We are shocked. We are grieving. And we are angry.
Yesterday, a mass shooting took place at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, where two children were murdered and seventeen others wounded. The shooter, a 23-year-old trans woman, turned a sacred space into horror before dying by suicide.
These children should still be alive. These parents should not be burying their kids. This was yet another preventable American tragedy in a country drowning in guns, political cowardice, and performative “thoughts and prayers.”
And while the blood on those church floors is still drying, conservatives wasted no time doing what they always do: weaponizing grief for their own agenda.
Let’s Get the Numbers Straight
Here’s a fact that should stop everyone in their tracks:
97.89% of mass shootings in the United States are committed by cisgender men.
That’s right. Cisgender men. The people who walk through the world without ever having their humanity questioned, who aren’t threatened with bathroom bans, who aren’t losing jobs or housing for simply existing. They are the overwhelming majority of mass shooters.
This week, we saw one exception—a lone trans woman who committed a heinous act. And within minutes, conservative pundits, “family values” politicians, and right-wing media turned this exception into their rallying cry: “See? We told you trans people are dangerous!”
But here’s the truth: trans people are overwhelmingly the victims of violence, not the perpetrators.
The Reality of Violence Against Trans People
The data is not ambiguous:
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Transgender people are four times more likely than cis people to be victims of violent crimes, including sexual assault and aggravated assault.
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Between 2017 and 2021, homicides of trans people in the U.S. rose by 93%.
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In 2021 alone, at least 56 trans and gender non-conforming individuals were murdered—the majority of them Black trans women.
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Guns were the weapon in over 70% of those killings.
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Every year, more than two dozen trans people are murdered in the U.S., making it one of the deadliest countries in the world for trans lives.
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Trans youth face devastating hostility: 82% feel unsafe in schools, nearly half have faced physical violence, and many are bullied out of education entirely.
So no, conservatives don’t get to pretend this is a “pattern.” The only pattern here is trans people dying—at the hands of cis people, by systems designed to fail us, by governments intent on erasing us.
The Scapegoat Game
This is how the fascist playbook works:
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Find a tragedy.
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Exploit it for fear.
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Scapegoat the marginalized.
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Push authoritarian laws.
We’ve seen it before: queer people blamed for AIDS, Muslims blamed for terrorism, Black communities blamed for crime. Now trans people are next in line.
And make no mistake—this isn’t about “safety.” It’s about control. Conservatives want a world where trans people don’t exist, where gender conformity is enforced by law. Where anyone who deviates is criminalized or erased.
This one horrific act is being twisted into a justification for a larger campaign of violence and erasure.
The Bigger Threat Isn’t Us—It’s Guns and Hate
Let’s not lose sight of the real epidemic here:
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The U.S. has more guns than people.
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Mass shootings happen almost daily.
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Children are murdered in schools, churches, and grocery stores.
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Politicians refuse to pass meaningful gun reform because they’re funded by the NRA and terrified of losing votes.
If we want to talk about danger, talk about the fact that an 8-year-old in America is more likely to die from gun violence than from a car accident. Talk about the way Christian nationalism fuels extremism, and how white supremacist shooters are given “mental illness” excuses while trans people are demonized for existing.
The Human Cost
Two children are dead. Seventeen others are wounded. Families are shattered. Communities are grieving.
That grief deserves space, silence, compassion—not to be hijacked for political gain.
But instead of mourning, conservatives are gleefully weaponizing. They are using dead children to justify further attacks on trans youth. They are turning tragedy into propaganda.
And that is as disgusting as the act itself.
Our Stand
We grieve for the children. We grieve for their families. We grieve for a country where gun violence is normal.
But we will not grieve silently while being scapegoated.
To every conservative who dares to use this tragedy to attack trans people: you do not own this narrative. You don’t get to erase the mountain of evidence showing cis men as the overwhelming perpetrators of gun violence. You don’t get to twist one act into proof of an epidemic that doesn’t exist.
We stand against violence. We stand against erasure. And we stand for truth, even when it burns.
