The Far Right Is Spreading Misinformation Claiming the Lakewood Church Shooter Was Trans

The far-right is desperate to make “trans terrorism” a thing. So desperate, in fact, that it’s willing to push out incorrect or false information just to shore up their baseless narrative that trans people are inherently dangerous. 

The latest example has played out since Sunday, when a woman, with her 7-year-old son in tow, walked into the Lakewood megachurch in Houston, Texas, and opened fire with an AR-15. 

The shooter, 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, was killed by armed off-duty law enforcement at the church, which is run by celebrity televangelist Joel Osteen. Two people were wounded: A 57-year-old man, and the shooter’s son, who was critically injured. 

On Monday, the account Libs of TikTok, which targets LGBTQ people and has been accused of inspiring bomb threats against dozens of schools nationwide, posted a document online that suggested the shooter had used the name “Jeffrey.”

“The Lakewood Church shooter was transgender,” Libs of TikTok asserted. “Another act of trans terrorism. We need to have a national conversation about the LGBTQ movement turning youth into violent extremists.”

Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist who runs the account, also asked “what kind of hormones and drugs was the trans terrorist who shot up the Texas church taking?” Elon Musk also weighed in, suggesting that hormones taken in most gender affirming care regimens “could be a major causal factor in violence.” There is no evidence for this claim.

In a press conference later on Monday, police officials noted that, although the shooter appeared to utilize both male and female names, they found no indication that she ever identified as anything but a cisgender woman. 

So far, it’s unclear why the shooter targeted Osteen’s church. According to a social media post unearthed by CNN, the shooter donated to the Lakewood Church in March 2020. Police say that they discovered “antisemitic writings” among her personal items, and her AR-15 was emblazoned with a sticker saying “Palestine.” Police also said there was some sort of “familial dispute” that took place between her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family, some of whom are Jewish. 

The shooter was also being treated for schizophrenia, according to a Facebook post by her ex-mother-in-law, Rabbi Walli Carranza. Carranza described her as a “very sweet and loving woman,” and railed against the fact that Texas does not have a “red flag law” in place that would allow concerned family members to remove firearms from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others. The shooter legally purchased her AR-15 in December 2023, police said. 

“[The shooter] had a particular kind of schizophrenia that caused her to become violent,” Carranza told KHOU, a CNN affiliate. “She threatened her husband, my own son, and we still couldn’t get intervention.” 

In addition to having an extensive history of mental health troubles, the shooter has a long criminal record which includes, among other things, forgery, theft, assault of a detention officer, and unlawful carrying of a weapon. 

The far-right has been laser focused on the concept of “trans terrorism”—just one prong of their all-out assault on LGBTQ rights—ever since a transgender man carried out a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville where he was once a student. 

Following that shooting, which unleashed a fresh wave of transphobia from the right, Donald Trump Jr. falsely claimed that there had been “an incredible rise” in mass shootings perpetrated by trans people. Fact checkers debunked that claim, noting that there had been four shootings perpetrated by transgender people in the space of five years—and that mass shootings are overwhelmingly committed by cisgender men. 

Since the Nashville shooting, in the wake of other mass shootings, far-right accounts like Libs of TikTo typically scramble to uncover a “link” between the attack and the LGBTQ community. 

There is no evidence to support claims that transgender people are more prone to violence, and researchers have historically struggled to identify a correlation between testosterone and violence. There is, however, mountains of evidence showing that transgender people disproportionately experience violence, and that hormonal therapy for trans teens and adults significantly improves mental health and lowers the rate of suicidal ideation.