The Unspeakable Tragedy at Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia

"British Columbia is filing a lawsuit against OpenAI in California for its failure to notify law enforcement of threats made on its platform prior to the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School."

"This case highlights the urgent need for strong national safeguards for artificial intelligence technologies and online platforms. Our government has consistently advocated for measures to protect people, especially children and youth from online harms."

"I have written to federal ministers [Minister of Justice Sean] Fraser, [Minister of Artificial Intelligence Evan] Solomon and [Minister of Canadian Identity Marc] Miller with clear policy ideas to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to ensure a pathway to human accountability for AI's actions."

British Columbia Attorney General Niki Sharma 

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma is calling for changes to the Criminal Code in the wake of reporting on the alleged conversations between the Tumbler Ridge mass shooter and ChatGPT. (Ben Nelms/CBC, Kiichiro Sato/The Associated Press)

 

"In response, Chat GPT explained why such violent content would be flagged -- and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards."

"It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame ... content as fictional or hypothetical in order to 'never get flagged again by OpenAI's moderation systems."

"[Over the next eight months, Van Rootselaar] discussed building and using firearms and homemade explosives, fantasized about becoming a notorious mass killer and asked about the timing of previous real-world school shootings."

"To have a chatbot engage in this way was, I think, quite astonishing. It's very troubling, because this is a person who has been already talking, for quite a while, about some very dark and disturbing things." 

Mark Follman, journalist, Mother Jones 

An RCMP vehicle is parked outside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in February 2026.

 

Transgender-identity, biological male Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, set out on February 10 of this year to commit a mass atrocity. Before leaving his home he shot his mother to death, along with his half-brother. That out of the way he made his way to the high school he had attended, to wreak mayhem and havoc there, carrying the lethal weapons that would enable him to pursue his deadly goal. He took the life of a teacher, and five students of the school. And finished his work by shooting himself dead. Those he managed to injure during his psychotic predation will carry the memory of the atrocity for the rest of their lives.

 

The RCMP detachment in the remote Northern British Columbia town at the foothills of the Rockies had had previous interactions with the young man that everyone referred to as 'she' and 'her', respecting his/her gender-choice identity. There were extensive files on Van Rootselaar dating back to the years when he/she was only ten years of age. At a time close to the event that represented one of the largest mass murders to ever have taken place in the country, the Van Rootselaar home's collection of firearms were taken into custody.

 

Van Rootselaar's mother evidently had a fascination for guns, and knew how to use them, ensuring that her son did as well, arranging for him to gain experience at a shooting range. Van Rootselaar's behaviour sparked attention by police to whom he was no stranger. Given the complicating fact that his was an unstable character, who engaged in troubling anti-social behaviour, it is more than a trifle puzzling that the weapons were returned to the Van Rootselaar home by the RCMP. 

 

Van Rootselaar had an initial ChatGPT account that he used extensively to probe for answers to questions about previous mass school killings and advice on how one might proceed to produce one's own. His troubling activity had been flagged by gatekeepers at ChatGPT which led to his account being suspended. He then proceeded to open a replacement account, and his interaction with ChatGPT continued unabated. Again it was flagged and the gatekeepers were all for notifying police, but a supervisor decided to nix it.

 

Some of the Tumbler Ridge shooting victims. Top row from left: Kylie Smith, Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit, Ticaria Lampert. Bottom row from left: Ezekiel Schofield, Emmett Jacobs, Jennifer Jacobs.

 

Van Rootselaar, fascinated with guns and with violence, and with mass shootings, appears to have self-radicalized with the benevolent assistance of ChatGPT which it seems felt obliged to to support that emerging psychopathy toward full-fledged maturity. His mental equilibrium was obviously fragile. Gender dysphoria, mental instability, social hostility, fetish for mass shootings all came together, alongside a resentment of his mother and step-brother and a linkage to the school he had left prematurely in his decision to disrupt his academic exposure.

 

An inquest by the B.C. Coroners Service remains as yet incomplete: "The B.C. Coroners Service has not confirmed the dates for the Tumbler Ridge inquest at this time. Once all related investigations are concluded, we will send out a news release with more details", wrote its media relations staff in response to an inquiry. Clearly this confused individual who harboured feelings of disengagement from society was in need of psychiatric intervention. In B.C. as in other parts of Canada provincial psychiatric services for youth in need are inadequate.

 

The government of British Columbia, the RCMP and the medical community must view the decision to sue OpenAI for the part its artificial intelligence agent played in the unfolding of this horrible tragedy as a convenient shield against probes into their own failings in being badly remiss in the potential prevention of a tragedy of this magnitude. That OpenAI is liable is without question. That the government of British Columbia should be asking its own questions of itself and its agencies is also without question.

 

Victims of the Tumbler Ridge shooting were memorialized in the days after the tragedy. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

"This action today is consistent with the province's long-standing commitment to hold powerful corporations accountable when their products or practices cause harm to people and communities."

"From tobacco  and opioid manufacturers to vaping companies, the Government of British Columbia has used the courts to pursue accountability and ensure that people in British Columbia are not left bearing the costs of corporate wrong-doing." 

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma 

 

Tactical Surrender: World Professional Association for Transgender Health

"WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health] now agrees that pediatric transgender medicine is marked by 'medical and scientific uncertainty."

