Transgender woman falsely blamed for attempted Trump assassination

"'He was a registered Republican," says a July 18, 2024 X post with tens of thousands of interactions.

The same image has spread elsewhere on X, Instagram, TikTok and Rumble.

"If Crooks was transgender, which now seems likely, it changes the entire narrative, and clearly that he registered Republican would be nothing but a cover story," says a July 18 Facebook post.

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Screenshot from X taken July 26, 2024

Crooks opened fire during a July 13, 2024 Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and critically injuring two others before a Secret Service sniper team shot and killed him. 

The 20-year-old gunman was a registered member of the Republican Party. But in 2021 he donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, according to public records.

Testifying before the US House Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2024, FBI Director Christopher Wray said no evidence has emerged so far that Crooks had any accomplices or co-conspirators.

Crook's motive remains unknown. "There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it so far," Wray said.

The theory that Crooks was transgender appears to have originated in a July 16 thread on 4chan, an anonymous message board that for years has been the source of disinformation about mass shootings and LGBTQ people. AFP has previously debunked 4chan hoaxes about Trump's attempted assassination.

When another user asked if the image actually showed Crooks, the original poster said: "Not really, but spreading rumors is fun."

A Google keyword search surfaced a July 18 article in which journalist Erin Reed refuted the allegations, reporting that the person shown in the picture is a transgender woman named Rose (archived here).

Rose told AFP in direct messages via X that she was "confused" and "scared" when a friend first forwarded her a Facebook post misusing her likeness.

She said the photo comes from an Instagram post she published June 23 -- weeks before the Butler shooting (archived here).

"It didn't take a genius to realize I looked nothing like the shooter," Rose said.

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Screenshot from Instagram taken July 26, 2024

Rose, who declined to share her last name out of fear that she or her family would be harassed, said she believes the 4chan user singled her out because she is transgender.

"It's literally the main reason it's spreading, weirdos wanted the shooter to be trans. And that's why it's spreading because people want to believe it," she said.

Disinformation often targets transgender people following mass shootings, such as a 2022 attack at a school in Uvalde, Texas and a 2023 shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.

AFP has fact-checked other claims about the attempted Trump assassination here.