The far right wants to distort the recent horrific Nashville shooting into a story about violence and transgender people. We should strongly rebuff those efforts as a blatantly offensive sleight of hand that fundamentally ignores reality and seeks to undermine our collective humanity. 

Last week, on Monday, March 27, our nation experienced another tragic mass shooting that senselessly took six lives at a covenant school in Nashville. Unfortunately, the right-wing disinformation machine has executed an all-too-familiar strategy of turning conversations regarding gun safety into an opportunity to perpetuate hatred toward marginalized groups. Channeling hate into a political strategy will only result in more gun-related deaths. 

After unconfirmed reports that the perpetrator of the Nashville shooting identified as transgender, a flood of anti-transgender rhetoric began, with transphobic comments coming from across the spectrum. Across the conservative media spectrum, outlets went to pains to immediately brand the suspect as a “trans shooter.”

To give you a sense of the insanity, former President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have both speculated that hormone therapy was driving the shooter’s apparent rage, despite there being no evidence that the shooter was on hormone therapy. 

The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., said the media was ignoring “a clear epidemic of trans or non-binary mass shooters,” although he presented nothing to support that claim. 

The comments demonizing transgender people are perhaps the most cynical in a long line of distraction techniques to avoid the underlying discussion of America’s gun epidemic—the one that is happening regardless of the identity of the shooter. 

But let’s remember that facts matter. There have been at least 130 mass shootings this year alone. The vast majority of mass shootings in the United States are perpetrated by cisgender men, and transgender people are dramatically more likely to be victims of violent crime, not perpetrators. Most concerning, incidents of violence against transgender people are on the rise across this country. 

The attacks on transgender people are part of a much broader and insidious campaign. Since the beginning of the year, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide as part of a national strategy to enshrine discrimination into law. Much of the legislation focuses on restricting healthcare access, visibility in the education system, and freedom of public expression. Within the LGBTQ community, transgender people are the most vulnerable, which makes these attacks all the more heartbreaking. Transgender people are our siblings, our family. 

As a Black man who is also gay, I have lived my life being seen as “other” to many. In my life, I have learned that my greatest power is my ability to stand up for others. In my roles in the private sector, government, and not-for-profit sectors and now as the president & CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, I have always believed that we must rise above the shrill pitch of fear and embrace the “human” in our communities. 

For some, it is all too easy to look past the demonization of transgender people, because they are not transgender. But we cannot allow that to happen. We must stand together against campaigns to erase any of us. Let’s not forget: When they come for “them” today, they will come for “us” tomorrow, using the same strategy of fear and distortion.

Far too often, Black people face microaggressions and dog-whistle politics. We know the coded language, we know what it means, and we have always called it out. In today’s political environment, the dog whistle is a bullhorn of explicit bigotry. 

We deserve better: a national conversation about gun policy driven by facts, not fear, and more empathy for the transgender community, who are a part of our collective human community. The vast majority of Americans want action, not more demonization. Let’s stand up for better. 
Alphonso David is president & CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. He previously served as chief counsel to the governor of New York and as an adjunct professor of law at the Fordham University Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump conspired to illegally influence the 2016 election through a series of hush money payments designed to silence claims that he feared would be harmful to his candidacy, New York prosecutors said Tuesday in unsealing a historic 34-count felony indictment.

The charges arose from a series of checks that Trump or his company wrote during the presidential campaign to his lawyer and fixer for his role in making a payment to a porn actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

The payments were part of “an unlawful plan to identify and suppress negative information that could have undermined his campaign for president,” Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy said in court. They were made to “protect his candidacy,” Conroy added.

The arraignment in Manhattan, though largely procedural in nature, was nonetheless the first time in U.S. history that a former president has faced a judge in his own criminal prosecution. The indictment amounts to a remarkable reckoning for Trump after years of investigations into his personal, business and political dealings, unfolding against the backdrop not only of his third campaign for the White House but also against other investigations in Washington and Atlanta that might yet produce even more charges.

Trump, stone-faced and silent as he entered and exited the Manhattan courtroom, said “not guilty” in a firm voice while facing a judge who warned him to refrain from rhetoric that could inflame or cause civil unrest. All told, the ever-verbose Trump, who for weeks before Tuesday’s arraignment had assailed the case against him as political persecution, uttered only about 10 words — though he did appear to glare for a period at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The next court date is December 4, though it is not clear if Trump will be required to appear.

