An email sent to a news outlet in NZ re: Canadian Shooter

And New Zealand is a country where people are traditionally deeply skeptical and dismissive of the media anyway (unlike England, where they play a kids' version of BBC propaganda in school classrooms).

If it comes to lockdowns, escaping gunmen, health warnings, tsunami or landslide risks etc though, you want people at least somewhat paying attention to the news.

Well, look at that.

”It’s the arrogance of it. The way it’s demanded that somebody’s frothing should take precedence over horrific events and grief. You need to be pretty obsessive to react like that.”

Almost word for word from another poster on a thread about posters ‘hijacking’ threads.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5489967-to-think-the-way-mn-lets-anti-trans-extremists-hijack-a-tragedy-is-pretty-despicable?reply=150515733&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

It seems rather hypocritical that some posters feel the need to comment with such judgement and prejudice on threads that they don’t agree with. As if they are ‘hijacking’ a tragedy to make their own political point while disparaging those they disagree with.

If there a reason why you frame OPs request to a news outlet that they report the facts in this terrible tragedy clearly and honestly as ‘frothing’?

Do you have a problem with facts and honesty? Are there any other topics where you will accept blatant lies as ‘news’ or is it just this one?

We can address the pronoun issue without blowing it out of all proportion in relation to CHILDREN LOST THEIR LIVES THAT DAY. Nothing else, and certainly not your culture war, matters as much as allowing families to bury and grieve their dead without a fecking political storm of who did what and what's in their pants, and our fecking "confusion" coming into play, like our feelings on that matter are of pre-eminent concern

I’d say it was pretty disrespectful to the victims for the police and global media to spread lies about a fundamental fact regarding the murderer but you go off trying to shame people into silence.

The secrecy and silencing from authorised have contributed to these attacks (remember, this boy is one of a number of shooters who identify as trans). There are clear and very specific mental health issues that need to be addressed and silencing public conversation on this only contributes and will ultimately lead to more deaths.

You reducing this down to an accusation of us being concerned with “what’s in his pants” in an attempt to silence us is very much part of the problem. Why would you want to do that?

People are being incredibly naive if they think it is no big deal for the media to blatantly lie about obvious facts.

The long term implications of that are staggering. Why should we believe anything they say if they'll lie about this?

Are you consistent on this, though?

If you support stricter gun controls or better mental health support, do you decry as “frothing” people who lobby for that after yet another shooting?

Many people on this board sincerely and with a decent amount of evidence believe that the same ideology that led to this person being called female is also doing real harm, with a real body count, to real children. Not least by diverting mental health attention away from disturbed children who really need the help, possibly explaining this killing, and others perpetrated at an unusually high rate by trans-identifying teens.

In other words it’s directly relevant in a way that gun control is.

Should the gun-control-and-better-mental-health-support crew (I’m one also) just shut up with their hobby horse frothing too? Or is it only arrogant when you personally disagree with it?

No they don’t. Does Jeffrey Epstein have the right to be respected? Hitler?
What a ridiculous take.

Nice try. I actually believe this should be recorded as a male crime, and the reporting should identify it as such. Personally, in reading the reporting that part was crystal clear to me. So no, not involved in a war. Just increasingly disgusted with how tragic events are co-opted for various political "sides" often well before the bodies are cold. And it's so so predictable - like the needle emoji after every sudden young death, often before cause of death is then confirmed as something else entirely. It's happened several times in our community, and every time it's a kick in the gut.

It’s the arrogance of it. The way it’s demanded that somebody’s frothing should take precedence over horrific events and grief. You need to be pretty obsessive to react like that.

He’s a man. He wasn’t female. He wasn’t a woman. Some of us think truth matters in a world where many people are lying.

Well said!

It is Orwellian to pretend that men are women. You know, war is peace, ignorance is strength, that kind of thing. And you commenting on it makes it your culture war too 🤷‍♀️

Oh Lord. I am convinced most people who quote 1984 have never read it.

As best I can tell that information in the article released the night of the shooting, being 10.41pm on the 10th Canadian time. Not to be grim, but bodies from shootings aren't often recovered, identified and returned to their families until 1-2 days after the event. Columbine victims lay where they died or where emergency services dragged them during the shooting (those who died outside the school) for 2 days after.

