YORK COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) – Trixie Henry, an anthropology major at Virginia Commonwealth University, was still trying to process yet another school shooting in America when she learned that Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and others are using the Nashville tragedy to fuel a culture war. The 28-year-old person who opened fire inside the Nashville elementary school identified as transgender.

Henry, a freshman from York County, said Greene and others did not let the facts get in the way of a post-shooting narrative.

“People jumped at the idea that it was a trans woman; the reports identified the shooter as a woman, thus people online started jumping to the assumption that there was a trans woman,” Henry said. “Once it was out that she was a trans man, those same people decided that it was the testosterone that caused the aggression.”

Henry’s story at York High School made headlines across the country last year when the school was poised to potentially dead-name Henry during graduation ceremonies.

From Richmond to Hampton Roads, members of the trans community and supporters said the real issue in the aftermath of the Nashville tragedy is the ongoing problem of too many guns in too many wrong hands. Corey Mohr is the director of Communications at the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s brand is division and hate,” said Corey Mohr, director of communications at the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, “and she has been doing that pretty much since the first day she got into office … and (it) distracts us from the real problem here, which is easy access to firearms.”

Henry is calling on people in Virginia to remember the Nashville victims and to remember those who are spreading the trans eradication message.

“I think that we really need to be aware of the power that the right wing is holding over trans people,” Henry said in a Zoom interview. “In this past week alone, the week that we are currently in, there have been twenty-something bills that are on different state floors all related to trans issues. I think we need to be aware of this; we need to understand the people who are responsible for this.”