Nashville shooting: progressive media ignores that assailant was trans, apologizes for confusing her gender

The Nashville Christian school shooting caused confusion among the progressive media beyond the inherent chaos of such an event. The reason for this was the sexual identity of the aggressor, who was biologically female but claimed to be a man on social media. When in doubt, some outlets, such as CNN and The New York Times, chose to ignore the fact that Audrey Hale considered herself to be trans. Others, such as USA Today, accused the police of initially confusing the gender of the attacker.

Police Statement

Nashville Police reported on Twitter and in its official statement that the assailant was a 28-year-old woman who was a former student. At a press conference, a police spokesperson pointed out that Hale identified as trans according to her LinkedIn profile, in which she introduced himself with male pronouns (he/him).

USA Today: Nashville police "misidentified the gender of the shooter"

USA Today's Twitter account reported new information about the attack almost live. It was initially reported that the shooter was a woman. Minutes later, the publication felt that the fact that Hale identified as trans merited a tweet to clarify that the information provided by the police, who had "misidentified the gender" of Hale, had caused the media to not have referred to the shooter as her self-perceived sex.

CNN reports it was a woman

The television network CNN speaks in the headlines and publications of its Twitter account exclusively of "shooter". Although in the piece broadcast on their news they ended up echoing much later that the police indicated that she was a trans person, on their website they barely included it in a brief paragraph. They do, however, devote more space to making it clear that the officers indicated it exclusively because of Hale's choice of pronouns on LinkedIn. In the only tweet that mentions the sex of the assailant, they refer to her as female.

The Spanish version also refers to Hale as a woman in the headlines. In this case, despite profiling the suspect, at no point is it mentioned that she identified as a man.

NYT makes no mention of Hale being trans

The New York Times did not mention the fact that Hale was trans in its headlines or in the updates it was posting about the event.