"Yet for years, WPATH presented its guidelines as an  unquestionable medical standard of care."

"The social and scientific costs of questioning their recommendations were steep and could be career-ending."

"For 10+ years doctors have been told WPATH's is the only way." 

Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) 

 

"SEGM's characterization of WPATH's legal position is a clear misrepresentation of an established legal distinction by the courts."

"[Our dedication to our mission and the served patient population] remains unwavering."

"[We are a nonprofit] dedicated to promoting science-based medical care, education, research and public policy in transgender health." 

"[Our Standards of Care] articulate a professional consensus about the psychiatric, psychological, medical and surgical management of transgender people."

"That transgender health care is an area of intense medical debate does not entitle Plaintiffs to prevent individuals and organizations like WPATH from free speech aimed at contributing to that debate."

"Many governments and organizations, including New Zealand, Canada, and some U.S. States and the American Academy of Pediatrics, agree that the evidence supports SOC-8 [Standards of Care-8 updated by WPATH]." 

World Professional Association for Transgender Health

 

"Parents have been told that the WPATH approach is not optional, but medically necessary and lifesaving."

"[WPATH] has aggressively promoted that approach, including by suppressing and stigmatizing alternatives. I think it's disingenuous at best for WPATH to now frame its recommendations as merely one opinion in a legitimate debate."

Leor Sapir senior fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research 

 

 

Within the throes of a legal battle with the Trump administration, the U.S. transgender health organization appears to have made a shift of significance in its guidelines; the very guidelines that platform gender-care policies in North America. According to a new legal filing, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health now claims that its guidance to doctors represents one area in a matter of "intense medical debate". 

 

The organization has brought forward a dismissal of lawsuit motion that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission brought against WPATH, by now claiming that its Standards of Care that have been so influential up to the present are not in fact presented as "assertions of fact, but rather opinions" ,that have been based on cited scientific studies.

 

WPATH claims its opinions are "non-actionable", protected by the First Amendment; that it is doctors who have based their decision-making on WPATH's guidelines who are in point of fact the bearers of "independent responsibility for their own advice", according to the legal filing by WPATH. In response, the organization's critics regard these arguments as a "remarkable humbling in attitude". 

 

They are, in essence, shrugging off their own responsibility in presenting their guidelines as the final word in response to gender dysphoria. Their having framed those guidelines as a matter of dire necessity to respect the confused gender choices made by underage children meriting instant responses of pediatric decision making in hormone-arresting maturation of pre-puberty adolescents and even 'corrective' surgeries now rests on the consciences of the doctors responding to the authority of their original guidelines. 

"[WPATH] went to great lengths to convince insurance companies, doctors and parents that its standard of care was the 'settled science'."

"And now it's claiming that the standard of care is worth no more than a student essay in a high school newspaper."

Andrew Ferguson, chair, U.S. Federal Trade Commission  

The initial development of WPATH's guidelines in its Standards of Care date from 1979. A recent 2022 update was signed off by over 100 co-authors. Guidelines for gender-affirming care in Canada have been driven in alignment with WPATH recommendations. In its position statement in support of an affirming approach to care, the Canadian Paediatric Society refers to the recommendations within SOC-8. Those are recommendations described as internationally accepted standards of care. A chapter dedicated to adolescents states the "medical necessity of treatment and care is clearly recognized for the many people who experience dissonance between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity". 

WPATH describes itself as a non-profit "dedicated to promoting science-based medical care, education, research and public policy in transgender health." Photo by Adobe Stock

In the original document WPATH offers “suggested minimum ages” for a number of irreversible surgical procedures for minors, such as: 

 14+ years old for cross-sex hormones 

 15+ years old for double mastectomies 

 16+ years old for breast implants, facial feminisation surgery 

 17+ years old for metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, hysterectomy, fronto-orbital     remodelling  

18+ years old for phalloplasty.  

The decision to remove all age requirements (apart from the phalloplasty) was taken despite there being no new evidence to support that recommendation. 

Genspect 

 

Britain's National Health Service took the initiative to question its own earlier position that the effects of puberty blockers are wholly reversible. Doctors, SOC-8 adherents are now advised, may decide to depart from WPATH's guidance in reflection of a patient's "unique anatomic, social or psychological situation", led by a research study  or other reasons. "These departures should be recognized as such, explained to the patient and documented for quality patient care and legal protection."

 

The Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit (along with Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas) claims that WPATH made "false, misleading or unsubstantiated" statements regarding the necessity, effectiveness and safety of puberty blockers, hormones, and sex-change surgeries. WPATH asserts, in seeking to squash the complaint that the "core deceptive statements" have no  presence in SOC-8 and thus were paraphrased from other quotes based on citations by the group quoted in published research.

 

According to WPATH, the deceptive statements are "non-actionable opinions about subjects and scientific uncertainty", reads the WPATH motion, in that the plaintiffs "fail to allege a single deceptive statement by WPATH, much less a statement to consumers". "SOC-8 does not tell doctors what to say, much less how to mislead". "Plaintiffs", they go on, "seek to brand one side of scientific debate as 'deceptive' without even considering the science". 

 

The evidence is of such low certainty, it is impossible to determine whether the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in children and teens help or harm, according to Canadian researchers who last year published two major reviews. For its part, WPATH claims the Federal Trade Commission and other plaintiffs are "attempting to insert themselves in the middle of this medical debate and silence those with whom they disagree".  

