What does the current fixation of Republicans on Trans rights have to do with a School Shooting? In the case of the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, nothing on the surface. None of the victims were trans, nor was the shooter, nor any of the major voices commenting on or reporting about the tragedy. So how were three separate trans women from all across the country connected to the shooting? Disinformation spread by republican spokespeople, and the misinformation that became the weaponized outlet and practical application of the disinformation.
On May 24, 19 students and 2 teachers were killed in a fourth grade classroom. The shooter, Salvador Ramos, attacked his grandmother and then stole her car to drive to Robb Elementary School and shoot children with an AR15. This shooting paired with the recent shooting in Buffalo have thrust mass shootings back into the United States public consciousness. Since the shootings, the United States House of Representatives has passed a gun control bill.
In the hours following the shooting, three separate trans women had their pictures posted in association with the shooter. So how did this happen? Two separate opinion leaders in the Republican Party, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar and political commentator Candace Owens both tweeted that the shooter, who had already been identified, was trans. Pretty quickly afterwards, pictures of specific women were attached to the narrative of the shooting.
Sam, one of the women connected to the shooting, was informed that her reddit was being linked on 4chan with claims that it was Ramos’, along with pictures of her. Sabrina, the other woman that has been interviewed, replied to multiple tweets associating her picture with Ramos, asking them to take down the misinformation. None of the women whose pictures ended up associated with Ramos have any connection to him. Yet they received threats to their safety, both through social media and through the possibility of being outed.
Republican Lawmakers are no strangers to the concept of disinformation, especially in the context of mass shootings. Many, including Rep.Marjorie Taylor Greene, claimed that the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018 was an elaborate ruse to spread disinformation, and that the children that witnessed their classmates get shot were crisis actors with the goal of passing gun legislation. Greene and Gosar are two of the right most leaning members of the Republican Party, and often are associated with the other, as they were in the original tweet Gosar was addressing when he spread the conspiracy theory about the Ulvade shooter being a trans woman. Even if the initial tweets by Gosar and Owens were more of an emotional reaction broadcasting deep-seated bias rather than intentional attacks on trans people inspired by the rhetoric on 4chan, it still shows how easy it is for one or two general statements from public officials to cascade into threats to the safety of individual citizens completely isolated from the original events.
Republicans in the United States have a tendency to focus a large portion of their energy towards one specific group of people that represent some group of outsiders that were already contentious in American public consciousness. When Obama was president, it was Muslims, when Trump was president, they focused on immigrants, and they have been shifting their focus to trans people for years now. The focus tends to be a topic of cultural relevance that garners emotional reactions, as Islam was (and somewhat continues to be) in the US after 9/11, and tend to tie it to a specific spearhead, as the Birther Conspericies did.
So when chatter appeared around the Ulvade shooting claiming that the shooter was trans, it sadly should not have been surprising that it was picked up by Republicans and circulated quickly. The disinformation is nowhere near as organized as the disinformation of the 20th century, yet is a form of evolution for it. Disinformation can be more powerful when it is turned into misinformation and wildly spread. An effective way to do so is to connect a topic that garners strong emotional reactions to a relevant political target, especially in a way that those likely to listen to the source of the disinformation are already more likely to believe. In this case, Trans women were already prevalent in Republican rhetoric. It’s not entirely clear why these specific women ended up associated with the shooter, as beyond very general similarities in hair cuts, skin tone, and build, they do not have very much in common. But associated they were, and thus fears to do with trans people were weaponized via misinformation to support disinformation, and connected to the latest american tragedy.
Works Cited:
Binder, Matt. “Two Innocent Trans Women Smeared Online after the Uvalde School Shooting.” Mashable, Mashable, 28 May 2022, https://mashable.com/article/trans-women-uvalde-school-shooting-disinformation.
“Birtherism: Where It All Began.” POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/birtherism-where-it-all-began-053563.
