When a Shooter Is Trans—and Not a Cis Male—Suddenly Identity Matters

Shirlynn Chan

Twenty-three-year-old Robin Westman on August 27 opened fire through the windows of a church where children were attending mass to celebrate their first week at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The shooter carried a rifle, pistol and shotgun, and she shot more than 100 rounds. Westman fatally shot two children, ages 8 and 10, and injured 18 more people, before dying at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

By the metrics of the K–12 School Shooting Database, this tragedy marked the 146th incidence of school gun violence in 2025. Firearms remain the leading cause of death for minors in the US, with 2,526 people under 18 killed by guns in 2022.

Yet most media outlets focused on profiling the shooter—who was transgender—and identifying her motives, treating the shooting as an isolated case rather than a symptom of a larger, systemic issue.

FAIR surveyed coverage from both centrist (CNN, NPR, New York Times, PBS, Washington Post, ABC and NBC) and right-wing (New York Post, Newsmax and Breitbart) news outlets on the day of and the day after the shooting. The survey was limited to written articles and Google searches of the keywords “Minnesota school shooting.” While right-wing media took the opportunity to misgender and villainize trans people and pretend Westman was a leftist, centrist media did little to curb transphobic backlash. Neither group gave the broader epidemic of gun violence the kind of focused attention it demands in the wake of any school shooting.

'Transgender mass shooter'

Many right-wing media, like Breitbart (8/27/25), made sure to include "trans" in their headlines, and to cherry-pick quotes to suggest trans people are brainwashed.

Right-wing media coverage focused more heavily on Westman’s gender identity than on the attack itself. A handful of articles in the sample (New York Post, 8/27/25, 8/28/25; Newsmax, 8/28/25; Breitbart, 8/28/25) substantially detailed the shooter’s transition and alleged detransition, creating a false narrative where Westman’s identity significantly informed her access to and discharge of guns. Most articles in the sample included “trans” in their headlines, and many also included suggestions of detransition (and of an "anti-Trump" ideology); all used male pronouns:

• “Minneapolis School Shooter ID’d as Trans Woman Robin Westman—as Apparent Manifesto Included ‘Kill Trump’” (New York Post, 8/27/25)
• “Minneapolis School Shooter Robin Westman Confessed He Was ‘Tired of Being Trans’: ‘I Wish I Never Brain-Washed Myself’” (New York Post, 8/28/25)
• “Report: Minneapolis Shooter Was ‘Tired of Being Trans’” (Newsmax, 8/28/25)
• “Trans Minnesota Catholic School Shooter’s YouTube Manifesto Included Vile Anti-Trump Messages Written on Guns” (Breitbart, 8/27/25)
• “Report: Attacker Who Opened Fire During Catholic School Mass Said He Was ‘Tired of Being Trans’” (Breitbart, 8/28/25)

The New York Post (8/28/25) opened one article: “Transgender mass shooter Robin Westman confessed that he ‘was tired of being trans’ and wished he ‘never brainwashed’ himself.” While the framing suggested that Westman was renouncing her trans identity, other Westman quotes from the same Post article contradicted that idea and indicated something more complex:

I regret being trans…. I wish I was a girl I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today. I also can’t afford that.

This line suggests that, in fact, Westman's gender identity was female, and what she "regretted" and was "tired of" was having a body that was perceived as transgender rather than as cisgender female. By skewing her words, the Post echoed a broader right-wing narrative that paints trans identity as artificial and delusional, suggesting that anyone who transitions is a “brainwashed” victim of a dangerous trans movement. This rhetoric not only misrepresents one individual’s distress, but also works to delegitimize all trans experiences and the movement for trans rights.

The piece quoted “lefty [Minneapolis] Mayor” Jacob Frey’s calls to avoid scapegoating the trans community, but countered his warnings by referencing a 2023 school shooting by someone who identified as transgender: "The Annunciation attack was the second elementary school shooting perpetrated by a trans person in the last two years."