Was the information known at that time? Maybe. Stuff reported what had been released by Canadian police. Keeping in mind the bodies of the victims were likely still in place in the school grounds, depending on how badly injured they were they may not have been identified yet, and this was still a very new, very shocking event with families likely still being notified within a very close knit community and one child still fighting for their life and many others injured.

This is not Orwell fgs, it's humanity. We can address the pronoun issue without blowing it out of all proportion in relation to CHILDREN LOST THEIR LIVES THAT DAY. Nothing else, and certainly not your culture war, matters as much as allowing families to bury and grieve their dead without a fecking political storm of who did what and what's in their pants, and our fecking "confusion" coming into play, like our feelings on that matter are of pre-eminent concern. There's a time and a place, now is not it. I know someone who's relative was lost at Sandy Hook. The political uproar following was absolute hell for the families. I have zero respect for anyone who doesn't give appropriate space and time before recriminations, soap boxes and arguing over who of the onlookers is the most badly injured / maligned, when at the end of the day they can still go home to their live children rather than empty beds.

There is a clear difference between deliberate disinformation repeated in print media and confusion stemming from immediacy to an event.

Stuff used words like 'confirm female suspect dead' in headlines at a time when it was already apparent the shooter was likely a male who described himself as female. They should not report in absolutes if they know there is ambiguity.

Some of us are no longer willing to live in an Orwellian landscape where "The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.'

Since the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are male, it makes a difference to perception of the trend on the part of people who accept pronouns as unimpeachable fact.

He

Its idealogical framing because only an ideology considers that men can become women. Science certainly doesnt.

Are you seriously concerned with fairness towards a mass murderer in the use of their pretend pronouns? Thats pretty idealogical too.

”Police say Van Rootselaar was born a biological male and began transitioning to being female approximately six years ago.”

From the BBC article linked to above.

How the hell was he “transitioning to being female?” In what way did he change his chromosomes? Did his body spontaneously develop a uterus and ovaries?!

This is why the steady attack on our language is so insidious. A Trans identifying man cannot make himself ‘female.’

Maybe it’ll be possible sometime in the very far future, when somehow we’ll be able to alter our DNA at will (although I suspect humanity will have triggered an extinction level event long before we get there). Certainly not know though.

Sigh. BBC leading with the bodycount This old Charlie Brooker clip remain ever relevant.

Oh gosh I forgot about the KFC thing, one of my kids came home from school with that and we're at the opposite end of the country!

Fair point. I was at Eastgate when the Chch mosque shootings were unfolding. My nephew went into lockdown at Linwood Primary and we all got corralled into a holding area till given clearance to collect the kid. I was privileged to hear hundreds of bits of "information" from the gathering parents, including that the mosques had declared war and were bombing KFC.

Again, the Stuff reporting was very clear, very early on, and obviously isn't in the same country. Reports on the ground probably could have been better, yes. And there is a conversation to be had about pronouns, yes, sure.

However active shooter situations are notoriously chaotic and reporting is often full of inaccuracies at the start, with revisions happening later. This isn't limited to situations where the shooters are trans. I remember the Christchurch mosque shooting reports were constantly changing in the initial event and aftermath. This is normal as information does not come out ordered and neatly packaged for public consumption. One could argue reporters should be able to pull it together like that before printing, however the 24/7 news cycle that we ALL buy into and indeed demand often doesn't allow the room for this.

If you want an interesting rabbit hole to go down, look into the Columbine martyr myths that persist to this day despite all evidence to the contrary. Those stories took hold very early on, via understandable confusion and shock of eye witnesses reporting things that turned out to be impossible, and a public very willing and needing to believe in some kind of redemptive story coming from such an awful and not-yet-commonplace tragedy. When the truth came out ... people didn't care, the stories didn't change.

Accurate reporting matters. Feel free to call it out. But do it for everything, not just where pronouns are involved. Otherwise it looks an awful lot like something else. I know a number of people who will be het up about this trans shooter and "accuracy" in reporting, but will defend to the end the Columbine narrative of Christian persecution because it suits their ideas of the world.

@HoskinsChoice it does matter. These murders are not the crimes of a woman and should not be represented as such. I made the mistake of looking at the Wikipedia entry and throughout it refers to she and her.