In early January, 22-year-old Pablo Gomez Jr., a senior at UC Berkeley, is suspected of brutally stabbing 27-year-old Emile Inman at the home she shared with several roommates on the 2400 block of Ashby Avenue in Berkeley. Inman, a native of France, was an elementary school teacher and it's unclear if she was known to Gomez or not. Gomez is also suspected of stabbing and injuring another woman north of the Berkeley campus that same day, and then quickly fleeing to Southern California. Berkeleyside originally reported the story, and appended a correction when they learned from a friend of Gomez that Gomez was gender non-conforming and that Gomez's preferred pronoun is "they" or "them." Not long after Ann Coulter and Breitbart discovered how the killing was being covered in this liberal city, and as the Associated Press now reports, the decision to respect Gomez's preferred pronouns has sparked considerable debate — though the AP follows suit, and declines to refer to Gomez as "him."

Berkeleyside was soon forced to shut off commenting on their original post after backlash from the conservative end of the internet grew, with the general consensus being summed up for the AP by College Republicans representative Jonothan Chow: "I think you give away your right to make a demand like that [with your pronouns] when you are arrested for killing somebody."

A week later, Berkeleyside published an op-ed on the topic by Julia Schwartz, who describes herself as "a gender non-conforming 23-year-old chess teacher living in New York City." Schwartz writes, "The they/them backlash is just the latest manifestation of the general discomfort with the knowledge that gender is not a natural truth... While some may use this tragedy as an opportunity to mobilize queerphobia, I would insist that one can mourn the loss of a life without taking away Gomez’s right to their gender. Part of understanding and treating gender-queer people as people means accepting that some of us may not be good people, but all people should have the right to gender self-determination."

A mental competency hearing for Gomez happened last Monday in Berkeley, and a consensus could still not be reached between two doctors who conducted evaluations. A third doctor, the "tie-breaker," will now be brought in, and a decision on Gomez's competency has been postponed until May 1, as the Daily Californian reports.

Gomez was known on the Cal campus as a queer activist and member of the Gender Equity Resource Center, but other members there are declining to comment on the story now, per the AP.