Police in Madison, Wisconsin, told people to stop speculating about whether the person who committed the Abundant Life Christian School shooting on Monday is transgender. The shooting killed three people (including the suspected shooter) and injured six others, and gay U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) both released statements expressing sympathy for the victims.

The suspected shooter, 15-year-old student Natalie Rupnow, pulled out a handgun around 11 a.m. local time and began shooting students in a study hall, CNN reported. She killed herself along with a teacher and a student and injured six other people, including two students who remain in critical condition in the hospital. Police haven’t released any information about the shooter’s gender identity or motive. Transphobes have increasingly and falsely accused school shooters of being trans as a way to vilify trans people as dangerous.

Related

Victims of the Club Q mass shooting are suing the nightclub & the sheriff’s office for negligence
The surviving victims and the mothers of those killed believe the shooting could have been prevented if county officials had followed the law.

“I don’t know whether [the shooter] was transgender or not,” police chief Shone Barnes told reporters during a Monday evening press conference. “I don’t think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may have wanted to identify.”

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“I wish people would leave their own personal biases out of this,” Barnes continued. “Whether or not she was, he was, they were, transgender is something that may come out later. But for what we’re doing right now, eight hours after a mass shooting, it is of no consequence.”

Rupnow may have left behind writings that were later posted online by someone claiming to have ties to her, but police have not verified anything about the writings. The suspected shooter’s parents are reportedly cooperating with investigators and are not facing any legal charges “at this time,” police said.

There have been at least 83 school shootings in the U.S. so far this year, according to CNN. Following some of these incidents, other right-wingers began spreading misinformation about the shooters identifying as trans.

Following Monday’s shooting, anti-LGBTQ+ activist Chaya Raichik (who runs the account LibsOfTikTok), posted a video of Chief Barnes using different pronouns to refer to the shooter. Raichik insinuated that he did this because of Rupnow’s gender identity.

Raichik made a similar claim in early January,. At the time, she also posted misinformation claiming that five recent school shooters have identified as nonbinary or trans. Her image claimed that the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooter was trans — they were not, and the supposed shooter posing with a trans flag in Raichik’s image wasn’t the actual shooter.

Transphobic billionaire Elon Musk boosted Raichik’s misinformed image, writing “!!”

In a statement responding to the shooting, Rep. Pocan wrote, “‘Thoughts and prayers’ offer comfort to the families and communities affected but have not changed our unique reality as Americans. It’s time for action. I am a co-sponsor of several gun violence prevention and youth mental health bills that will help prevent future tragedies like this. It’s time for my Republican colleagues to grow a backbone and put our children above the gun lobby by passing commonsense gun safety laws that will save countless lives.”

He added, “My heart goes out to the victims of the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, their loved ones, and our entire community.” He also thanked police and first responders who aided the school.

In a statement posted on X, Sen. Baldwin wrote that her “heart breaks” for the community that has been “scarred forever,” adding, “My thoughts are with the families mourning, the injured, the teachers and staff, and the entire Madison community that has been traumatized by this senseless gun violence.”

“No one in America should have to suffer like this — let along kids in school,” she wrote. “I refuse to sit idly by and am committed to being part of the solution to end the scourge of gun violence.”

Echoing the false trans shooter claims, right-wing figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson repeatedly claimed that trans people are dangerous because they are “mentally ill.” Transphobes like them claim that trans people are mentally unstable and seek to “groom” and “sexualize” kids with “gender ideology” that will confuse and coerce children into “irreversible” medical procedures that will “mutilate” them for life. Boebert has even gone so far as to say that affirming trans people’s identities leads to school shootings.

However, the truth is that the vast majority of mass shooters in the U.S. are cisgender males. The right-wing focus on gun-toting queers and shooters’ mental illness is often a way to stigmatize queer people while also drawing attention away from gun control regulations that could help stop mass shootings in the first place.

A CNN analyst called out conservatives for blaming school shootings on trans people. Instead of focusing on the suspected shooter’s gender identity, the analyst said it’s important to look at the larger issues contributing to school shootings, such as mental health, protecting children, fortifying schools, and firearm safety reforms.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.