The perpetrator of the August 27 Annunciation Catholic Faculty capturing in Minneapolis was 23-year-old Robin Westman (born Robert Westman), a transgender individual. In response to ABC Information, driver’s license information listed Westman as feminine, and a 2020 Minnesota district court docket order authorised a reputation change from Robert to Robin after noting the minor “identifies as a female and desires her identify to mirror that identification.”
This was not the primary transgender shooter, and never the primary time a Christian faculty was focused. The 2023 Nashville faculty capturing occurred on March 27 at The Covenant Faculty. The shooter was recognized as Aiden Hale (beforehand referred to by police as Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a 28-year-old former scholar of the college. Police initially recognized the shooter as a girl however later confirmed Hale was transgender. Six folks have been killed within the assault, together with three kids, all 9 years outdated.
The 2022 Colorado Springs Membership Q capturing was one other instance. As a result of the nightclub catered to an LGBTQ viewers, many initially assumed the attacker could be a white supremacist. As an alternative, the perpetrator was Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and makes use of they/them pronouns. The assault left 5 folks lifeless and 19 others injured.
Further incidents embrace the 2018 Aberdeen, Maryland, Ceremony Help capturing, the place 26-year-old Snochia Moseley, a transgender particular person transitioning from feminine to male, killed three folks and wounded three others at a distribution middle earlier than taking her personal life.
In 2019, at STEM Faculty Highlands Ranch in Colorado, 16-year-old Alec McKinney (born Maya McKinney), a transgender boy, carried out a capturing with an confederate that left one individual lifeless and eight others injured. McKinney advised police he particularly focused college students who mocked his gender id and admitted he had been planning the assault for weeks.
One of the crucial weird and far-reaching homicide rings in recent times is the Vegan Transgender Extremist Zizian Cult, a bunch of about 30 members, largely younger transgender girls, linked to no less than six murders and labeled as extremists by U.S. legislation enforcement. The group was led by Jack “Ziz” LaSota, a 34-year-old transgender girl with a pc science diploma from the College of Alaska Fairbanks who as soon as interned at NASA.
Writing underneath the identify “Ziz,” LaSota printed disturbing theories claiming that every mind hemisphere has a separate gender id and that these identities usually need to kill each other.
Members practiced “unihemispheric sleep,” trying to sleep with one eye open to forestall one hemisphere from “destroying” the opposite, a philosophy that has reportedly contributed to suicides throughout the cult.
A number of members turned key figures in violent crimes. Michelle Zajko, 32, was tied to the homicide of her dad and mom, Richard and Rita Zajko, who have been shot to demise in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, on December 31, 2022. Daniel Clean, 26, Zajko’s Vermont housemate who has been described as having Asperger’s syndrome, was additionally concerned. In November 2022 in Vallejo, California, Zizian members attacked an 80-year-old landlord, impaling him with a sword and blinding him in a single eye; the sufferer fatally shot one assailant in self-defense.
The identical landlord, Curtis Lind, was later stabbed to demise on January 17, 2025, with Maximilian Snyder charged within the killing. Simply days later, on January 20 in Coventry, Vermont, U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, 44, was killed throughout a shootout after a site visitors cease. Zizian member Teresa Youngblut, 21, is accused of opening fireplace, whereas one other member, Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, was additionally killed within the alternate.
The wave of violence culminated on February 16, 2025, when LaSota, Zajko, and Clean have been arrested in Frostburg, Maryland. They have been discovered trespassing on personal property whereas wearing black and carrying weapons. LaSota, described by prosecutors because the chief of the extremist Zizians, was ordered held with out bail.
One of the crucial disturbing prevented instances concerned Elizabeth Ballesteros West, previously Francisco Frank Paramo, a 56-year-old transgender girl from Cottage Grove, Oregon. West was arrested by the FBI in January 2024 for allegedly plotting a mass capturing at her office over claims of “transphobia.” Federal prosecutors charged her with interstate threatening communications.
The investigation started after West posted alarming messages on a transgender assist Fb web page on September 26, 2023. She wrote that she was “on the finish of my rope,” feared shedding her job, and declared she had “no various” after being bullied by “transphobic a**holes.” She added, “I’ll in all probability need to exit in a blaze of glory.” Past her office, West expressed violent intentions towards Jews and Black folks and brazenly embraced neo-Nazi ideology.
When the FBI searched her property, brokers found an enormous weapons cache: 11 handguns, 16 rifles, tens of hundreds of rounds of ammunition, gun equipment, dozens of violent drawings, and a pocket book titled Black Shadow Journal. In response to an FBI informant, West had a historical past of reckless habits, as soon as enjoying Russian roulette throughout Christmas 2022 whereas in a dissociative state. She had additionally been arrested in 1993 for putting a shotgun in her father’s mouth and pulling the set off, although the case was later dropped.
West’s private historical past revealed long-standing psychological well being struggles, together with diagnoses of bipolar dysfunction, dissociative id dysfunction, and PTSD. The FBI additionally tied her to white supremacist exercise, noting she and her boyfriend had attended neo-Nazi rallies in Washington state and even hosted individuals at their dwelling. Her social media was full of memes and propaganda glorifying Hitler, selling racial violence, and threatening mass assaults.
Throughout preliminary interviews, West downplayed the threats, claiming she was solely projecting suicidal ideas whereas battling the stress of gender transition. This raises broader issues about undiagnosed psychological well being points and the attainable results of hormone use.
A analysis report printed in PubMed Central discovered that roughly 58 p.c of transgender sufferers had no less than one DSM-5 analysis, in contrast with 13.6 p.c of cisgender sufferers. Equally, a research printed in ScienceDirect concluded that transgender persons are about six occasions extra seemingly than the final inhabitants to undergo from temper and nervousness issues, findings echoed within the American Journal of Psychiatry’s evaluate of therapy utilization.
Latest surveys reinforce this troubling sample. The 2024 U.S. Nationwide Survey on the Psychological Well being of LGBTQ+ Younger Folks reported that 71 p.c of transgender and nonbinary youth skilled nervousness signs, whereas 44.4 p.c reported latest suicidal ideation and practically 7 p.c admitted to a latest suicide try.