School Shootings by Transgender Individuals in Canada and Rhode Island

On February 11, Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) reintroduced a “Transgender Bill of Rights,” a proposal they had previously submitted in March 2023. This time, they secured additional support from two House Democrats, but all things considered, it was a case of bad timing for them.

The day before the Markey-Jayapal announcement and 2,700 miles to the northwest of Washington, D.C., Jesse Van Rootselaar shot and killed his mother and half-brother in their home. He then traveled to a local elementary school where he opened fire, killing six children and two adults, and injuring 27 others. This incident was the worst school shooting in Canadian history; Van Rootselaar subsequently turned the weapon on himself.

Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old male who identified as female, was the shooter. But the bad timing wasn’t over for Markey, Jayapal, and their “Transgender Bill of Rights.”

Less than a week later, closer to home in Rhode Island, Robert Dorgan — another male who identified as female under the name “Roberta Esposito” — opened fire on a youth hockey game. He killed two people and sent three others to the hospital before an attendee intervened to end the violence. At that point, Dorgan used another weapon to take his own life.

Such attacks by transgender individuals have only occurred within the last dozen years or so, suggesting something had changed — and it did.

Prior to 2013, people suffering from sexual identity issues were typically diagnosed with “gender identity disorder,” which implied that the identity mismatch itself was disordered. However, in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association replaced that term with “gender dysphoria” to reduce stigma and remove the implication that being transgender is a mental illness.

The following year, Joseph Cambron, a transgender woman (biologically male), stabbed a 12-year-old boy to death in a Louisville, Kentucky park. And that brings us to the two deadly attacks this month by transgender individuals.

This does not suggest that a person transitioning from their biological sex to their opposite sex becomes a raving murderous lunatic. Instead, these cases represent but a tiny fraction of people who transition.

However, the list omits those individuals experiencing serious personal issues due to surgeries and drugs who are able to work through them with strong support systems from family and friends. Additionally, a not insignificant number realize that it was all a huge mistake.

According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, “Eight percent (8%) of respondents had de-transitioned temporarily or permanently at some point, meaning they went back to living as the gender they were thought to be at birth for a period of time.”

Given all that, it would be far better to return to the pre-2013 days when gender confusion was considered a mental disorder rather than rush in with drug “therapy” and Frankenstein-like surgery.

This approach would conform to the admonition that all physicians should “first, do no harm.”

Last December, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated of gender-affirming “care” for children: “This is not medicine. It is malpractice.” And except in very rare circumstances, the same applies to adults — it’s malpractice.