"All clinical guideline recommendations are evidence informed, but opinion based."

"The guidelines for hypertension, for diabetes, for Crohn's disease. Pick a disease, pick a clinical scenario, pick a preventative health issue."

"An 'opinion' in this context does not imply ill-considered loose thoughts or brain droppings, but specifically refers to a genuinely subjective judgement that cannot be proven true or false and thus cannot be sanctioned merely because he government disagrees with it."

"[However, a legitimate debate is to be had over whether WPATH's opinions are supported by the evidence]."

Dr. Laura Targownik, professor of medicine, University of Toronto 

 

Adolescent Gender Identity/Dysphoria

"These findings support that within a clinical context involving comprehensive psychosocial assessment and support, gender identity among adolescents is highly stable, and rates of reidentification with birth-assigned gender and cessation of [gender-affirming hormones] are low."

"Despite there being broad consensus among major medical organizations about the necessity of gender-affirming care, some government bodies continue to raise questions a bout access to gender-affirming care."

Recently-published Canadian study    Journal of Adolescent Health

 

"The study also found that no one who initially identified as non-binary returned to a binary gender aligned with their birth sex."

"For many youth, access to appropriate care is associated with improved well-being and mental-health outcomes."

"Other research has also reported low rates of detransition and treatment discontinuation, although findings vary depending on the population studied."

Daniel Metzger, paediatric endocrinologist, B.C. Children's Hospital, report first-author

 

"It's an open question whether the detransition rate of someone who started their transition in 2012 is going to be the same rate as someone who started their transition in 2020 or 2022."

"[The paper suggests that appropriately selected youth who undergo comprehensive holistic assessments] are likely to at least be persistent in the short- to medium-term."

"It could be that many of them are continuing to do great and if we reached out to them today, in 2025, they'd say; 'Hey, I'm doing great. Leave me alone'."

"Or we could reach out and they say, 'I desisted when I was 22'. We don't know. And we can't tell from this data." 

Dr. Laura Targownik, physician-scientist, professor of medicine, University of Toronto 

New Study Shows Trans Youth Are Extremely Unlikely to Detransition   them.us

 

Only 2.9 percent of teens -- in a social period of rapid gender-affirming medical interventions -- referred to one of four specialized pediatric gender clinics, changed back to their original gender identity; detransitioned, over a median followup study of 2.4 years. The study authors felt the findings suggest stability in teen gender identity where their study appears to prove that actual detransitioning is 'uncommon'. The results of their study, they wrote "may offer reassurance to those concerned that adolescents are too  young to understand their gender identity or make decisions about medical transition".

 

As with any scientific study addressing controversial issues, critics find the study has the effect of inflating persistence while presenting a skewed picture, taking into regard the short followup window to detect a verifiable transition rate. Moreover, the study's structure leaves the authors incapable of asserting with any certainty what occurred when youth moved from adolescence into adulthood, and how that maturation affects their identity perception at that juncture.

 

The study encompassed children between between the years 2012 and 2017 prior to the more recent spike in gender dysphoria cases, alongside changing demographics. At the present time, predominantly biological females, many with accompanying complex mental health problems, many identifying as non-binary, are being seen by doctors. "Considerable uncertainty" remains of benefits of gender treatment for children, two recent Canadian studies concluded. 

 

The number of children and teens seeking gender-affirming care almost tripled in Canada and the U.S. between 2017 and 2020, the study's authors note. Photo by Adobe Stock

 

The latest study research team involved reviewing 445 teens diagnosed with gender dysphoria and seen at gender clinics in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Halifax -- of which 74 percent were born female, most between the ages of 13 and 18 at time of referral, while the mean age of beginning gender-affirming hormone treatment was just over 16 years of age. At each visit, every six months, the teens were questioned about their gender identity and whether hormone use was being continued. 

 

Researchers looked at data in the youths' medical records between 2018 and 2020. There ensued at least one year of followup after each gender clinic visit. 95 percent -- 421 of the 445 -- continued with their presenting gender identity or re-identified as nonbinary: "from initial referral to end of the observation period". Of the 353 adolescents who began gender-affirming hormones, only one percent stopped taking them. Of the 24 that changed gender identity, 13 "returned to gender identity typically aligned with sex at birth".

 

Doctors have been sued by some detransitioners with the allegation that their wish for extreme interventions had never been challenged, nor were alternative treatments properly discussed. Detransitioners, surveys have found, may sometimes feel reluctant to inform their doctors, concerned they would waste people's time, even knowing that something was not quite right. Detransition "is very unlikely to occur even after 10 or more years identifying with [a] gender identity different than the identity aligned with birth sex", pointed out Dr. Lawson. 

 

Parents of transgender children and other supporters of transgender rights gather in an outdoor rotunda in Austin, Texas, to speak about transgender legislation being considered in the state House and Senate, on April 14, 2021.   Eric Gay / AP file

 

"I don't expect the detransition rate at a median two years to be terribly high, but if you follow these patients for five years, or 10 years, you might have a clearer picture."

"[The finding that most youth prescribed hormones] does provide some reassurance that they're not just starting patients on hormones and they're desisting right away."

