EXCLUSIVE: The “don’t say trans challenge” has officially reached Google. The tech giant blocked stories identifying the Minneapolis mass shooter’s transgender identity from appearing in article headlines in its News tab, the Media Research Center can confirm.
None of the headlines that Google displayed in its News tab about the shooting on Thursday mentioned that Robin Westman, born Robert Westman, identified as “transgender.” This glaring omission is far from surprising, as it fits neatly with the legacy media's efforts to downplay the rise of violence perpetrated by “transgender” individuals.
Key Findings:
- Google once again highlighted leftist sources.
- Westman’s “trans” identity was ignored in the headlines.
- Sources obscured Westman’s possible motives.
Background: Westman, 23, killed two children, ages 8 and 10, during a back-to-school Mass at the Annunciation Catholic Church shortly before 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. As many as eighteen others were injured, while Westman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The FBI is “investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics.”
Hours after the massacre, outlets like Fox 9 reported that Westman changed his first name to Robin in 2019. Court filings revealed that Westman identified “as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
Despite this, Google’s News tab for "Minneapolis shooter" or "Minnesota shooter” searches didn’t return a single headline noting the shooter’s “transgender” identity.
Instead, Google surfaced 19 news media articles—14 from left-leaning sources, three from right-leaning outlets and two from centrist publications.
One CNN article ignored Westman’s “transgender” identity altogether, focusing instead on the left’s use of the shooting to call for gun control. Its headline read: “Democrats renew calls for gun control after Minnesota school shooting.”
The New York Times went further, dismissing outrage over Westman’s transgender identity as “right-wing uproar” in its piece, and featuring the headline: “Minneapolis Shooting Suspect Knew Her Target, but Motive Is a Mystery.”
Most of the coverage used vague framing—such as Fox 9’s "What's known about suspect Robin Westman”—omitting transgender details entirely in the headlines.
Google’s omission of the transgender identity appears to be part of a broader trend of pushing the left’s narrative while burying right-leaning sources.
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In fact, there were ample opportunities for Google to include a story from a popular news source that highlighted Westman’s “transgender” identity in the headline.
For instance, a New York Post headline that did not appear on Google read, “Minneapolis school shooter ID’d as trans woman Robin Westman — as apparent manifesto included ‘kill Trump.’”
Another headline by Newsweek read, “Robin Westman is Latest Transgender Mass Shooter to Spark National Debate.” A third headline by the Daily Mail added, “From Catholic student to lunatic transgender assassin: As praying children are slaughtered, America is left looking for clues.”
The massacre followed similar shootings carried out by transgender or non-binary individuals. In 2023, Aiden Hale, born Audrey Elizabeth Hale, killed three 9-year-old children and three adults in the Covenant School. That same year, Anderson Lee Aldrich, a non-binary individual whose preferred pronouns were “they/them,” killed five people a a Colorado Springs nightclub.
Transgender teen Alec McKinney was sentenced to life for the 2019 mass shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch, which resulted in the death of a teen. In 2018, Snochia Mosely, a biological woman who identified as a man, killed four people at a Rite Aid center.
Before You Go: Google STILL Boosts Leftist Media in Major Trump Stories Despite 'Preferred Sources' Tool
Methodology: The Media Research Center used Google’s News tab on Thursday to conduct two separate searches for “minnesota shooter” and “minneapolis shooter.” Researchers utilized the Brave browser and its paid VPN feature to minimize the influence of cookies and previous search history on the results.
MRC counted the various news outlets displayed by Google and referred to the media ratings firm AllSides for their classification of each outlet. AllSides classifies outlets in four categories: “lean left,” “left,” “center,” “lean right” and “right.”
For this story, MRC grouped these categories into left-leaning, right-leaning and center for clarity and brevity. As in previous studies, MRC did not use results past the first page, as estimates suggest that 99% of users do not look at results beyond the first page. Content beyond the first page is likely to be overlooked, according to a Backlinko SEO study.
