Images from Wikimedia Commons, combined and modified for publication.

After a transgender individual killed two people and injured 17 others in a shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school on August 27, it took several hours before social media users uncovered the perpetrator’s identity using Department of Justice and other public law enforcement records. Mainstream outlets suppressed this fact.

Conservative commentator Andy Ngo tweeted: “Today’s killing of Christian children at a church in Minneapolis occurred in the context of a surge in far-left trans propaganda encouraging Trantifa and other leftists to take up arms to kill transphobes and ‘fascists.’ Their targets: Christians and conservatives. I have been warning and reporting on this phenomenon for years and am called a liar by liberal media, and targeted with death threats by the far-left.”

This reflects a broader trend: transgender identity is often omitted when individuals are perpetrators, while their victimization receives extensive coverage. Numerous websites track violence against LGBTQ people, but almost none record violence committed by them. In cases involving gender, the media will frequently refer to a man dressed as a woman simply as a woman, or vice versa, omitting the fact that the person is transgender.

The Washington Examiner highlighted this double standard, noting that “The media have bent over backward to downplay, or even refuse to report entirely, the fact that the shooter had been ‘identifying’ as a gender not actually her own” and that “The message is clear: The media will bend over backward to kowtow to transgender ideology when it benefits the gender bender yet will also do backflips to hide a transgender status if somebody might draw negative inferences.”

This bias is reinforced by the way data is collected. There are extensive official and NGO databases tracking violence against transgender people, such as Human Rights Campaign reports, FBI hate crime statistics, and other NGO monitoring systems, but there is no comparable official system tracking cases where transgender individuals are perpetrators. Instead, information relies on “networked agencies and journalists to correctly identify victims’ gender identities,” leaving systematic gaps whenever the offender is transgender.

Ironically, while there is also comprehensive data on transgender suicides, these reports consistently suppress the fact that many occur after individuals have undergone surgical transition, undermining the narrative that surgery reliably improves mental health and stability. This asymmetry in reporting and data collection creates a skewed picture that amplifies victimhood while obscuring cases that challenge prevailing narratives.

One of the most common talking points is the “Do you want more dead kids?” narrative, used to argue that children must transition and that schools should not be required to inform parents. The claim is that if kids who want to transition are denied the opportunity, they will inevitably commit suicide.

The reality, however, is starkly different. Research consistently shows that suicide rates remain elevated, or even increase, after medical or surgical transition. A Swedish study (Dhejne et al., 2011) found that post-surgery transgender individuals had a 19.1-fold greater likelihood of death by suicide compared to matched controls, along with a 4.9 times higher risk of suicide attempts. A 2024 study concluded that gender-affirming surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks, highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive psychiatric support after these procedures.

The U.S. National Transgender Discrimination Survey (2010) similarly reported increased rates of attempted suicide after transition, with 45 percent of those who medically transitioned and 43 percent of those who surgically transitioned reporting suicide attempts. An Amsterdam study found that among 35 recent clinic visitors, 16 had died by suicide following surgeries such as vaginoplasty or phalloplasty.

Even the American Journal of Psychiatry had to issue a correction to a major 2019 study, clarifying that surgery offered no measurable advantage in reducing mood or anxiety disorders, prescriptions, or hospitalizations related to suicide attempts.

These studies also point to methodological flaws in the research often cited in support of transition. Many suffer from massive dropout rates, with researchers losing track of more than half of participants. As Dr. Hyde observed, this could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative individuals.

While activists continue to argue that transition saves lives, the most rigorous studies show no mental health benefit from surgery. Suicide rates remain alarmingly high, and the data that suggests otherwise is undermined by weak methodology and incomplete tracking.