The perpetrator of the August 27 Annunciation Catholic Faculty capturing in Minneapolis was 23-year-old Robin Westman (born Robert Westman), a transgender individual. In response to ABC Information, driver’s license data listed Westman as feminine, and a 2020 Minnesota district court docket order authorised a reputation change from Robert to Robin after noting the minor “identifies as a female and needs her title to replicate that identification.”
This was not the primary transgender shooter, and never the primary time a Christian college was focused. The 2023 Nashville college capturing occurred on March 27 at The Covenant Faculty. The shooter was recognized as Aiden Hale (beforehand referred to by police as Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a 28-year-old former scholar of the college. Police initially recognized the shooter as a girl however later confirmed Hale was transgender. Six folks have been killed within the assault, together with three youngsters, all 9 years previous.
The 2022 Colorado Springs Membership Q capturing was one other instance. As a result of the nightclub catered to an LGBTQ viewers, many initially assumed the attacker can be a white supremacist. As a substitute, the perpetrator was Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and makes use of they/them pronouns. The assault left 5 folks useless and 19 others injured.
Extra incidents embody the 2018 Aberdeen, Maryland, Ceremony Support capturing, the place 26-year-old Snochia Moseley, a transgender particular person transitioning from feminine to male, killed three folks and wounded three others at a distribution middle earlier than taking her personal life.
In 2019, at STEM Faculty Highlands Ranch in Colorado, 16-year-old Alec McKinney (born Maya McKinney), a transgender boy, carried out a capturing with an confederate that left one particular person useless and eight others injured. McKinney advised police he particularly focused college students who mocked his gender identification and admitted he had been planning the assault for weeks.
One of the vital weird and far-reaching homicide rings lately is the Vegan Transgender Extremist Zizian Cult, a bunch of about 30 members, largely younger transgender girls, linked to no less than six murders and labeled as extremists by U.S. legislation enforcement. The group was led by Jack “Ziz” LaSota, a 34-year-old transgender lady with a pc science diploma from the College of Alaska Fairbanks who as soon as interned at NASA.
Writing below the title “Ziz,” LaSota printed disturbing theories claiming that every mind hemisphere has a separate gender identification and that these identities typically need to kill each other.
Members practiced “unihemispheric sleep,” trying to sleep with one eye open to stop one hemisphere from “destroying” the opposite, a philosophy that has reportedly contributed to suicides throughout the cult.
A number of members grew to become key figures in violent crimes. Michelle Zajko, 32, was tied to the homicide of her dad and mom, Richard and Rita Zajko, who have been shot to demise in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, on December 31, 2022. Daniel Clean, 26, Zajko’s Vermont housemate who has been described as having Asperger’s syndrome, was additionally concerned. In November 2022 in Vallejo, California, Zizian members attacked an 80-year-old landlord, impaling him with a sword and blinding him in a single eye; the sufferer fatally shot one assailant in self-defense.
The identical landlord, Curtis Lind, was later stabbed to demise on January 17, 2025, with Maximilian Snyder charged within the killing. Simply days later, on January 20 in Coventry, Vermont, U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, 44, was killed throughout a shootout after a visitors cease. Zizian member Teresa Youngblut, 21, is accused of opening hearth, whereas one other member, Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, was additionally killed within the change.
The wave of violence culminated on February 16, 2025, when LaSota, Zajko, and Clean have been arrested in Frostburg, Maryland. They have been discovered trespassing on personal property whereas wearing black and carrying weapons. LaSota, described by prosecutors because the chief of the extremist Zizians, was ordered held with out bail.
One of the vital disturbing prevented circumstances concerned Elizabeth Ballesteros West, previously Francisco Frank Paramo, a 56-year-old transgender lady from Cottage Grove, Oregon. West was arrested by the FBI in January 2024 for allegedly plotting a mass capturing at her office over claims of “transphobia.” Federal prosecutors charged her with interstate threatening communications.
The investigation started after West posted alarming messages on a transgender assist Fb web page on September 26, 2023. She wrote that she was “on the finish of my rope,” feared shedding her job, and declared she had “no various” after being bullied by “transphobic a**holes.” She added, “I’ll most likely should exit in a blaze of glory.” Past her office, West expressed violent intentions towards Jews and Black folks and overtly embraced neo-Nazi ideology.
When the FBI searched her property, brokers found an enormous weapons cache: 11 handguns, 16 rifles, tens of 1000’s of rounds of ammunition, gun equipment, dozens of violent drawings, and a pocket book titled Black Shadow Journal. In response to an FBI informant, West had a historical past of reckless conduct, as soon as taking part in Russian roulette throughout Christmas 2022 whereas in a dissociative state. She had additionally been arrested in 1993 for putting a shotgun in her father’s mouth and pulling the set off, although the case was later dropped.
West’s private historical past revealed long-standing psychological well being struggles, together with diagnoses of bipolar dysfunction, dissociative identification dysfunction, and PTSD. The FBI additionally tied her to white supremacist exercise, noting she and her boyfriend had attended neo-Nazi rallies in Washington state and even hosted contributors at their dwelling. Her social media was crammed with memes and propaganda glorifying Hitler, selling racial violence, and threatening mass assaults.
Throughout preliminary interviews, West downplayed the threats, claiming she was solely projecting suicidal ideas whereas battling the stress of gender transition. This raises broader considerations about undiagnosed psychological well being points and the potential results of hormone use.
A analysis report printed in PubMed Central discovered that roughly 58 p.c of transgender sufferers had no less than one DSM-5 analysis, in contrast with 13.6 p.c of cisgender sufferers. Equally, a examine printed in ScienceDirect concluded that transgender persons are about six occasions extra seemingly than the final inhabitants to undergo from temper and anxiousness issues, findings echoed within the American Journal of Psychiatry’s evaluation of remedy utilization.
Latest surveys reinforce this troubling sample. The 2024 U.S. Nationwide Survey on the Psychological Well being of LGBTQ+ Younger Folks reported that 71 p.c of transgender and nonbinary youth skilled anxiousness signs, whereas 44.4 p.c reported current suicidal ideation and practically 7 p.c admitted to a current suicide try.
