New developments in the case of Sophie Roske, the woman who pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, have sparked a wave of renewed transphobic rhetoric from right-wing commentators. Court filings revealed this month that Roske now identifies as a transgender woman. Instead of focusing on the serious legal and mental health dimensions of her case, conservative outlets have seized on her transition as supposed evidence that being transgender is itself a risk factor for violence.
Roske’s story is already tragic. She confessed to traveling to the justice’s home in Maryland during a time of intense national turmoil over reproductive rights. According to prosecutors, she was motivated by anger over the draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade and fears about future gun restrictions. After traveling across the country armed, she ultimately called authorities on herself before carrying out her plan. Prosecutors are now seeking a minimum of 30 years in prison, while her defense has asked for eight, citing her history of mental health struggles. Among those struggles is the long process of coming to terms with her gender identity, which is now part of her public record in court documents.
Rather than acknowledging this complexity, many conservative voices have flattened the narrative. Fox News, for example, framed its coverage around Roske’s transition as if it were central to her criminal behavior, running headlines that tied her gender identity directly to the assassination plot. The Christian Post and similar outlets emphasized her trans status in the same breath as her crime, encouraging readers to draw connections that are not supported by evidence. This pattern of coverage follows a familiar playbook: highlight the identity of an outlier, then use it to paint an entire community as dangerous.
What’s missing in this framing is any recognition of nuance. Roske’s motives, according to her own statements and legal filings, were driven by political anger and personal despair, not by her gender identity. Mental health experts have long noted that suicidal ideation and violent ideation sometimes overlap in moments of acute crisis, and Roske herself surrendered to police rather than carrying out the act. None of this minimizes the seriousness of what she planned. But it makes clear that her transition is not the cause.
By linking her gender identity to violence, commentators reinforce one of the oldest and most damaging tropes about transgender people: that we are unstable, threatening, or prone to lash out. In reality, trans people are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. Data from the Human Rights Campaign and other advocacy groups consistently show elevated rates of harassment, assault, and homicide against transgender people, particularly women of color. To twist a case like Roske’s into supposed proof of the opposite is not just inaccurate, it is dangerous.
The stakes extend beyond media narratives. When stories like this are framed irresponsibly, they can fuel calls for discriminatory policies, justify restrictions on health care, and normalize suspicion toward every trans person living their daily life. Roske’s crime deserves scrutiny, accountability, and justice. But her identity does not. To conflate the two is to weaponize her personal truth against millions of innocent people.
