I have been sitting with a lot of both/and over yesterday’s shooting in Nashville.

There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for murdering innocent children, period.

We don’t know what their motives were. What we have is speculation that connects the possibility of rage over their experience of transphobia to their upbringing in the school they targeted, which is Christian.

The speculation of their motives as retaliation or rage that may have led this person to commit such an atrocious act is plausible.

And, this rage along with fear, frustration, and grief, is a daily reality for the Transgender community that is actively being fostered in our society as Trans lives are being debated, dismissed, legislated, harassed, shamed, and bullied daily in our society.

If the shooter’s motive was rage over the transphobia they experienced in their life, then it logically follows that yesterday’s shooting made our society a victim of the dangerous rhetoric over which the Trans community is reeling.

If rage was behind their motive, it bears repeating again that rage does not excuse or justify their actions. However, it can inform us of how we can prevent future atrocities fueled by rage over the experience of transphobia and other forms of oppression.

The desire to understand motives is a natural human response to trauma. The reality is that we often never fully understand a person’s motives. What we do know is that trauma is often perpetuated by people who have not healed their own trauma and that oppression is a form of trauma.

We can’t change what happened, but we can prevent more acts like this by owning our collective responsibility for the lack of access to and removal of safe spaces, mental and physical healthcare, bodily autonomy, and education that fuel Transphobia and other forms of oppression.

We are all in this together.