Transgender Rights Action Network new Brunswick

I am deeply saddened by the shooting that happened in Tumbler Ridge yesterday. My thoughts are with the victims, family and friends of those involved. There is absolutely no justification for such an event to occur. And I will in no way try to justify it. However, people on the right have tried to make this about a “transgender killer.” As is becoming more obvious, the shooter seems to have been transgender.

I just want to start this part off by saying that 99.9% of transgender people just want to be left alone to live their lives. Are there some trans people who aren’t good people? Of course, there are in any demographic you can think of. However, most people, including trans people, are basically good. The problem, as I see it, is that a small but vocal minority of predominantly cis people insist on making life hard for trans people. And that is tough. Some of us deal with that through self harm, some by lashing out, while some of us learn that the hate is not about us and shrug it off. I like to think that I am currently the latter, but I did go through a period of self harm.

Getting back to the point at hand. I would say that she, for whatever reason, chose to lash out. Whether it was bullying at school, her family didn’t support her, she was reading the s**t that is being spewed on the internet, or another reason, or even all of the above, we will probably never know. My point here is that these events don’t happen in a vacuum. There is a reason why this happened. It cannot be summed with the phrase “mental illness.” I will get to that in a minute. There is a larger problem going on here.

Speaking of mental illness, everyone throws it around in times like this, but what do they mean? There is a 1000+ page book called the DSM5 that has hundreds of forms of mental illness in it. So, just saying mental illness is kind of meaningless. I hate to burst some people’s bubble, but going on a shooting rampage is not “necessarily” an indication of mental illness. Is there some underlying mental health concern involved, probably, but not necessarily. The reality is that most people with mental health issues, contrary to popular belief, are not violent.

I Want to make sure that everyone who reads this understands that I am in no way trying to condone what happened. I am trying to present nuances into the situation. Trying to show that thing are not always as simple as some would make you believe.

One last thing. From my understanding she did go by she/her pronouns, so that is what I used here. Also, the fact that I never used her name, was also a deliberate choice.