In the hours after the shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, some conservatives rushed to blame the massacre on the suspect’s gender identity, connecting the tragedy to their national crusade against transgender rights.
Little is so far known publicly about the motives of the shooter, whom police identified as a transgender former student of The Covenant School who resented having to attend the facility.
Six people were killed, including three 9-year-old students and three staff members. The shooter was killed by police, who are still investigating.
As Republicans across the country move to ban trans literature from school libraries, pass laws outlawing gender-affirming care for trans youth and prepare to campaign on fighting against “woke” values on gender and sexuality, the combination of a trans shooter at a Christian school sparked a firestorm as social conservatives claimed vindication.
“Transgender killer targets Christian school,” the cover of the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post blared in giant letters, while the #TransTerrorism hashtag trended on Twitter.
There have been dozens of mass shootings this year, and researchers have found that 98% of such attacks are carried out by men. But some far-right politicians and activists used the Nashville shooting to baselessly claim there is an “epidemic of trans/non-binary mass shooters,” as Donald Trump Jr. put it on Twitter.
Some conservatives including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Fox News host Laura Ingraham suggested hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness were a factor, despite no public information about whether the shooter was taking such drugs.
“Everyone can stop blaming guns now,” Greene tweeted.
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, whose campaign last year focused in part on conservative cultural grievances, said on Twitter that if “a trans shooter targeted a Christian school, there needs to be a lot of soul searching on the extreme left….
Read the full article here