Two high-profile shootings carried out by transgender people within the span of lower than every week have sparked fears a couple of perceived uptick in violence from the group.
On February tenth, an 18-year-old transgender shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, gunned down his mom and stepbrother earlier than killing six others at a faculty in British Columbia, Canada.
Then on Monday, Robert Dorgan, who additionally recognized as Roberta Esposito, opened fireplace at a Pawtucket, Rhode Island, ice rink the place his son was enjoying hockey, killing two relations after which himself.
Earlier than his assault, Dorgan wrote on-line, “I’m a gun fanatic transwoman; i take advantage of tampons for the hell of it. Don’t mild my fuse,” based on reporting by Andy Ngo.
The shooter additionally tweeted, “Preserve bashing us. However don’t surprise why we Go BESERK.”
On-line communities have sprung up, encouraging transgender individuals to arm themselves and showcase their weapons.
The Submit investigated a preferred Reddit group, r/transguns, the place customers put up pictures of themselves with their firearms. The subreddit boasts 11,000 weekly guests.
Redditors swap pictures of their weapons and paraphernalia, typically embellished within the pink, white, and blue colours of the transgender flag. One person’s case for his or her gun confirmed an LGBT flag patch overlaid with a machine gun and the phrases “DEFEND EQUALITY.”
One other person posted a picture of themselves armed and saluting, coated in AR-15 magazines.
“You want capturing fascists don’t you,” a commenter responded. “There isn’t any have to salute. We’re all equal within the battle in opposition to fascism,” one other stated.
“By no means ask a lady her age, a person his wage, or a queer particular person what number of weapons they personal,” a meme shared on the subreddit reads. “Don’t underestimate how armed the trans group has turn out to be,” one other said.
A video attributed to the group “Pink Pistols Pittsburgh” confirmed a trans particular person loading a pistol at a firing vary and saying: “I used to be impressed to not simply be prey.”
The founders of the group communicate within the video, saying: “After the election in November, issues began to really feel a bit extra pressing, after we realized that we couldn’t essentially depend on the federal government to implement legal guidelines to guard our security.
“The idea of pink pistol golf equipment … began popping up everywhere in the nation that may deter bigots, extremists, and individuals who could be motivated to commit a hate crime from attacking LGBT individuals. Armed queers don’t get bashed.”
Regardless of the current flurry of violence, trans individuals nonetheless make up a small minority of mass shooters total. Nevertheless, there have been a number of high-profile examples in North America involving transgender perpetrators, attracting scrutiny and a focus.
In August 2025, male-to-female figuring out Robin Westman killed two youngsters and wounded 18 extra at a Minneapolis church. And in March 2023, female-to-male figuring out Aiden Hale killed six at a Nashville Christian faculty.
There isn’t any proof any of the shooters had been affiliated with any of the aforementioned teams on this story.
Trans individuals posing with weapons has additionally turn out to be extra distinguished within the media.
An op-ed within the College of Utah’s scholar newspaper argued that trans individuals ought to arm themselves again in 2023.
“Our scenario is turning into extraordinarily harmful,” a scholar argued. “Trans individuals at the moment have the total rights of the Structure, however that may not be the case endlessly. Whereas they nonetheless can, trans individuals ought to arm themselves.”
Eugene Weekly, an area various newspaper from Eugene, Oregon, ran a canopy story in June 2025 that includes a trans particular person holding an AR-15 model weapon titled “Are you triggered?” The caption learn, “Because the Trump administration assaults trans individuals, some queer of us are armed and able to bash again.”
Such rhetoric has led to unsubstantiatedspeculation the trans-identified group is disproportionately violent.
“Trans individuals are essentially the most harmful and unstable group in existence and it’s not shut,” conservative commentator Matt Walsh tweeted earlierthis month. “All the gender transition trade have to be forcibly shut down instantly.”
The precise proportion of trans shooters is tough to establish, because of differing definitions of mass shootings.
In response to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as incidents with 4 or extra casualties not together with the shooter, 5 out of 5,748 shootings between January 1, 2013, and September 15, 2025 had been perpetrated by transgender shooters,representing lower than one tenth of 1 per cent of shootings.
The full variety of trans shooters throughout this time interval may very well be as excessive as eight, however the different three perpetrators’ gender identities haven’t been confirmed. This definition of mass shootings can also embrace gang-related violence.
Nonetheless, there was a push within the trans group to get armed, typically citing fears of legislative motion taken to roll again gender-affirming care, which some have conflated with a “genocide” of trans individuals.
Trans individuals and allies have additionally gathered for capturing apply, generally underneath the moniker Stone Wall Underground, a bunch that’s “devoted to supporting intersectional communities and our allies by mutual assist, self-defense schooling, and empowering of us to get higher educated and arranged.”
This fall, the Trump administration reportedly thought of limiting transgender gun possession following the Minneapolis capturing.
The NRA virtually instantly got here out in opposition to the transfer, writing on X that the group “doesn’t and won’t assist any coverage proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding residents of their Second Modification rights with out due course of.”
