Assassin With History of Anti-Trans Comments Targeted a Champion of Queer Rights
Leading Off: Politically targeted attack comes hours before millions denounce Trump. A hospital succumbs to his threats. Iowa expands the bounds of discrimination. The week’s top story lines.
by Assigned Media
A Minnesota lawmaker killed in her home this weekend in a “politically motivated assassination” had helped lead the passage of laws banning conversion therapy and protecting abortion rights, queer rights and gender-affirming care.
The assassin, posing as a police officer, took the lives of Melissa Hortman, a Democrat and former House speaker, and her husband, Mark. The gunman also shot and wounded another Democratic legislator and his wife who lived nearby.
Gov. Tim Walz called Hortman “a giant” in Minnesota politics who “woke up every day determined to make this state a better place.”
The assassin, identified by the police as Vance Boelter and described by a close friend as a “strong Trump supporter,” eluded officers at the scene but left behind a hit list identifying dozens of abortion providers, rights advocates and Democratic officials as his next targets. Videos of Boelter preaching in the Democratic Republic of Congo show transphobic comments were present in his sermons.
U.S. Sen Adam Schiff, a Democrat, called on Trump to halt the “flirtation with violence” that the president and his allies employ in their rhetoric. Trump took the opportunity to call Walz, a Democrat, “a terrible governor.”
The assassination occurred just hours before an estimated four to six million Americans took took part in 2,100 “No Kings” protests held nationwide to condemn Trump’s dictatorial and lawless practices. Pride flags and trans flags flew prominently in red and blue states alike.
The military parade that Trump staged in Washington for his birthday, which cost taxpayers $45 million, drew a listless crowd that fell well below the 200,000 people he had wanted.
Trump has waged his broad campaign of anti-trans bigotry in defiance of evidence and inspired by animus. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles became the most recent to succumb to his pressure.
The hospital said late last week that it would close its center for gender-affirming care for young people in July, citing retaliatory threats from Trump to cut funding. Every major medical association in the United States has found gender-affirming care for young people to be safe and beneficial.
Yet Republicans and right-wing groups have continued to push further the bounds of their discriminatory efforts. Late last week, Iowa banned all gender affirming care covered under Medicaid — including care for adults — under a law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican. The ban takes effect July 1.
Keenan Crow, a leader of the LGBTQ group One Iowa, denounced the measure as explicitly biased. The law “provides these same medications and procedures for non-transgender Iowans without issue,” Crow told The Advocate. “It is unconscionable to restrict access to health care because of who someone is.”
Democrats in the Maine legislature have so far fought off a series of anti-trans measures that would impose sports bans and bathroom bans, and block young people’s access to gender-affirming care. But the conflict is expected to continue in the coming days.
Trans people in Kansas won a big court victory on Friday, though it may be fleeting. A state appellate court ruled that Kansas must resume its practice of allowing trans people to change the gender marker on their driver’s licenses. The Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, who had opposed such license changes, has not said whether he will take the case further.