Heated Debate Breaks Out In Wikipedia Editors’ Forum Over Trans-Identifying Shooter’s Pronouns

Wikipedia’s editors’ forum filled with infighting Wednesday over the appropriate way to refer to a transgender-identifying shooter who killed two children at a Minneapolis Catholic school.

Soon after Robin Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School’s church in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, a small band of Wikipedia editors began to police the online encyclopedia’s article on the shooting, according to Pirate Wires.

The changes started with an editor identified as SuperPianoMan9167 swapping all instances where the shooter was referred to as a male for female terms. The editor also deleted all instances that referred to Westman’s birth name, Robert, arguing that to bring up the name Westman used before he began to identify as female is “deadnaming” and against Wikipedia policy.

“Wikipedia does not include someone’s birth name, even if it is sourced, unless they were notable under that name; to do otherwise is deadnaming,” SuperPianoMan9167 wrote. The anonymous editor said the risk of deadnaming applies to the shooter’s pronouns, as well.

The edits received pushback.

“[The birth name] is in the headline of arguably the most famous and reputable newspaper in the world [The Times]. To expunge it from WP is so absurd as to warrant invoking WP:IGNORE,” an editor identified as Ergo Sum said, referring to Wikipedia’s stance that any rule that “prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia” in a certain circumstance should be ignored.

Editors tried to argue that they were making principled arguments around Wikipedia policy that should not be understood as expressing sympathy for a transgender-identifying mass shooter.

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“It doesn’t matter how insensitive it is (trust me, I think she was a terrible human being); it’s Wikipedia’s job to get the facts straight. If she identified as a female, then that’s what what [sic] Wikipedia should reflect, no matter how disgusting of a person someone is,” an editor identified as EF5 wrote.

As of this writing, Wikipedia’s article on the shooting does not mention the shooter’s birth name, Robert, and exclusively uses female pronouns to refer to the shooter. There is only one mention of Westman as “transgender.”

Another topic of debate stemmed from the FBI’s decision to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.

“I get the antisemitism part, but last I checked, Catholics are not a protected minority, or even just a minority for that matter, so the ‘hate crime’ classification does not apply,” an editor that goes by the online name 46.97.170.26 said.

An editor identified as Unknown Template responded: “The FBI classes hate crimes against any identifiable group, including, shock horror, even Christians and *gasp* white people.”

Unknown Template and others who argued in favor of the hate crime designation appear to have won that argument. The article mentions that the FBI is investigating the shooting as an “act of domestic terrorism and an anti-Catholic hate crime.”

Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday morning as students and staff attended mass in the school’s church. Westman fired through the church’s windows from the parking lot, killing two students and injuring 17 others. Westman later turned his gun on himself, according to police.

Westman catalogued his extensive hate against Catholics, Jews, Donald Trump, and himself in writings, pictures, and videos. In one entry, Westman wrote that he came to regret his transgender identity.

“I only keep [long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” Westman wrote.

“I can’t cut my hair now as it would be [an] embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported,” he continued. “It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack.”