Trans Extremism on Display After Nashville Shooting

By Hudson Crozier

What’s happening: Following the fatal shooting of three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville by a woman who identified as a transgender man, advocates have sympathized with or even justified the shooting as retaliation against Christians and conservatives who want to ban gender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers for children.

Why it matters: The transgender movement has repeatedly conveyed that such policies are nothing less than a “war” on trans-identifying people and an attempt at “genocide.” This hyperbolic rhetoric and the response to the Nashville shooting show that the movement is increasingly disposed to respond to conservative legislation with violence.

The militant trend: Some trans activists form groups of armed organizers to prepare for combat and want to “arm trans kids.” These groups are often militant Antifa factions that espouse other far-left causes. Pro-trans protesters have violently clashed with their ideological opponents on some occasions and displayed the slogan, “trans rights or else” with images of guns.

The media’s role: Left-wing journalists have long echoed the trans movement’s exaggerated narrative, saying that conservatives want to “outlaw,” “eradicate,” and enable the “mass murder” of trans-identifying people as part of an “all-out war” on their “existence.” After the Nashville shooting, legacy media dismissed concerns about rising extremism as unnecessary “sentiment,” “rhetoric,” or “hate” fueling a “crusade against transgender rights.”