Crooks – a 20-year-old cisgender man – killed an audience member and wounded two others, as well as wounding Trump himself.
Right-wing accounts began sharing an image of an unrelated transgender person online, claiming that it was Crooks.
Paul Hookem, who shares a lot of right-wing content, was seemingly the first person to suggest that Crooks was trans and used a photo of a random trans person on social media to make their (false) point.
In a now-deleted post, Hookem wrote: “Anyone wondering why they aren’t using this photo of the shooter?”
https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/07/19/no-trump-shooter-thomas-matthew-crooks-wasnt-trans-its-fake-news/