Growing Concerns Over Links Between Transgenderism And Violence

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Mental health issues that manifest in gender confusion, combined with potent cross-sex hormones, can be a recipe for violence, some experts have said.

Since 2018, five people who identified as transgender or were gender-confused have gone on killing sprees at schools and businesses. Authorities have been increasingly slow to confirm so-called gender identities and motives in cases such as these.

When shooters’ “gender identities” were revealed, some news outlets and commentators were quick to point out that people who identify as transgender and those who say they’re neither male nor female represent a small fraction of mass shooters.

But the numbers show a concerning pattern.

A mass shooting is defined by the Crime Prevention Research Center as the killing of four or more people in a single incident that’s not gang or drug related.

Of the 37 public mass shootings from 2018 through 2023, two were carried out by gender-confused individuals, according to John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. Three additional shootings were carried out by gender-confused individuals that resulted in fewer than four victims.

The case that has received the most intense media scrutiny is that of 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who went on a killing spree at the Covenant School in Nashville in March 2023.

She gunned down three 9-year-olds and three adults before police shot and killed her.

Ms. Hale identified as a “transgender man,” according to Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake.

Ten months after the heinous act, a clear picture of Ms. Hale’s motive remains unclear. Media organizations have filed lawsuits asking to view her journals, which are still held by police.

After most mass shooting incidents, any writings that suggest a motive are released to the public quickly, Mr. Lott said.

Eventually, three pages of what police confirmed to be Ms. Hale’s journal were leaked to media commentator Steven Crowder, who posted the writings online. The pages contained racial slurs against white people. Ms. Hale was white.

Aside from Audrey Hale, there was Anderson Lee Aldrich, a man who identifies as nonbinary. He was sentenced to more than 2,000 years in prison for killing five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs in 2022.

The three other shootings with fewer than four victims include an incident in January at Perry Middle School and High School complex in Perry, Iowa, involving a 17-year-old who reportedly used the hashtag “gender-fluid” to describe himself on social media.

On Jan. 4, he fatally shot a sixth-grade student and wounded six others before killing himself, according to Iowa police. Principal Dan Marbuger died from his injuries 10 days later, his family announced.

In 2018, a woman who identified as a man gunned down three co-workers and injured three others outside a Rite Aid warehouse in Aberdeen, Maryland, before she shot herself, according to police.

And in a 2019 shooting, 17-year-old Maya “Alec” McKinney, a woman identifying as a man, was one of two Colorado students charged in a shooting that killed one person and injured eight at a Highlands Ranch charter school near Denver. Ms. McKinney was sentenced to life in prison.

The number of people aged 13 and older who identify as transgender in the United States is estimated to be about 1.6 million, or 0.6 percent of that population, according to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.

And although 0.6 percent of the 13-and-older population identifies as transgender, 5.4 percent of the mass shootings in recent years involved gender-confused individuals.

Language of Violence

It isn’t the norm for those suffering from gender dysphoria to commit violence, according to Kathy Platani, who directs the Southwest Ohio Critical Incident Stress Management Team.

Still, society shouldn’t ignore the trend of escalating violence, she told The Epoch Times.

“Hormones change brain chemistry,” said Ms. Platani, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. “And if you change brain chemistry, you might just be changing behavior.”

Brain-altering hormone treatments used in attempts to alter gender may be what’s leading to trantifa (a combination of “trans” and “Antifa”) social media posts that seem to encourage violence toward “transphobes.”

An example is a recent video circulating on social media that gained more than 1 million views.

The subject of the video appears to be a man dressed as a woman and seems to coyly threaten a mass killing. The video caption reads, “If the transphobes keep going for my sisters I’m gonna start sounding like Anakin.”

The person lip-syncs to audio of the Star Wars character Anakin Skywalker’s admission that he killed a population of men, women, and children.

Many commenters expressed outrage at the post about the seemingly homicidal sentiment.

But social media posts such as that suggest that retribution is justified, and that can lead to unrest and violence, experts told The Epoch Times.

If those who believe they’re born in the wrong bodies don’t find acceptance with friends or family, it can spark feelings of resentment, Ms. Platani said.

“They want to pay back the world for either bullying them, disapproving of them, or completely abandoning them. And this is how they make a statement,” she said.

“Once you feel ignited by this, and you’re already angry at the world, this is a perfect storm.”

Mental Illness and Hormones

The disproportionate tendency for extreme violence may be explained by biology.

Some people think that changing their bodies to reflect a new “gender identity” will solve their mental health problems, according to neuropsychologist Alan Hopewell.

People with gender dysphoria may try hormone treatments first, which makes them more susceptible to mood swings and health problems, Mr. Hopewell said.

Patients attempting to live as the opposite sex take “massive” doses of testosterone or estrogen, he said. Treatments meant to try to alter gender also disrupt brain function and the entire physical system of the body, he said.

A systemic review of the effects of testosterone given to women who identify as men was released in 2020. It examined seven different studies on aggression in individuals who identify as transgender.

The studies focused on aggression levels before and after taking male hormones.

In their analysis, researchers wrote that women trying to live as men are warned of “increasing aggression when initiating testosterone therapy” because of past associations between male hormones and aggression.

Testosterone has been connected to what’s known as “roid rage,” unwarranted rage or angry outbursts often associated with the use of steroids.

Testosterone abuse in weightlifting and bodybuilding circles brought attention to the issue when a law against steroid use was passed in 1990.

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