He went to UVU one semester and then left and went to trade school as an electrical apprentice. I highly doubt he got radicalized at college in Utah. He was already radicalized by his parents and family in the MAGA / Mormon spheres. It takes longer than a semester to deconstruct cult level beliefs like that. There is very little to any evidence that his roommate is trans. It is all hearsay picked up from places like 4-chan then spread to right-wing rags then spread to right wing politicans. A big loooong game of telephone. It isn't even clear he lived there at the time of the shooting. The Daily Mail said he lives with his family in a $600,000 six-bedroom home.

The reason the trans - fan fic is getting spread by right-wingers is that the federal authorities are using it to get jurisdiction from the state since that could make it classify as a hate crime. Even if the roommate is trans that doesn't mean they aren't a right-wing trans person. Trans people can have shitty views just like any other group of people.

It doesn't help that the FBI and news outlets are releasing different info to different news audiences to muddy the waters. Just the meta-data of this being the 3rd trans related storyline being pushed does not inspire confidence in it's veracity. The first TRN one was debunked and retracted, but then they claim the engravings point to trans- ideology when that isn't really apparent. Then they come up with another one. Sorry, not buying right-wingers making shit up to blame it on trans people.