After a mass shooting in Nashville last year, the Media Research Center obsessed over the alleged transgender identity of the shooter, then hyped leaked pages from the shooter’s alleged manifesto (actually more like disconnected notebook entries), all in an effort to maliciously portray all transgender people as violent and mentally ill, since right-wingers deny the humanity of anyone who’s not heterosexual. Raging transphobe Tierin-Rose Mandelburg tried to repeat the pattern after another school shooting in a Jan. 4 post:
Early Thursday morning a disturbed individual entered Perry High School in Iowa and fired shots resulting in “multiple gunshot victims.” The suspect has been identified, and it turns out he was a deeply disturbed young man named Dylan Butler who reportedly had numerous ties to the LGBTQ community.
Keep in mind, this story is ongoing. Details are still being released and are subject to change. But so far, reports indicate that the shooting started around 7:37 a.m., just before school began for the day. AP News reported that “Police said a sixth grader was killed and five other people were wounded by a 17-year-old suspect in the shooting Thursday.”
[…]There’ve also been reports that Butler identified as “gender fluid,” but again, police haven’t confirmed that.
After these reports spread online, users were shocked, but honestly, not surprised given the mental state the alleged shooter seemed to possess.
At the top of Mandelburg’s list of “users” making a point of highlighting that was the viciously transphobic Libs of TikTok, joined by other haters. Never mind, of course, that nothing had been actually verified about Butler’s identity; Mandelburg’s source was a Twitter/X post by right-winger Robby Starbuck, who quote-tweeted a since-deleted post by Libs of TikTok.
Mandelburg wasn’t the only right-wing hater to rush to judgment; everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to Elon Musk did the same. And neither she and they were going to mention that most mass shootings are carried out by straight men. Indeed, Mandelburg has a narrative she’s being paid to push, however misleading, and she concluded by taking one more stab at pushing it:
This is a tragic and heartbreaking event that needs to be covered to bring awareness to the fact that hurt people hurt people and Butler, if it’s confirmed that he is the shooter, was a hurt individual who needed psychiatric help. But it’s likely this, like the last school shooting that occurred by someone who supported the delusional identities of the LGBTQ mob, will be squashed in the media because it doesn’t fit the establishment narrative.
Again, nothing had been verified about Butler’s identity. Mandelburg was just looking for an excuse to go on yet another anti-LGBTQ rant.
The headline of Mandelburg’s post claimed she was offering “Insight into Suspected Shooter’s LGBTQ Ties.” In fact, she offered nothing but the usual right-wing transphobic hate. There’s nothing insightful about that.