On March 27, 2023. 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a young woman who identified as transgender, entered Covenant Christian School in Nashville, Tennessee, with two AR-style weapons and a handgun, shooting open a locked side door to gain access. She began her shooting spree at around 10:13 a.m., killing three 9-year-old children – Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney – and three adults – 61-year-old substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old principal Dr. Katherine Koonce, and 61-year-old custodian Mike Hill. She was killed 14 minutes later by police.
LGBT groups immediately called for the suppression of the shooter’s manifesto, obviously fearing that it would reveal another act of transgender terrorism. Law enforcement announced their decision to keep the manifesto secret, and the mainstream media agreed, despite the obvious public interest in the contents of the manifesto. Indeed, the press openly attempted to present the mass shooting as a case of a persecuted LGBT person being pushed too far by a Christian community.
The Daily Mail’s headline: “Nashville mass shooter was rejected by her Christian parents.” NBC News: “Fear pervades Tennessee’s community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity.” The Associated Press: “The head of the of the Christian elementary school in Nashville who was killed in a shooting there on Monday was described by friends as smart, loving and a rare female leader within a male-led religious culture.” USA Todaycorrected initial reports that had “misgendered” the shooter. And the worst, from Reuters: “Former Christian school student kills 3 children, 3 staff in Nashville shooting.”
This week, the press ban broke. The Tennessee Starobtained four dozen pages of Hale’s manifesto, and the writings reveal an angry young woman who was furious at her Christian parents—they loved her dearly and Hale still lived with them, at age 28, at the time of the shooting—and upset that puberty blockers were not available when she was a child. Hale referred to herself as “Aiden,” and the journal entries obtained by the Star are titled “My Imaginary Penis,” accompanied by a crude drawing of a male member.
Hale’s papers give a glimpse into a disturbed mind. “My penis exists in my head. I swear… I’m a male,” she writes. She fantasizes about being able to have sex with a woman as “Aiden”; writes that her use of the male name in a job application had caused problems with the background check; says that being raised as a girl was “torture.” She appears to have struggled with same-sex attraction as a teen, and worried that her classmates would call her a “dyke.” She didn’t learn about transgenderism until she was in her twenties and embraced it immediately.
“I finally found the answer—that changing one’s gender is possible,” she wrote. Audrey’s mother, however, was not supportive of her daughter identifying as male. “What she believes, how she grew up, conservatively, and that LGBTQ—especially transgender—was an enigma, nearly non-existent. I hate parental views; how my mom sees me as a daughter—and she’d not bear to want to lose that daughter because a son would be the death of Audrey.”
Hale wrote of puberty blockers: “I’d kill to have those resources. 2017 was the birth of puberty blockers and a newfound discovery for treatment of non-conforming transgender children.” Hale, however, “was in the 6th grade, puberty already hit me.” She also wrote about simulating sexual scenes between male dolls and stuffed toys and took photos, writing: “I am such a pervert. I waste too much time in my fantasies.” That entry was written two weeks before she gunned down six people at Covenant Christian School.
Hale’s journal entries—frequently referred to as her “manifesto”—were recovered by police from her car outside the school after she was killed along with hand-drawn maps, and although the chief of police stated that they would be released eventually, the FBI advised against their publication. The families of Audrey Hale’s victims launched a public records lawsuit, stating that they should have the right to determine whether the writing should be released.
