In the days following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the New York Post's coverage repeatedly cast transgender people as central to the violence, leaning on anonymous sources and unverified leaks from law enforcement, some of which Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and investigators have since contradicted. The effect has been to paint a target on a community already living under intensifying political scrutiny and cultural hostility.
Related: Wall Street Journal quietly walks back false claim Charlie Kirk shooter had pro-trans messages on his bullets
Over the course of a single weekend, the Post churned out a series of headlines that treated rumors as fact. One declared Kirk the “latest victim of a shooting committed by trans people and advocates.” Another insisted the investigation had expanded to “pro-trans online groups.” Yet another suggested that a rifle round tied to the killing was engraved with “trans-sex, furry meme: notices bulge OwO what’s this?” By Monday morning, the drumbeat continued with a headline focusing on the alleged shooter’s roommate, who Cox said was trans, framed as someone who “hates conservatives and Christians.” The piece relies on anonymous sources.
The narrative the outlet advanced was clear: that transgender identity itself was implicated in the killing.
What the Post reported
The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post was not alone in publishing false claims about trans people. The Wall Street Journal, also owned by Murdoch's right-leaning News Corp, initially ran a headline suggesting ammunition was engraved with “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology.”
By late Thursday, after sources and officials raised alarms, the Journal walked back its language, adding cautionary notes about the limits of the early bulletin. As The Advocate has reported, Cox explicitly debunked the notion that the engravings referenced transgender people.
At a Friday press conference, Cox told reporters the ammunition recovered near Utah Valley University bore a collection of internet memes and slogans, hardly evidence of what right-wing media outlets called “transgender ideology.” In truth, there was no coherent ideological statement, only fragments of online subculture.
The Post, however, did not retreat. It doubled down, only adding an editor’s note to the piece after The Advocate reported on the Journal’s sloppy reporting.
On Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump told reporters he believed that social media played a role in the Kirk murder.
“It looks like he was radicalized over the internet,” Trump told reporters, according to a White House press pool report..
Journalism organizations respond
Ken Miguel, president of the National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, condemned the rush to print these assertions. “Sharing unsubstantiated claims breaks one of journalism’s core ethical principles: do no harm,” Miguel told The Advocate in a statement. “Stories like these risk reinforcing harmful stereotypes and unfairly targeting a marginalized group that has already been the subject of politically motivated attacks.”
Tre’vell Anderson, executive director of the Trans Journalists Association, noted the language itself is a tell. “Terms like ‘trans ideology’ were created with the expressed purpose of delegitimizing the humanity of trans people,” they told The Advocate. “When journalists don’t exercise due diligence in vetting and verifying information, particularly from anonymous sources and especially from law enforcement, misinformation can spread quickly.”
GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide makes clear that sexual orientation or gender identity should not be highlighted when irrelevant to a crime, nor should journalists imply a causal link between identity and violence.
A GLAAD spokesperson placed the coverage in historical context. “Demonizing innocent and vulnerable people with sensationalized and irresponsible coverage is not new in LGBTQ history,” the spokesperson told The Advocate. “GLAAD was founded forty years ago because media coverage of the AIDS crisis—including from the NY Post—was atrocious and harmful, and allowed government officials to ignore their responsibility in keeping every American safe.”
The impact of coverage
Sam Lau of the Human Rights Campaign said the stakes are clear. “While the facts around what happened in Utah continue to be investigated, here is what we know to be true: political violence and gun violence are unacceptable and have no place in this country,” he told The Advocate. “And using an incident like this to villainize an entire marginalized community is wrong, dehumanizing, and dangerous. The New York Post’s headlines are not meant as journalism, but as clickbait material to create more fear and division.”
NLGJA is reaching out directly to the leadership of both the Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Miguel warned that coverage like this does more than stigmatize. It risks provoking real-world violence. “We urge newsrooms to approach such allegations with caution, to be transparent about what is known and what remains unverified, and to provide appropriate context when inflammatory language or unproven claims are introduced,” Miguel said.
Neither Keith Poole, the Post’s editor-in-chief, nor spokespersons for News Corp, its parent company, responded to The Advocate’s requests for comment.
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