One might suppose that the contest over pronouns would end, if anywhere, at the threshold of mass murder. But in the case of the Minneapolis school shooting, it only got worse.
Within hours of an evil murderous rampage at Annunciation Catholic School, commentators on the right seized on the opportunity to bash transgender people when it was revealed the suspect, Robin Westman, was a one of them. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem led the charge on X. The New York Post featured the killer’s own words from a journal prominently on its front page: “I wish I never brain-washed myself.”
Progressive mainstream outlets, on the other hand, bent over backwards to handle pronouns. The story first appeared in The New York Times below the fold under the headline “Minneapolis’s Suspect’s Motive is a Mystery.” On the homepage, Westman wasn’t given a pronoun at all. Click through and the lead reads: “The person who the police say opened fire.” Only later did it use “her.”
The BBC described the shooting as an “anti-Catholic hate crime” and skipped pronouns altogether. NBC used male pronouns, then literally issued a public apology over misgendering the alleged killer.
Noah Rothman of National Review has argued that accused mass killers should be denied the “honorific” of preferred pronouns. I disagree with that characterization, but it exposes a genuine moral quandary. On the burning argument over transgender identity as a privilege or a right, I stand on the side of it being a right.
The liberal case for transgender rights appeals to fairness, equality and safety as a moral imperative. But one can affirm the right of trans people to their identity without believing others must be legally compelled to use specific words. I have come to despise the incessant prosecution and thought-policing of speech around this issue. And I resist when trans rights end up eroding other people’s rights — particularly those of women.
What complicates the matter is that preferred pronouns, often treated in common usage as courtesies, collide here with an atrocity so unforgivable that it forces us to ask whether even fundamental rights can persist unaltered in the face of radical evil.
Any form of certainty on either side is alarming. To insist without hesitation that Westman must be a “he/him” is to assume that trans identity isn’t actually a right — that it can just be stripped away even when no competing right is at stake. To insist with equal force that it is inherently transphobic to refuse to use “she/her” for the killer denies the profound moral difficulty of this case. Both responses miss the deeper point: Our rights are tested precisely where they strain against our instincts.
Even essential rights can face tragic limits. But those limits arise when one right infringes on another — when sex offenders forfeit anonymity or when felons lose the vote. Using Westman’s preferred pronouns violates no one’s rights. It may even illuminate something about the context of this tragedy, which fits a wider pattern: isolated, disenfranchised young biological men lashing out.
News organizations operate in a bind. They’re under immense pressure both to avoid appearing too politically correct and to avoid appearing not politically correct enough.
Perhaps the hesitation of even the New York Times and the BBC suggests that they think there is an endpoint to the right of gender identity — that there are different degrees of rights and some that people are just more comfortable stripping away. Of course, they didn’t say that. But their uncharacteristic unease with pronouns makes it evident that the papers’ assuredly progressive editors are terrified of being called transphobic if they don’t use female pronouns, and terrified of being called woke if they do.
This isn’t complicated. Either you believe in a right to trans identity, or you don’t. Should mass murderers retain the right to have their gender identities recognized? If gender identity is a right, then yes. That doesn’t mean you need to follow NBC’s lead and grovel after misgendering an accused mass murderer, but it does mean you should have the conviction to apply your principles consistently, even under strain.
Conservatives don’t believe in this right, and they’re open about it. That’s consistent, and I take no issue with that. But liberal outlets, as long as they adopt a transgender-affirming editorial approach, should resist the urge to hedge. They should stick to their guns and their convictions — even under the strain of atrocity. Say what you believe is true, and stop ducking it.
William Liang is a writer living in San Francisco.
