Sen. Scott Dibble: Republicans scapegoat the trans community to distract from the real threat

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In the wake of the Aug. 27 tragedy at Annunciation Church and School — where two young Minnesotans were killed and many more were injured — our community came together in grief and in determination. People across Minnesota and the nation are demanding action to prevent such horrors from happening again. They expect leaders to confront the reality of gun violence with the seriousness and urgency it demands. Their demand is straightforward. Ban assault weapons. Now. Today.

Instead, what we have witnessed from Republicans is not leadership, but opportunism at its most callous.

Just eight days after the tragedy, President Donald Trump’s administration twisted this moment of mourning into a weapon in its relentless crusade against transgender Americans. His campaign of lies branded the shooter a “trans terrorist.” Elon Musk claimed gender-affirming care causes “extreme violence.” Trump’s cabinet members, Kristi Noem at Homeland Security and FBI Director Kash Patel, alongside Minnesota Republicans, have used language designed to demean and dehumanize transgender people since the shooting. His Department of Justice under Pam Bondi is pushing the idea of taking guns from all trans people.

Here in Minnesota, House Republican leaders seized the moment to try to strip away protections for LGBTQ youth — specifically protections against so-called “conversion therapy,” a practice universally discredited and directly linked to higher suicide rates. Just one week and one day after a tragedy, Republicans are twisting it to justify their attacks on freedom, liberty, security, safety and the very meaning of American citizenship.

Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington, used his response to call for repealing laws that protect families in need of lifesaving gender-affirming care. He preferred to disparage vulnerable Minnesotans rather than confront his own record, which includes voting against the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, legislation designed to strengthen school safety and expand mental health resources. When a white, straight, right-wing Christian man carried out a politically motivated act of terrorism right here in Minnesota — targeting and murdering DFL leaders in the name of the very movement Emmer helps lead — he wasn’t racing to microphones to denounce what “drove” the killer’s mental illness. He wasn’t fanning flames of fear, scapegoating or vilifying every person who shared the murderer’s identity.

The facts tell a very different story than the one being peddled by the far right. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara has made clear that the shooter “expressed hate toward almost every group imaginable.” The shooter’s writings praised notorious mass shooters who targeted Jews, Muslims, Christians, Black people, progressives and children.

And despite the manufactured hysteria, the data is clear: Trans people are responsible for as few as 0.1% of the thousands of mass shootings in our country in recent years. Trans people are many times more likely to be victims of hate crimes. Taking away their rights does nothing to make us safer. It only furthers the ongoing campaign to erase them from public life. We know that trans people are less safe today than they were before Aug. 27 — and Republican leaders are making it worse.

I appeal to my Republican colleagues, including many I call friends: Reject these attempts to distract and divide us. Reject the transparent push to vilify and scapegoat our transgender neighbors.

If we are serious about honoring the lives lost, if we are serious about preventing the next tragedy, we must finally confront the one factor that sets the United States apart from every other nation on Earth. It is not mental health. It is not trans people.

It is the guns.