After the horrific shooting murder of three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville on Monday, public broadcasting and the New York Times joined the rest of the press in emphasizing the real crime: Misgendering the shooter, “trans man” Audrey Hale, who was stopped and killed by the brave officers who arrived at the scene — a biological woman who identified as a man.
On Tuesday’s PBS News Hour, reporter Stephanie Sy complained “Police have given unclear and sometimes conflicting information about Hale’s gender.”
The New York Times also zeroed in on the real tragedy on Monday in a tweet:
There was confusion later on Monday about the gender identity of the assailant in the Nashville shooting. Officials had used “she” and “her” to refer to the suspect, who, according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile, appeared to identify as a man in recent months.
The accompanying story, posted before the rhetorical gender police arrived at the scene, was headlined “It is rare for a woman to commit a mass shooting.”
In a National Public Radio story on Tuesday’s Morning Edition, Tony Gonzalez from member station WPLN in Nashville kept to the narrative (“his father”):
….The police have not shared a motive, but they have been gathering a lot of information about the shooter, who was a former student at that school, Covenant School. Police identified the shooter as Audrey Hale and say the shooter used he/him pronouns. The police and FBI agents – they spent hours at the house where Hale lived, also spoke with his father.
And USA Today felt the need to tweet on Monday evening: “Police on Monday afternoon said that the shooter was a transgender man. Officials had initially misidentified the gender of the shooter.“
