The man who opened fire at a Minneapolis Catholic school Wednesday, killing two and injuring 17 before taking his own life, drew renewed attention to the threat of transgender mass shooters.
He joins a surprisingly long list of violent offenders who identify or identified as transgender or nonbinary, in the context of a broader movement that suggests such people live under a constant threat of death—from themselves and others. Many of them have explicitly targeted or shown hatred toward Christians.
None of this means most people who identify as transgender pose a violent threat, nor that activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign are intentionally inspiring people to commit violence.
However, the violent trend raises serious questions about the unintended consequences of transgender activists’ rhetoric.
Authorities have reportedly confirmed that the Minneapolis shooter, whom FBI Director Kash Patel identified as 23-year-old “Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman,” identified as transgender.
Westman joined the ignominious ranks of male-identifying Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, who shot and killed three children and three adults on March 27, 2023, at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school in Nashville, Tennessee. Police fatally shot her during the attack.
On Sept. 20, 2018, 26-year-old Snochia Moseley shot and killed four people at a Rite Aid distribution center in Aberdeen, Maryland, before killing herself. A close friend of Moseley’s told The Washington Post the perpetrator identified as transgender.
On May 7, 2019, then-16-year-old Maya “Alec” McKinney and her 19-year-old fellow student, Devon Erickson, opened fire at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, killing one and injuring eight. Both have been sentenced to life in prison. McKinney, a female, identifies as male.
On Jan. 4, 2024, 17-year-old Dylan Butler opened fire at his school, Perry High School in Perry, Iowa. He killed one student and the school’s principal, injured six more people, and shot himself. Butler does not appear to have identified as transgender, though his TikTok profile used “he/they” pronouns and he identified himself as “genderfluid” in one post.
In November 2023, a grand jury indicted 47-year-old Jason Lee Willie on 14 counts of threatening to injure people across state lines. Willie, a resident of Nashville, Illinois, allegedly threatened to rape girls in girls’ restrooms, carry out a mass shooting at schools, and bomb churches. Willie identifies as female and goes by the name “Alexia.”...