04 April 2023 , 17:00
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British far-right yobs have launched a wave of online transgender abuse in the aftermath of the Nashville school shootings, UK experts revealed tonight.
Audrey Hale, who identified as transgender and was a former student at the school, killed six people, including three children aged nine, in an attack on the Covenant School last week.
Hale, 28, a former pupil at the school, was shot dead by police less than 15 minutes after the attack began.
Hours after Hale’s killing spree, the open source intelligence unit at London-based Tech Against Terrorism began tracking web content relating to the school horror.
In a 13-page dossier, seen exclusively by the Mirror, it warns: “We have identified a surge in the volume of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric among the violent far-right networks we monitor in the past few days, with prevalent narratives attributing the attack to ‘trans terrorism’, citing no evidence.”
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Audrey Hale identified as transgender (REX/Shutterstock)It found a 500% increase in the use of the word “t****y” in the 24 hours following the attack, from about 300 per day to 1,800.
Analysts highlighted posts by “Proud Boys Britannia” and discovered a comment by a user called Mary on what it described as “a Tommy Robinson chat group.
It said: “All the medication these tra**ies are on to become a real woman which is never going to happen is sending them mental.”
A comment under a story about the murders on the website of a mainstream British newspaper said: “Maybe people with gender issues shouldn't be allowed guns.
“We see in our own country how violent their anger and passions get.”
Another comment posted elsewhere referred to “transgenderism” as “a dangerous mental disorder”.
Hale wielding an assault rifle at the Covenant School building at the Covenant Presbyterian Church, in Nashville, Tennessee (Metropolitan Nashville Police De)There were other comments about raping and committing necrophilia on the killer.
A user on what Tech Against Terrorism said was the “Tommy Robinson News Chat group” demanded “revenge on these trans leftist freaks”.
Tech Against Terrorism executive director Adam Hadley said: “Following the horrific school shooting in Nashville, we have seen a rise in the frequency of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ hatred and bigotry online among the extreme far-right, including in the UK.
“It is shocking but unfortunately unsurprising that the extreme far-right and fringe elements of mainstream media are exploiting the tragedy in Nashville to push a hateful agenda against the LGBTQ+ community.
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“It would seem far-right extremists are adapting to the hostile environment mainstreamed by sections of our media and political class against the trans community."
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