By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
Some right-wing sources, including a GOP lawmaker, at first falsely blamed a transgender person for the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Update: This article was updated on 6/3 with comment from the El Paso Police about allegations made in the article published by the LA Blade.
A transgender teen in Texas says she was attacked by a group of men who falsely blamed a member of the trans community for the recent Uvalde school shooting.
In an interview with the LA Blade, the frightened trans girl identified only as Tracey said she was attacked outside a library in El Paso by a group of four men on Tuesday evening. She said the men used transphobic slurs and blamed the trans community for the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 21 people dead, including 19 children.
"Oh look, it has a dick," her attackers said, she told the Blade.
Tracey, 17, said she was both confused and frightened as the men blamed her for "perverting kids instead of killing them" and then grabbed her arm to twist her body around.
"Yeah, you know it was one of your sisters who killed those kids," Tracey recalled the man saying as he faced her. "You're a mental health freak!"
Tracey was able to break free from her attackers and seek help, but the assault has left her frightened, she told the outlet.
The four men echoed an earlier false claim that the man responsible for the killings was a member of the trans community. The claim gained traction when it was repeated by various right-wing sources.
After the attack, Tracey phoned the El Paso Police, but she says they refused to make a report. Later, she spoke with a counselor at the Rainbow Youth Project, which is when she heard that ring-wing sources had blamed the shooting in Ulvade on trans people.
The Rainbow Youth Project told the Blade that they also tried calling The El Paso Police Department about the alleged assault. The organization said the police wouldn't take a report then either.
However, in a press release on June 2, the El Paso Police Department said they looked into the claim made in the Blade article following an inquiry from Vice News.
"It is not the practice of the El Paso Police Department to refuse a report or assistance to anyone," the release read.
Police said they had emailed the author of the article, asking him to connect them with Tracey about what happened. He said he could not due to promised confidentiality. When authorities emailed the Rainbow Project, the group sent an emailed response that it had forwarded the department's message to its executive team and lawyers.
"Any call or request for Police will generate an incident card. No request for police assistance has been found," the El Paso Police Department stated.
They asked if there is anyone with information about the alleged attack to call the department or call Crime Stoppers of El Paso.
\u201cRep. Paul Gosar was also quick to the defense when someone asked if the shooter was a "groyper" and repeated the hateful lie that the Texas shooter was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien."\u201d— AZ Right Wing Watch (@AZ Right Wing Watch) 1653443882
In a since-deleted post using his personal Twitter account, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar claimed the shooter was "a transsexual leftist illegal alien" and "apparently your kind of trash" in response to a user who speculated if the shooter was a supporter of the popular right-wing Republican. Gosar, who represents Arizona's 4th congressional district in the western portion of the state, was stripped of his committee assignments and censured by the House of Representatives last October for posting a video that superimposed his head along with those of President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a violent video clip from a Japanese anime series, an act many saw as a direct threat.
