To think the sex of suspects should always be properly reported for violent or sexual crimes, the mass killer in Canada was male. That's important to know.

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

"Suspect in Canada shooting is identified as an 18-year-old with history of police visits to her home"

Is incorect. Women don't tend to go on mass killing sprees. Or rape many people.

https://apnews.com/article/canada-school-shooting-british-columbia-e577eb5689d1af42f6077a56368d4170

Every news report I've seen said that they were born male.

And YANBU.

You are definitely not being unreasonable.

These are not women's crimes.

It is also dangerous to think that he police were alterting people that this was a female when it clearly was not a female.

That is what this ideology does.

The first reports stated 'a woman in a dress.' These were later reworded to be ambiguous.

I know it sometimes is a biological female but so often not. Sex, not gender, should be recorded for all crimes.

I think a lot of people only read headlines and based on that a lot of people think. woman did this

To be fair to the police, I think the initial reports were coming in - from panicked and terrified witnesses - saying it was a dark haired woman wearing a dress.

But once the incident was over and the sex of the perpetrator was apparent, the reporting needed to be accurate. One UK paper this morning was still referring to the shooter as "she".

These are male crimes

I think the reporting has been very clear. The shooter was born a male.

The initial reports said a woman in a dress but this was quickly corrected.

Tbh as soon as it was reported ‘ the perpetrator wore a dress ‘ I knew it was a trans . It’s not usual to use that wording and before we knew everyone was saying it’s not a woman’s crime .

Huh? It’s still being reported in many outlets as being a female. Clear my arse.

Murder is murder, I can’t see why gender is important.

The first 12 hours or so, especially the Canadian Police announcements all clearly refused to say the shooter was male? And they still are!

Because implying females go on killing sprees, or rape people, is dangerously untrue.

There are some still saying female.

Born a male, lived as a male, died as a male.

I don't think it's helpful to make this a trans debate. In answer to the question posed in the title of your thread: actually, I think it's wrong to report the sex of a suspect because doing so would lead people to jump to conclusions. You're right, women don't tend to be rapists or mass murderers - so nothing to be gained from drip feeding hints in a case such as this one, and I happen to think that whatever your opinion on trans issues this is ultimately a juvenile who should be treated as such. But in other cases, it can be wise and useful to not state or hint that, for example, a nurse suspected of this or that crime against hospital patients is a man or a woman. What's to be gained from it? Why do you need to know?

Today the reports are accurate but yesterday the msm was either saying female or avoiding the issue, long after the sex of the individual had been clearly stated elsewhere.
Like many on MN I immediately assumed the shooter was male, identifying as female.
I do wonder if appropriate psychological and social intervention in a timely fashion could have avoided this tragedy. But Canada would never acknowledge or support that.

Implying anything is irresponsible. Why is it dangerously untrue?

Because crime statistics are skewed by these sorts of lies.

Physical violence, which thus is at the very extreme end of, is almost exclusively a male issue. Therefore interventions to mitigate the risks should be aimed at boys and men. If the stats show that an increasing number of games are now committing these crimes you might change your intervention and prevention strategy when in fact they are male crimes.

Ever listened properly to the lyrics of I Don't Like Mondays? Perpetrator was female so school shootings aren't exclusively a male preserve

They aren’t exclusively male, but female mass killers are extremely rare.

For ANY crime or report. Sex matters.

Age, sex, race, immigration status, everything. Full transparency. The police should stop trying to manipulate public attitudes.

Yes, it's important to be accurate.

However, there are a whole host of reasons that information that is still emergent may be confusing or incomplete. The initial description released in this case was just the police alert, which would have been based on potentially very incomplete information called in to the police. Initial descriptions from witnesses are often very partial or simply wrong.

And then once the immediate danger was over, you have the police avoiding initially releasing much information at all beyond the description in the alert. Which may have been for entirely legitimate reasons like needing to contact families.

And then, in this case, there is the complication that the information is coming from Canadian authorities, and the laws around transgender identification are fraught. So if second guessing what they are saying, it may take longer to find a trustworthy secondary source.

So I suppose what I would say is that it's not reasonable to expect that the media will have perfect information within the first 24 hours. I think anything within that period is subject to change and revision, especially where it is coming from a remote place.

I think it's definitely important not to misreport it, this instance is one where the reporting I've seen has been really clear and the police statement made clear that this was a biological male so I think it's definitely improving on that front.

Previous efforts of reporting only the sex the person sight to identify as only causes confusion, anger and culture war vitriol. So far the reporting I've seen has been responsible but I'm sure there's been some incompetent or bad faith reporting too