Within hours of Monday's school shooting in Nashville, some right-leaning individuals began to take note of the shooter's transgender identity.
Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that hormone treatments and mental illness are to blame, not guns.
Donald Trump Jr. claimed that trans and nonbinary mass shooters are the largest group committing mass shootings. He also blames gender-affirming care.
Benny Johnson, a right-wing media personality, went on to lump all transgender people together as domestic terrorists.
NewsChannel 8 spoke with Oklahomans For Equality who are concerned this kind of rhetoric could lead to even more violence.
"I don't have an interest in marginalizing people in that way. I recognize people as whole beings," said Dorothy Ballard with OKEQ. "Yes, we have identities and intersectionalities that matter, but when I look at something as tragic as what happened in Nashville yesterday, I'm not thinking about one specific group. I'm thinking about the systemic causes behind it and most importantly I'm thinking about those children and educators who lost their lives."
Ballard says transgender people are not any more dangerous than the vast majority of society who lead peaceful lives.
She sees this rhetoric as a dodge around the gun control issue, to instead blame an already marginalized group for all actions of one person.