalization of trans people, the FBI created a separate label for trans suspects, and Trump floated the idea of a pride flag ban. The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing organization primarily responsible for Project 2025, also proposed a plan to designate all supporters of trans rights as a domestic terror threat.

This rhetoric sparked further escalation. In late December, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill branded “the blurring of the lines between sexes and radical social agendas” as being “the root of the evils we face” while justifying the HHS’ push to implement a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

The next day, Benny Johnson celebrated O’Neill’s remarks while speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest and repeated the myth that a trans person had shot Charlie Kirk. In his speech, he also yelled that he was “sick of seeing transgender violence and murderers in [his] country,” called on the FBI to “round up” “‘Trantifa’ members,” and referred to “transgenderism” as being the “demonic evils that are ripping this country apart.”

As the past few months have shown, each time conservatives latch onto a ‘trans shooter’—regardless of whether or not the shooter was actually trans—their rhetoric escalates. And Tumbler Ridge is no exception.

In the hours since the news broke, Matt Walsh has called trans people “the most dangerous and unstable group in existence,” advocated for a total ban on gender-affirming care, and said that trans people will react to the fact that “trans ideology” has been “defeated at a cultural and political level” by “wanting to kill as many people as they can on their way out.” Musk has implied gender-affirming care should be banned and promoted a graph that falsely asserts trans people are more likely to be behind mass shootings. When asked to fact-check the graph, Musk’s own AI, Grok, labeled it as false.

For his part, Johnson repeated claims that a few other mass shootings were committed by trans people. He then went on to assert that “radical gender ideology is pushing unstable individuals toward violence and targeting innocent people” and said “trans violence” is an “escalating threat.” Other accounts have echoed similar rhetoric. And at the same time, news sources like the BBC and the New York Post have highlighted the fact that the shooter was trans, with the latter making a point to mention that the suspect’s gender identity has not been ruled out as a motive for the shooting.

This narrative is blatantly false. As an analysis by FactCheck.org found, trans people have been responsible for less than 0.1% of all mass shootings since 2013. Considering that 1% of the American population is transgender, this means trans people are much less likely to commit mass shootings than the general population.

And aside from being disinformation, it’s also incredibly harmful. The right-wing “trans violence” hoax leads people to believe that trans people are a threat to society and drums up support for anti-trans policies within the general population.

A tragedy like Tumbler Ridge should be mourned. However, instead of advocating for stricter gun control measures that can prevent events like this from occurring, conservatives are using it as a justification to inflict harm onto even more people. That should tell you everything you need to know about their priorities.