Have there been any notable cases of transgender individuals committing mass shootings in the US?

1. The short answer: a handful of notable incidents, not a trend

There have been a few widely reported incidents in which the alleged shooter was identified as transgender — most prominently the 2023 Nashville school shooting — but researchers and fact-checkers find that transgender perpetrators represent only a tiny fraction of documented mass shootings, with some databases reporting as few as one to five confirmed transgender shooters depending on definitions and timeframes ^{[5] [6] [1]}.

2. Why counts diverge: definitions and identity verification matter

Estimates vary because “mass shooting” is defined differently across sources (for example, some include four or more shot, some four or more killed, some exclude gang- or drug-related incidents), and because confirming a shooter’s gender identity is often not straightforward in early reporting or historical records; experts warn that these measurement issues make precise comparisons difficult and require caution before declaring a new pattern ^{[3] [4]}.

3. Which cases are most often cited and what the records say

Reporting has repeatedly named the 2023 Nashville private school attack (attributed to Aiden/Audrey Hale) as a confirmed case; other incidents cited in public discourse include a 2019 Denver-area charter school shooting (Alec McKinney) and a 2018 Aberdeen, Maryland warehouse shooting, but independent reviews find only a very small set of incidents that meet stricter mass‑killing definitions, with some databases listing only the Nashville case when using narrow criteria of four or more killed ^{[2] [4] [5]}.

4. The data: transgender perpetrators are not overrepresented

Large-scale trackers and nonprofit researchers report that transgender people account for well under 1 percent of mass-shooter incidents in recent years; the Gun Violence Archive told fact-checkers it had five confirmed transgender shooters among thousands of mass‑shooting incidents from 2013–2025, and other datasets such as The Violence Project and Mother Jones similarly show transgender perpetrators are a tiny minority compared with cisgender men ^{[6] [1] [7]}.

5. Expert assessments and alternative interpretations

Criminologists quoted in fact checks caution against leaping from a string of high-profile cases to a statistical trend, noting small numbers can look disproportionate in short time windows but fail to hold up under systematic review; some experts say anecdotal clustering deserves study but does not currently amount to evidence that transgender identity increases the likelihood of committing mass shootings ^{[3] [8]}.

6. Misinformation, weaponization, and consequences for a vulnerable group

Political actors and pundits have amplified isolated cases to argue for broad policy conclusions about transgender people, and fact‑checking organizations and LGBTQ advocacy groups warn that misattribution and lingering false claims after clarifying evidence can drive stigma and real-world harm to a community that, according to multiple studies, is more often victim than perpetrator of violence ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

7. Bottom line for readers following the question

Notable cases exist and attract attention, but rigorous datasets and fact checks show they are rare; the preponderant finding across independent research is that mass shootings in the U.S. are overwhelmingly committed by cisgender men, and claims of a rising wave of transgender mass shooters are not supported by the evidence available in major databases and journalism reviews ^{[4] [1] [3]}.