How many school shooters in 2025 were trasgender

Checked on January 11, 2026
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Executive summary

Available reporting shows that in 2025 there was one high‑profile school shooting in which the suspected shooter was at some point identified as transgender, but the count is sensitive to definitions and verification and therefore must be treated with caution [1] [2].

1. The simple tally: one 2025 school shooter flagged as transgender

Mainstream fact‑checking and news outlets identified the August 2025 attack at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis as involving a suspect who at one point was described as transgender, making that incident the only widely reported 2025 school shooting with a transgender identification in the public record so far [1] [2].

2. Why that single number is provisional and contested

Experts and databases warn that counting shooters by gender identity is fraught: different organizations use different definitions of “school shooter” or “mass shooting,” gender identity may be reported inconsistently or changed over time, and some initial identifications have later been revised or disputed — all of which make any definitive numeric claim uncertain [3] [1].

3. How this fits into longer trends and database totals

Longer‑term data cited by fact‑checkers and advocacy groups show transgender perpetrators make up a very small fraction of mass‑shooting databases: the Gun Violence Archive told FactCheck.org there were five confirmed transgender shooters across its broader mass‑shooting dataset through September 2025, and some academic databases that use narrower definitions identified only one transgender suspect among decades of incidents (Audrey Hale in 2023) [1] [4].

4. Misinformation, political framing, and the inflation risk

In the aftermath of violent events, social and political actors have amplified claims that transgender people are an emerging threat; watchdogs and fact‑checkers have repeatedly debunked “epidemic” narratives and shown numbers being inflated by selective definitions or misattribution — a pattern noted by GLAAD, Snopes, Wired and other reporters [4] [2] [5] [6].

5. The methodological caveat: what reporters and researchers can and cannot confirm

Authors of the major analyses emphasize limits: some datasets (e.g., Gun Violence Archive) include a broader set of incidents and report a small number of transgender‑identified shooters, while other, stricter projects (e.g., Violence Prevention Project) count far fewer — researchers stress that verifying a shooter’s gender identity from public records is often impossible and that different definitions produce different tallies [1].

6. Bottom line for readers following the debate

For 2025 specifically, reporting supports the conclusion that one school shooter in that year was publicly identified as transgender, but that number comes with significant caveats about verification, definition, and the propensity of bad actors to weaponize isolated cases into a broader political claim; broader data show transgender perpetrators are rare in mass‑shooting datasets overall [1] [2] [5].

Want to dive deeper?
How many mass‑shooting perpetrators since 2013 have been identified as transgender by the Gun Violence Archive?
What definitions do researchers use for “mass shooting” versus “school shooting” and how do those choices change counts?
How have social media and political actors spread misinformation about transgender perpetrators after mass shootings?