I've spent 18 hours mulling over what to say about the Nashville shooting as we waited for more information regarding the Nashville shooting. But, let me preface m y thoughts with this: I've never been so scared of what comes next. A 🧵1/n

First, the facts up front: a 28 YO individual, who police identified as transgender after first describing them as female, shot and killed 3 children and three adults at a Nashville Presbyterian private school that they had attended as a child. 2/n https://www.reuters.com/world/us/multiple-victims-reported-after-school-shooting-nashville-officials-say-2023-03-27/

The motives for this atrocity are unknown.

I am omitting their name and pronouns to avoid making them famous, and because we don't have full confirmation that they were a trans man, but it looks likely. 3/n

In the aftermath of previous mass shootings, 4Chan has deliberately created false rumors that shooters were transgender, which GOP politicians quickly jumped on, including Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA). 4/n https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/uvalde-texas-shooting-transgender-misinformation-1358386/

Currently online, people have been (falsely) claiming that there is a pattern of trans people being involved in mass shootings, citing an incident in 2018 (where the deceased shooters gender ID was never conclusively proven), and one in 2019. The math doesn't back this up. 5/n

If you define mass shooting as incidents in which 4 or more people (excluding the shooter) are wounded or killed, there were 647 in 2022, and 690 in 2020. Trans people are ~.6% of the population. If there was an even distribution, you'd expect 3-4 trans shooters/year. 6/n https://t.co/ZBzBHjA9HO

The odds of there being zero trans shooters in 2022 (if they did so at the same rate as the rest of the population) would be 2%. What the data actually tells us is that trans people appear to be significantly underrepresented among perpetrators. 7/n https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/24/mass-shootings-us/

But the fact that the GOP is leaping straight to blaming trans people for mass shootings scares the heck out of me. Greene is already hinting at a national ban on access to transition related medication. But, there's three other related items that are terrifying. 8/n

1. Open calls by GOP operatives to "eradicate transgenderism from public life"

2. Calls by Tucker Carlson to ban trans people from owning guns

3. GOP held legislatures have made anti-trans legislation their number one priority, w/ almost 500 bills this year. 9/n

I greatly fear that the next step will be an attempt to ban transgender people from owning firearms in the US.

This is not because I think firearms are a social good, make us safe, or prevent tyranny, but because of the legal precedent that would be set. 10/n

You have to understand that this Supreme Court believes that access to firearms is one of the most absolute guarantees of the Constitution, perhaps only behind freedom of religion in terms of how blanket it is. Gun control legislation is basically dead. 11/n

Courts are ruling that not even restraining orders or domestic violence are sufficient to prevent someone from owning or buying firearms.

But, states and the federal government have laws banning ownership by "mental defectives". 12/n

"Any person who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution" is prohibited under federal law from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing any firearm or ammunition." 13/n

https://www.atf.gov/file/58791/download

This is a path the GOP may pursue. Law defines mental competence, law which GOP legislatures write. Judges, often picked by GOP governors, make the determination if a person qualifies as a "mental defective" under the law. 14/n

We know that DeSantis and Paxton have been making lists of trans people, for unknown reasons.

If the courts allow the naked stripping of fundamental rights of a class of people, it's time to run. 15/n

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ken-paxton-list-trans-texans-1234647489/

This is how you strip trans people of licenses to practice law, medicine, clearances, gun rights, and every other sort of legal agency. It can be used to justify mass incarceration "for their own good".

It creates the legal window to eradicate transgenderism they want. 16/n

Arbitrarily designating a class of people having rights inferior to every other citizen of the nation, making them effectively non-citizen residents, that's functionally Citizenship Laws: a means to strip a class of any fundamental right the government feels like. 17/n

I fear to mention it, but acts of violence by an individual have frequently used by authoritarians to enact repressive measures or waves of violence against the group.

The Overton Window to some very, very bad things just opened wide. We will see if the GOP exploits it. 18/n

And... the push to go this direction is already starting.

If you're trans and live in a red state, you need to have a plan to get to one of the sanctuary states. The risk level is spiking right now. 19/n https://t.co/TNfoyCdJOC