‘Opportunity To Villainize Our Trans Community’: Right Turns Shooting Into Hate Spree
Most US mass shootings committed by cisgender, white men
Politicians and influencers on the political right immediately began vilifying, attacking and scapegoating the transgender community after the alleged shooter in Wednesday’s school shooting in Minneapolis, Minn, was identified as a trans woman.
Despite the vitriol and attacks against transgender Americans as inherently violent and mentally ill, most mass shootings carried out in the United States are done so by cisgender, heterosexual, white men.
The shooting took place Wednesday morning at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis, during a Mass for school children there. Three people were killed: two children and the perpetrator. Meanwhile, 17 others were injured, including 14 children.
The shooter was quickly identified as a young transgender woman, which led to a slew of political attacks and hate directed against transgender individuals.
Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga), someone who has long advocated enmity towards transgender people, posted on X: “Gender dysphoria is a mental illness and children are being targeted by the multi billion dollar medical and pharmaceutical industry. If they are willing to destroy themselves and how God made them then they are willing to destroy others and we saw that happen today.”
White nationalist and right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk posted: “If you are crazy enough to want to hormonally and surgically ‘change your sex,’ you have a mental disorder, and you are too crazy to own a firearm.”
And Benny Johnson, a far-right influencer known for taking money from Russian sources in exchange for the spread of propaganda, posted: “One thing is VERY clear: the trans movement is radicalizing the mentally ill into becoming violent terrorists who target children for murder.”
Others leapt to the defense of the trans community, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Frey denounced attempts to turn the tragedy in his city into an excuse for hate.
“We can’t just say that this shouldn’t happen again and then allow it to happen again and again beyond that. It’s on all of us. And I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” he said during a press conference Wednesday. “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.
“We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of love for our kids. Kids died today, this needs to be about them,” he added. “This needs to be wrapping our arms around these families with every bit of love that we can possibly show.”
The truth is — borne out by facts, figures and statistics — is that of the hundreds of mass shootings that take place annually across the country, those committed by trans people is a tiny fraction.
More than 97 percent of perpetrators are male, and most are white.
And despite right-wing hysteria, there is no “incredible rise” in transgender shooters.
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