❓WHAT HAPPENED: NBC News issued a “correction” for using the “wrong pronoun” to refer to Robin Westman, the transgender Annunciation Church mass shooter.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Transgender mass shooter Robin Westman, NBC News and four of its reporters.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The “correction” was issued on August 29, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “She used female pronouns.” – NBC News correction notice.
🎯IMPACT: The “correction” has sparked public backlash, with many questioning why NBC News is concerning itself with the pronouns of a child killer who confessed in his own writings that he knew he was not really a woman.
NBC News issued a “correction” on Friday after using “the wrong pronoun” for Annunciation Church mass shooter Robin Westman, formerly Robert, who killed two children and left over a dozen others injured in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week.
“CORRECTION (Aug. 29, 2025, 8:05 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article used the wrong pronoun for the shooter. She used female pronouns,” read the correction notice, added to a report on the shooting. Previously, the report had correctly referred to Westman with male pronouns.
According to the shooter’s journal, he knew he was “not a woman,” expressing regret about his transition ahead of the attack. “I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brainwashed myself,” he wrote. “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.”
Westman also reportedly wrote about being drawn to anthropomorphic animals, or “furries,” writing, “I like feeling sexy and cute but my face never matches how I feel. I hate my face.”
“Maybe that’s why I like furries so much. You can give yourself a new body and face,” he added.
Westman fatally shot himself after his attack.
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