Minneapolis Church Shooting Leaves 2 Children Dead, 17 Wounded

The suspect involved in a mass shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis, which resulted in the deaths of two minors and injuries to 17 others, has been identified as having changed her legal name in 2020 to match her female gender identity, according to court records. The court documentation states, “Minor child identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that.”

Following the incident, some on the political right quickly linked the suspect’s gender identity to the violence. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on social media, “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 to make it a felony to perform sex change surgeries and medications on minors!”

Similarly, conservative commentator Benny Johnson accused the trans movement of radicalizing individuals into committing violent acts, asserting, “The pattern is undeniable,” and claiming that trans-related issues contribute to these tragedies.

Despite these assertions, it is still too early to determine the motives behind the attack. Importantly, evidence does not suggest that transgender individuals are more prone to commit mass shootings. Data from various independent sources, including the Gun Violence Archive, show that less than 1 percent of mass shootings in recent years have involved transgender perpetrators. Mother Jones’s own tracking confirms that the vast majority of these violent events are carried out by cisgender men, with very few attributed to transgender individuals.

Since 1982, 134 of 141 mass shootings documented by Mother Jones were committed by men without any known gender identity issues. Only two involved cisgender women, and two more involved a male-female pair, believed to be cisgender as well.

From a statistical perspective, transgender people are far more often victims of violence than perpetrators. While gun violence remains a significant issue in the US, and some transgender individuals are affected by it, blaming the existence of trans people for mass shootings is both inaccurate and stigmatizing.