TWIT Awards – Sept 1, 2025

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As we mentioned in the News, a big story this week was a shooting event at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis. While the shooter did legally change his name from Robert Westman to Robin Westman, and was pursuing a change of gender at that time, it appears that the shooter gave up on the change of gender, and came under the influence of some on the far right, who suggest that “biological gender” will prevail. Many on the far right were quick to blame this incident on transgender people in general, and to call for our incarceration. Mother Jones reports that 134 of 141 mass shootings since 1982 were carried out by cisgender men. Only four were committed by transgender people. The Advocate reports that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called for some sort of “accountability on the transgender front,” as Dana Perino of Fox News put it in asking Speaker Johnson the question. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blamed antidepressants and other medications for the shootings, despite the fact that the vast majority of users of these medications do not participate in mass shootings. For rushing to blame transgender people or the medications we take, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and various commentators on the far right share a TWIT.

As we mentioned in the news last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered that crosswalks which were painted in the colours of the rainbow flag be painted over to remove the various colours. This includes a crosswalk which was painted as a memorial to those who were killed at the Pulse nightclub, in a mass shooting event. Citizens have repainted that crosswalk twice, but the state has overlaid black-and-white paint over the rainbow colours. Police officers have been detached to prevent the crosswalk being repainted, according to Erin Reed. For using the police to prevent citizens from repainting a memorial to a mass shooting, Governor Ron DeSantis gets a TWIT.

In California, high schools are forfeiting games to Jurupa Valley High School, because the school’s women’s volleyball team has a transgender athlete on it. For taking a defeatist attitude and not even trying to play the games, despite scientific evidence showing that transgender athletes have little to no competitive edge, these schools share a TWIT. This story comes from Them.

We have long suspected that Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer who has proclaimed herself a victim because she tied transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in one event, was in it for personal glory. A new profile in the New York Times reports that her goal is for transgender rights to crumble. For opposing equal rights for others in order to expand her own rights, Riley Gaines gets a TWIT.

Tags: featured, TWIT

Category: Transgender Opinion