What we know about Minneapolis shooter Robin Westman’s gender identity

On Aug. 27, 2025, a shooter opened fire through the windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis while 200 children were celebrating Mass, killing two children and wounding 20 other people. Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter, 23-year-old Robin Westman, died by suicide right after.

As the police investigated motives, social media users raised questions about the shooter’s gender identity, with many posts claiming Westman was “trans identifying.” Readers reached out to Snopes asking whether it was true a “trans” person shot up the church. 

The attacker’s gender identity became a topic of discussion as soon as police identified Westman and reports emerged that Westman had applied for a name change from “Robert” to “Robin” as a teenager. Court records confirm the name change was requested and granted in 2020, and that Westman self-identified as female. Because of unverified reports that a “manifesto” purportedly written by Westman expressed doubts and regrets about transitioning, however, it remains unclear as of this writing whether Westman still identified as female at the time of the shootings. 

Some conservative commentators latched onto these discussions about Westman’s gender as a reason to launch attacks on the transgender community, implying that identifying as transgender played a role in the deadly shootings. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of South Carolina claimed: “Today’s evil church school shooter was a trans who was likely groomed and transitioned as a teenager.” FBI head Kash Patel wrote on X: “The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman.” 

In a news conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded to what quickly grew into an online outburst of transphobia: “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.” 

Who was Robin Westman?

As we looked at court documents, news reports and the purported videos and manifesto left behind by the shooter, we found an individual with often contradictory beliefs and grievances. 

According to The Associated Press and The New York Times, court documents filed in November 2019 and approved by a judge in 2020 indicate that Westman’s mother successfully applied for a name change on behalf of the then-17-year-old, from Robert to Robin. That document was titled “Order Granting Name Change of a Minor” and stated the petitioner “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”

We requested a copy of that document from the Minnesota Judicial Branch to independently verify its authenticity, but that request has yet to be fulfilled.

According to The New York Times, Westman lived in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield and worked at a cannabis dispensary in 2025. According to the LexisNexis database, Westman’s gender was listed as female.

However, excerpts from a “manifesto” attributed to Westman were shared online in which its author described being “sick of my hair” and “tired of being trans.” This was taken by some as evidence that Westman was “detransitioning,” a rare occurrence in which trans people go back to living as their gender assigned at birth, and most often due to experiencing transphobia. 

As of this writing we were unable to independently confirm the authenticity of various purported images of the manifesto online and have reached out to Minneapolis police to learn more.

Numerous news outlets reported that the opinions and grievances stated in the videos and written materials attributed to Westman were wide-ranging, chaotic and often self-contradictory. The videos reportedly conveyed a fascination with guns and school shootings, racist and antisemitic views, a death threat targeting U.S. President Donald Trump, and suicidal thoughts. The footage showed notebooks written in English and other languages, according to ABC News. One notebook reportedly had a sticker stating “defend equality” with an LGBTQ+ flag overlaid with an image of a gun.

None of the footage or written materials we have seen so far express a coherent motive for the deadly attack.

For further reading, we have also investigated the rumor that Westman was Jewish and the claim that mass shooters are disproportionately transgender.

Sources