On a brisk Saturday afternoon, A. crouched in a boxer’s stance, knees bent, one hip forward, raised her new Ruger Security-380 pistol aloft with both hands, and pulled the trigger. Spent gold casings clinked to the ground as a paper plate across the range filled with bullet holes. Next to her, a row of men in sweatshirts and earmuffs affably shot their own marks.
A., who The Inquirer is identifying by the first letter of her first name because of safety concerns, is new to the world of shooting ranges and target practice. As a trans woman who lives in Philadelphia, she began seriously considering armed self-defense this summer, as she saw Texas uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and Florida prohibit nurse practitioners from prescribing hormones to transgender people. She watched with increasing dread as Republicans spent nearly $215 million on network TV ads portraying people like her as a dangerous threat to the country.
“Three months before the election, that’s when the alarm bells started to ring,” A., who is 24 and speaks carefully and thoughtfully, said recently. When she mentioned wanting to learn how to fire a gun to friends, they stared at her blankly.
But she felt she couldn’t have been more rational. On Nov. 2, she bought her first gun, at Delia’s Gun Shop in Northeast Philly.
“Minorities that are armed are more difficult to legally oppress,” she said. She was reassured by the idea that “in the event of hate crimes or terrorist attacks, knowing that, ‘OK, I’m personally armed and I can protect my property and people that are close to me.’” She is applying for a concealed carry permit in Pennsylvania, though she doesn’t plan to carry the gun with her every day.
By the end of her practice at the outdoor range at French Creek State Park, bullet casings littered the ground near her backpack and water bottle, which was decorated with rainbow hearts and a “Protect Trans Kids” sticker.
‘If I can’t protect myself, who will?’
Since Donald Trump’s reelection in November, nontraditional gun groups across the city and country have seen a flood of interest. The national Liberal Gun Club said it has received thousands of training requests since the election, more than in all of 2023. A spokesperson for the group estimated that roughly a quarter were from LGBTQ people.
In Philadelphia, in the waning weeks of the year, residents peppered local queer Facebook groups with questions about guns and training. The local chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association, a leftist analogue to the National Rifle Association, said it saw a surge in paid memberships; its regular classes about gun safety filled up immediately, so they added more. The head of the Delaware Valley chapter of the Pink Pistols, a longtime gay gun group with the slogan “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed,” said he received a sudden flurry of emails inquiring about gun training.
“There’s definitely a feeling among a lot of LGBT individuals: ‘If I can’t protect myself, who will?’” said Madeline Shearman, a trans woman based in Glen Mills who runs a casual and growing “2A social group” in Pennsylvania. “I feel that way myself.”
In Pennsylvania, overall gun sales were down in 2024, according to figures from the State Police: 666,759 firearms were lawfully purchased or privately transferred through the end of October, a drop from the 2020 record high of 1.1 million.
It’s difficult to track rises and falls in LGBTQ gun ownership because there are few published studies about the relatively small population, said David Yamane, a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University and author of the book Gun Curious.
» READ MORE: Gun sales and permits surged during the pandemic in Philly and Pennsylvania
But in general, Yamane argues that American gun culture has dramatically shifted in recent years, away from a focus on hunting and recreation and toward a focus on self-defense, the core of what he calls “Gun Culture 2.0.” As the culture has shifted, people who own guns have become far more diverse. He pointed to 2020 as a pivotal year.
“It was a period of tremendous social unrest and social uncertainty. And a large number of people in the United States, under those conditions, look to firearms to reestablish some sense of safety and security,” Yamane said. He added that racial and gender minorities “led the way” in terms of new gun ownership rates in 2020 and afterward.
» READ MORE: Gun ownership boomed during the pandemic. Meet some of the reluctant firearm owners.
Yamane also pointed to other political moments that have fueled gun interest in the LGBTQ community. Pink Pistols, which has more than two dozen chapters across the country, was originally founded in 2000 after the writer Jonathan Rauch proposed in a Salon article that “homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry.”
The devastating mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida in 2016 was another catalyst. That’s when Matthew Thompson, who lives in Oakland, N.J., purchased his first gun. A gay man and custom leather worker, Thompson often travels to leather and bear events on the weekends, and feared what might happen. He began practicing drills at home — setting a timer on his phone, wearing his unloaded gun around the house, and drawing it quickly when the timer went off.
Days after the presidential election, he began pursuing his concealed carry permit in New Jersey. He is also organizing other LGBTQ people to practice at a local gun range.
“The people I’ve been seeing on the left and the gay people who are out purchasing guns for the first time, it’s all about self-defense and fear,” said Thompson, who is 36. “We’re not looking to arm up and storm the Capitol. We just don’t want to be put in concentration camps.”
Gun safety with the Socialist Rifle Association
In mid-December, the Socialist Rifle Association’s local chapter held its monthly “Gun-damentals” class. A dozen people gathered in a ramshackle room at the Lava Community Center in West Philadelphia, where a range of unloaded firearms were displayed on the front table. Many of the attendees said they had little or no experience with guns.
The organization, founded nationally in 2018, tries to take a community-based approach to defense, organizers said. Once a month, its volunteers distribute food and medical supplies to people living on the street in Kensington, and the group also leads first aid and de-escalation training classes.
The recent gun-safety class was earnest and efficient: two organizers led the group through an information-packed PowerPoint presentation, explaining the legal landscape in Pennsylvania, the process of purchasing a gun, and basic safety tips, using a laser pointer to emphasize certain points.
Despite people’s hopes about increasing their safety, researchers have found that higher rates of gun ownership and access is correlated with higher rates of gun-related homicides, suicides, accidental deaths, and injuries. In an effort to reduce that danger, the SRA said it focuses on teaching responsible firearm ownership and safe storage.
An organizer wearing an Eagles cap and a black sweatshirt lingered on a slide about mental health.
“So guns are weapons, and they’re really good at what they do, which is killing things,” he said, as some attendees nodded and took notes. “85% of suicides attempted with firearms lead to death. … So you have to be mindful, if this is something that you do want to bring into your life, that you’re aware of your own mental health going into it.”
Doug, a therapist who asked to be identified solely by their first name to maintain professional privacy, joined the SRA after the election. They had been in the Boy Scouts growing up, had shot BB guns at camp, and gone to the shooting range occasionally with friends. But they had never owned a gun.
They attended the gun-safety class. Then in early December, they purchased their first gun, an AR-15. Doug was partly motivated by the fact that their official identifications are gender nonspecific, which could alert authorities to the fact that they are nonbinary. They feared they might not be able to buy a gun in the future.
“This country is not, I wouldn’t say, on very solid footing,” Doug said. “As a Boy Scout, I’d rather be prepared.”
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