Transmissions: The transgender shooter who wasn't

It was a warm day in Orem, Utah while right-wing agitator Charlie Kirk stood under a tent during his American Comeback tour. He was debating the crowd and was in the midst of discussing mass shootings. An audience member asked Kirk, "Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years," to which Kirk replied, "Too many."

Following up, he was asked, "Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?"

Kirk replied, "Counting or not counting gang violence?" Then a shot rang out. A short while later, Kirk, 31, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

This isn't a column about Kirk.

In the hours following the shooting, as news was scant and the media was hungry for details to splash across their digital pages, the Wall Street Journal received a scoop courtesy of an internal law enforcement bulletin presumably leaked from someone within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

In it, it was claimed that the bullet used to shoot Kirk, as well as unused bullets with the gun, were engraved with messages espousing, "transgender and anti-fascist ideology."

When I read this, I already had my own ideas about who might have shot Kirk, so I very much questioned what the Journal was reporting. More than that, however, my heart sank. I knew that the truth wasn't going to matter when the lies are promoted at that sort of level. This would be the narrative, and transgender people would be facing retaliation.

It's not like the transgender community wasn't already on edge. Aside from the general background radiation of living under the Donald Trump presidency in 2025, a shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where students from the Annunciation Catholic School were attending mass, was allegedly carried out by Robin Westman. Two children were killed and 21 others were injured in the August 27 attack.

Details remain somewhat unclear, but Westman had apparently previously identified as transgender and recently had detransitioned at some point. Nevertheless, the narrative was Westman being transgender that caused the shooting, regardless of any other disturbing details about their interest in school shootings and violence. (Westman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.)

This shooting alone led to more public debates about transgender people, and even had some within the Department of Justice speculating about removing the Second Amendment rights of transgender people.

I feel it important to take a step back here for a moment and delve into some history.

In 2015, Robert Lewis Dear Jr. allegedly shot and killed three people at a Planned Parenthood location in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The alleged shooter was both assigned male at birth and identifies as male, but a clerical error on both his driver's license and his voter registration card listed him as female.

He did correct the error days after he received the incorrect cards, but the documents ended up causing a furor regardless. Newspapers and social media speculated on Dear's gender identity, and even Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) labeled Dear a "transgendered leftist activist." (Dear’s criminal cases at the state and federal levels have been delayed for years after he was found incompetent to stand trial. He remains in federal custody.)

Over the ensuing decade, with every mass shooting, false accounts trickle out labeling the shooter as transgender, and sometimes even attempting to claim a specific trans person was involved. These are usually caught before publications go to press, but the inferences still linger in the air as provocateurs attempt to forge a connection between transgender people and mass shootings.

 
To answer that first question that was posed to Kirk.

According to the Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University, less than 1% of mass shooters are transgender identified, compared to 98% being male and 2% being female.

Many on the right have their own list of suspected trans mass shooters, with Sebastian Gorka, now a deputy assistant to Trump, listing six possible cases dating back to 2018. One is not a shooting. One had no fatalities. Additionally, not all were transgender, or there is not enough evidence as to their gender identity to say anything conclusive.

Also, this would be out of 4,147 total mass shootings since 2018, per the Gun Violence Archive .

I mentioned those gun casings earlier. As it turns out, they were indeed engraved. The one that had been fired read, "Notices bulges, OwO what's this?" a statement used to mock furries and online role-play by same. Others included references to the “Helldivers 2” video game, lyrics from the song “Bella Ciao” – an anti-fascist tune that has been used to mock left-leaning activists – and the statement, "If you read this, you are gay LMAO."

None of these are trans-specific or, really, even trans-adjacent. Likewise, the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, is not trans-identified, but is a 22-year-old from a deeply conservative family that at one time, at least, supported Trump, though he is registered to vote without a party preference and has never cast a ballot, according to Utah elections officials. Robinson himself appears to have been more closely identified with far-right influencer Nick Fuentes and his Groyper movement than anything even remotely transgender, though Axios report this is “baseless.” https://www.axios.com/2025/09/15/groyper-charlie-kirk-nick-fuentes-tyler-robinson

It's worth noting that Fuentes and Kirk long had strong disagreements, with Fuentes seemingly not thinking Kirk to be far right enough for his taste. This may well be why this killing took place. It's the textbook definition of a senseless killing, fueled by online memes and really absurd politics – but not transgender people.

A second narrative has emerged, claiming a roommate of Robinson was his lover and must be transgender due to their wearing of an animal onesie on an online stream once. Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) was on TV Sunday saying that Robinson’s partner, whom authorities have identified as his roommate, was transitioning from male to female, the New York Times reported. That person did not have knowledge of the shooting, according to authorities, and is cooperating with the investigation. Robinson is reportedly not cooperating.

The right is out for blood, and it doesn't matter what any facts are, they will do all they can to twist them to fit. They simply want an excuse, any excuse, to go after transgender people.

Gwen Smith is dreadfully tired of all this. You'll find her at www.gwensmith.com