Equality Caucus chair tells 'idiots' who claimed Wisconsin shooter was trans to 'f‑‑‑ off'

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which works to advance LGBTQ equality in the House, on Tuesday slammed “idiots” who claimed without evidence that the shooter at a Wisconsin private school a day earlier was transgender.

Two people — one teenage student and a teacher — were killed and another six were injured, including two students in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, in a shooting Monday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis. Local authorities identified the shooter as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name “Samantha” and was a student there. No evidence suggests Rupnow identified as trans. 

“To all the idiots who claimed the shooter was trans with no information whatsoever to believe that, f‑‑‑ off. Your ignorance speaks volumes. Your hate is consuming your brains (or what’s left of them),” Pocan wrote early Tuesday on the social platform X, responding to a post by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that asked "What about trans control instead?" after President Biden’s demand for tougher gun laws. 

At a news conference Monday, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said the department does not know how Rupnow identified and stressed that people should approach internet rumors about her gender with caution. 

“I don’t know whether Natalie was transgender or not. And quite frankly, I don’t think that’s important at all,” Barnes said. “I don’t think whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may want to identify.” 

Far-right social media personalities and conservative provocateurs in recent years have been quick to claim, often without evidence, that transgender people were behind some of the nation’s most devastating acts of violence. Perpetrators of mass shootings at a Texas elementary school, celebrity pastor Joel Osteen's megachurch and a high school in suburban Iowa were all baselessly identified as trans. 

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) on social media blamed the 2023 shooting that killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on a “transsexual leftist illegal alien.” He later deleted the post. 

“Per capita is there a more violent group of people anywhere in the world than radicalized trans activists???” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on X after a 17-year-old opened fire at Perry High School in central Iowa. He shared a post from the account Libs of TikTok, whose posts frequently target LGBTQ people and who earlier that day claimed the shooter was “a trans genderfluid te*ror*st.”  

That shooter’s gender identity is still unknown. Screenshots of his social media accounts show some LGBTQ-related content, including an image of graffiti that says, “LOVE YOUR TRANS KIDS.” 

Libs of TikTok also falsely claimed that Genesse Moreno, who injured two people in a shooting at Osteen’s Lakewood Church last year, was transgender. Moreno identified as female despite using multiple aliases, including the name Jeffrey Escalante, Houston police said. 

Conservative figures including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Elon Musk claim gender-affirming hormone therapy, particularly doses of testosterone prescribed to transgender men, is one of the driving forces behind an alleged rise in transgender shooters. But mass casualty shootings perpetrated by someone who is transgender or nonbinary are exceedingly rare, and those groups are far more likely to be the victims of violence. 

Transgender or nonbinary gunmen are responsible for four widely cited mass shootings since 2019, accounting for less than 1 percent of mass shooting incidents over the past six years, according to a tally from Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates for stricter gun laws.

Most shooters are cisgender men, according to the Violence Project, which researches mass shootings.