Robin Westman — the now-deceased 22-year-old murderer who killed two children and injured 17 others (including 14 children) during a Wednesday morning shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota — has been identified as transgender by The New York Post and social media posts, though police have not yet publicly confirmed this detail.

As in the past, anti-LGBTQ+ right-wingers are already using the shooter’s possible identity to vilify all trans people as mentally ill and a danger to children and society.

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Westman — armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol — shot dozens of rounds through the church windows at children seated in the pews starting around 8:30 a.m. local time. The shooter then killed themselves in the back of the church parking lot, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said, according to the Associated Press. Many of those injured remain hospitalized in critical condition.

“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” O’Hara said during a news briefing.

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Mayor Jacob Frey said, “There are no words that can capture the horror and the evil of this unspeakable act. Children are dead.”

Local news station WBFF cited social media accounts describing Westman as trans. One X user posted court documents allegedly showing that Westman legally changed their name to Robin at age 17, “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.” At the time, Westman’s mother reportedly worked at the school but retired in 2021.

Amid these reports, Minneapolis Mayor Frey said, “I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community. 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. Kids died. This needs to be about them.”

“While we still don’t know all the facts about what happened in Minneapolis, we must be clear on one key element: to scapegoat an entire marginalized community in a moment of such intense national grief is wrong, dangerous, and dehumanizing,” Wolf said. He added that the undeniable crisis is the broader epidemic of gun violence that continues to claim lives across the country.

Echoing those sentiments, Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf said, “While we still don’t know all the facts about what happened in Minneapolis, we must be clear on one key element: to scapegoat an entire marginalized community in a moment of such intense national grief is wrong, dangerous, and dehumanizing.”

Wayne Besen, executive director of the anti-conversion therapy organization Truth Wins Out said, “Let us be perfectly clear: This monstrous act of violence was committed by one profoundly disturbed individual. It is both defamatory and dangerous to use this tragedy to smear transgender people as a whole. The shooter’s gender identity played no role in these horrific murders. Westman was a deranged lunatic, not a representative of an entire community that already faces disproportionate levels of stigma, violence, and discrimination.”

Shooter linked to disturbing racist video manifesto

The New York Post also linked Westman to a 20-minute YouTube video in which the shooter allegedly showed ammunition cartridges upon which are written “F**k everything that you stand for,” “Suck on this!”, “Where is your God?”, “for the children”, and “kill Donald Trump.”

Journal notes, written in Russian, state, “I have had thoughts about mass murder for a long time. I am very conflicted with writing this journal,” and “[I imagine] being that scary horrible monster standing over those powerless kids.”

Other pages in the journal reportedly had the following writing: “I am feeling good about annunciation. It seems like a good combo of easy attack form and devastating tragedy… Maybe I could attack an event at the on-site church. I think attacking a large group of kids coming in from recess is my best plan… Then from there I can go inside and kill, going for as long as I can.”

In other pages, she reportedly wrote that her “favorite” school shooting was the Sandy Hook School massacre, which killed 20 children and six adults. Other messages shown in the video contained racial slurs and far-right slogans, as well as “Hail Breivik. Hail Brenton.” Neo-Nazi Anders Breivik killed 77 people in a 2011 Norway shooting, and Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people in two separate 2019 shootings at two New Zealand mosques.

Right wingers are already blaming trans identity for the tragedy

The shooter’s alleged trans identity was immediately mentioned by Libs of TikTok, an anti-LGBTQ+ social media account run by Chaya Raichik. Numerous commenters have made transphobic remarks, blaming the shooting on Westman’s trans identity.

The shooting has reinforced transphobic talking points about trans people being mentally ill and a danger to kids and public safety, even though the overwhelming majority of school shootings in the U.S. have been carried out by cisgender men.

Anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X, “Today’s evil church school shooter was a trans who was likely groomed and transitioned as a teenager. Congress MUST PASS my bill Protecting Children’s Innocence Act to make it a FELONY to perform sex change surgeries and all forms of medications on minors!!!”

Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson wrote, “One thing is VERY clear: the trans movement is radicalizing the mentally ill into becoming violent terrorists who target children for murder…. Radical gender ideology is driving violence and targeting innocent people. Enough excuses. Enough denial. The threat is real, and it’s escalating. Time for a national intervention.”

Today’s evil church school shooter was a trans who was likely groomed and transitioned as a teenager.

Congress MUST PASS my bill Protecting Children’s Innocence Act to make it a FELONY to perform sex change surgeries and all forms of medications on minors!!!

According to court… pic.twitter.com/RkcQEwxEAn

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Source: LGBTQ Nation