We’ve written most of what we want to say about the disastrous reporting around the Tumbler Ridge murders here and here. On February 10, Jesse Strang/Van Rootselaar, 18, killed his mother and brother before shooting dead five children and a teaching assistant at the local secondary school in a remote town in British Colombia. Twenty-seven people were injured and he then killed himself. It was the deadliest school shooting in Canada in nearly 40 years.

The police security alert warned of a ‘female wearing a dress’ and the authorities have refused to answer reporter questions about whether they deliberately misled the public and all the children at the school, endangering their safety. Reduxx accurately reported the name and sex of the killer just after 7am UK. It was 12 hours before the police admitted they were right, though they gave the surname that Strang wasn’t locally known by. In the meantime some outlets paused their descriptions of Strang as female - others bedded in, notably the Canadian media and Sky News, ITV and the Guardian, though the Guardian was eventually obliged to remove the word ‘woman’ from its article.

Since then, only the Telegraph and Daily Mail have continued seriously to investigate Strang’s background, with a troubled family life and unsettling online posts unearthed. For the rest, except in Canada, it’s been a case of ideological evasion. The story simply fell off, while Canadian media is outraged when anyone expresses interest in the fact that Jesse Strang was a man.

The natural and obvious question next is to what extent his trans identity, associated aggressive victimhood, and medications were relevant to the crime. The normal course of reporting is to explain the facts (confounded at every stage by Canadian police) and then explore the issues around them. Some outlets claim to have the magical and immediate insight that his trans identity was entirely incidental and therefore not worth reporting at all, never mind exploring. This meant overlooking the question of whether his clear mental health problems were somewhat ignored in favour of transgender affirmation.

We know that this is a documented problem. Trans identified people have complained about not being able to access mental health care for co-morbidities after being put on gender clinic waiting lists. Affirmation has been enshrined in Canada’s law, education system and social policies for a decade and Strang’s claim to be a woman could have papered over other issues, and certainly was not seen as an element of his psychosis. Even after he murdered children, the police were condescendingly correcting journalists who used male pronouns.

In the last three days, parts of the Canadian media have gone on the attack, promoting a narrative that trans people needed protecting yet again from misinformation. The difference this time is that Canada looks increasingly isolated, and its obsession with affirmation and the ‘wrong victims’ in the face of mass child murder seems bizarre. No one else is joining in. The New York Post even said the media needs to stop gaslighting its audiences and Sky News Australia deplored the fear of ‘misgendering’ a killer. Finally this week end Canadian journalist Jon Kay demanded: Stop Pretending the Tumbler Ridge Killer Was Female

It’s very important that the BBC veered sharply from the affirmation of the global news agencies Reuters and AFP, after it was confirmed that Strang was a man. It’s forging its own path now. Because the BBC is so ubiquitous and trusted, people see it along with their own news supplier, and can compare and contrast. It didn’t alter the way the agencies handled themselves this time but it will have been noticed.

The BBC also provided a straightforward accurate update on one of the week’s other big stories, the High Court’s dismissal of Good Law Project’s challenge to the interim EHRC guidance on single sex spaces.

This was vital because the Good Law Project had issued a statement claiming a partial victory despite at the same time announcing its plan to appeal the decision.

The GLP had claimed that the interim guidance, which basically said all spaces signposted single sex have to be single sex, was unlawful. The High Court upheld the guidance. This X thread by barrister Amanda was an early explainer of how every point of the challenge was dismissed, including the esoteric claim that male clearners or a mother taking her boy toddler into the women’s toilets are the equivalent to a trans-identified man claiming entry. Barrister and former EHRC Commissioner Akua Reindorf was also extremely helpful and in addition gave expression to a a universal sense of frustration that the ruling was so widely misrepresented, including by some MPs. This detailed update and explanation came from Michael Foran yesterday. Former EHRC chair Baroness Falkner tweeted for the first time in four years about ‘personal vindication’.

There was also confusion about the message coming out of a meeting between Bridget Phillipson and Jennifer Melle. Barrister Anya Palmer explains here. Of course, men identifying as women might still use female toilets at work but it doesn’t mean it’s lawful. It had already been known that the Code of Practice for Services didn’t apply to workplaces. But the press messaging treated it as a revelation, and fed the myth that it therefore meant the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t apply to employers - who still have to wait for EHRC guidance. None of this is true.

