The Far-Right Spread a False and Dangerous Rumor that the Uvalde Killer Was Trans. It’s Not the First Time They Did This.

Image Courtesy of ABC

The far-right deployed horrifying yet sadly predictable and false propaganda in the wake of the devastating killings of 19 school children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas. Within hours of the attack, they quickly created and amplified claims that the shooter was a “transsexual” along with being a “leftist” and an “illegal alien.” 

It might be easy to dismiss these false flags as ridiculous, but this isn’t the first time they have happened, and we need to understand their purpose and intent. The recent history of such claims suggests that they are part of a real and dangerous disinformation ecosystem that radical elements of the GOP readily deploy to leverage whatever outrage their followers experience from the violence into something truly cynical and exploitative. Until we properly understand the bizarre, bigoted and anti-factual world in which so many Americans now live, we have no hope of re-engaging a solid percentage of the American right. And that is dangerous for our long term well-being as a nation.

The Uvalde False Trans Flag

Within hours of the massacre in Uvalde, a website called 4chan, where internet conspiracies and white supremacist groups thrive, began sharing pictures of “Sam,” a transgender woman who doesn’t even live near Texas. The 4chan rumor claimed, “here’s the shooter’s reddit” and linked to her account along with a transphobic slur, according to Yahoo News. While some users disputed that Sam looked like the shooter, others began threads and then incorporated images from other trans women to build comparisons with the purported Instagram page of the killer. 

One of those trans woman was “Sabrina” who for safety did not give her name to Mashable, which reported on the false rumor. Sabrina shares similar long hair and some features with the killer but lives in New York. In a shared photo, Sabrina is seen drinking out of a bottle, and she had tweeted the photo four days earlier. When the photo began to circulate with the allegation she was the Uvalde killer, Sabrina posted, “Please delete them, i don’t want my image associated with a tragedy.” Some did delete the photo, but others demanded “proof” that she wasn’t the killer. “You’re going to have to back it up,” one user even tweeted, even though the killer was already deceased. Sabrina provided more proof, with a new photo of herself in front of the same picture that was in the circulating photo. But out of safety, Sabrina has had to lock down her twitter account.

Sam also had to present “proof” that she wasn’t the shooter. “I don't live in Texas tho,” Sam replied to the first comment that was left about the shooting. “He's dead, how could it be me[?]” Ultimately Sam had to take a photo of herself holding a piece of paper with the date of May 25, 2022, proving she is in fact still alive and most certainly not the killer. 

The Lie Gets Amplified

As transparently and obviously false as these comparisons were, that didn’t stop far-right elements from grabbing the photos and spreading the disinformation quickly and effectively. The amplifiers included a member of Congress, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): “It’s a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos,” Gosar stated in a since deleted tweet. There is no evidence that the killer was transgender, and for the record Ramos was born in North Dakota and went to high school in Texas.

Andrew Torba, the founder and CEO of the far-right social network, Gab, shared a photo of Sam, face blurred and holding a trans pride flag, to his 3.6 million followers on his platform. The shared caption read, “Well it looks like the news won’t be covering the shooter after today.” 

Conspiracy theorist Candace Owens also amplified the falsehoods. Owens tweeted to her 3.1 million followers,

What’s drives an 18 year old to murder innocent children? 

I don’t know. But judging by the photos of him cross-dressing, we can assume there were plenty of signs that he was mentally disturbed and abused by adults in his life. 

Societal cowardice ignored those plenty of signs.

The false tweet remains up on Twitter and Owens has since doubled down even while trying to qualify her statement, tweeting recently:

FYI: The media still has not debunked the photo of the Texas shooter wearing female clothes (to which I was referring.)

Instead they are trying to conflate it with the obvious internet hoax photos featuring a guy in a skirt in front of a trans flag.

Owens did not share or link to any photos that she claims to have “seen” that need to be “debunked,” however, of the actual Texas shooter “wearing female clothes.”

This Attack on Trans People Is Part of a Clear and Dangerous Pattern

The scapegoating of the trans community isn’t some random sideshow. It is a concerted attack that has happened before. In 2015, after a shooter killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) amplified an unsupported claim, made by the Gateway Pundit (whose founder has been banned from Twitter for spreading false information) that the shooter was transgender. At a campaign event, when a reporter mentioned that the suspect in the Colorado Springs killings was alleged to have mentioned “baby parts” after his arrest, Cruz responded, “Well, it’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and transgendered leftist activist, if that’s what he is.”

In April 2018, a female shooter went into YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno and injured three people before dying by suicide. Afterwards, far-right groups again began to speculate, with zero basis, that the shooter was transgender. “The youtube shooter was a man. This was male violence,” tweeted Jennifer James, a former MP who led a campaign to keep trans women out of office in the UK. Conservative activist Laura Loomer cited Aghdam’s “very muscular thighs” and “buff arms” and claimed that “Nasim” is a boy’s name in Iran. The San Mateo coroner’s office later quickly debunked these claims, noting simply that the shooter was a “biological female.”

The desire and impulse to blame an easily targeted, marginalized community is sadly not new. Groups such as Jews and gay men historically have been the go-to scapegoats for everything from missing children to deadly hurricanes that are evidence of God’s wrath at our perceived permissiveness. For today’s mass shootings, the far-right exploits and conflates “mental illness” with trans identity, and far too many people simply accept it as truth without questioning the false claims critically or empirically.

The Platforms Are Failing Us

The failure by the platforms to hold those who spread the disinformation to account is also contributing deeply to the problem. On 4chan and Gab, the lies go completely unmonitored and unchecked. Twitter has let stand Owen’s false statement that the killer was “cross dressing” despite much media attention upon the false claim, and it has issued no penalty or sanction to Rep. Paul Gosar for his false tweet.

Facebook does no better. One of Sam’s photos was shared on the Facebook page of the Young Conservatives of Southern Indiana, which has some 4,000 followers, with the caption “The lame stream media is saying the Texas shooter is a right wing supporter. I don’t know any right wing supporter that is a Transgender Biden LGBTQ Supporter.”  After the post was reported and removed, the Young Conservatives appealed and Facebook reinstated the post, according to the group’s triumphant screenshot of the appeal. 

In short, we cannot and should not depend on the platforms to stop the lies from being generated and spread rapidly. The only realistic way to battle these attacks is through education and vigilance. When a rumor that a killer is trans or from some other marginalized community begins, we should call it out immediately and identify it as part of an insidious pattern. It is incumbent for those who are frequently on social media to do our part as well to amplify the truth and push back against misinformation. It begins by pointing out that the “trans killer” is a trope out of a movie that has no basis in reality, only fear and ignorance. Getting that message out broadly and early could act like a vaccine against the future spread of such false rumors.