Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale wrote at least 17 times about her gender, struggle with her gender identity, or transgenderism either directly or indirectly in the journal police recovered from her vehicle.
The Tennessee Star confirmed last week it obtained about 80 pages of Hale’s writings from the journal, as well as documents related to the police investigation, from a source familiar with the Covenant case.
In the journal, Hale first directly mentioned her struggle with gender in a February 6, 2023 entry, writing, “I will be of no use of love for any girl if I don’t have what they need: boy’s body / male gender.” Also in this entry, Hale declared herself the “most unhappy boy alive.”
Hale was born a biological female but identified as a transgender man at the time of her March 27, 2023 attack on the Covenant School, which claimed the lives of three 9-year-old students and three adult staff members.
The next, previously unreported entry mentioning gender identity is undated, but is located six pages after the February 6 entry.
“Major blow to girls; I am a boy that has no penis,” wrote Hale.
Hale also discussed transgenderism and nonbinary people in a political rant dated February 20 in her journal.
“It’s not everyone in the White House making criminalizing laws; it’s someone scheming,” Hale wrote. “And whoever he/she/they may be, they are not American [and] have no care in the world about what ‘Land of the Free’ means. Whatever f***** is taking away human rights is not of a human at all; just a robot.”
Hale later wrote, “Disabled have rights, civil races have rights, LGBTQ have rights, gun owners have rights.”
The killer concluded the entry, “I wish death on myself because of the pure hatred of my female gender. With no rights, anyone’s country is a s***** dictatorship.”
She again professed to hate her gender on the next page, in an entry dated February 21, when she claimed to be misgendered while in public.
“I hate everything about my gender,” wrote Hale after revealing, “I was called a woman, lady, and ma’am all in the same day.”
In a list on the next page, under a column Hale labeled “Nature,” she wrote the words “gay killings.” On the opposite column labeled “Change,” Hale wrote, “civil rights” and “LGBTQ rights.”
Hale wrote at least one more entry on February 21, this time referencing both her gender identity and purported autism diagnosis.
After drawing an arrow connecting the words “male brain” to “my autism,” Hale wrote, “I was actually identified as a male today and it felt right but [embarrassed] of my female body.”
In all capital letters, she added, “I should not be in this body!”
On the next page, Hale made two references to her gender identity that both also directly related to her attack.
“The caccoon [sic] of my old self will die when I leave my body behind and the boy in me will be free; in my butterfly transformation; the real me,” wrote Hale.
Six lines later on the same page, Hale continued, “If God won’t give me a boy body in heaven then Jesus is a f*****.”
Hale next referenced her gender in a March 8 entry, when she wrote of her desire to see a “trans doctor.”
She wrote, “this female gender role makes me want to not exist… to be completely gone in physical form… off the face of the earth.”
Just two pages later in the journal is the beginning of Hale’s three-page entry, “My Imaginary Penis,” which is dated March 11.
“My penis exists in my head. I swear to god I’m a male. I think about sexual fantasies,” Hale wrote before describing how she would like to experience heterosexual sex as a man.
Hale wrote, “I want to know what that’s like, but I never will because I was damned to be born this way.”
In this entry, Hale wrote extensively about her struggle with gender, expressed frustration with her parents over their alleged lack of support for her gender transition, and wrote about simulating heterosexual sex using stuffed animals.
“I can pretend how it would be by my imagination of child’s play through my stuffed animal’s spirits through me,” Hale continued. “I can pretend to be them [and] do the things boys do [and] experience my boy self as Tony – my stuffed boy doll is like the boy I am in another form.”
Hale proceeded to describe simulating intercourse between two stuffed animals graphically and claimed she photographed the scenes for hours.
“I missed the gym cause they closed at 7,” wrote Hale, before adding, “I was mad already cause I had no work all that afternoon.”
She concluded the entry, “God I am such a pervert. I waste too much time in my fantasies…”
Indirect mentions of transgenderism by Hale could begin on its first page, when Hale wrote, “Why does my brain not work right? Cause I was born wrong!”
Hale next indirectly referenced her status as a transgender male in an undated entry with no named recipient, when she wrote, “Audrey is not my name but when you say it I am just as the little [one] I was back then. I can be a kid again.”
She signed this entry, Aiden, which she used in some circumstances after beginning her transition but added the name Audrey in parenthesis.
Several entries that reference gender or transgenderism are short, one-sentence remarks.
In one, Hale called herself a “queer” that is “meant to die.” In another, Hale described herself as a “virgin f**” forced to simulate intercourse with her stuffed animals.
Hale also complained directly of her inability to experience intercourse with a woman as a man.
She wrote in the entry, “too bad I am a sad boy born [with] a puny vagina…”
Both Star News Digital Media, Inc. (SNDM), which owns and operates The Star, and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy, are plaintiffs in the Tennessee lawsuit to compel Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) to release Hale’s writings, including those sometimes called a manifesto. Leahy and SNDM are also plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit seeking the same from the FBI.
Last week, The Star published an FBI memo sent to MNPD Chief John Drake in May 2023, which “strongly” advised against the release of “legacy tokens” from individuals like Hale. An FBI definition suggests the agency considers both Hale’s writings obtained by The Star and those obtained through the lawsuit to be “legacy tokens” that should be suppressed from the public.
The FBIÂ declined to confirm it sent the memo to Drake in a Monday statement to The Star, but the agency acknowledged it sends such “products” to local law enforcement partners.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
The FBI is obviously a weaponized bureau of the Biden Administration. No more secret government. .