On Wednesday, viral posts on Facebook and Twitter falsely identified a transgender person as Trump’s shooter. These posts, shared by right-wing disinformation accounts, gained millions of views and were amplified by major far-right figures. The individual in the image has now come forward, stating she is not the shooter. This incident is the latest in a series of attempts to falsely claim a shooter is transgender by using the picture of a random trans person from social media.
The major source on Twitter for the image appears to be Paul Hookem, a right-wing disinformation account. According to the account’s profile, it was previously banned for four years before being reinstated by Elon Musk. In a post by the account, the transgender woman’s picture was used along with the caption, "Anyone wondering why they aren't using this photo of the shooter?" The image of the person bore little resemblance to the shooter. The post received 7 million views, with many quote tweets gaining additional millions of views.
Now, the person depicted in the photograph has come forward in an exclusive interview with Erin In The Morning. Her name is Rose, and she learned about her picture going viral after a friend alerted her to a now-deleted Facebook post.
Rose was alarmed to see her image, stating, “I’m just an artist, I enjoy drawing and writing, and occasionally playing video games. I’m literally the most average random person…”
This is not the first time mass shooters have been incorrectly identified as transgender by right-wing accounts. In the Uvalde shooting, an unrelated transgender woman’s pictures went viral and were shared by major right-wing influencers and sitting United States representatives. Fact checks later corrected the disinformation: the person depicted in the photos was Sam, a transgender woman who lives in Georgia. In Texas, a megachurch shooter was also incorrectly identified as transgender. Similarly, right-wing influencers like Libs of TikTok and sitting congresspeople shared the disinformation before it was fact-checked.
When asked why people share pictures of unrelated transgender people to falsely claim they are mass shooters, Rose replied, “Engagement bait is my best guess, a lot of people just went along with it simply [because] I’m trans.”
If they were seeking engagement, they received it. Paul Hookem’s tweet was seen over 7,000,000 times. It was shared by far-right disinformation source, Alex Jones, who called it evidence of a “government run cult.” It was also shared by right-wing cryptocurrency influencer Matt Wallace, who has 1.9 million followers.
Rose maintains a positive attitude about her ordeal: “At least the pic used is one where I look cute.”
If I were Rose, I’d sue for defamation.
I was just telling someone the other day after the shooting before I saw a picture they’ll make the shooter transgender and they start up this hateful rhetoric and well again be the target as usual!! Sad times!!