In the wake of the Minneapolis shooting, America continues to overlook the most glaring common thread in mass violence: masculinity.
How can we reconcile the heartbreaking mass shooting in Minneapolis on Aug. 27 without acknowledging the key fact almost all these shootings share: The killers are almost always male, usually white. And why, at a time when Donald Trump and his acolytes continuously model the worst expressions of manhood, are we ignoring—or minimizing—the connection between rigid, traditional views of masculinity and gender’s role in this uniquely American form of carnage?
I’ve listened to hours and hours of coverage of the tragedy at Annunciation Catholic School. Discussions were dominated by mental health, gun control and gun access. Not once was gender mentioned. (While the Minneapolis shooter identified as a trans woman, a review of 25 years of mass shootings, since Columbine, confirms that overwhelmingly men are the killers.)
Coverage obsessed over manifestos, social media and identity. The glaring omission of gender is not neutral. How can we ever end this cycle of bloodshed without addressing who is doing the killing?
For years, I’ve urged the now beleaguered CDC to study how preschool boys are socialized, using the Head Start program as a pilot. But with the Trump misadministration undermining the CDC and threatening Head Start, that seems unlikely. Instead, let’s call on a consortium of states to step up and spearhead this urgently needed research.
Head Start—which has provided early learning, meals, health services and parental support for 60 years to nearly 40 million children—is facing an uncertain future. Threatening it, while ignoring how boys are raised, is unconscionable—especially when expanded new programs could teach preschoolers empathy, emotional resilience, and nonviolent communication. Let’s press Congress to strengthen Head Start, not defund it.
Meanwhile, what are counselors doing to guide boys in middle and high school? Who in Congress is linking gender and mental health? Where are the psychologists researching the connection between young male’s mental health struggles and their fraught journey from boyhood to manhood? Fortunately, there are highly regarded programs with answers, among them the American Institute for Boys and Men, Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice and Next Gen Men.
In the wake of this latest mass shooting, what’s next?
First, no more deflections. No more, “This isn’t the time to talk about gun control.” No more excuses that shooters are simply “twisted individuals,” or that this is exclusively about mental health.
The number of mass shootings over the last quarter century is staggering. What has remained constant is the common denominator—men—whether years ago, or as recently as 2023 in Lewiston, Maine, or Perry, Iowa, and Apalachee High School in Georgia in 2024.
Those of us in the profeminist men’s movement who emphasize the shooters’ gender don’t hate men. Quite the opposite. We care deeply about men—our sons, fathers, brothers and grandsons—and those who love them. That’s why we keep sounding the alarm. For decades, I’ve urged that we begin by acknowledging that boys are socialized to bury feelings, to equate vulnerability with weakness. That crippling view of boyhood must be challenged, and Head Start could help lead that transformation.
After the Las Vegas shootings in 2017, I proposed a Men’s Campaign to End Gun Violence. Any efforts today should include mental health awareness and gun control. But gender also must be at the center of every conversation about mass shootings.
Let’s build partnerships with Giffords, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, Brady, Sandy Hook Promise and others—pressing them to incorporate gender analysis into their work. We must also acknowledge that mass shootings, domestic violence murders, and sexual assaults all spring from the same root: men’s entitlement, bred by unexamined masculinity. We can simultaneously reject that entitlement and redefine men’s strength as empathy, men’s courage as compassion.
A trans shooter in Minneapolis does not change the pattern: Most mass murderers are cisgender men. Change begins with acknowledging that truth. And then acting on it.
Men, let’s answer the call. Let’s urge Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to use their platforms to spark a movement of men to lead the way. Enough is enough. The time is now—before the guns ring out again.
