Violence and transgender ideology: Exposing the link that drives some people to kill

The link between transgender individuals and violence, including mass shootings, is difficult to admit but becoming harder to deny.

Despite efforts by the mainstream media and others to hide the transgender identity of recent mass shooters, the link is easily seen with a careful check of the data.

Media claims such as “transgender individuals don’t commit the majority of mass shootings” fall apart when the tiny size of the transgender population – 1% – is considered.

One must-read analysis found such individuals committed 2.5 times more mass and active shooter attacks between 2018 and 2024 than the general population. And the number rose to at least 12 times more in 2024.

“In 2024 transgender individuals committed active shooting attacks at least 12 times their share of the population and possibly more than 16 times their share,” the Crime Prevention Research Center concluded.

“Researchers measure attacks in different ways (for example, distinguishing between active shooting attacks and mass public shootings), but regardless of how one breaks down the data, transgender individuals commit these attacks at disproportionately high rates.”

Getting worse, not better

The trend has continued over the last 16 months, including deadly incidents in Minnesota (Annunciation Catholic Church and school) and Canada (Tumbler Ridge), which was that nation’s deadliest shooting in years. It was followed days later by another shooting in Rhode Island, but media coverage doesn’t always include details about the attackers’ transgender identities.

“A man who left his family to live as a woman and threatened to ‘Go BERSERK’ in defense of transgender ideology shot and killed his son and the boy’s mother at a Rhode Island hockey game,” writes The Federalist’s Ellie Purnell, “but the corporate media really don’t want you to know he was a fanatical adherent of one of their pet ideologies.”

Robert Dorgan, who had “surgery to mimic female body parts in 2020 and went by the name Roberta Esposito,” posted his threat online hours before the shooting in response to people “bashing us.” One local media outlet reported his chosen gender identity had caused multiple family disputes, including divorce, but most reports simply described the killings as the result of a family conflict, without specifying the transgender angle.

Media said Dorgan “also went by the name Roberta Esposito,” or noted that he “went by two different names,” with several outlets calling him “the shooter” to avoid using pronouns. An AP report listing recent mass shootings identified Robert “Robin” Westman of Minnesota as “the shooter,” the same title it gave for Audrey “Aiden” Hale, who killed six people at Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023.

Similarly, Canadian shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar, who “transitioned” to female six years earlier, was described as “an 18-year-old woman,” a “gunperson,” and “a person in a dress.” This led to online comments such as “no woman puts on a dress to commit a shooting.”

Killing friend and foe

Even more disturbing, Van Rootselaar killed his mother and step-brother before opening fire at the local high school, killing six people and injuring more than two dozen others. Surprisingly, his mother had posted online in support of transgender people, saying “you have any idea how many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate,” along with the slogan “ProtectTransKids.”

Another high-profile suspect, Tyler Robinson, who is accused of killing Charlie Kirk, grew up in a conservative household but later became radicalized, spewing hateful rhetoric and living with a male who identifies as transgender and has a furry fixation.

Kirk was shot in September while addressing a question about transgender violence at Utah Valley University. Robinson is currently on trial for the murder.

In March, a 16-year-old Florida girl allegedly killed her mother and mother’s boyfriend because her mother opposed her transgender identity and “misgendered” her.

Transgender violence is an epidemic, The Federalist writes. Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson called transgenderism “a terrorist death cult” that should be treated “the way we treated Al Qaeda or ISIS.”

Searching for causes

Debate swirls about the cause of the increased violence.

“The trans mass shooter is a confused, lonely loser who’s had his brain discombobulated on a cocktail of sissy hypno porn, digital grooming, and experimental pharmaceuticals with irreversible effects,” writes Dudley Newright in a Federalist op-ed. “Everyone in his world (doctors, teachers, parents) is telling him he’s normal because, throughout the West, it’s de facto prohibited or, in some places, even unlawful to say otherwise.”

But all of the surgeries and hormones can’t achieve the goal of changing sex, leaving the person unstable and vulnerable.

“Many of the kids who start down this path are realizing too late that there are no takebacks, and a dozen or so have already followed it to the bloody conclusion that we’re seeing splashed across headlines,” the op-ed states.

“Gender transitions” are traumatic for the people around the transitioner, especially close family members.

A friend of Dorgan’s, the Rhode Island shooter, said he was frustrated at not being able to see his children after moving closer to them and putting them “on a pedestal.”

“Well, kids, a lot of teenagers don’t want to be around their parents anyway,” the friend said. “If I’m being honest, it’s sometimes probably hard when you have the dad, that’s now a mom, and sometimes her wardrobe was sometimes more flamboyant than her personality.”

A spiritual problem

Walt Heyer, who formerly tried to change his gender, said people with gender dysphoria have “underlying comorbidity disorders” which must be diagnosed and treated, especially trauma. There’s also a spiritual component, which may explain the tendency toward violence.

“We’re dealing with demons who are coming after our children, kids who are struggling with things that happened, like what happened to me in my early childhood,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.” “I was sexually abused, and … even as an adult, I thought I was trying to repair what had happened in my early life and thinking if I had my genitals cut off, then I wouldn’t be sexually abused again. … When we say these people have mental illness, I can testify to the fact that they do.”

Doug Wilson, an Idaho pastor and author who hosts the Blog and Mablog podcast, also believes demons are involved.

“Transgenderism is not a psychological condition, it is a spiritual pathology,” he said. “It is a form of rebellion against the created order, and in many cases, it opens the door to demonic influence.”

Wilson said it’s not hateful to look for demonic involvement “when we see a disproportionate number of mass shooters who identify as transgender … The ideology itself is a lie from the pit of hell and it produces death – sometimes in the form of self-harm, sometimes in the form of violence against others.”

Wilson told The Lion in an email that he distinguishes transgenderism from “mental illness that is simply human” because of “the levels of spite, anger, and hatred of God that we are now seeing.”

“When someone is possessed by a deaf and dumb spirit, they are deaf and dumb,” he wrote, referencing biblical accounts of demons. “With an unclean spirit, they are unclean. When someone is doing malicious and demented things, I infer a malicious and demented spirit. Such things as we are seeing recently ‘are not in nature.’”

Wilson said that someone identifying as another gender is automatically a warning sign for violence and demonic activity, even if some of them never get violent. “The correlation is strong enough that we should keep a weather eye out.”

Although some may scoff at the idea of demons, Wilson said the problem won’t be solved until it is acknowledged.

Heyer, who now works for the Family Research Council, said the Church needs to get more involved.

“Pastors need to speak to this,” he said, recommending a curriculum to help them understand the ideology. “Something has happened to that child. And let’s help find out what it is and get them the help they need.”