Tucker Carlson Claims ‘Trans Movement Is Targeting Christians’ Amid Calls for Gun Control

Fox News host Tucker Carlson used his Tuesday night monologue to warn viewers that the “trans movement is targeting Christians.” The extended segment labeling transgender people as the “natural enemy” of Christianity came the day after a shooter (who police identified as transgender) shot and killed six people, including three children, at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.

“The trans movement is the mirror image of Christianity and therefore its natural enemy,” Carlson told viewers. The Fox host argued that Christians’ inherent unwillingness to agree that a person has “dominion” over themselves in place of their creator “incites and enrages” some trans people. “People who believe they’re God can’t stand to be reminded that they’re not,” he said.

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Tucker declared that “Christianity and transgender orthodoxy” are on a “collision course,” claiming that “one side is likely to draw blood before the other side.”

Carlson went on to argue that the shooter in Nashville, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, represented a trend among the transgender community. “The trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence,” he warned viewers.

The Fox host alleged that law enforcement was withholding a manifesto penned by Hale that possibly contained information regarding the motive and planning of the shooting, in order to conceal an “obvious and undeniable” targeting of Christians.

Hale (who authorities confirmed used he/him pronouns) was armed with two assault rifle-type weapons and a handgun, and killed by police following the shooting. While Hale’s motives are not yet publicly known, he was confirmed to have been a former student at the school.

While Hale’s actions are abhorrent, Carlson’s assertion that they represent a widespread trend on anti-Christian targeting within the trans community is provably false. Of the more than 300 mass shootings carried out in the United States since 2009, the number of perpetrators who identified as non-binary or trans accounts for less than one percent of perpetrators. LGBTQ people are in fact far more often likely to be the victims of targeted mass violence than perpetrators.

Carlson is not alone in attempting to crucify the entirety of the trans community for the actions of one individual; the identity of the shooter has sparked a renewed wave of anti-trans sentiment from factions of right-wing politics.

Authorities confirmed that Hale had legally purchased seven firearms over the course of two years, and three of those weapons were used in the shooting. During at least some of the time when the weapons were purchased, Hale was in treatment for an unspecified emotional disorder. Despite calls from Democrats to institute a ban on assault weapons and increase restrictions on gun ownership, Republicans have once again indicated they have no interest in pursuing a discussion on gun control.

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