August 28, 2025 11:12 AM UTC

Lauren Boebert Promotes Nonsense Theory of Rising Violence by Transgender People

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• by: Colorado Pols

Congressperson Lauren Boebert (R-Windsor) has never been interested in “facts” when she has an opportunity to spout right-wing rhetoric, but her latest diatribe about transgender Americans leading a rise in violent attacks is particularly absurd.

Boebert posted this on ‘X’ on Wednesday after the alleged attacker from a Minneapolis school shooting was identified by federal officials as a transgender individual:

Before we dig in to this nonsense, let’s catch up on the facts on the ground. As NBC News reports, authorities are still trying to understand what prompted Wednesday’s shooting at a Catholic school that killed two children:

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said authorities were working to determine a motive and that police were aware of a “manifesto” that the suspect had timed to be released on YouTube.

“This manifesto appeared to show him at the scene and included some disturbing writings. That content has since been taken down with the assistance of the FBI, and it now remains under active review by our investigators,” O’Hara said.

Westman wrote numerous things on the weapons and magazines featured in the video, including racial slurs, a call for President Donald Trump’s death, antisemitic messages, and references to the Holocaust and the Catholic Church, according to an NBC News review. [Pols emphasis]

The YouTube channel also included a video of the suspect flipping through the pages of a journal.

In excerpts from the journal, written using the Russian Cyrillic alphabet for English words, the suspect described her fascination with violence and obsession with mass shootings, particularly those who attacked schools. The suspect also discussed suicide, depression, her own racism and the particulars of carrying out a mass shooting.

FBI Director Kash Patel said Wednesday that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime targeting Catholics, but the motive may not be that simple — or easy to understand. The alleged shooter, Robin Westman, died by suicide following the attack; Westman’s mother apparently worked at the church for five years before retiring in 2021, though it is not clear that Westman ever personally attended the school or church. And while images surfaced of messages the shooter may have written on weapons and ammunition magazines, the writings were so diverse in their hatred that it’s hard to pinpoint a specific grievance.

Nevertheless, once news broke that the shooter identified as transgender, MAGA world jumped to a disgustingly-predictable narrative about “transgender dysphoria” as a mental illness that is turning people into “violent terrorists.” Boebert took that disturbing conclusion to another level, writing:

“I’ve yet to see a single Democrat acknowledge the pattern of transgender violence in our country.”

It has been well documented that there is an epidemic of violence in the United States targeting transgender people; FBI data from 2023 showed that LGBTQ+ Americans were the target of nearly one quarter of all “hate crimes” nationwide. But this isn’t what Boebert is talking about. Boebert is alleging — as always, without any proof whatsoever — that there has been a rise in violent crimes committed by transgender people.

But as Newsweek reports today, this is a ridiculous assertion:

The suspect in the mass shooting at a Catholic Church and school in Minneapolis has become the latest U.S. mass shooter to spark a debate because they are apparently transgender, but experts say such perpetrators are “extremely” rare…

…In recent years, conservatives have increasingly pointed to incidents committed by people allegedly identifying as transgender or nonbinary to suggest they are a threat. However, data shows that mass shootings by transgender individuals are rare and the vast majority of perpetrators are cisgender men.

“Mass shootings by transgender people continue to be extremely rare,” Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government told Newsweek on Thursday. [Pols emphasis]

Just how rare are mass shootings by transgender individuals? While data on the sexual preference of violent criminals is not collected by sources such as the FBI’s National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), there are some outside groups that have tried to quantify mass shootings by transgender attackers. As Newsweek continues:

According to The Violence Project, which records data on mass shootings dating back to 1966, less than one percent of mass shootings have been committed by transgender individuals.

The project focuses on mass shootings in public where four or more people were killed, not counting the shooter. Per that methodology, the 2023 shooting at a Christian school in Nashville is the only case of a shooting by a transgender person included in the database. [Pols emphasis]

It seems the word “pattern” in Boebert’s social media rant is doing some really heavy lifting. If early reports are accurate, the Minneapolis shooter would be only the second transgender person believed to have committed a mass shooting in the United States…ever.

In other words, the reason — as Boebert alleges — that Democrats aren’t “acknowledging the pattern of transgender violence” is because it doesn’t exist.

We really do have a problem of mass shootings in this country, however. Perhaps Boebert could get on board with common sense gun violence reduction policies if we could convince her that firearms are transgender.