In the midst of a terrible tragedy that claimed six lives, including three 9-year old students, the main storyline in the Nashville school shooting is the gender identity of the suspect.
Authorities revealed that Audrey Hale, the suspect in the shooting at The Covenant School was transgender just hours before she was shot to death by police.
Days later, there are still confusions and misinformation regarding Hale’s identity and whether his gender identity was involved in the motive behind the massacre.
While some of the extreme right quickly blamed the shooting on the suspect’s gender identity while others pointed to an already volatile political environmentinwhich transgender people are a frequent target for right-wing lawmakers, pundits, and activists.
Learn more about the Nashville school shooting
- All we know About the Nashville elementary school shooting
- The victims of this massacre were a 9-year old who loved to perform and a dedicated school leader to her students
- Police say that the Nashville shooter was receiving treatment for emotional disorder. He hid weapons at his parents’ house, according to police.
- Fear is a common theme inTennessee’s trans communities, despite the focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity
- Some on the right blame Nashville shootings on gender identity, not guns
After claiming on Monday that Hale was transgender, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said to NBC’s Lester Holt, “police feel that” Hale “identifies as trans.” However, we are still conducting an initial investigation into the incident and if that played any role.
Drake didn’t say why police believed Hale to be transgender. Six people who knew Hale as of Thursday afternoon told NBC News they did not believe that Drake was transgender. However, it is not unusual for trans people not to tell anyone about their gender identity. A Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll this month revealed that more than 1/10, or 12% of trans and gender-nonconforming individuals reported not having told anyone that they were trans. Trans people may not identify as trans men or women. Some trans people identify as nonbinary.
Drake answered Monday’s question about whether Hale was transgender man, or transgender woman. But that wouldn’t be true if Hale were transgender. Transgender women are assigned male gender at birth and identify themselves as women.
According to public records, Hale was born a female. , Bill Campbell, a former headmaster at The Covenant School who knew Hale when he was a child, stated that Hale had been a female student between 2005 and 2006. This would have been around 10 to 11 years ago.
Campbell recalled that Campbell looked through his yearbooks from the past and remembered her as a former student. “She was just one among our young ladies.”
Later in his life, however, it was unclear if Hale identified himself as a female. According to Hale’s LinkedIn account, Hale used pronouns “he” and “him.” Averianna Patton , a friend of Hale, stated that Hale sent her a message shortly before the shooting. She also signed the message “Audrey(Aiden).” Hale’s website was linked to an Instagram account in which Hale used Aiden’s name. However, a person can use different pronouns or a different name to indicate that they are transgender. Some trans people’s identities change and/or become fluid over time.
Samira Hardcastle was in high school with Hale. She said that people assumed she was gay. Hardcastle continued to follow Hale on social networks, but didn’t speak to him after high school.
Hardcastle stated that Hale didn’t claim she was transgender, or that she identified herself as a man in her social media posts. She said that Hale started using a different name in social media “in about the last year or so maybe.”
Nashville officials responded to NBC News’s question about how Hale was identified as transgender. They said that their leadership would use all information available to identify a person by gender and that they refer to Hale as a woman, who used male pronouns, but also went by a different name.
Police have so far not revealed any information linking Hale’s gender identity with the shooting motive, but they are continuing to investigate. However, Hale’s gender remains a major topic of public and political conversation.
Experts believe that transgender and nontransgender women may be responsible for the high number of shootings. , a nonpartisan research centre that tracks mass shootings from 1996 to January, recently discovered that 98% were men.
The current political and cultural climate could also be a reason why gender identity is being emphasized. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 400 state lawmakers have filed bills this year that specifically target LGBTQ people and trans youths. A separate group of researchers is tracking the flow and monitoring the legislation. Over the past three years, 18 states have banned transgender students from participating in school sports teams that are aligned with their gender identity. Nine states have also prohibited minors from receiving transition-related medical treatment such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
A ‘disinformation ecosystem’
Imara Jones, the creator of the podcast “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine,” the second season of which focuses largely on how the Christian-Nationalist movement spreads disinformation about transgender people, said the recent legislative focus on trans people combined with the lack of information about Hale’s identity has created a breeding ground for the spread of false information.
She pointed out that Hale’s parents and the college Hale attended had not publicly disclosed any information about Hale.
She said, “What I know is that there is a ready-made disinformation environment that can amplify and distort these particular discussions.”
Users on extremist websites shared their hopes for Hale’s transgender identity hours before Hale was officially identified by authorities. These users were the primary targets of hate-filled harassment campaigns launched by 4chan, an infamous extremist website.
The site posted threats against the LGBTQ community immediately after police stated that the shooter was transgender. They also promised “revenge” and searched for any hints of connections to larger LGBTQ organizations through social media profiles. However, no such ties were reported.
Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with speculation and memes about the shooter’s gender identity. Talk points about violence committed by trans people quickly became mainstream under the hashtag #transterror.
is a Twitter influencer for conservative PAC Turning Points USA. He has 1.4million followers and tweeted out a list of four mass shootings that he claimed were committed by trans or nonbinary persons since January 2018. Twitter CEO Elon Musk responded with an exclamation mark to the tweet.
One of the four shootings — one of the 2,800 mass shootings in the U.S. since 2018 – occurred in a Colorado gay nightclub in November. The suspect, who authorities claim ran an online Nazi website and posted antiLGBTQ screeds including a photo of crosshairs with an LGBTQ flag as part of his web site. Although the suspect claimed to be nonbinary, some extremism experts thought the suspect was trolling.
Social media and extremist websites were not the only places where disinformation and speculation about the Nashville shooter’s gender identity were allowed. Fox News host Laura Ingraham suggested Tuesday that the suspect was taking medication for mental illness and hormones such as testosterone to explain his actions. However, police have not provided any details about the suspect’s medications.
Conservative provocateur Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican from Georgia) also suggested that the suspect was medically transgender and that gender identity played an important role in the shooting.
Greene wondered if the transgender Nashville shooter was taking hormones such as testosterone or medications for mental illness. “Everyone should stop blaming guns right now.
Jones stated that those who support legislation restricting trans rights will use speculation and disinformation about Hale to “promote the political and policy violence versus our community — which, of course, is what the disinformation was designed to do in its first place.”
