Prominent conservatives on Wednesday tried to link the deadly school shooting in Minneapolis to transgender issues, renewing calls for restrictions on gender-affirming care.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for example, described “gender dysphoria” as a “mental illness” in a post on X. In a separate post, she urged Congress to pass legislation that she had introduced, which would make it illegal to provide medical care to transgender minors.
“Children are NOT Trans, and grooming them to embrace a dangerous mental illness is fake compassion and child abuse,” Greene wrote.
Other right-wing figures echoed Greene, drawing attention to documents that show the shooter, identified by police as 23-year-old Robin Westman, legally changed their name as a teenager.
“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,” wrote conservative influence Charlie Kirk on X.
“One thing is VERY clear: the trans movement is radicalizing the mentally ill into becoming violent terrorists who target children for murder,” added Benny Johnson, another right-wing commentator.
“The suspect’s parent had filed for a legal name change to ‘Robin M Westman’ in Dakota County in November 2019. The application was granted in January 2020, when Westman was 17, after a hearing,” according to an NBC News report. “The filing granting the name change said it was in the best interest of the minor child because the ‘minor child identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.’”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rebuked those attempting to politicize the tragedy.
“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,” he said at a press conference. “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.”
Authorities say Westman opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children and injuring 17 others before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The FBI is reviewing the case as a possible hate crime or act of domestic terrorism, noting videos linked to Westman contained antisemitic slogans, references to mass shooters, and the phrase “Kill Donald Trump” was scrawled on firearms. Officials said the it was difficult to figure out a coherent ideology or a specific motive for the shooting, but rather a larger fixation with mass violence.