"But [the researchers] don't talk about, were these patients seeing psychiatrists? Were they seen for other problems? Were they getting admitted to hospital for mental-health decompensation?"

"They're basically using persistence as a proxy for, 'Well, they're doing OK enough that they didn't have to abandon their transition or that their clinicians didn't feel that they were suffering from such a grievous harm that it had to be stopped."

Dr. Laura Targownik, transgender woman 

 

"Individuals who do not support gender-affirming medical care for adolescents are likely to look for reasons that might discount the findings of our study and publication."

"However, as principal investigator of this study, I can assure you that our study's methodology is extremely sound."

Senior study author Dr. Margaret Lawson, scientist emeritus, CHEO Research Institute 

 

Women's Charter Rights Expendable in Favouring Transwomen's 'Rights'

"Perhaps not all men who claim a female gender identity are sexually motivated, but saying any man who claims a female gender identity can come in to women's changing rooms, the City has invited in sexually motivated men like him."

"It is a direct threat to women and girls for the city to say I have to see his penis and his fetish gear, let him look at me and my girl child if we change, and if we feel frightened our only alternative is to just stop using the facility."

"This denies us a public service on the basis of our female sex." 

Kathleen Lowrey, women's rights advocate

University of Alberta associate professor Kathleen Lowrey was dismissed as associate chair of undergraduate studies in the department of anthropology in March. Lowrey says she believes she was dismissed over her critical views of gender. jpg

 

In February 2025, Kathleen Lowrey, her 14-year-old daughter with her, entered the female changing room facility at the Bonnie Doon Leisure centre. There, they were confronted with the presence of a man deressed in sexual fetish gear, "a bald man wearing only a black thong outlining his penis, and a pair of artificial rubber breasts slung around his neck". On reporting the scene to the leisure centre staff, she was informed that the individual in the thong was entitled to his presence in the women's area, however he was accoutered.

 

That's when she called police. Who would, of course, do nothing, since it was the policy of the centre and others like it to allow the entry of men claiming to be women, into women-only areas. No questions asked, no 'proof' of gender required. Professor Lowrey then filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights commission (AHRC) a month later, claiming discrimination on the basis of sex. In turn the AHRC rejected her complaint in July 2025, as well as her request for an appeal of the rejection, in November of 2025.

 

They responded that Professor Lowrey had failed to demonstrate she had been discriminated against. That led to her filing for a judicial review in the hope that the AHRC would be forced to hear her case. The City of Edmonton had other plans. Lowrey's application for a judicial review was tossed by the city on the basis that the city was not named as a respondent, arguing that the city is "the entity directly affected by and implicated in the underlying human rights complaint"; moreover, that the six-month filing period for a judicial review had lapsed.  

"In 2020, the University of Alberta removed Kathleen Lowrey, a tenured professor, from her role as associate chair of the department of anthropology after she expressed “controversial academic views regarding transgendered people and the LGTBQ2S+ community” the court said."
"[The professor explained her views on feminism], a few key ideas: men cannot get pregnant, lesbians don’t have penises and that biological sex is real."
"The Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta, an academic staff union representing about 4,000 members, filed a grievance over Lowrey’s removal. Alleging that the university dismissed Lowrey for her “gender-critical” perspective, the union argued that the university breached their collective bargaining agreement by failing to “uphold and protect academic freedom and exercise its management rights in a fair, reasonable, equitable and non-arbitrary manner,” according to the court’s decision." 

Jessica Mach, Canadian Lawyer 

Professor Lowrey, in filing her application against the AHRC, stated she had wanted her original complaint only to be heard. She stated that the relief [she is] seeking in [her] originating application is not from Bonnie Doon Leisure Centre and/or the city of Edmonton, but rather for the AHRC to hear [her] arguments. The AHRC appeared to conflate 'sex' and 'gender' in dismissing Professor Lowrey's complaint, despite that sex is a biological reality; gender on the other hand reflects a social ideology of fluid gender self-assignment.

 

In Canada, theoretically, women are entitled through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to respect and equality and security of the person. Yet when Professor Lowrey called on her Charter rights, a legal technicality threw her case into contemptuous contention in favour of the fiction of transwomen's rights trampling all over those of genuine  women. Despite the fact that any woman who registers a complaint over her loss of privacy in favour of a man's whims is labelled a bigot and transphobic. A social curse.

 

The Edmonton Law Courts building. Photo By David Bloom

 

"It keeps going against women in legal case after legal case."

"It is an accumulating record of smug institutional disregard for women and girls in Canada, and everywhere we attempt to contest policies put in place by gender activists."

"People should be able to express their gender in whatever manner they wish (but) I don’t agree with biological sex being irrelevant. I think treating biological sex as irrelevant has some really serious policy implications. As an example, housing trans-identified men in women’s prisons is not fair to women prisoners and I think it puts women at risk." 

"Contemporary gender ideology requires active affirmation of the proposition that men can become women and that women can become men. It further asserts that to refuse to assent to this proposition is to do active ‘harm’ to trans-identified individuals. The doctrine requires uncritical reverence for retrograde gender constructs, such as the idea that a little boy who likes tea parties and pretty dresses can be deemed to have been ‘born in the wrong body’ [and so is actually, in fact, a little girl]." 

"But we are learning from each kick in the teeth, and we are not giving up."

