Tumbler Ridge Shooter Identified as Transgender Female: How Rare Are Such Cases?
Tumbler Ridge Shooter: Transgender Female, How Rare Are Such Cases?

Tumbler Ridge Shooter Identified as Transgender Female: Examining the Statistics

Royal Canadian Mounted Police have officially identified the perpetrator of the tragic mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, as 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, a transgender female. Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald of the RCMP in British Columbia confirmed that Van Rootselaar was born biologically male and began transitioning to female approximately six years ago.

McDonald emphasized that Van Rootselaar "identified as female both socially and publicly," providing crucial context about the shooter's gender identity. The shooting resulted in nine fatalities, including Van Rootselaar, with initial reports of an additional death being revised to reflect one victim surviving in serious condition after being transported to hospital.

Victims of the Tumbler Ridge Tragedy

The victims included:

  • One female educator
  • Three female students
  • Two male students
  • Van Rootselaar's mother and stepbrother, found deceased in their nearby home

Flowers and memorials have accumulated outside the Tumbler Ridge secondary school building where the shooting occurred, as the small community grapples with this devastating event.

Political Rhetoric Versus Statistical Reality

In the aftermath of the shooting, questions have emerged about the relationship between transgender identity and mass violence. Prominent figures within Donald Trump's MAGA movement have previously made claims suggesting transgender individuals are disproportionately represented among mass shooters.

Following the September 2025 shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump Jr. stated on The Megyn Kelly Show: "I can't name, including probably like al Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans movement." He further claimed in a Fox News interview that he couldn't "name a mass shooting in the last year or two in America that wasn't committed by, you know, a transgender lunatic."

What the Data Actually Shows

Contrary to these political assertions, statistical analysis reveals a different reality. According to FactCheck citing figures from the Gun Violence Archive, an independent organization tracking gun-related violence in the United States, there were 5,748 mass shootings (defined as incidents with four or more injured or dead) in the U.S. between January 1, 2013 and September 15, 2025.

Of these thousands of incidents, the GVA identified only five confirmed transgender shooters, representing fewer than one-tenth of one percent of all mass shootings. This percentage remains remarkably low even when considering that transgender individuals constitute a larger proportion of the general population than this statistic would suggest.

Policy Considerations and Historical Context

The Tumbler Ridge shooting occurs against a backdrop of increasing policy discussions regarding transgender individuals and firearm access. In September 2025, multiple news sources reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was considering measures to limit firearm possession rights for transgender people.

This followed reporting by The Independent newspaper that the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project 2025, had called on the FBI to classify "violent transgender ideology" as a new domestic terror threat. These developments came in the wake of the August 2025 shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where 23-year-old transgender woman Robin Westman opened fire, killing two children and injuring 21 others before dying by suicide.

Historical Cases of Transgender Shooters

The five transgender shooters identified by the Gun Violence Archive include:

  1. The March 2023 shooting at a school in Nashville
  2. The November 2022 shooting at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado (though the convicted shooter was later identified as nonbinary, a category that overlaps with but is not identical to transgender)
  3. The May 2019 shooting at a school in Highlands Ranch, Colorado
  4. The September 2018 shooting at a warehouse in Aberdeen, Maryland
  5. The August 2025 Minneapolis church shooting

For context, there have been only four cases of mass shootings by females in the United States since 1982, highlighting how exceptionally rare such events remain regardless of the shooter's gender identity.

Broader Implications and Community Impact

The identification of Van Rootselaar as a transgender female shooter raises complex questions about how society processes such tragedies. Some commentators have cautioned against attempts to humanize the shooter, while others emphasize the importance of understanding all factors contributing to such violent acts.

As the Tumbler Ridge community mourns and investigates this tragedy, the statistical reality remains clear: transgender individuals are responsible for an extremely small fraction of mass shootings, despite political rhetoric suggesting otherwise. The incident underscores the need for evidence-based discussions about violence prevention that consider all contributing factors rather than focusing disproportionately on any single demographic characteristic.