(LifeSiteNews) — A would-be school shooter, this time in Scotland, again identifies as “transgender.”
Eighteen-year-old “Felix” Winter, a girl identifying as male, has been sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to two charges at a February hearing, a breach of the peace and a Terrorism Act offense. Both were committed between June 2022 and July 2023, when Winter was 15 and 16 years old. Winter is from Kirknewton in West Lothian.
Winter, who idolized the two teens who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 and took 14 lives, repeatedly fantasized to others about launching a “Doomsday attack” with both guns and bombs. As Glasgow High Court judge Lord Arthurson stated in his sentencing:
The assessor reports that entries in your journal make reference to shooting people at school in the head and specifically to shooting their brains out. In January 2023 you stated that the School was “a virus upon this earth” and that “everyone should look at me as if I’m a god better because I [expletive] am and I’ll prove that [expletive] soon”. Between February and April 2023 you wrote in one entry that “my need for killing is getting worse…all you [expletive] need to die and soon you will”. Between April and May 2023 you wrote “the bombs go off in peak of lunch capacity where most people sit/stand” and “I want to cage the lot of you and spray you with gas then burn you”. In May 2023 you detail your “plan so far”, which sets out plans to leave weapons in a car boot as well as in the School, plant bombs set to go off at 11.30am when the School is at maximum capacity and to secure the exits with bike locks. Reference is made to nail bombs, pipe bombs and propane bombs.
Winter’s rage-filled writings, which bear a disturbing and remarkable resemblance to the meandering “manifesto” of transgender-identifying school shooter Audrey Hale, who killed three adults and three 9-year-old children in Tennessee in 2023, document her descent into radicalism and bloodlust. Winter had spent over 1,000 hours online with a neo-Nazi group on Discord; the judge estimated that the teen had spent about two hours a day communicating with the group.
Winter’s growing record of statements about her desire for violence caused alarm amongst both students and parents and was reported to the UK’s counter-terrorism body, Prevent, as someone who posed a risk to the community four different times. She was arrested on July 9, 2023, after a family vacation, under the Terrorism Act, and police discovered that she had been researching how to construct firearms as well as concoct poisons. As noted by the judge, Winter also mentioned explosives to other students.
Winter’s “transgender” identity was not acknowledged as contributing to her mentally disturbed state, although the defense attorney perhaps inadvertently drew the connection. As Scottish Legal News reported: “Shelagh McCall KC, defending, argued for a community-based alternative to custody, describing Winter as having mental health difficulties. She also noted that he [sic] is transgender and asked the court to account for this during sentencing.” The BBC reported that McCall asked for leniency based on Winter’s gender- confused identity: “At a previous hearing, Winter’s lawyer said that the teenager was vulnerable and a [so-called] transgender person and that would need to be taken into account.”
Both Scottish Legal News and the BBC identified Winter as a male, despite the recent UK Supreme Court ruling; the accompanying photos clearly show a young woman. Other outlets, too, incorrectly identified Winter as male. None of the mainstream reportage sought to examine the connection between Winter’s mental disturbances, overall mental health, and her decision to identify as a “male,” despite the fact that it is obviously relevant to both Winter’s behavior and the outcome of the case.
One online commentator observed a possible, although unproven, connection:
https://x.com/treesey/status/1950885726477762797
Although it is rarely covered by the press, transgender violence has become common over the past decade. Fortunately, Winter was identified and arrested before she could perpetrate the sort of tragedy that unfolded at Covenant Christian School when Audrey Hale, who identified as male, opened fire on staff and children. But ignoring the connections between Winter’s identity and her extremism is, at best, media malpractice.
