In the days following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the New York Post's coverage repeatedly cast transgender people as central to the violence, leaning on anonymous sources and unverified leaks from law enforcement, some of which Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and investigators have since contradicted. The effect has been to paint a target on a community already living under intensifying political scrutiny and cultural hostility.
Seconds prior to the shooting, Kirk was being asked about the number of trans people involved in mass shootings - a topic that has become a key conservative talking point since the recent Minneapolis shooting. "Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?" an audience member asked Kirk, in a video seen by PinkNews. "Too many," Charlie Kirk said in response.
Rumours that a self-professed "trans dolphin" drowned after swimming in Table Rock Lake are too fishy to be true, PinkNews can confirm. Claims that a 29-year-old woman, who purportedly identified as a "trans-dolphin", drowned in the US lake earlier this month, spread like wildfire across social media despite being completely false. The rumours, which primarily spread across Facebook, claimed witnesses saw the woman swim into the lake, which stretches between Missouri and Arkansas, dressed in a "dolphin costume" and a "snorkel fashioned as a blowhole",
"We know there's an outrageous, horrific rise in violence against women, sexual crimes and rape," she said. "Now there's the rise of incel culture and the likes of Andrew Tate pushing ideas of men's power and what they're entitled to. It's really sad that those pushing the anti-trans narrative don't realise that's exactly what they're playing into."
"I will hold the line," Mace said repeatedly, casting herself as a warrior against what she called "the gender cult," undocumented immigrants, and public colleges that acknowledge the existence of more than two genders.