It's Confirmed

A week ago Monday, I noted that Owen McIntire of Kansas City, MO had been arrested on charges of firebombing a Tesla dealership. This was in the context of the remarkably high proportion of Tesla arsonists who are trans males, and I wondered, as did others on social media, whether, given his feminine appearance in photos, he was trans as well, although legacy reports carefully avoided any reference.

This morning, it was confirmed:

The college student accused of firebombing a Tesla dealership has been released from federal custody to continue gender affirming medical care, according to a report.

. . . The University of Massachusetts physics student was granted release by US Magistrate Judge Jessica Hedges due to “serious and ongoing” medical needs — which include gender-affirming medical care that requires daily medication as well as mental health support, according to KMBC.

Fox News Kansas City quoted McIntire's defense attorney:

“What the courts don’t want to do is put too much burden on the jail staff to extend unique care or specialized care if they don’t have to.”

This is correct. The last thing jailers want to do is have to assure the safety of a trans 19-year-old. But the link adds another tidbit:

The defense filing says McIntire is undergoing treatment for depression, and is receiving gender affirming care that began in March of this year — and that care would likely be interrupted or terminated in federal custody.

So McIntire is facing charges for a firebombing that took place on March 17, within days or weeks of when he started taking drugs for gender-affirming care? Somehow, starting this treatment got him started on the road to arson. But there's more at the first link:

The University of Massachusetts physics student was granted release by US Magistrate Judge Jessica Hedges due to “serious and ongoing” medical needs — which include gender-affirming medical care that requires daily medication as well as mental health support, according to KMBC.

McIntire is also on the autism spectrum and was diagnosed with both ADHD and depression, all of which require medications and treatments that excuse him from remaining in prison, his lawyers successfully argued.

“By moving back home with his parents, he will have access to the care providers who are familiar with him and his specific needs,” the court documents read, according to KSHB.

With all this going on, why was he in college in Boston? It almost sounds as if the firebombing was a cry for help. But this brings me to a recent Commentary piece by Hannah Meyers:

Nationwide, headlines describe a spectrum of transgendered, nonbinary, and other “gender non-conforming” variations of criminal offenders. . . . In January, transgender repeat knife offender Jaia Cruz fatally stabbed a postal worker after jockeying over places in the sandwich line at a Manhattan deli. A few weeks later, transgender Nicol Suarez, who was being pursued by ICE for previous crimes, stalked and then raped a 14-year-old boy in a bodega bathroom in East Harlem. In February, 18-year-old transgender Trinity Shockley was arrested as she planned a mass Valentine’s Day school shooting. She failed where Tennessee transgender teen Audrey Hale succeeded; Hale gunned down six kids and adults at The Covenant School.

All of these cases raise a very obvious question: Do transgender Americans commit crime at higher rates or of different types than “cis-gender” Americans?

The answer is: We have no idea.

I suspect the article was written before the wave of trans arsons on Tesla dealerships, and the cases she cites indicate that the problem of trans crime existed before these and is much more widespread. She continues,

A Swedish study conducted in 2011 found that “transsexual individuals were at increased risk of being convicted for any crime or violent crime after sex reassignment.” More specifically, transwomen had a significantly increased risk for committing crime and violent crime compared with biological women—but not compared to cis-men. Indeed, transwomen retain “a male pattern regarding criminality.”

Transmen, on the other hand, had higher crime and violent crime rates than women—about the same rates as biological men. In other words, women who “transition” commit crime at rates similar to men—who, in the general population, commit most of the lawbreaking and violence.

An earlier Swedish study, from 1992, also suggests that higher rates of criminality exist within the transgender population. This research found that 9.7 percent of male-to-female and 6.1 percent of female-to-male sex change applicants had been prosecuted for a crime—higher than rates in the general population.

All anyone can say is that Owen McIntire's case is highly suggestive in this context -- he begins gender-affirming treatment, and within days or weeks, he's throwing Molotov cocktails. Meyers concludes,

Unless America recenters our debates about criminal offending in reality, and ballasts them with evidence, we will help neither crime victims nor offenders. And we will certainly harm transgender Americans, who are so often both.