Rossmoor Man Arrested Amid Threats To Webster's Dictionary Over Gender

ROSSMOOR, CA — An Orange County man was arrested this week after he was accused of threatening Merriam-Webster dictionary over revising the definitions of the words "girl," "woman" and "female," according to multiple reports.

Jeremy David Hanson, 34, of Rossmoor was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of interstate communication threats to commit violence in federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts.

“Hate-filled threats and intimidations have no place in our society,” said United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins in a statement. "We believe Hanson sent a multitude of anonymous threatening and despicable messages related to the LGBTQ community that were intended to evoke fear and division."

Hanson appeared in federal court in California on Friday on one count of interstate communication of threats to commit violence, which carries a potential sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

Between Oct. 2 and Oct. 8 of 2021, Hanson is suspected to have made threats through the "contact us" feature on the company's website.

“You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive," Hanson wrote.

Under the handle "@anonYmous," he also commented on the dictionary's website definition of of female: "It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot," he wrote.

The dictionary company shut down its Springfield and New York offices for approximately five business days in response to the threats, according to court documents.

On Oct. 8, Hanson also posted another comment, threatening to: "bomb your offices for lying and creating fake…"

"Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but repeatedly threatening to kill people, as has been alleged, takes it to a new level," Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division Joseph Bonavolonta said.

Federal investigators also discovered other online threats linked to Hanson, including to two professors at Loyola Marymount University, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Land O Lakes, Hasbro Inc., IGN Entertainment, the President of the University of North Texas and a New York City rabbi. No charges have been filed in those cases yet.

Hanson's mother told investigators that he has development disorders, including autism, and "poses no threat to the community because he is reclusive, she supervises him and he has no access to weapons," according to the OC Register.

Merriam-Webster's first definition of "female" reads: "of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs." The second definition reads: "having a gender identity that is the opposite of male."

The second definition of "girl" reads: "a person whose gender identity is female."

City News Service contributed to this report.