Kathleen Lowrey  

The University of Alberta's north campus sign in Edmonton. Photo by Ed Kaiser/Postmedia

 

Fadeout of Nonbinary Fashion Trend

"Trans, queer and bisexual identities are in rapid decline among young educated Americans."

"[The number of university students] not identifying as male or female [peaked in 2023 with recent numbers indicating almost by half in two years]."

"All we have is the question on gender. You have to make assumptions about how a trans person would answer the question."

"For  young people, gender and sexual identity are now independent fashions that rise and fall separately from other cultural and political currents."

Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics, U.K.-based Centre for Heterodox Social Science 

"[Through] affirming approach [to transgender care, the Canadian Paediatric Society treats gender dysphoria as that with no social component that can be naturally observed as early as toddler years]."

"Recent research has suggested that some children may recognize a degree of 'mismatch' between their gender identity and their assigned sex as early as age 2 to three years."

Canadian Paediatric Society, 2023 position statement 

 

 

According to a new analysis published by Canadian academic Eric Kaufmann based on U.S. data -- several surveys of American undergraduates that included questions relating to their self-identified gender -- numbers of young people rejecting heterosexuality have diminished throughout the last several years. 

An annual survey of roughly 50,000 students conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) comprised the largest of the surveys studied. The FIRE survey found 6.8 percent of respondents identified as a gender other than male or female in 2023. By 2025 that number had been reduced to 3.6 percent.

 

Elite or exclusive private schools appear to have been the locus of the highest number of students questioning the accuracy of their birth genders. The Boston-area prep school Phillips Academy, for example, saw 9.2 percent of its students identifying as "neither male nor female" in 2023, yet by 2025, the number had dropped to three percent. The follow-up question regarding the possible reasons that nonbinary identification was falling was not immediately clear, however. 

 

Data sets used by Dr. Kaufmann were all comprised of university students. FIRE data indicated the average student in 2025 was as likely as in 2023 to be a liberal atheist in support of banning "anti-trans" speakers from campus. The share of homosexual students was also found to remain relatively stable, with fluctuations of no more than half a percentage point, year-to-year. Categories such as 'queer' and 'questioning' had the most movement, along with the number of students identifying as 'heterosexual'. 

 

The data in Kaufmann’s report was based on several student surveys. Sharkshock – stock.adobe.com

 

FIRE data recorded 68 percent of surveyed students chose 'heterosexual' in self-identity in 2023, in comparison to 15 percent who identified as 'queer'. But by 2025, the number of heterosexual identities rose to 77 percent while eight percent chose queer. Transgender advocates have long rejected the notion of gender identity being a temporary or faddish phenomenon, or one subject to social cohesion/contagion. Even so, a wide swath of medical agencies in Canad not only dismissed the role of social contagion in gender dysphoria, but described it as a 'harmful myth'.

 

The Journal of Pediatrics published a Canadian study in 2021, that there was no such thing as "rapid onset gender dysphoria", the hypothesis of adolescents driven to adopt trans identities as a result of peer influence.  The heading "Study dispels harmful gender dysphoria myth", encapsulated that finding. In the U.K. the Cass Review, a comprehensive government probe found that "peer influence" was driving the rise of youth gender dysphoria at an unacknowledged rate. 

 

That report noted gender-distressed minors speaking "about online information that describes normal adolescent discomfort as a possible sign of being trans and that particular influencers have had a substantial impact on the child's belief and understanding of their gender".  Canada was the first country in the world to include self-identified gender as part of its census with the 2021 edition identifying what it called a transgender "generation gap"; a massive disparity between the number of youth identifying as trans as compared to older Canadians.

 

The gap in the rise of non-binary identity between 2021 and among Canadians born between 1997 and 2006 of whom 0.76 percent identified as either transgender or non-binary was compared to 0.51 percent of Millennials and 0.19 of generation X, which Statistics Canada attributed to the rise of the Internet as an affirmative locus for gender dysphoria, presuming it was present as well among older people.  

"The Internet ... may have contributed to the increasing awareness of gender diversity -- especially among younger generations -- by providing transgender and nonbinary individuals with virtual support communities and answers to questions that were less accessible to older generations."

Statistics Canada analysis 

 Andover Phillips Academy in suburban Boston, which surveys three-quarters of its students each year, for example, reported that in 2023, 9.2 percent identified as neither male nor female. This year, the figure is at just three percent.

Gender Dysphoria -- Transitioning, Detransitioning, Retransitioning

"The mainstream gender-affirming  care system largely presumes that gender identity/expression is immutable and that TGD [transgender and gender-diverse] people will engage in only one gender transition."

"While this may be the reality for many TGD people, this presumption can create environments in which multiple transitions, gender fluidity, and detransitions are misunderstood or even stigmatized."

"[Detransition] has been conceptualized as stopping, shifting or reversing aspects of an initial gender transition, often motivated by a shift in how one understands their sex/gender [although there is no universally agreed-upon definition]."

"Some people who detransition may self-label as 'detrans' for short."

"Irrespective of their current gender identity, those undergoing a detransition often retain 'atypical' sex characteristics from prior hormonal and surgical treatments, leading to vulnerability to gender minority stressors and, potentially, an experience of 'reverse dysphoria'." 

