The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Democrats Deflect From Truth About Minnesota Trans School Shooter 

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Victor Davis Hanson explains why this was not simply a tragedy, but an act of evil, and why the media and political leaders refuse to have an honest discussion about the factors behind it on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “They won't have any discussion over transgenderism. This falls in the broader category of exempt DEI woke topics, but I think we should talk about this. This is the fourth or fifth incident—I don't even like the word "incident"—occurrence of transgendered shooters who are protected by authorities. “We were told, "Be careful about Big Pharma. Be careful about Big Med." All of those worries and prohibitions and cautions were thrown out the window, as were SSRI antidepressants. These were selective serotonin prohibitors. In other words, they altered the chemistry of the brain, supposedly, to correct mental disturbances, depression, bipolarity. But they're very dangerous drugs. But when it came to the exempt topic of transgenderism, suddenly the society was supposed to accept that this was not a mental disorder. It was not a rare occurrence. It was a national crisis where large percentages of the population were transgendering.” 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1    👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273    👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com  (0:00) Introduction (1:49) Democrat Hypocrisy on Politicization of Tragedy (2:49) They Won’t Touch DEI (4:13) Democrats’ Reactions Miss the Point (4:53) Gender Dysphoria Erasure (6:24) Medication’s Role in Transgenderism (8:48) DEI Censorship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. There's been another shooting, mass shooting, this time in Minneapolis, at Annunciation Private Catholic School. One Robert Westman, who has transitioned a few years ago to female status, now called Robin Westman, shot and killed two youths inside a church and wounded 18 others. I would say it's another one of these tragic mass shootings, but I don't like the word tragic because tragedy, a good Greek word, does not denote culpability. It's not just

tragic. These things just don't happen. They happen because of evil. And this man, this young man, was evil. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. There's been another shooting, mass shooting, this time in Minneapolis at Annunciation Private Catholic School. One Robert Westman, who has transitioned a few years ago to female status. us now called Robin Westman, shot and killed two youths, two kids, I should say, inside a church and wounded 18 others. The church was locked. He stood outside with a variety of weapons and kept firing through the windows at the pews to kill small children, killed two and wounded 18. I would say it's another one of these tragic mass shootings, but I don't like the word

tragic because tragedy, a good Greek word, does not denote culpability. It's not just tragic. These things just don't happen. They happen because of evil. And this man, this young man, was evil. But here's what it's really disturbing. And the reaction to this shooting, we got moral lectures and strictures from the mayor of Minneapolis, from the governor of Minneapolis, from the governor of California, and almost immediately they said, do not politicize this, and then they went and politicized it. They did that in two ways. One, they said, it's verboten. You cannot talk about the transgender status of the shooter. And two, this was only because of the easy accessibility of guns. Mr. Westman or Ms. Westman acquired these guns legally, and therefore the law should be tightened.

I don't know what we're going to do about that. There are over 400 million guns, and the left can't even distinguish between an automatic and semi-automatic rifle. If you have a 22, and it's a semi-automatic rifle, and you painted it black and dressed it up, you could say that it was an assault weapon because it fired semi-automatically. But nonetheless, they won't have any discussion over transgenderism. This falls in the broader category of exempt DEI woke topics. But I think we should talk about it. This is the fourth or fifth incident.

I don't even like the word incident, occurrence of transgendered shooters who are protected by authorities. I mean, I don't mean from their criminal acts, but after they are killed or after they commit suicide, the authorities and the public at law, does not want to discuss the implications of the act. And so in the case of the Tennessee Transgendered Shooter, we were not given any information about his, her handbook, or his manifesto, which expressed hatred toward Christianity and society at large, traditional society. In this case, Mr. Westman put his own hate-filled rants,

including one that suggested that he was angry that he had transitioned to female status on the internet. It was quickly put down, but otherwise we wouldn't have known much about him. But there's another thing that DEI does that we don't really talk about. It exempts certain topics that before warranted free discussion. What do I mean now in this case? For example, Jake Tapper was more worried about getting the proper pronouns than he was condemning the shooter. And that was true of a lot of people.

Some people just said, well, this is a white male MAGA shooter, obviously. That was Rosie O'Donnell. She was mimicking the CNN anchor woman who said in the New York Manhattan shooting at the NFL headquarters. Her first response was it was a white male. It was not, of course. So people on the left are quite prone to jump to conclusions and stereotypes, but not when it comes to honest discussion about transgenderism. And here's my point again. Prior to the transgender movement, we were told by scientists, psychologists, medical experts that gender dysphoria was a very rare syndrome. It was classified as a mental disorder and it was about one or two per hundred thousand, not 30 percent of some of the campuses in which students feel that they might want to transition. It's more or less, I don't want to say a cult, but it's a FAD. There's another disturbing point about it other than its exaggerated numbers and frequency,

and that is the drugs used to transition one from one gender or sex to another. Usually they are respectively massive doses of testosterone or estrogen. I grew up with the left's warning about both of them. We were told that you have to be very careful about injecting testosterone, and we used kind of patois about it. Roid rage for steroids, but testosterone rage was another symptom. Every time a football player died or a weightlifter died, the media suggested that they had courted death by using massive doses of testosterone. In the 1950s and early 60s, women who went into menopause were regularly, and without caution, prescribed large doses of estrogen. We were told be careful about big pharma be careful about big med all of those worries and

prohibitions and cautions were thrown out the window as were SSR s s r sri antidepressants these were selective serotonin prohibitors in other words they altered the chemistry of the brain supposedly to correct mental disturbances depression bipolarality but they're very dangerous drugs. But when it came to the exempt topic of transgenderism, suddenly the society was supposed to accept that this was not a mental disorder.

It was not a rare occurrence. It was a national crisis where large percentages of the population were transgendering. It was completely fine to enhance that transformation through the use of prior very serious and often dangerous drugs, and any criticism of the general public of this new civil rights issue branded one as a transphobe or otherwise a bigot.

And even in some extremes, as we see in Minnesota, they pass laws suggesting that you cannot prohibit a youth depending on the age from transatlanticism. They have a freedom to do that. And in a free society, when you have an inordinate amount of shooters and anordinate amount of death, and there seems to be a pattern of over-representation, whether it is white males or black males or Asian women, if any of these groups is overrepresented, the left usually says we have to investigate. By that I mean if the victims were, this was a school or a medical center for trans children or teenagers and a white maga male with a red hat had come in and shot up that center and killed some, God forbid. I think you would see the left would be quick to stereotype and say that we have a pathology of white males shooting up trans children. But we don't do, we don't apply the same rules and opposite.

And just to finish, that is one of the great problems with DEI, which I'd like to discuss at a later moment, but DEI gives exemptions, or I should say it censors legitimate controversies, discussions, disagreements about certain topics, race, ethnic background, and sexual orientation. transgenderism. I'm not talking about isms and ologies or bigotry. I'm just talking about normal questions of whether it is proper or not proper to apply particular rules or exemptions to particular groups. Until we have that discussion, I think we're going to be as a society completely unable to talk honestly and empirically about these mass shootings. Thank you very much. It's Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal.

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