Another angry and despairing transgender has targeted schoolchildren, this time in British Columbia. Here’s why this isn’t an outlier but a natural outcome of an ideology that teaches young people to reject reality and follow the false gospel of victimhood and grievance rather than the true Gospel of victory and gratitude.
This article is a lightly edited transcript of the “Here’s the Point” podcast by Ryan Helfenbein, executive director of the Standing for Freedom Center.
On Tuesday, February 10, the small of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, witnessed one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings in decades, this time at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. Ten people are dead, including the shooter. At least 35 others are wounded. The attacker was 17-year-old Jesse Strang, a biological male who identified as transgender female. The shooter was found dead from a self-inflicted wound. Survivors described chaos, barricaded doors, hiding for over two hours, and the terror of not knowing if they would live or die.
Media reports confirm that Strang was biologically male but began identifying as female around 2023. Strang’s family background included hunting experiences and firearm exposure. His social media profile featured the transgender flag and shooting range activity. His mother’s own Facebook account posted things mentioning childhood violent tendencies.
While Canadian officials have yet to identify a motive, we have actually seen this before and it is by no means in isolation. Those who are at war with their very nature are at war with everyone else. Those who commit violence against their own bodies have no regard for violence against anyone else. And when gender ideology allows anyone to view themselves as victims of injustice, they will justify any violence against oppressors as a righteous cause.
So how should Christians think about this? Here are four points.
First, trans-victim ideology is a natural pathway to death and destruction.
When you teach people that they are oppressed victims, that society is fundamentally unjust to them, that truth is an enemy, that affirmation is the only appropriate response to dysphoria and that regular people are oppressors, these become the necessary conditions for violence. Critical theory along with gender ideology along with intersectionality divide the world into two categories: the oppressor and the oppressed, teaching that the oppressed have a moral license to strike back and to hurt others, even ending their life.
A few years ago, we witnessed this with the Nashville shooter at Covenant Christian School. Christians were the oppressor in the shooter’s written manifesto. Victimhood became violence when ideology trumped reality and the truth.
Second, denying biological reality has deadly consequences.
Transgender ideology teaches people to deny the most basic truth about themselves: their biological sex. But denial of reality doesn’t just end there. It extends to denying moral reality, spiritual reality, and the truth itself. Rember that in Genesis 1:27, God declares that He created us male and female, in His image. This is not oppression.This is truth that sets all of us free.
Our identify comes from our Creator, not from our feelings and certainly not from gender confusion. A society that cannot define what a woman is cannot protect women. And a society that celebrates and encourages this delusion cannot prevent destruction of the innocent.
Third, the Gospel is the only answer to ideological violence.
The world offers the false gospel of victimhood and grievance versus the true Gospel of victory and gratitude. Romans 3:23 reminds us that we have all sinned and that there are no victims, only sinners needed a Savior.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 tells us that sexual immorality, idolators, and men who practice homosexuality will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, but it adds this: “And such were some of you, but you were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Gospel doesn’t celebrate sin, nor does it wallow in self-pity and sorrow of victimhood. But Jesus Christ does rescue and transform sinners — sinners into victors.
Fourth, Christians must speak the truth with courage and compassion.
We must refuse to participate in the delusion that biological men can become women or that gender confusion should be celebrated or even coddled for fear of what harm transgendered men and women might do to themselves or even do to others.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news that Jesus rescues every person…every person who calls upon the name of the Lord. And that includes those who are struggling with gender dysphoria. We cannot help people by affirming self-delusion or the cultural lies all around the use.
We love them by speaking the truth in love. The reason we see so much trans violence is that trans people are at war with nature and they are at war with innocent life. Our society needs more than a “love is love” response or total affirmation at the cost of truth, moral decency, and public sanity.
We need Christians willing to stand firm on the truth, even when culture demands we bow to gender ideology. Because silence will not save us. Compromise will not protect our children. Only truth can turn back the tide of trans violence.
The families grieving in Tumbler Ridge need our prayers, but they also need the truth that overcomes spiritual blindness and the fog of political correctness that only aids and abets the insanity of the gender delusion.
So pray for the victims but continue to speak the truth and stand firm on the Word of God — because it will always accomplish God’s purposes and it will never be in vain.
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