York University research team 

A woman who wished to keep her identity hidden de-transitioned after years of testosterone therapy she started at age 15, and a double mastectomy she had at 18. She's experienced "a lot of pain and regret." Photo by Michelle Berg /Saskatoon StarPhoenix

 

"I feel so alienated now, and super-isolated from the rest of the queer community" reported one of the study's subjects. Another said: "I lost every adult and friend in my life when I chose to detransition. I lost everything I had socially." It is obviously a very lonely journey to be  taken.

 

"Conservatives want us to speak to them to 'prove' that transitioning is 'evil'. Liberals want to silence us for fear that we'll somehow 'influence' trans people to detransition", said another.  "We're in a horrible space and it's nearly more painful detransitioning for me than it was just suffering through an identity that didn't fix my problems like everyone said it would."

 

A new form of stigma -- detransphobia -- is being exposed through the largest study of detransitioners in Canada and the United States in decades, revealing that the medical community is abandoning people who had undergone transition and in time made a decision to reverse that gender journey, finding themselves ignored by the very surgeons who had altered their bodies, while the communities that once embraced them, now choose to ostracize them. 

 

 Close to 1,000 people were included in the survey, to reveal that many who halt or reverse a gender transition end up feeling disappointingly poorly supported by LGBTQ groups and gender-affirming care practitioners, leaving them wistfully regretting their doctors' distancing themselves, wishing instead that they "took a more neutral approach to care".  The study was published in the International Journal of Transgender Health and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

 

The ritual of name changing and pronouns, the halting of hormone therapy or seeking out reversal surgeries like breast reconstruction following a double mastectomy for masculinizing female-to-male chest surgery are difficult decisions to make in a total makeover of what had preceded that detransitioning process. Findings from earlier research are inconsistent with estimates for detransition ranging from less than one percent to as high as 30 percent. 

 

For some individuals, detransitioning may lead to a reversal - retransition -- particularly if their detransition was 'involuntary, forced' as a result of family pressure, discrimination or "the climate of fear around trans people". In other instances, the pressures are internal; a shift in identity of a realization that their gender dysphoria was related to some other issues "such as trauma or internalized homophobia".  

"According to the detransphobia model, individuals who shift their gender after an initial transition may encounter social rejection and barriers to accessing support within SGM [sexual and gender minority] communities due to misrecognition, gender identity fluidity and detransition-related stigma."

"Many shifted from  transgender to gender non-confirming lesbian, gay or detrans identities, and, in hindsight, wished they had access to providers who took a more neutral approach to care."

"[That backs previous research] and carries implications for gender-affirming care delivery."

York University research team 

The research team itself was comprised of a majority of LGBTQ researchers who stated that no formal health-care guidelines exist that would be of assistance to address the medical and psychological needs to detrans individuals when stigma from LGBTQ communities can also occur. The study is that of an anonymous survey taking place between 2023 and 2024, of 957 individuals from ages 16 and up in the U.S. (704)  and Canada (253) self-identifying, with experiences of detransition -- along with one-on-one interviews with 42 selected participants.

 

Gender detransitioning - going back to living as the gender one was assigned at birth, or identifying differently - is generating more and more headlines these days. Nouvelles Montreal

 

79 percent of participants were born female, a reflection of the surge in biological girls referred to gender clinics. Another Canadian study found that of 174 youth aged 15 and younger who were referred for puberty blocks to 10 gender clinics in the country, 82 percent were born female. Some 42 percent of the total reported a history of discontinuing, then later resuming transition.

 

Challenges to access medial care or financial support to cover detransition procedures such as voice training in response to voice deepening or laser hair removal for body and facial hair;  side-effects from testosterone therapy used in female-to-male transitions were mentioned by many of the study participants. "I was turned down by four surgeons and ghosted by the one who did the mastectomy", one participant said of the search for a breast reconstruction surgeon.

  

Some participants spoke of a wish to secure the services of "non-trans-affirming care providers" on the basis of past therapists appearing too eager to encourage their transition in the first place, or to retransition following detransitioning, "despite no expressed desire to do so". "I had no confidence in my providers when I stopped transitioning" , explained one study participant. 

 

A new research website launched by a multidisciplinary team led by York University Professor Kinnon MacKinnon aims to provide resources, support and data-driven information about gender detransition/retransition. York U Yfile

 

The Deadly Impact of Psychopaths Among Us

"This level of violence is unthinkable. Our deepest prayers are with the children, parents, families, educators, and Christians everywhere. We mourn with them, we pray for healing, and we will never forget them."

"[The suspect] clearly had a deranged obsession with previous mass shooters."

"Ultimately this person committed this act with the intention of causing as much terror, as much trauma, as much carnage as possible for their own personal notoriety."

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara

 

"Yesterday, a coward decided to take our eight-year-old son, Fletcher, away from us. Because of their actions, we will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming." 

"While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time, our family can find healing. I pray that the other victim’s family can find some semblance of the same."

"[I am] hopeful [that] all the wounded are able to make a full recovery and return to their families. [And that all the people], especially the children, [are] able to recover mentally."

"Over the past day, I’ve heard many stories accounting the swift and heroic actions of children and adults alike from inside the church. Without these people and their selfless actions, this could have been a tragedy of many magnitudes more for these people. I’m thankful."

"Please remember Fletcher for the person he was and not the act that ended his life. Give your kids an extra hug and kiss today. We love you. Fletcher, you’ll always be with us."

