On the day anti-LGBTQ+ activist Charlie Kirk was shot, fear rippled through the left that the far right would seize the moment to consolidate power. Nowhere was that fear more acute than in the transgender community.
Within hours, Republicans were already blaming trans people; one commentator even claimed the bullets carried “transgender symbols”, a claim investigators quickly debunked. But the deeper fear wasn’t misinformation – it was the crackdown that would follow. With fragile rights hanging by the thread of court rulings and blue-state protections, trans people braced for the worst. And they were right: The right has seized on the shooting as its own Reichstag fire, accelerating a campaign to target transgender existence – now with the full weight of the Trump administration behind it.
