If nothing else, Alabama politicians will meet the moment when an opportunity arises to uphold the state’s reputation as a socially regressive national punchline.
Recent tweets from Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth inaccurately linked transgender people to an increase in mass shootings following the August 27 shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the 47th school shooting in the U.S. to date. The truth is, 96% of mass shootings are carried out by cisgender (non-transgender) men, a fact Ainsworth does not tweet about. Honing in on a marginalized community instead of the facts and his own duty to keep all constituents safe didn’t stop there. Ainsworth is are among many on the extreme political right who continue to use transgender people as a scapegoat, despite data debunking such claims, to avoid addressing the common denominator in every shooting that has occurred in America: guns.
Here are other facts the lieutenant governor could focus on: Transgender people are less than 2% of the overall population, yet four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of crime. GLAAD’s ALERT Desk has tracked more than 2,100 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents from June 2022 to December 2024, including more than 750 incidents specifically targeting transgender and nonbinary people.
But here’s the thing about Ainsworth and other anti-LGBTQ+ politicians who are supposed to work on behalf of all citizens in their state: They are choosing to ignore the actual problems — guns, access to guns, and gun violence — to stoke baseless fear of LGBTQ+ people who, like everyone, want to be safe and to go about their business without being lied about by politicians in power. Gun violence is an epidemic — and nonpartisan.
The right to be free and safe is nonpartisan. Efforts to other-ize vulnerable people with homophobia and transphobia work against those rights bestowed on every Alabamian and every American.
And let’s be clear, this is not the first time Ainsworth has made incendiary comments about a minority group, which, like clockwork, seems to occur around the same time every year. In September 2024, Ainsworth falsely and without evidence correlated a federal immigration program with “soaring” HIV rates in Alabama. Data from the Alabama Department of Health shows no substantial increase in new cases over the last several years, and no connection to programs that allow immigrants to live and work in Alabama.
“Ainsworth and other elected officials, at a minimum, should be expected to lead with facts,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said following Ainsworth’s 2024 comments.
This year, Ainsworth’s annual anti-LGBTQ+ rant targeted transgender people in Alabama, following national leaders choosing to traffic in misinformation and conspiracy theories instead of the truth, which is that transgender people exist, they always have, and they always will. They are our relatives, neighbors, coworkers, and military service members, and, yes, they even sit next to us in houses of worship on Sunday morning, and you may never know it.
“The sooner everyone accepts that God made men, and God made women, and one can never become the other, the quicker we can lessen these events from happening,” Ainsworth tweeted.
Ainsworth again revealed not only a narrow worldview but an avoidance of the facts. Science and history have long recognized that gender exists beyond the binary, that sexuality exists on a spectrum, and transgender people are real. Transgender people are not the impetus for senseless gun violence in America; the facts show trans people and all marginalized Americans are at disproportionate risk of gun violence. And a bipartisan supermajority of Americans support multiple measures to reduce gun violence.
So who then is to blame? Parroting an assumed left-wing talking point, Ainsworth himself has an idea. “But Rednecks with AR-15s are the Problem,” he tweeted.
And to that I say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
If Ainsworth cared about the dignity, humanity, and safety of all Alabamians, he might advocate for reforms that most Americans support. He would move to protect transgender people, who simply want to live their lives peacefully without being demonized.
In a state that prides itself on embodying the love of Christ, but often fails to display that love toward historically undervalued people, asking Ainsworth and others who align with him politically to actually exemplify Christ-like behavior shouldn’t be a lot to ask. Sadly, in the state where I was raised, we must continue to ask leaders to see and serve all people, including the most vulnerable among us.
Darian Aaron is a multi-award-winning journalist. He is currently the Director of Local News: U.S. South at GLAAD and founder of GLAAD Down South, a media event celebrating LGBTQ+ and HIV storytelling. He previously served as Communications Director of The Counter Narrative Project (CNP), Editor-At-Large of The Reckoning, and Editor of Georgia Voice. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, but resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his husband. Follow him @darianoutloud on all social platforms.
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This article originally appeared on Advocate: Alabama politicians could choose not to scapegoat trans people, but that would be humane