Jesse Merkel, father of Fletcher Merkel   

An 8-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl were shot and killed when the gunman fired through the windows of a church at the Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday morning, police said. ABC News

"We are devastated to share that our beloved daughter, Harper Moyski, was tragically killed in the recent school shooting. Harper was a bright, joyful and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness and spirit touched everyone who knew her."

"Our hearts are broken not only as parents, but also for Harper’s sister, who adored her big sister and is grieving an unimaginable loss."

"As a family, we are shattered, and words cannot capture the depth of our pain."

"No family should ever have to endure this kind of pain. We urge our leaders and communities to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country."

"Change is possible, and it is necessary — so that Harper’s story does not become yet another in a long line of tragedies." 

Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin   

"[The city is] united in grief” [and] united in action."

"People who say that this is not about guns, you got to be kidding me. This is about guns. We do need to take action."

"There are other countries around the world where horrific acts have taken place like this and then they step up to make a change so that it, in fact, does not happen again."

"There is no reason that someone should be able to reel off 30 shots before they even have to reload."

"We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle here. We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armor and kill people."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey  

Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moyski. Photograph: GoFundMe

 

He was 23, a young man troubled among other issues, by gender dysphoria. When he was in his teens, his mother petitioned with success to change her son's name from Robert, to Robin, in 2021, to more accurately she said, reflect his self-identity as female. 'Assigning' him male at birth was evidently an error to be corrected. 'Robin' Westman's mother was an administrative assistant in the business office of the Annunciation Catholic School.

 

It was at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday that the man who for reasons known only to himself, decided to shoot through the stained-glass windows of the church that housed the school at 8:30 a.m., with students assembling for mass during what was the start of yet another school year. He opened fire with a rifle, shotgun and pistol, all legally procured. 

 

In the process, he shot two students dead, ages 8 and ten, wounding 17 others, among them another 14 students. According to Minneapolis Police chief Brian O'Hara, the assailant acted on his own, had no extensive criminal history and the guns he used in the assault that took two innocent lives and forever changed the lives of an additional 17 people, were bought in accordance with State law.

 

Coincidentally, the shooter had posted videos to YouTube which demonstrated his admiration for other mass shooters, his fascination with gun magazines -- on some of which he scrawled messages such as "Kill Donald Trump", along with racial slurs. Among those messages were some meant for his family, apologizing to them for the impact his actions would have on their lives.

 

"I don't expect forgiveness", he wrote in a journal that appeared in one of his downloaded videos. "I'm sorry to my family, but that's all I'm sorry for", he narrated, over images of guns and ammunition. Slogans were also present that revealed his anti-Black, antisemitic, anti-Hispanic and anti-God sentiments. Throughout the videos, acknowledgements were present in his fascination with past mass killings.

 

He had written the names of previous mass shooters among text scrawled in white marker across the magazines and on the firearms in his possession. He took his love of firearms and his hatred for others with him that day, as he committed  himself to the nether world. Dressed in black to suit the occasion, he made his farewell to life as he propped a wood plank barricading the church doors, behind which he turned his weapons on himself and expired.

 

In one of the videos he posted he was shown laughing, as he highlighted a note addressed to his family, apologizing to his siblings and parents, for "forever tainting the rest of [your] lives". He made references to depressive and suicidal thoughts, and clearly he was destined to leave a life of disappointment and personal suffering. Why in this state of mind he would decide to  end the lives of children before himself dying, is a conundrum the parents of the children will live with the rest of their lives. 

"[In writings left behind], the shooter expressed hate towards many groups, including the Jewish community and towards President Trump."

"I won’t dignify the attacker’s words by repeating them, they are horrific and vile."

Joseph Thompson, acting US attorney general for Minnesota 

Police and first responders work at the scene of a shooting near Annunciation Church and Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on August 27, 2025. Eva Claire Hambach/AFP via Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

"Leaving Wokeness and Weakness Behind"

"In accordance with policy now reinstated, service members who have a current diagnosis or history of or exhibit symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria may elect to separate voluntarily. [If they chose not to do so by the deadline, they would be removed] involuntarily, if necessary."

"This is the president's agenda. This is what the American people voted for."

"TRANS is out at the DOD."

"No more pronouns, no more climate-change obsessions, no more emergency vaccine mandates, no more dudes in dresses." 

"We are leaving WOKENESS AND WEAKNESS behind. No more pronouns. We are done with that sh*t."

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth

 

"There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge, [for trans service members who do not take the current buyout offer and could lose out on benefits that took years of service to build]."

"This is not voluntary. This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress."

"These are 1,000 transgender troops that would be serving if the conditions were not created to force them into making a decision for their own well-being, or the well-being of their family long-term."

Rae Timberlake, spokesperson for Sparta Pride

Transgender troops have between 30 and 60 days to self-separate from the military after a court order allowed the ban on their service to move forward, according to a Thursday memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The Defence Secretary's directive is expected to bring the careers of thousands of American military service members to an abrupt conclusion. Some 1,000 troops have self-identified as having been given a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, according to the Pentagon, in response to Hegseth's memo directed to senior military leaders. The number is debatable, considered to be quite a bit higher by advocates for transgender service members.

