(Image via Them)

Staff Editor: Vivian Rose Galindo

Email: vivian.galindo@umassd.edu

As has progressively been the case since the inauguration of Donald Trump in January of 2025, the American far-right has strengthened their attacks on the transgender community. Recent reports indicate that the FBI intends to label all transgender people as part of a “nihilistic violent extremist group.”

A nihilistic, violent extremist group, or NVE, is now a new term for domestic terrorists described by FBI Director Kash Patel as “those who engage in violent acts motivated by a deep hatred of society.”

The reports come in after the shooting of far-right pundit Charlie Kirk. Kirk’s shooter was allegedly in a romantic relationship with his roommate, who happened to be transgender. The shooter, Tyler Robinson, allegedly described exactly how he committed the act in a set of Discord messages with the aforementioned roommate.

These reports are also part of a grander scheme to paint trans people as violent—a movement which has seen an uptick since a transgender person allegedly shot over 20 children at a Catholic school in Minnesota this August. 

But are these heinous actions proof of a pattern that transgender individuals are more likely to perpetrate violent crimes? Or are they yet another attempt by the American government to paint transgender people as the bogeyman?

According to the UCLA Williams Institute, approximately 2.8 million Americans fall under the transgender umbrella. As of a 2020 census report, there are just under 335 million people living in the United States, including Puerto Rico.

This means that transgender Americans make up a little less than 1% of the population.

Therefore, to show that they are violent, one would have to demonstrate that they perpetrate over 1% of violent crimes. Conservatives, and specifically President Donald Trump, claim that trans individuals commit the most mass shootings. 

But what are the statistics on that?

While the numbers aren’t definitive, as the definition of what a mass shooting is varies depending on the source, two main sources have the most accepted definitions of the term.

The first definition is used by The Gun Violence Archive, a site which includes what is generally accepted as the most broad definition of what a mass shooting is. Using their criteria, 5 mass shootings since 2013 are confirmed to have been committed by a transgender person, with as many as 3 more perpetrators whose identities remain unconfirmed. 

This definition includes 5,748 mass shootings in that timeline, meaning transgender individuals or suspected transgender individuals committed around 0.1% of all mass shootings.

The second definition is used by The Violence Project. Their definition has only 1 confirmed transgender shooter out of the 200 officially counted since 1966. Under this definition, transgender individuals make up 0.5% of all mass shootings.

Both of these statistics seem to make it clear that transgender people are less likely to commit mass shootings despite what is currently being circulated.

While trans individuals have a lower likelihood of being the perpetrators of violence, they are in fact far more likely to be the victims of violent crime.

The UCLA Williams Institute published a paper in 2021 detailing that transgender individuals were about four times more likely to be the victim of violent crime.

The most vulnerable population within the trans community is Black transgender women. The Human Rights Campaign found that 56% percent of fatal violent attacks against transgender and gender diverse people victimized a Black trans woman specifically.

These statistics are bleak and show that transgender individuals are at risk not only of being victimized by violent crime, but also of being falsely accused of perpetrating it.

President Donald Trump and the American far-right continue to demonize trans people, dehumanizing them in the process.