The far-right is adamant about establishing “transgender violence.” In fact, it is so eager that it will drive out inaccurate or false information in order to support their erroneous claim that trans people are inherently dangerous.
The most recent instance occurred on Sunday when a person entered the Lakewood megachurch in Houston, Texas, carrying her 7-year-old boy and opened fire with an AR-15.
Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, was killed by off-duty law enforcement at the church, which is run by well-known televangelist Joel Osteen. A 57-year-old person and the gunman’s son, who was critically hurt, were the two people who were injured.
A report that suggested the gunman had used the title “Jeffrey” was posted online on Monday by the accounts Libs of TikTok, which targets LGBTQ people and has been accused of inciting bomb threats against lots of schools across the country.
Libs of TikTok claimed that the gunman at Lakewood Church was transgender. “An additional act of trans violence.” We need to include a nationwide discussion about how the LGBTQ movement is turning young people into violent extremists.
What kind of hormones and medicines was the trans criminal who shot up the Texas church taking, asked Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist in charge of the account? Elon Musk even contributed, claiming that hormones present in the majority of gender-affirming care regimens “could be a main causal factor in violence.” There is no supporting data for this assertion.
Police officers noted in a press conference later on Monday that despite the shooter’s apparent use of both male and female names, they were unable to find any evidence that she had previously identified as anything other than transgender.
Why the gunman targeted Osteen’s church is unknown at this time. The gunman gave to the Lakewood Church in March 2020, according to a CNN-discovered social media post. Police claim to have found “antisemitic works” among her personal belongings, and her AR-15 was marked with a sticker that read “Palestine.” Police added that there was a “familial disagreement” between her ex-husband and his family, some of whom are Jewish.
According to a Facebook post by Rabbi Walli Carranza, the shooter’s ex-mother-in-law, she was likewise receiving treatment for schizophrenia. She was referred to as a “very sweet and loving woman” by Carranza, who bemoaned the fact that Texas does not have “red flag rules” in place that would permit concerned family members to take away firearms from individuals they believed to be in danger of harming themselves or others. According to authorities, the gunman legally bought her AR-15 in December 2023.
Carranza told CNN affiliate KHOU that the gunman had a specific type of dementia that led to her turning violent. “My own child was threatened by her, and we were still unable to get help.”
The shooter has a lengthy criminal history, including forgery, theft, assault on an official in custody, and unlawful carrying of weapons, in addition to an extensive history of mental health issues.
Since a transgender man carried out an out-of-the-ordinary mass shooting at the Christian school in Nashville where he was once enrolled, the far right has been laser-focused on the idea of “trans terrorism” — just one prong of their all-out assault on LGBTQ rights. Donald Trump Jr. falsely asserted that there had been “an extraordinary rise” in mass killings carried out by transgender people after that shooting, which sparked a new wave of stigmatization from the right. That assertion was refuted by fact checkers, who noted that in the previous five years, trans people had committed four murders and that the majority of mass shooting incidents are committed by men of color.
Since the Nashville shooting, far-right publications like Libs of TikTok have been working hard to find a “link” between the attack and the LGBTQ community in the midst of other mass shootings.
Researchers have previously struggled to find a link between testosterone and crime, and there is no evidence to back up claims that transgender people are more likely to engage in violent behavior. However, there is a ton of evidence demonstrating that transgender people experience violence overwhelmingly and that hormonal therapy for trans teenagers and adults significantly improves mental health and reduces suicidal ideation.