The broad contours of the case have long been known, but the indictment contains new details about a scheme that prosecutors say began months into his presidential candidacy in 2015, as his celebrity past collided with his presidential ambitions. It centers on payoffs to two women, including porn star Stormy Daniels, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with him years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged the former president had out of of wedlock.

“It’s not just about one payment. It is 34 false statements and business records that were concealing criminal conduct,” Bragg told reporters, when asked how the three separate alleged payments were connected.

All 34 counts against Trump are linked to a series of checks that were written to Trump’s personal lawyer and problem-solver, Michael Cohen, to reimburse him for his role in paying off Daniels. Those payments, made over 12 months, were recorded in various internal company documents as being for a legal retainer that prosecutors say didn’t exist. Cohen testified before the grand jury and is expected to be a star prosecution witness. Nine of those monthly checks were paid out of Trump’s personal accounts, but records related to them were maintained in the Trump Organization’s data system.

Prosecutors allege that the first instance of Trump directing hush money payments came in the fall of 2015, when a former Trump Tower doorman was trying to sell information about an alleged out-of-wedlock child fathered by Trump.

David Pecker, a Trump friend and the publisher of the National Enquirer, made a $30,000 payment to the doorman to acquire the exclusive rights to the story, pursuant to an agreement to protect Trump during his presidential campaign, according to the indictment. Pecker’s company later determined the doorman’s story was false, but at Cohen’s urging is alleged to have enforced the doorman’s confidentiality until after Election Day.

The investigation also concerns six-figure payments made to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both say they had sexual encounters with the married Trump years before he got into politics. Trump denies having sexual liaisons with either woman and has denied any wrongdoing involving payments.

After his arraignment, Trump was returning to his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, for a primetime address to campaign supporters. At least 500 prominent supporters have been invited, with some of the most pro-Trump congressional Republicans expected to attend. A conviction would not prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.

The day’s schedule, with its striking blend of legal and political calendar items, represents the new split-screen reality for Trump as he submits to the dour demands of the American criminal justice system while projecting an aura of defiance and victimhood at celebratory campaign events.

Wearing his signature dark suit and red tie, Trump turned and waved to crowds outside the building before heading inside to be fingerprinted and processed. He arrived at court in an eight-car motorcade from Trump Tower, communicating in real time his anger at the process.

“Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse,” he posted on his Truth Social platform. “Seems so SURREAL — WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America. MAGA!”

Afterward, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told reporters that it was a “sad day for the country.”

“You don’t expect this to happen to somebody who was president of the United States,” he said.

Trump, who was impeached twice by the U.S. House but was never convicted in the U.S. Senate, is the first former president to face criminal charges. The nation’s 45th commander in chief was escorted from Trump Tower to the courthouse by the Secret Service.

“He is strong and ready to go,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina told The Associated Press. Earlier, Tacopina said in a TV interview that the former president wouldn’t plead guilty to lesser charges, even if it might resolve the case. He also said he didn’t think the case would make it to a jury.

New York police said they were ready for large protests by Trump supporters, who share the Republican former president’s belief that the New York grand jury indictment and three additional pending investigations are politically motivated and intended to weaken his bid to retake the White House in 2024. Journalists often outnumbered protesters, though.

Trump, a former reality TV star, has been hyping that narrative to his political advantage, saying he raised more than $8 million in the days since the indictment on claims of a “witch hunt.” His campaign released a fundraising request titled “My last email before arrest” and he has repeatedly assailed Bragg, egged on supporters to protest and claimed without evidence that the judge presiding over the case “hates me” — something his own lawyer has said is not true.

The arraignment unfolded against the backdrop of heavy security in New York, coming more than two years after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to halt the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s win.

The scenes around Trump Tower and the courthouse did not feature any major unrest. Police tried to keep apart protesters supporting the former president and those opposing him by confining them to separate sides of a park near the courthouse using metal barricades.

Tucker and Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Jill Colvin, Bobby Caina Calvan, Larry Neumeister, Karen Matthews, Larry Fleisher, Deepti Hajela, Julie Walker, Ted Shaffrey, David R. Martin, Joe Frederick and Robert Bumsted in New York and Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

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