The Ovaldi shooting sparked a wave of "terrifying" conspiracy theories.

The school massacre in Ovaldi, Texas, has already provoked a torrent of "terrifying" conspiracy theories online.

• Unsubstantiated claims that the gunman was a migrant living in the United States illegally or transgender quickly emerged on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms.
• It was accompanied by familiar conspiracy theories suggesting that the entire shooting took place in some way
• "the Associated Press reported. "The allegations reflect wider problems of racism and intolerance towards transgender people

an attempt to blame minority groups that already suffer higher rates of online harassment and hate crimes, according to misinformation expert Jaime Longoria."

"In the hours after the shooting, leaflets falsely claiming that the gunman was living in the country illegally went viral, with some users adding trappings, including that he was a" border patrol fugitive. 

"He was an illegal alien wanted for murder from El Salvador," read one tweet I liked and retweeted hundreds of times. This is blood on Biden's hands and it should never have happened. "

The shooter was actually from North Dakota and lived in Ovaldi.

The report added

1. "Other social media users seized images of innocent netizens falsely identifying them as armed and claiming to be transgender.
2. "On the 4Chan online message board
3. users freely shared images and discussed a plan to classify the gunman as transgender
4. without any evidence to support this."

Although these assertions have been rejected by many sources, they have been widely disseminated.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and a legislative candidate in Maine, for example, echoed the transgender hoax, claiming he was brainwashed by "liberal teachers."

Gosar falsely claimed that the alleged gunman was a "transgender left-wing illegal alien", an accusation of transphobia.

Although officials have already identified the shooter as an 18-year-old Ufaldi resident, where the shooting took place, Gosar tweeted the allegation.

The Republican lawmaker did not respond to his tweet, which was deleted nearly two hours after it was published, as of Tuesday evening.

On social media, photos of a transgender person unrelated to the attack post the false allegation. The images appear to have been obtained from Reddit's account of a transgender artist.

A Facebook page called "North Florida Patriots" was one of the accounts that posted the photos.

The page has now updated its post, with operators declaring that they "will not receive lectures" by those trying to politicize the shooting and turn it into "weapon grabbing."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott described the shooter as an 18-year-old man from the Ovaldi area. Authorities say he shot his grandmother with two military-style weapons he bought on his 18th birthday before travelling to school.