Mick Hartley

Norwegians eating their fermented herring on toast, or whatever it is they have for breakfast, will have been surprised to read in their morning paper of the case of a woman beating a man to death with a baseball bat. "Hey, that's unusual", they will have muttered to themselves (in Norwegian). But it's not quite so simple:

On the evening of November 27, 2023, a 22 year-old female who went by the name Oliver Ravn Rønning was beaten to death with a baseball bat at her apartment in Porsgrunn, which she had just moved into days before with her partner after having met via an LGBT dating app that summer. Rønning is a female who identifies as a man, while her partner, who Reduxx will refer to as Jonas, is a 19 year-old male who identifies as a woman.

The killer, with a history of violence, has had his sentence reduced on appeal on the grounds that he may have been acting in self-defense. And, you know, him being female and trans and all.

The murder has received significant attention and media coverage in Norway. However, the language used to describe the case has perplexed some readers. Many news reports have altered language used to refer to both the victim and suspect, or have described the case as one in which a woman violently beat her husband to death, obfuscating the sexes of those involved completely.