Elon Musk, conservatives raise concerns over LGBT-related posts tied to Iowa school shooter

(LifeSiteNews) — Apparent LGBT-related social media accounts and posts connected to the high school student who carried out a school shooting in Iowa last week have raised alarm bells for prominent opponents and skeptics of LGBT ideology, including billionaire Elon Musk. Authorities have not weighed in on the shooter’s motive or whether or not he identified as LGBT.

Dylan Butler, 17, shot six people at a school in Perry, a suburb of Des Moines, early Thursday morning, killing a sixth-grade student and injuring five others before turning the gun on himself.

While information is scant concerning the shooter’s motives (legacy media outlets report that he was spurred at least in part by bullying endured by himself and his sisters), information has also emerged indicating that Butler engaged with content on social media related to LGBT ideology. It’s unclear whether Butler identified as LGBT or otherwise affiliated himself with transgender ideology.

Prominent figures reacted to information concerning the social media posts and accounts by pointing out that a variety of shootings carried out in recent years have been perpetrated by individuals who identify as “transgender” or “non-binary.”

“This is happening a lot,” billionaire Elon Musk, who has a son who identifies as female, said Thursday on X. “Something is deeply wrong.”

In an article accusing “[f]ar-right social media personalities and conservative provocateurs” of being “quick to pounce on these revelations,” NBC News noted that “screenshots from Butler’s social media accounts, which have since been taken down, appear to display some LGBTQ symbolism, including rainbow and transgender flag emojis and an image of graffiti that says ‘LOVE YOUR TRANS KIDS.’” 

Social media accounts linked to the shooter include a TikTok profile with the username “tooktoomuch” featuring a photo of an anime girl as the avatar and a rainbow “pride” flag in the biography, Townhall reported.

Another account called “DylanSayWhat,” which uses the same female anime photo, lists the pronouns “he/they.” One TikTok video used the hashtag “#genderfluid.” 

Townhall also pointed to “a series of Reddit posts that Butler appears to have authored” in which he apparently “interacted with transgender and ‘femboy’ forums.”

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Both TikTok accounts have since been deleted and authorities have not confirmed their connection to Butler. Law enforcement have not publicly commented on whether or not Butler affiliated himself with an LGBT identity.

Conservatives have pointed to a number of shooters in recent years who appear to have identified themselves as transgender.

Most notably, gender-confused 28-year-old Audrey Hale murdered three children and three school staff members at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee last year. Photos of some of Hale’s notes were recently leaked to the press, but Nashville police have not released the shooter’s manifesto. However, they have suggested there was reason to believe that her reported transgender identity played a role in her decision to target the Christian school.

And opponents of the destructive and potentially radicalizing impacts of transgender ideology have pointed out that Hale isn’t the only gender-confused person to carry out a shooting in recent years.

The female shooter in Aberdeen, Maryland, who killed four people in 2018, also was reportedly “transitioning” to look more like a man, and the 20-year-old Denver, Colorado school shooter who killed one teenager and injured eight in 2019 reportedly identifies as “transgender.” 

Additionally, the suspect who allegedly killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado in 2022 reportedly identifies as “non-binary.”

And while most gender-confused people do not target people in violent attacks, the statistics tell a tragic story regarding their likelihood to engage in violence against themselves.

As LifeSiteNews has reported, transgender identification itself — which prominent leaders in the transgender medical field have acknowledged can be tied to “social contagion” — is associated with astronomically high rates of suicidality. Research published in March 2022 found that 82% of people who identify as transgender “have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.”

Opponents of “affirming” gender-confused children and adults in their delusions point out that individuals who are genuinely in a state of distress about their gender are in urgent need of true psychological help.

“These children are not committing suicide because they were born in the wrong body,” detransitioner Chloe Cole recently said. “This is an entirely psychological issue and these children are not getting the help that they need.”