The new schools guidance - also Bridget Phillipson’s brief - was subject to extreme news management by her team. Here is Stephen Swinford, the Times Political Editor, explaining it and complaining about it.

It’s very decided on single sex spaces, and this was welcomed, but the timing meant that on the day there was very little questioning around one of the central planks of the guidance - that for the first time it legitimises social transition in school, including in secret (however rarely). The ‘rarity’ of the possibility seemed to be expected to allay all concerns. ITV’s coverage omitted any comment from safeguarding campaigners. Sky News didn’t touch it. It did lead the Six o Clock news on Radio Four and was second item on the BBC’s national bulletin - impressive acknowledgement of how significant the story is.

However the next day wider dissections came from the Today programme with Justin Webb interviewing Baroness Spielman and a union leader, from Janice Turner in the Times, from Helen Joyce on Times Radio, from Shelley Charlesworth on TalkTV and from Tom Swarbrick on LB, among others. Usefully so, as it’s out for public consultation: see here.

The Belfast Newsletter had a fantastic scoop overnight on Friday:- no children in Northern Ireland will be participants in the Pathways puberty blocker trial, at least until the Judicial Review from Keira Bell, James Esses and Bayswater Group is heard, and possibly not even then. Such a great story, later picked up by the Times and welcomed by Keira Bell herself. It’s from David Thompson, the producer brains behind the landmark Stonewall podcast at the BBC.

Last week, conversion therapy at the Council of Europe: this week, ‘trans women are women’. MEPs voted for all its member nations and institutions to recognise trans-identified men are, officially, women, and rejected an amendment saying that only biological women get pregnant. Props to Roisin Michaux for posting live links and tweets. It was barely covered, except in LGBT+ outlets, but there’s a good explanation here. See here for a video of all the women clapping in a creepy way.

This morning Baroness Hilary Cass, author of the Cass Review, was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg. You can listen to all of it here and to the panel interview here. The main BBC article is here - with ‘toxic’ making another tedious appearance - and its top lines were picked up across the board - ‘both sides’ and ‘weaponised’. Here’s the radio news version. Here's our letter to the Kuenssberg show editor explaining the chronic problems with its framing. 

It was a poor show from Laura Kuenssberg - the smear that safeguarding campaigners are anti-trans, weaponise children and engage in extreme abuse were left unchallenged while other highly salient comments on gay children and online harm were not fully explored. Underneath this post is a collation of critiques from lawyers, journalists and safeguarding groups: while this from Transgender Trend is a must read of where it all went wrong. We will never hear the end of the suicide myth - we had it again from Billy Bragg on this show - bookmark this from the Suicide Commissioner as you will need it again.

Mini round up

- Allison Bailey lodged her permission to appeal to the Supreme Court in her case against Stonewall

- Lynsay Watson was arrested. Helen Joyce writes about her experience of him here

- Labour’s by election candidate for Gorton and Denton refused to accept the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex

- The BBC finally updated its transgender factcheck for the first time since May 2024. Additions: ‘only females can produce eggs and only males can produce sperm. Even if someone cannot have children they are still biologically male or female.. These chromosomes are in every human cell..there are some people who have differences of sex development..people with such conditions are still biologically male or female’

- Greens candidate in the Scottish elections Iris Duane says he’ll campaign for his and other men’s access to women’s toilets

- the Telegraph revealed that the Bank of England has sent staff guidance about men being allowed to wear high heels. It looks like it calls them ‘trans men’ rather than ‘trans women’ which was interesting

- Janice Turner interviewed Sandie Peggie in The Times. The nurse describes the terrible personal toll of the legal case she’s obliged to pursue in order that neither she or any other nurse has to strip in front of a man. Janice uses male pronouns because Sandie does.

- Dr Beth Upton left the NHS to go and work in Australia but the Scottish goverment still fights for his right to use the women’s changing room if he ever comes back

- also the NHS, a Filipino man waiting for permission to stay had ‘gender affirmation surgery’ at taxpayer cost. A sample of the ‘he doesn’t even go here’ coverage, which is probably due.

- We recommend this essay by Gerald Posner for a How Did We Get Here? analysis of US ‘gender medicine. The Atlantic political mag, a left-leaning Democrat favourite, published this from Helen Lewis, which was hailed as the victorious end of a PR war for gender safeguarding campaigners. Probably not true, unless same could be said in reverse for David Thomas’s personal ‘trans woman’ journeys in the Telegraph a few years ago, and look how that turned out. Nothing is ever that certain.