Philadelphia shooter was another transgender person

No, I don’t think that being transgender necessarily makes you violent.

But I also think it is not a coincidence that a number of mass shootings lately have been carried out by transgender-identifying people. Alphabet ideology radicalizes people and convinces them that they are hated by and under constant threat from the larger society.

This story will vanish like the transgender mass murders in Nashville & Colorado Springs.

Doesn’t fit The Party’s narrative.

Gunman arrested for Philadelphia mass shooting which left 5 dead is BLM activist who wore women’s clothes: sources https://t.co/hI8MKI7YhM via @nypost

— Howie Carr (@HowieCarrShow) July 4, 2023

Unfortunately, a volatile combination has been created, putting people with obvious mental instability in the middle of a culture war battle, and nothing good can come from this. The vast majority of the people stoking this battle are “allies,” rather than people suffering directly from gender dysphoria, although there are plenty of activists who are transgender themselves.

The rhetoric justifying the mass movement to trans the kids is based upon a fiction: that failing to “recognize” children for “who they are” will lead them to kill themselves, and is itself an act of violence and an attempt to perpetrate genocide.

First of all, while people with gender dysphoria are indeed at higher risk of suicide and every effort should be made to help them, there is simply no evidence for and substantial evidence to the contrary that gender “affirmation” will reduce suicidal ideation. The evidence, in fact, is that suicide risk peaks after gender “affirming” treatment over several years. There is zero genuine evidence that gender affirmation is a cure for or even a treatment for dysphoria.

Research, to the extent that it exists, tells us this, as does common sense. We don’t affirm people with other body dysphorias, such as anorexia. It would be madness to do so. We treat people with the best psychological help possible. Unfortunately, states across the country are literally banning such psychological treatment, calling it “conversion therapy,” which is absurd.

There is also literally no evidence that transgender people are more likely to suffer violence than others–the assault and murder rates are actually lower than for the average person, for reasons that I do not understand, but the numbers tell us this.

Yet the rhetorical flourishes of the Left are convincing far too many people with gender dysphoria that they are hated and at risk, and it is easy enough for people already suffering from mental illness to misread the anger at the encroachment of alphabet ideology into the schools as anger directed at themselves.

It isn’t, but I get why they think so.

I have no idea how to disentangle the issues confounded here. The necessity of stopping the alphabet ideology from spreading in schools is pressing and there is no way to avoid a political battle royale; the Left is determined to push pornography in the schools and to trans every kid they can get their hands on. States are encouraging parents to kidnap children by creating “sanctuaries,” and encouraging kids to leave their parents to seek gender “affirming” care when they object.

These efforts must be stopped.

But caught in the middle are the kids who are not being recruited and who are, genuinely, dysphoric and mentally ill. They need real help, and being at the center of a cultural battle is the opposite of help.

None of this justifies shooting others because nothing can. But mass shootings are contagious, to begin with, and the link to a cultural battle keeps the heat turned up and the anxiety in the already unstable amped up to 11.

Is there a solution? Not that I can see unless one side or the other of the alphabet wars gives up. And neither side will.