What we know about the return of cancellation culture
People who share important posts online about Charlie Kirk are facing a pause at work. This is what we know now about cancellation culture.
- After Charlie Kirk’s shooting, shooters falsely accused that transgender people had spread online.
- This follows the pattern in which disformation mistakenly links transgender individuals to major gunfires.
- Statistics show that transgender individuals account for a disproportionately small percentage of large shooters, but are more likely to be disproportionate victims of violence.
The horrifying video of Charlie Kirk, filmed on his neck, circulated rapidly across the internet. So were the false accusations that Shooter was transgender in the days before they arrested Tyler Robinson.
This pattern has been unfolding repeatedly in major shootings over the last few years. Before authorities could release information about the suspect, politicians and commentators submitted a conspiracy theory that the attacker was trans.
Kirk was a prominent conservative activist and a close ally of President Donald Trump. In a 33-hour search of his murderer, a later corrected report found that the ammunition had a message relating to the transgender community engraved on it, but instead the message was reported to be anti-fascist and referring to online meme culture. A thorough video inspection revealed that the last question Kirk answered at the official gathering was about trans shooters. It is possible that they fueled these false flames.
Misinformation about previous shootings has also resurfaced in recent weeks. For example, a list of social media circulating that suspects of Uvalde School’s shootings were trans when he wasn’t.
The Trump administration has repeatedly targeted the trans community. Conspiracy that suggests an increase in transgender shooters is not only wrong, but also fears that falsehood could cause more harm to communities where falsehood is being stripped.
“We have to get them off the streets, we have to get them off the internet, and we can’t let them communicate with each other,” R-Texas Rep. Ronnie Jackson said of trans people in a September 16 interview with Newsmax.
The last question, Charlie Kirk, answered with a very low rate of trans shooters
Charlie Kirk was murdered at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s video shot captured the last words he spoke to the crowd as he engaged in one of these arguments.
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the past decade?” Attendees identified as asking by the Salt Lake Tribune by the 29-year-old UVU student Hunter Kozak.
“Too much,” Kirk said.
Kozak said the number was five years old and began asking how many mass shooters there were in total in that time frame.
“Are you counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk says before Shot gets fired. USA Today estimates the gunman is nearly 150 yards away from the length of the soccer field.
Kozak said, “I want to talk to Charlie about the inaccuracies he thought were promoting.”
There have been 5,221 mass shootings since 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archives. In other words, the five transshooters recorded by GVA account for 0.1% of mass shootings in the past decade.
However, Kirk’s death is not counted in this diagram as the KVA counts mass shootings as more than four people were killed or injured. In all deaths, including political or domestic violence since 2018, 22 perpetrators are known to be transgender, with about 0.005% of the 450,000 shootings told USA Today in a statement to GVA executive director Mark Bryant.
According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, 1% of the US over the age of 13 are identified as transgender.
More than 139,000 people have been killed in gunfire since 2018, not individual suicides, according to GVA data. Suicides account for the majority of gun deaths in the US
Misinformation about the transshooter explodes and rewrites Uvalde in the Philadelphia Incident
According to Reuters, mass shootings or violent gun deaths in the United States are being carried out by cisgender men. Cisgender refers to those whose gender identity matches the gender assigned at birth.
It takes time or days for authorities to release information about suspected shootings, and the internet often runs wild with the theory that shooters are trans. Bryant said he killed three students and three staff members in a 2023 school shooting in Nashville, and after continuing since, he began to notice in blogger’s comments.
At the end of August, two children died in a shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school. Court documents identified the person who fired at Mass back at school as transgender. However, other evidence also suggests that suspect Robin Westman, who died at the scene, was involved in an internet subculture known as “nihilistic violent extremism.”
The list of avoiding social media in the wake of Minneapolis and Kirk’s shootings miscorrelates between mass shooters and transgender Americans, often using misinformation about shooters’ identity.
One widely shared graphics shows a vague list of nine filmings that social media users have pointed out as evidence of “growth links,” but only five of them appear to be referencing filming where the filmer is not cisgender.
Among the graphic shootings that were accidentally attributed to the transshooter, there could be references to the 2022 Uvalde Robb Elementary School shooting, which killed 19 students and two teachers, and “Philadelphia,” a rampage in 2023, which left five people dead. Police said the suspects had not identified as proposed by elected officials, NBC News reported.
“As opposed to refer to the actual causes of easy access to guns and guns, we are struck by the opportunity to accidentally smear vulnerable communities over and over again by the opportunity to accidentally smear vulnerable communities,” LGBTQ media advocacy group Glaad said in a statement to USA Today. “The more the conversation shifts towards the suspect’s orientation and gender, the closer it is to the tangent for the suspect, the less conversation there will be about the gun.
False information: “Drum beats to lift the bloody country for trans people”
The trans community has become an increasingly target of conservative rhetoric over the past few years. Trump’s second administration prioritized rollback protection for trans women, including trying to ban trans women from playing sports, ban transgender forces from the military, and limit their ability to have government IDs that match their identity.
A 2021 survey by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law shows that trans people are more than four times more likely to experience violent casualties than Cisgender people.
Imara Jones, CEO of Transrash Media, has long reported on the roots of the Christian nationalism of the anti-trans movement before President Trump. She told USA Today in an interview that Rights had repeatedly tried to use disinformation about mass shootings to exacerbate the trans community.
In the wake of Kirk’s shooting, she said the misinformation claiming the shooter is trans is “a drumbeat to set a national blood deadlock for trans people.”
Promoting false links between the trans community and the large shooter could contribute to the “other” of the trans community and justify efforts to roll back legal rights, Jones warned.
“No one has ever heard of a trans person who feels that what happened can be justified,” Jones said of Kirk’s death. “What I’ve heard is an incredible amount of fear.”
Tyler Robinson was charged with murder. Charlie Kirk’s funeral scheduled for Sunday, September 21st
Authorities said that since Robinson submitted himself on September 11th, Robinson has not cooperated with authorities. The claims allege that Robinson targeted Kirk because of “Robinson’s belief or recognition of Charlie Kirk’s political expression.”
Authorities said Robinson told his roommate in a textbook, “I had enough of his hatred. I can’t negotiate hatred.” Robinson’s mother told police that her son had a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate, but the identity of his roommate has not been publicly confirmed. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox also said in an interview with CNN that Robinson’s roommate, whom he identified as transgender, is working with authorities.
The amount of information shared by the public at this stage is unusual and can complicate the selection of ju-seekers, experts previously told USA Today.
Robinson was charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of firearms, obstruction of justice and tampering with eyewitnesses. Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said he would pursue the death penalty in the case.
Kirk’s funeral is scheduled for Sunday, September 21st. Trump is scheduled to attend.
Contributions: Carless, Chris Kenning, Nick Penzenstadler, Christopher Cann, USA Today
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA Today Network. Contact her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and Tiktok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