CISD, Uvalde. “An Official Account with First State Bank Has Been Set up for Donations through UCISD to Assist the Families of This Tragedy.please Know That the FSB Account, Is the Only Verified Location to Make Any Monetary Donations. No Other Source Is Currently Recognized. PIC.TWITTER.COM/PSQB6FD6LS.” Twitter, Twitter, 25 May 2022, https://twitter.com/Uvalde_CISD/status/1529515364152901633.
Devlin, Shayan Sardarizadeh & Kayleen. “Texas Shooting: How False Rumours Spread That Gunman Was Trans.” BBC News, BBC, 27 May 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/61607042.
Devlin, Shayan Sardarizadeh & Kayleen. “Texas Shooting: How False Rumours Spread That Gunman Was Trans.” BBC News, BBC, 27 May 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/61607042.
Diresta, Renée. “What We Now Know about Russian Disinformation.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Dec. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/russia-report-disinformation.html.
Elving, Ron. “With Latest Nativist Rhetoric, Trump Takes America Back to Where It Came From.” NPR, NPR, 16 July 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/742000247/with-latest-nativist-rhetoric-trump-takes-america-back-to-where-it-came-from.
Jesse McKinley, Alex Traub and Troy Closson. “Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 May 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/14/nyregion/buffalo-shooting.
Norton, Tom. “Uvalde Suspect Salvador Ramos Trans Claims-What We Do Know, What We Don’t.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 26 May 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/uvalde-suspect-salvador-ramos-trans-claimswhat-we-do-know-what-we-dont-1709950.
“Parkland Survivors Call for GOP Extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Resignation.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Jan. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/28/marjorie-taylor-greene-parkland-david-hogg.
Press, The Associated. “The House Passes a Gun Control Bill in Response to the Buffalo and Uvalde Shootings.” NPR, NPR, 9 June 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/06/08/1103862176/house-passes-gun-control-bill-buffalo-uvalde-shootings.
Serwer, Adam. “The Republican Party Finds a New Group to Demonize.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 13 Apr. 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/gops-war-trans-kids/618579/.
“Trans Woman’s Photo Used to Spread Baseless Online Theory about Texas Shooter.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/trans-womans-photo-used-spread-baseless-online-theory-texas-shooter-rcna30511.
Treisman, Rachel. “All of the Uvalde School Shooting Victims Were in the Same 4th Grade Classroom.” NPR, NPR, 25 May 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101175912/all-uvalde-texas-shooting-victims-were-in-same-4th-grade-classroom.
“Uvalde, Texas Elementary School Shooting.” GoFundMe, 9 June 2022, https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/donate-to-texas-elementary-school-shooting-relief.Watch, AZ Right Wing.
“Rep. Paul Gosar Was Also Quick to the Defense When Someone Asked If the Shooter Was a ‘Groyper’ and Repeated the Hateful Lie That the Texas Shooter Was a ‘Transsexual Leftist Illegal Alien.” Pic.twitter.com/hebalmcq8d.” Twitter, Twitter, 25 May 2022, https://twitter.com/az_rww/status/1529291087717597184?s=20&t=eSSuukM_WyNCVOVtfHH0Kg.
Cover Image from: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/-bulletproof-vest-nothing-uvalde-teacher-whose-11-students-killed-slam-rcna32271
Hello Roran,
Thank you for sharing your blog on this recent current event. I found your blog very interesting with lots of information on this topic as it covers the different stages of this phenomenon. I agree with you when you write “Disinformation can be more powerful when it is turned into misinformation and wildly spread.” This is seen in the Texas shooting case as well as many other key events in history, and it has become normal in our day and age due to social media and the news.
Hello Roran! This blog is very interesting and kind of shocking. This was the first time that I heard of how trans women were being linked to such a horrific situation. I wonder if the theory is spreading through right-wing media. To me it seems like they are trying to put blame on mental illness and trans individuals instead of on gun violence.