A transgender teenager has been arrested over a plot to carry out a high school shooting.

Andrea Ye, 18, wanted to become “famous” by massacring pupils at Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland.

The teen, whose preferred name is Alex, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with making threats of mass violence.

Officers found a 129-page manifesto which included “committing a school shooting, and strategises how to carry out the act”.

Ye allegedly wrote that he “wants to be famous” and contemplated targeting an elementary school as “little kids make easier targets”.

Ye first described the manifesto as “fiction” but then later described it as “his memoir”, ABC has claimed.

Montgomery County Public Schools claimed Ye is an active student at Wootton High School in Rockville.

The 18-year-old was attending through a virtual programme and had not physically been seen on campus since 2022.

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The FBI alerted Montgomery County Police about the manifesto after a witness contacted authorities about the document bearing “striking similiarities” to Ye.

Court documents revealed the memoir was about a transgender man named “James Wang”.

It said: “I have also considered shooting up my former elementary school because little kids make easier targets.”

Ye also told an online user: “My homicidal ideation has been getting worse lately to the point I might act on it eventually.”

The 18-year-old added: “I'd want to kill a lot of people or it wouldn't be worth it.”

Ye was taken into custody on Wednesday and is being held in the Montgomery County Jail while awaiting a bond hearing.

The transgender teen, who openly expressed thoughts of homicidal and suicidal ideation, has not yet entered a plea.

A counsellor who had worked with Ye told authorities that he “would express violent thoughts such as shooting up the school” and “would smile while saying it”.