Robin Westman’s massacre at Annunciation Church in Minnesota, where he murdered two children and wounded 17 others, has already become the subject of a grotesque disinformation campaign. The right has latched onto his transgender identity as if it explains everything. But the reality is far more damning: Westman is proof that right-wing extremism can infect anyone, regardless of gender identity, and turn them into a vessel for hate.
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The shooting was motivated by right-wing extremism, not the shooter’s transgender identity – a disinformation campaign from the right is attempting to link the shooter’s gender identity to the violence. Instead, the killer appears radicalized by mainstream conservative rhetoric and white nationalist talking points.
Robin Westman was heavily influenced by the same “cesspools” of online hate that have radicalized other mass murderers. As evidence, Westman idolized Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the Charleston church massacre, and used a reference to him by calling themselves “bowl pilled.”
This tragedy serves as a warning about the indiscriminate nature of hate propaganda. Extremism is not about a person’s identity but about a hateful ideology. Propaganda can draw in anyone who is vulnerable or angry, including people from communities that are often targeted by the very movements that radicalize them.
Westman’s digital trail makes this undeniable. Before his social media accounts were scrubbed, he immersed himself in the same cesspools that have incubated countless killers before him: 4chan boards dripping with racism, misogyny, and violent fantasies. He idolized Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who massacred nine Black churchgoers in Charleston. He called himself “bowl pilled”, a grotesque reference to Roof’s haircut, and even dedicated an entire Tumblr blog to celebrating him. His hatred wasn’t spontaneous or personal. It was ideological. It was learned.
And where did he learn it? From a political culture that has spent years mainstreaming white nationalist talking points under the banner of conservatism. From Fox News pumping “Great Replacement Theory” into millions of homes. From Republican politicians calling immigrants “invaders” and treating diversity as a threat to be eradicated. That is the poisoned well Westman drank from, until he became the monster who opened fire in a church filled with children.
Republicans are already trying to twist his trans identity into a weapon, as if queerness itself causes mass violence. But that’s a deliberate inversion of reality. If anything, Westman’s case proves the opposite: that even people from communities targeted by the right can be pulled into its orbit of paranoia and rage. Propaganda doesn’t discriminate. It recruits anyone who is vulnerable, alienated, or angry, and it reshapes them into soldiers for its cause.
The tragedy at Annunciation Church is not about gender. It’s about the radicalizing power of hate. Queer people can be drawn into far-right extremism just as straight, cisgender men can, because extremism is not about identity, it’s about ideology. Westman may have been transgender, but his values, his heroes, and his worldview were steeped entirely in the language of the right.
Republicans will keep trying to dodge responsibility, just as they always do. They’ll point to Westman’s gender identity to smear queer communities, while ignoring the fact that he was steeped in their rhetoric, the same white supremacist talking points they’ve been normalizing for years. But the truth is clear: Westman’s violence was not born out of queerness. It was born out of right-wing propaganda.
Two children are dead, 17 others are wounded, and a church is scarred forever, not because Westman was transgender, but because he was radicalized by a political movement that thrives on hate.