By The Associated Press
Anti-transgender rhetoric and disinformation in the days following the shooting at a Nashville Christian school that killed six people have heightened the fears of a community already on edge amid a historic push for more restrictions on trans people’s rights this year.
Authorities haven’t shared any evidence linking Audrey Hale’s gender identity to the motive for the attack, which killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School last week.
Yet right-wing commentators, politicians and other figures have cited the shooting as they’ve shared false claims of a rise in transgender mass shooters and suggested that the fight for trans rights is radicalizing people.
Advocates worry the comments are further jeopardizing transgender people by turning them into scapegoats, at a time when they’re speaking out against a wave of bills focused on trans people in statehouses across the country.
The rhetoric has come even from members of Congress, with Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene questioning whether the shooter was on hormone replacement therapy or medications to treat mental illness.
Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, suggested the FBI and Justice Department monitor “violent factions within the trans community.” In Idaho, the head of the state Republican Party invoked the shooting as she called for the governor to sign legislation banning gender affirming medical care for minors.
The disinformation surrounding the shooting doesn’t surprise Imara Jones, a transgender woman and creator of “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine,” a podcast that focuses on the spread of disinformation about transgender people.
Jones noted how quickly false posts spread online falsely identifying a transgender woman as the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas last year.
“This disinformation, one of the things that it is doing is further isolating, stigmatizing and demonizing trans people, allowing us to be targeted by all forms of violence, both from the state and from individuals,” Jones said. “That’s what the disinformation is doing.”
A large number of transgender people say they regularly face verbal and physical abuse. A Washington Post-KFF survey of transgender adults conducted late last year showed that 64 percent of trans adults say they have been verbally attacked because of their gender identity, gender expression or sexual identity, and 25 percent say they have been physically attacked.
Drop a recurring donation now 💜
👉🏽 To help provide housing for Homeless
Trans Women. 🌺 Lets get them all off
the streets.
Debit / Credit 💳
Cash App
PayPal