 

From the guidelines issued on Thursday it was not immediately evident how the Pentagon will proceed in an effort to remove any transgender troops who have failed to disclose such a personal diagnosis. A month has been given to transgender personnel serving on active duty to voluntarily leave the service. Reservists have been given 60 days for their voluntary withdrawal. All of them may be eligible for separation pay, but once the deadlines pass the Pentagon will transition to involuntarily separate those who remain.

 

The announcement came two days following a divided ruling in Shilling v. Trump by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing President Donald Trump to move on with an executive order to bar transgender men and women from the military while a lower court entertains litigation over the underlying policy. In hearings for a separate legal challenge, the Justice Department argued that the policy was not discriminatory since it did not apply to all transgender service members, but those only who suffer or have suffered from gender dysphoria.

 

"The haste with which the military is moving reflects a callous disregard for the brave troops who have put their lives on the line for this country. It is a disgrace", stated Jennifer Levi, the lead attorney in Talbott v. Trump with its 32 trans plaintiffs. Over 4,000 transgender men and women diagnosed with gender dysphoria were first permitted to serve openly beginning in 2016. The Trump executive order grants exceptions for those service members directly supporting "warfighting capabilities".

 

Those who succeed in obtaining a waiver must prove they never attempted to physically transition from one gender to the other. Certain restrictions prohibiting them from changing rooms, bathrooms and showers designated for people of the opposite sex will apply to them. They will also be required to meet fitness standards associated with their sex at birth. 

 

Pentagon officials defended the ban, stating: "The medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service." Psychotherapy, gender-affirming hormone therapy, gender-affirming surgery and other treatment for service members totalled $52 million between 2015 and 2024, according to a defense official speaking on condition of anonymity. 

"Additionally, the Military Departments will immediately begin processing for separation Service members who previously self-identified for voluntary separation prior to March 26, 2025."

"Service by individuals with a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria is not in the best interest of the Military Services and is not clearly consistent with the interests of national security."

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth

A transgender woman speaks as military veterans and their supporters protested against President Donald Trump's policies in March. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Major Uncertainties in the Use of Puberty Blockers -- Canadian Research

"[Doctors should] clearly communicate [the major uncertainties that remain with children and parents and check] whose values they are prioritizing [when prescribing puberty blockers and masculinizing or feminizing hormones to youth]."

"We are very uncertain about the causal effect of the [drugs] on depression. Most studies provided very low certainty of evidence about the outcomes of interest, thus we cannot exclude the possibility of benefit or harm."

"Since the current best evidence, including our systematic review and meta-analysis, is predominantly very low quality, clinicians must clearly communicate this evidence to patients and caregivers."

"[Guideline developers and policymakers should also be transparent] about which and whose values they are prioritizing when making recommendations and policy decisions."

Report: Canadian research

 

According to a team of researchers in Canada, an absence of evidence on the efficacious use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that have been increasingly seeing use on children presenting with gender dysphoria along with teens self-identifying as transgender amounts to medical dysfunction, potentially harming the futures of many of these children. Whether, for the time being, their use is helpful or harmful, cannot be discerned given the low certainty surrounding the issue and absence of research. 

When in doubt -- abstain, or make it quite clear that the prevalent use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers on the very young is fraught with uncertainty regarding future impact. A major British review that had been commissioned by the National Health Services of England found evidence questioning the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria to be weak, "built on shaky foundations".

As a result of the Cass Review's conclusion of doubt, doctors in the United Kingdom were instructed to stop routinely prescribing puberty blockers temporarily, to children and  youth under 18 years of age. More latterly, after independent expert advice concluded such drugs pose an "unacceptable safety risk" the ban became indefinite.

In Canada, however, no impact from the Cass Review has been seen in its gender-affirming approach, with the Canadian Paedriatric Society expressing criticism of what it terms "significant limitations, biases and inaccuracies" in the review, the result of a four-year enquiry. The CPS writing in its journal "The model of gender-affirming care in Canada differs in many ways from the approach that had been in place in the U.K".

According to a federally funded study, however, 174 children under 16 referred to one of ten gender-identity clinics in Canada saw 74 percent placed on puberty blockers, with close to two-thirds progressing to masculinizing or feminizing hormones.

"There's not enough reliable information."

"We really don't have enough evidence to say that these procedures are beneficial."

"Few studies have looked at physical harm, so we have really no evidence of harm as well."

"There's not a lot that we can say with certainty, based on the evidence."

Chan Kulatunga-Moruzi, an author of the review

Those who begin puberty blockers for the most part tend to progress to gender-affirming hormones which induce sex characteristics such as facial hair or breast enlargement. Giving children identifying as transgender time to decide whether to proceed to transition, while relaxing their feelings of distress over body changes that disturb them. Concerns relate to whether the drugs are locking in a gender identity --their transition becoming an inevitable expectation.

Although the process was initially thought to be fully reversible,  the potential seems to augur for long-term and irreversible effects -- according to the Canadian research team -- in their finding published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. Screening 6,736 research titles involving puberty blockers, the study found low certainty of evidence on the effects of puberty blockers on depression, an oft-cited argument for their use on distressed youth.

"Since the current best evidence, including our systematic review and meta-analysis, is predominantly very low quality, clinicians must clearly communicate this evidence to patients and caregivers," researchers wrote. Photo by Getty Images