I think it goes without saying that the shooting in Nashville is a tragedy, but the anti-trans narrative building up and the harmfully ignorant rhetoric being spewed about the fact the killer was transgender is deeply unpleasant and upsetting. Being transgender is not a mental illness as many quotes and comments suggest, the killer is in no way representative of other trans men or the trans community as a whole. The killer does not / did not "identify" as transgender, they are / were transgender. Language matters. It might seem unimportant to correctly label a killer, but failing to do so does a disservice to every other trans person. It would be easy to say that the fact that the killer was trans is an unimportant detail, but the fact it was a religious school and that the shooter was an ex-pupil raises questions about motives -- but, of course, in no way justifies what happened.
While I acknowledge that I'm looking at this through the lens of a trans woman, it is no less saddening to see that an already marginalised group is being used to steer discussion away from the gun debate that, once again, America simply refuses to have.
I'm not sure if this is entirely coherent, but I've found the reporting, the comments and the reactions to this event -- or, more specifically, the involvement of a transgender person -- to be extremely troubling.