On May 18, 2026, two teenagers fatally shot three people at a mosque in San Diego, then killed themselves, according to police. Soon after the shooting, rumors spread that the pair were a transgender couple.
One post on X claimed:
San Diego Police are FLAT OUT REFUSING to name yesterday's mosque shooters
Why, you ask?
BECAUSE IT WAS A TRANS COUPLE.
California leftists are ACTIVELY COVERING UP trans vioIence.
(X user @nicksortor)
As of this writing, there is no evidence that the shooters identified as transgender. The police identified them as Caleb Liam Vazquez and Cain Lee Clark but did not comment on their gender identities.
We reached out to the San Diego Police Department to learn more. Spokesperson Abbey Langley would not confirm or deny the shooters' purported gender identities, directing us instead to the official updates on the department's website and their news conference. Langley told Snopes over email: "We have not released ANY additional information since yesterday's press conference."
The above post misrepresents the police officer's statement about the teens and falsely accuses the department of trying to hide their identities. On May 19, police Chief Scott Wahl said in a news conference: "What you will not hear from us today, is the names of these two suspects. Today is about the victims and our community coming back together again." However, the department identified the shooters by name in an official announcement on its website that day.
Per the San Diego police's announcement, Vazquez was 18 and Clark was 17. The police said, "It is believed that the two suspects met online, realized they both lived in San Diego, and exchanged radicalized ideology."
On May 18, police said they received a call from one of the teens' mothers, describing him as a "son" who was accompanied by a "companion." Per the official statement:
SDPD received a call about a runaway juvenile. Over the course of about an hour and multiple calls, SDPD pieced together bits of information from the juvenile's mother. She believed her son was suicidal and shared information that several of her weapons were missing, along with her vehicle. She also stated that he was with a companion, who was dressed in camouflage.
The police department also would not confirm for us whether images published by the New York Post and shared on social media are real photographs of Clark. Langley said over email, "We have not released any photographs of the suspects."
The Associated Press accessed writings by the shooters, which reportedly expressed hateful views towards Muslims, Jewish people, women, Black people, LGBTQ+ people, and left- and right-wing politics. The pair also reportedly wrote about mental health struggles and being rejected by women, and expressed the belief that white people were being eliminated.
The FBI announced during the May 19 news conference that agents had searched addresses associated with the shooters and found 30 guns, a crossbow and ammunition. Mark Remily, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego office, added: "These subjects did not discriminate on who they hated."
Snopes has previously reported on the pattern of misinformation that takes place after a mass shooting. Social media personalities often falsely connect violent crimes to transgender people. As we have noted before, it can be difficult to quantify the number of transgender and nonbinary people in any population subset, including in mass-shooting perpetrators. Some transgender people may not be openly trans and some people who use different names and pronouns don't identify as transgender. Because many mass shooters die during their attacks — as is the case with this shooting in San Diego — mass shooters often are unable to speak on or confirm their gender identity.
Our previous reporting has uncovered that the majority of mass shooters in the U.S. are not transgender, despite social media claims. Shooters are overwhelmingly cisgender men — that is, men assigned male at birth.