The newly surfaced details from the manifesto of the Minneapolis shooter, Robert "Robin" Westman, bring to light deeply troubling truths that the mainstream media will almost certainly try to bury to protect the left’s carefully constructed narrative around transgender individuals.
Westman, just 23 years old, killed two children and injured 18 others before ending his own life at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday.
This latest atrocity marks the second instance in as many years of an elementary school shooting carried out by someone identifying as transgender. Audrey Hale attacked a school in Nashville, Tenn., in 2023. Both killers left behind manifestos steeped in depression, suicidal thoughts, and violent intent.
Westman’s handwritten manifesto, which he posted on YouTube before the shooting, is a chilling window into his tormented mind. Far from the image of confident affirmation the trans movement tries to project, Westman's writings reveal a young person wracked with self-loathing and regret over his transition.
It’s an issue we must address, no matter how much the left doesn’t want to.
The sad thing is, the left has already shown its hand.
On the day of the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, predictably, threw his weight behind protecting the transgender community from scrutiny, accusing media outlets of “villainizing” the group by reporting Westman’s trans identity. Frey lamented the loss of “common humanity” in the way coverage of the atrocity was framed — yet it’s exactly this refusal to acknowledge uncomfortable realities that contributes to tragedies like this.
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Cryptically mixing English with Russian Cyrillic script, Westman openly admitted in his manifesto, “I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself.” His attachment to long hair as “the last shred of being trans” was so fraught with discomfort that he planned to cut it on the day he unleashed his violence, a symbolic severing of a painful identity. He lamented, “I regret being trans… I wish I was a girl I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today. I also can’t afford that.”
Even Westman seemed to recognize what so many on the left refuse to admit: Self-identifying as the opposite gender doesn’t make it real. No surgery or hormone treatment can change biological reality. The sooner the left stops pretending otherwise, the sooner people struggling with gender dysphoria can get the mental health care they actually need.
This is why the media and political elites will rush to memory-hole this ugly truth rather than confront the broader questions it demands:
- How much do transgender identity struggles, compounded by untreated mental illness, factor into violent behaviors?
- Why is there still no national conversation about the risks posed by affirming confused children without proper psychological evaluation and treatment?
Westman’s manifesto and the tragic consequences of his inner torment should serve as a wake-up call, not a taboo subject.
In the wake of this tragedy, instead of political leaders hiding behind platitudes and blaming the media for telling the whole story, they ought to face facts honestly. This shooting and the stories behind it expose a failed system that affirms mental illness instead of treating it. The cost has been paid in innocent blood once again. The urgent question that remains is whether our society is ready to stop covering it up.
Another transgender shooter, another media coverup—how many more children have to die before we say enough? PJ Media delivers the hard truths about gender ideology’s deadly consequences that corporate media refuses to report. Support our work by becoming a PJ Media VIP! Use code FIGHT for 60% off your VIP membership and access member-exclusive content that cuts through the propaganda. Support fearless conservative journalism that puts America First!
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