This fact was presented and framed as an alarming, rising trend. A responsible media outlet would provide the context that, according to the Gun Violence Archive, 0.11% of the known suspects in mass shootings over the past decade were transgender (NBC, 12/20/24)—far less than the trans share of the general public.

'Transgenderism and mental illness'

The New York Post (8/28/25) quoted a Minnesota lawmaker who said "we got to understand that we’ve got some serious mental health issues that are being exacerbated" by messages like "we got to respect everyone" and "we got to have compassion for everyone."

The Post followed this discussion with RFK Jr.’s suggestion that the “drugs Westman was taking during his transition could have played a ‘role’ in his depraved violence.”

This all feeds into an even larger false narrative that portrays being trans as a mental illness, one that supposedly predisposes individuals to violence. The New York Post explicitly pushed this narrative by claiming that “numerous studies point to a link between transgenderism and mental illness.” ("Transgenderism" is a coded right-wing term used to falsely imply that trans identity is an ideology.) Citing a 2024 Trevor Project national survey of the mental health of young LGBTQ people, the article reported that “39% of LGBTQ+ young people ‘seriously considered’ suicide in the last year—including a whopping 46% of ‘transgender and nonbinary’ youths.”

The Post falsely suggested that the positive association lies between trans identity and mental illness, when the Trevor Project clearly states that it lies instead between “anti-LGBTQ+ victimization and disproportionately high rates of suicide risk.” It is prejudice and bigotry exhibited by the likes of the New York Post that is significantly associated with deteriorating mental health in queer youths, not their identity itself.

When reporting on the violent messaging Westman wrote on rifle magazines and smoke grenades used in her attack, right-wing outlets only covered those that were threats against President Donald Trump and anti-Israel, painting Westman as a leftist. One New York Post (8/27/25) article reported that Westman wrote “‘kill Donald Trump’” and “‘for the children’” on her gun magazines, among other extremist sentiments, “hinting at an angry melange of far-left politics and antisemitism.” Both Newsmax articles (8/28/25, 8/27/25) quoted the same two messages.

All of them avoided mentioning the copious far-right messaging Westman left behind, including writing racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs and references, like

“kick a spic,” “fart n****,” “McVeigh” and “Waco.” Westman also had smoke grenades with “Jew Gas” written on them and the antisemitic, pro-Holocaust slogan “6 million wasn’t enough” written on their gear.

Westman also exhibited an obsession with past mass shooters, specifically Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011.

Lending credence to incendiary claims

This New York Times piece (8/27/25) noted that conservative activists "broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill"—but didn't present any information countering these smears.

Centrist outlets were not immune to similar distortions. A New York Times piece (8/27/25) on the shooter highlighted that “some conservative activists have seized on the shooter’s gender identity to broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill,” appearing to set up a critique of such transphobic generalizations. Instead, the outlet lent credence to the inflammatory claims.

When reporting on the contents of Westman’s “seemingly stream-of-consciousness” videos that would perhaps illuminate a motive, the Times observed that the shooter’s “extensive social media history was a contradictory catalog of anger and grievance.” But the paper picked and chose which of her messages to fully quote. A sticker in her diary that had “LGBTQ and transgender flags with a gun and the slogan ‘Defend Equality’” was directly quoted, yet the “antisemitic and racist language” scrawled onto her weapons was left unspecified.

Further down the relatively brief article, the Times revisited the “right-wing uproar.” This time, reporters Talya Minsberg, Amy Harmon and Aric Toler balanced it with a statement from Mayor Frey warning against “scapegoating transgender people in the wake of the tragedy.” While such a message is crucial in the midst of such widespread scapegoating, the media's role ought to be to provide the context to dispel transphobic myths and backlash fomented by the right—for instance, by pointing out the rarity of trans shooters—rather than simply offer the two sides as competing visions.

Two days later—8/29/25—a Times piece by Harmon did examine and debunk the right-wing narrative around trans shooters. It's a welcome intervention, but one that should have been included in the paper's most prominent articles about the shooting.

