Official Statement on Recent DOJ Discussions

The Socialist Rifle Association opposes in the strongest terms the stripping away of gun rights for our trans comrades. Trumps DOJ is far beyond the pale having floated the idea.

They cite the recent shooting in Minneapolis as reason to curtail the rights of trans people. This is politically motivated propaganda. Merely discussing this topic further marginalizes trans people, as not only do they have to worry about being turned into criminals overnight, they now face increased scrutiny from the media, and additional unwarranted attention from the MAGA base. The utterance of these ideas makes our trans comrades more unsafe.

We condemn the actions of Trump and his DOJ, we condemn the pundits who hold water for this reactionary ploy, and we condemn anyone who wishes to sacrifice our trans comrades on the altar of the culture war that they may attain greater power.

The most cursory analysis reveals that trans people of all genders commit far fewer shootings than their cis-male cohorts, both in raw count and per-capita. The angle that there is a “trans shooter problem” is pure theater.

The idea that disarming the trans community as a legal concept is not rooted in any true legal rigor. Not only that but using the same mechanisms that remove gun rights from the mentally-ill to persecute the trans community naturalizes an inaccurate, offensive, and degrading lens with which to view the trans experience. Vis a vis treating trans identity as an illness.

If allowed to take hold, these overreaches will not stop at gun rights, they will not even stop at the trans community. The population that makes up the margins is continually growing. We implore you, reader, to not wait until your rights are on the chopping block, but to push back now, in solidarity with your trans comrades, for the safety of their community and for the collective community which you hold in common.