In response to news that the Covenant School killer is transgender, liberal media outlets have pivoted their coverage of the tragic shooting to defend and advocate for the LGBTQ community.
The startling coverage follows the Monday massacre at the Nashville-based Covenant School, where a biological woman who reportedly identified as a transgender man killed three adults and three children: 9-year-old Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9-year-old Hallie Scruggs, 9-year-old William Kinney, 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old Mike Hill, according to Fox News.
Armed with two rifles and a handgun, the killer shot through the school’s locked door at about 10 a.m. on Monday, Fox reported. Hale then went upstairs to the second floor where she reportedly opened fire.
Police officers first received the 911 call at 10:13 a.m., and Metro Nashville Police officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo were among the dozens of officers who rushed to the building, The Tennessean reported. By 10:24 a.m., Engelbert and Collazo had taken out the shooter.
As the country grappled with the tragic shooting, NBC News published a story on Tuesday describing how “fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity,” citing one transgender advocate saying, “We were already fearing for our lives. Now, it’s even worse.”
Newsweek spoke with a variety of LGBTQ groups that claimed publishing the shooter’s manifesto might have “serious consequences” and pushed for police not to release the manifesto.
The Associated Press took the moment to point out that a federal judge had “quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age for Tennesseans to carry handguns publicly without a permit to 18, two years after a new law set the age at 21,” noting that this occurred “as Nashville residents reeled from a grade school shooting.”
Reuters sparked a backlash by framing its story on Twitter with the following caption: “Former Christian school student kills 3 children, 3 staff in Nashville shooting.”
“Wait, this isn’t parody?” asked The Dispatch Editor-in-Chief Jonah Goldberg.
“And you wonder why nobody trusts the media,” wrote commentator Steven Crowder. “Disgusting.”
Fox News host Dan Bongino tweeted: “Read this headline and tell me again how we’re dealing with ‘journalists,’ and not a group of deranged lunatics.”
The Daily Mail published an “exclusive” story describing how the Nashville mass shooter had been rejected by her Christian parents. The outlet cited a “well-placed source” who detailed how “twisted school shooter Audrey Hale was at odds with her devout Christian parents because they ‘couldn’t accept’ she was gay and transgender.”
“Church coordinator Norma, 61, and her husband Ronald, 64, refused to let Hale – who had recently adopted the name Aiden and used he/him pronouns – dress as a man in their home,” the Daily Mail story reads, adding that “the 28-year-old loner would instead wait until she left their $700,000 Nashville property to change outfits.”
“You only see what you want to see,” the unnamed source allegedly told the publication. “Their religion does not allow them to accept homosexuality.”
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