By Alex Seitz-Wald and Mike Hixenbaugh -
NBC News
In the hours after the shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, some conservatives were quick to blame the massacre on the gender identity of the shooter, connecting the tragedy to his national crusade against human rights. transgender.
Little is known publicly so far about the motives of the shooter, whom police have identified as a transgender former student of The Covenant School who was upset about having to attend the facility.
[Six dead, three of them children, after shooting at Nashville school. The person who opened fire was shot down by the police]
Six people died, including three 9-year-old students and three staff members.
The attacker was killed by police, who are still investigating.
As Nashville residents mourned, some Republicans used the shooting to target transgender people.Brendan Smialowski/AFP - Getty Images
As Republicans across the country move to ban trans literature from school libraries, pass laws banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, and prepare to campaign against progressive values (what many call
woke
de pejorative form
)
about gender and sexuality, the combination of a trans person attacking a Christian school sparked a firestorm among conservatives.
"Transgender murderer targets Christian school", read in giant letters the front page of the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, while the hashtag #TransTerrorism was a trend on the social network Twitter.
[Attacker and all six killed in Nashville Christian school shooting identified: all three boys were 9]
There have been dozens of mass shootings this year, and investigators have found that
98% of those attacks are carried out by cisgender men.
But some far-right politicians and activists have used the Nashville shooting to baselessly claim that there is an “epidemic of trans/non-binary mass shooters,” as Donald Trump Jr. put it on Twitter.
Some conservatives, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ge., and Fox News host Laura Ingraham, have suggested that hormones such as testosterone and psychiatric medications were a factor, even though there is no public information on whether the attacker was taking such drugs.
“Everyone can stop blaming the guns now,” Greene tweeted.
“Everyone can stop blaming the guns now,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georg., tweeted. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, whose campaign last year focused in part on cultural grievances from conservatives, said on Twitter that if “a trans shooter targeted a Christian school, there needs to be a lot of soul-searching in the far left.
Giving in to these ideas is not compassion, it is dangerous.
"This has nothing to do with gender"
Meanwhile, advocates for transgender inclusion warned that this kind of inflammatory reaction would lead to an escalation of attacks on LGBTQ rights.
Kim Spoon, an activist who has protested new Tennessee laws targeting transgender health care and
drag
shows , said she can't remember many politicians saying there's something wrong with all cisgender white men after other mass shootings.
“This has nothing to do with gender,” she said.
"It's easy access to weapons."
Vigils held in Nashville after school shooting that left six dead
March 28, 202302:17
The online debate took on a familiar pattern: Democrats were advocating more gun restrictions and conservatives were blaming other factors, in this case, gender identity.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, wrote on Twitter: “Some of the things being said about trans people on this platform tonight are so vile,” and followed up by retweeting one commenter who simply wrote: “It's the guns.
” .
[More than 100 bills target LGBTQ rights so far in 2023]
Charlie Kirk, the founder of the powerful conservative group Turning Point USA, countered that argument, writing on Twitter: "Instead of banning 'assault rifles,' we should ban gender-affirming health care for children."
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, which advocates for stricter gun laws, said it seemed that “the list of what gun extremists have blamed for mass shootings keeps growing: violent video games, mental health, not enough doors , there are too many doors, and now gender identity.”
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in 2022. Tom E. Puskar / AP
"What they don't want to talk about is that only in the United States can a shooter get their hands on the assault weapons, one equipped with a prosthetic arm, that were used to commit this atrocity," he said.
House Republicans are trying to overturn a new rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to regulate controversial stabilizing braces, one of which appears to have been used in the Nashville shooting.
And a GOP bill before the Tennessee Legislature would relax the state's gun laws, lowering the legal age for obtaining a permit to carry a firearm from 21 to 18 and allowing permit holders to carry handguns. public assault.
[Nashville School Shooting: The Details of a Massacre Police Say Was Thoroughly Planned]
At the same time, several GOP-controlled state legislatures, including Tennessee, recently took steps to limit access to gender-affirming health care, criminalize drag shows, and ban discussions and books about transgender people in
schools
. .
Former President Donald Trump opened his re-election campaign with a promise to punish doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors, which he compared to "child abuse" and "child sexual mutilation."
And at last month's Conservative Political Action Conference, Daily Wire presenter Michael Knowles called for the eradication of “transgenderism” from society.
Nashville mayor asks community for help with funeral costs for shooting victims
March 28, 202303:16
Hours after the shooting, the anti-trans backlash had already begun to reach local levels.
At a tense Tennessee school board meeting Monday night, a mother cited the Nashville shooting in her call for the district to ban what she called “satanic” library books depicting sexual relationships and LGBTQ people.
“We just saw a young man who was deluded into thinking he was a woman and killed six people,” the mother said, mischaracterizing the suspect's gender.
"If that's not a testament to how messy this whole trans strategy is... then I don't know what is."
[Nashville school shooter receiving treatment "for emotional disturbance" but was able to legally purchase seven guns]
Spoon, the local progressive activist, attended the school board meeting in Clinton, Tennessee, a few hours from Nashville.
The anger in the room when parents called for the books to be taken off the shelves felt primal, she said, different from previous board meetings.
Nashville police took 14 minutes to neutralize the attacker after the 911 alert
March 28, 202300:43
“They've been saying for months, 'We're worried about the children,'” Spoon said.
“'We're protecting the kids from these
drag queens
.'
Now they are taking advantage of this to say: 'Yes, come, we told you so.'
Spoon condemned the shooting, saying he fears
that subsequent rhetoric will lead to violence and retaliation against transgender people.
“I didn't get any sleep last night,” Spoon said.
"I'm worried after reading all these hateful comments."
