
Social media users claim images of a person holding a transgender flag show the 18-year-old gunman behind a deadly Texas shooting spree. This is false; the posts misappropriate photos of a transgender artist who posted them on Reddit.
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AFP : Posts falsely claim photos of transgender Reddit user show Texas shooter !
«NO mental illness here of any kind so let’s blame the guns… Here is your Texas school shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, from North Dakota», says a Facebook post published May 25, 2022. «They will bury who this monster is».
Republican U.S Congressman Paul Gosar amplified the narrative in a now-deleted tweet in which he claimed Ramos was a «transsexual leftist illegal alien». Other social media posts have also falsely claimed Ramos, who Texas officials said was a U.S citizen, was an undocumented immigrant, AFP reports.
But some of the photos shared in the posts do not show Ramos and AFP could find no evidence that he was transgender.