No counter to right-wing narratives

Among the "red flags" that NBC's report (8/28/25) suggests authorities missed: "Her mother expressed conflicted feelings about her child’s gender identity."

Many centrist reports didn't even include Frey’s statement. The Washington Post (8/28/25), CNN (8/27/25, 8/28/25), NPR (8/28/25) and NBC (8/28/25) all mentioned the shooter’s trans identity or described her transition, yet none offered any counter to the right-wing trans narratives.

NBC (8/28/25) published an article that opened with details of a past welfare check on Westman. Near the end of the article, the outlet interlaced records of her turbulent family dynamics and “behavioral and social issues” with records of her transition:

While Westman’s parents signed off on the name change, her mother expressed conflicted feelings about her child’s gender identity, said a former school employee…. The ex-employee also remembered that Westman was often sent to the principal’s office for disruptive behavior and did not seem to have any friends. Westman’s mother expressed concern about her child’s behavioral and social issues, the ex-employee said. Faced with punishment from school administrators, Westman appeared alternately nervous and nonchalant, the former employee said.

This interlacing implicitly pathologized her gender identity, grouping trans identity into other “missed warning signs” and bolstering far-right narratives that trans people are dangerous and inherently troubled. Meanwhile, despite the fact that 96% of US mass shooters since 1966 have been cisgender males, media virtually never pathologize cisgender male gender identity in the context of mass shootings (FAIR.org, 6/30/22).

ABC (8/28/25) took a page from right-wing media and erased Westman’s far-right references, and emphasized material that reflected a far-left or anti-religious framing. The two that the outlet selected were a sticker in a notebook “that says ‘defend equality’ with an LGBTQIA flag,” and a gun that “has writings against Israel.”

PBS (8/28/25) only highlighted messages that read “‘kill Donald Trump’” and ‘“Where is your God,’” aligning with Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel’s claim that the shooting was a hate crime against Catholics. NPR (8/28/25), on the other hand, did not elaborate on the writings, instead relegating them to a description of “other details” and failing to challenge the selective left vs. right framing that dominated coverage elsewhere.

Sidelining gun reform discussion

A recent study found that, after a 2010 Supreme Court ruling led to a loosening of state gun laws, pediatric gun deaths increased much more in those states with the most permissive laws (Scientific American, 6/11/25)—the kind of information connecting gun laws to gun deaths that coverage of gun violence too often lacks.

Mayor Frey, a long-standing advocate for stricter gun laws, clearly and strongly restated his position in the wake of the murders, as was quoted by the New York Times (8/27/25) and PBS (8/28/25):

People who say that this is not about guns. You got to be kidding me. This is about guns. We do need to take action.

Several articles quoted some part of Frey's calls for reform, but very few went any further, to offer context such as the state of Minnesota’s gun laws or the frequency of school shootings in the United States.

In fact, only three out of the 16 articles in the survey substantively discussed gun control. NPR (8/28/25) quoted three sources making explicit calls for gun control, including Frey highlighting the availability of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison talking about recent gun control measures passed in Minnesota and more that could help prevent future violence.

The Washington Post (8/28/25) reported that while "Minnesota is home to some of the toughest firearm laws in the country, and the state has 'relatively low firearm violence,'" citing Everytown for Gun Safety statistics, "advocates said more must be done to prevent both high-profile mass shootings and the gun violence that unfolds every day." Just a day before the shooting at Annunciation, the paper reported, a shooter armed with a high-velocity rifle opened fire across the street from another Minneapolis school, killing one and injuring six.

Under the headline "Democrats Renew Calls for Gun Control After Minnesota School Shooting," CNN (8/27/25) reported that those Democratic "calls for greater action may soon meet political reality," explaining that Republican lawmakers have “shown no signs of opening a push for new gun measures.” The article put the school shooting in the context of the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in June, and the targeted attack of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife on the same night.

Minnesota does not prohibit the purchase of assault-style weapons designed for military use, nor does it prohibit high-capacity magazines. Editorial choices to sideline discussion of gun reform only serve to obscure accountability and normalize a cycle of inaction and violence.