Nashville congressman responds to radical trans group: Turning shooter into 'martyr' is 'beyond disturbing'

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The house of alleged Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale is boarded up

The house of alleged Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale is boarded up in Nashville Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Hale was killed by police after shooting six people at the school Monday. (KR/Mega for Fox News Digital)

Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles sharply criticized a far-left transgender group that he said is attempting to portray the Nashville school shooter as a "martyr." 

Following The Covenant School shooting that left three children and three adults dead, the radical Trans Resistance Network issued a statement calling it a dual tragedy for the victims and their families, along with the transgender shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale.

"Any attempt to turn a mass murderer into a martyr is beyond disturbing," Ogles, who represents the community where the shooting happened, told Fox News Digital. "The notion that someone would try to justify this atrocity disgusts me to my core.

"March 27, 2023, was not a dual tragedy as this radical group wrote," Ogles said. "It was a targeted attack on children attending a Christian school perpetrated by a hate-filled domestic terrorist. There is no place for accepting or justifying the actions of The Covenant School shooter."

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A radical transgender group said the transgender Nashville shooter felt "no other effective way to be seen" than killing six people at a private Presbyterian school.  (Metro Nashville Police Department)

Ogles' remarks come after the Trans Resistance Network broke its pledge of not engaging publicly with the news media to release a statement arguing the shootings amounted to two tragedies and that Hale had "no other effective way to be seen."

"The first tragedy today is the loss of the three children and adults," the group said in its message. "We extend our deepest sympathies and heartfelt prayers to those families dealing with the loss of loved ones. There is nothing we can offer that will comfort the hurt, or ease the sorrow. We will mourn with you."

"The second and more complex tragedy is that Aiden [the shooter's preferred name] or Aubrey Hale, who felt he had no effective way to be seen than to lash out by taking the life of others, and by consequence, himself."

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The group added it does "not claim to know the individual or have access to their inner thoughts and feelings" but it does "know that life for transgender people is very difficult, and made more difficult in the preceding months by a virtual avalanche of anti-trans legislation, and public callouts by Right Wing personalities and political figures for nothing less than the genocidal eradication of trans people from society."

Rep.-elect Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., right, and Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., arrive for the House Republican leadership elections in the Capitol Visitor Center Nov. 15, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"Many transgender people deal with anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide, and PTSD from the near-constant drum beat of anti-trans hate, lack of acceptance from family members and certain religious institutions, denial of our existence, and calls for de-transition and forced conversion," the group claimed.

It later added that "hate has consequences."

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According to its website, TRN "is a collective of experienced organizers, committed allies, and concerned groups who are coming together for the long-term survival and well-being of gender diverse people in a more extreme environment."

Nashville Police on Monday identified the six people killed in the shooting as 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs and Mike Hill, 61, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60.

Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale opens the church office doors once inside the school building.  (Twitter @MNPDNashville)

Koonce was the head of the school, Peak was a substitute teacher and Hill was a custodian.

Hale, a former student of The Covenant School, entered the premises Monday with two "assault-type rifles" and a handgun and began firing, police said.

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Hale used hand-drawn maps with detailed entry points that were found at her Nashville home.

The shooter was killed by responding Metropolitan Nashville Police officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo.

Fox News Digital's Chris Pandolfo contributed reporting.