“History teaches us that when an economic crisis hits, the process of scapegoating becomes more intense and more violent. African-American, Latino, Asian, and Arab peoples, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, feminists, trans people – and others who have been in the forefront of progress – will increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs.”
― Leslie Feinberg
On the morning of Aug. 27, 2025, a shooter believed to be transgender shot and killed two children and injured more in a Catholic school. Because of years of building up the lie that transgender people are more likely to be mass murderers, it took little for this spark to ignite a ferocious blaze.
On Sept. 4 of this year, CNN reported that Trump administration officials are in the process of discussing disallowing transgender people the right of gun ownership. This would be achieved by labeling them as inherently mentally defective, as “mentally defective” is the standard used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to justify loss of gun rights. The Department of Justice has responded to questions from the news media on this matter by saying that they are, “….actively evaluating options to prevent the pattern of violence we have seen from individuals with specific mental health challenges and substance abuse disorders.”
Although transgender people are four times more likely than average to suffer violent crime, a 2023 examination by the Gun Violence Archive found that a mere .09% – .14 of mass shooters are transgender. Compared to the fact that only 1% of the population of the United States identifies as transgender, it is clear that trans people are significantly less likely to be mass shooters, not more. Therefore, they need tools and methods of self-defense. On the other hand, cisgender men have been responsible for 96%-97% of mass shootings, with no talk of disarmament for them. The truth doesn’t stop the myth of a trans mass shooting epidemic from being repeated over and over by bad actors. From the “LibsOfTiktok” social media account to the President’s own son, Donald Trump Jr., cisgender mass killers are called trans in order to smear trans people and deflect from the material realities behind mass shootings.
Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels is well known for his observation that, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The lie of a transgender murder epidemic has become a well-entrenched part of the collective belief system of the right. Ultimately, the function of such a lie is to demonize, which then paves the way for horrors.
An example of the draconian measures being discussed was expressed by right wing podcast host Joey Mannarino, who said on social media, “Health and Human Services must immediately get involved and violate the HIPAA laws [regarding doctor/patient confidentality] to forward every transgender and transgender- questioning person to local law enforcement for IMMEDIATE detainment until we can figure out why they keep killing children in schools.” He closed out his post with, “This needs to be handled by the federal government with no mercy. They need to be treated as we treat terror organizations.”
Transgender individuals as terror organizations is akin to the newly renamed Department of War descending on Chicago, as the White House promised in a recent tweet. Meanwhile, using genocidal language, Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire said in a speech at CPAC that, “For the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
In a step toward removing transgender people from public life, this administration asserted psychiatric disqualifications in transgender people in the military ban. This was accomplished via Executive Order 14183, saying that military membership, “….is inconsistent with the…. mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”
Gender dysphoria is simply a distress that can arise from navigating society with a feeling of gender presentation inconsistent with one’s gender identity. Although many transgender people report suffering these feelings, others insist that they feel no such distress. These people often use the term “gender euphoria’ to describe a feeling of satisfaction and happiness that arises from gender transition. Regardless, ‘gender dysphoria’ is the excuse the Trump administration has been using as a weapon against gender minorities in an era where the psychiatric establishment has left behind the notion that transness itself represents a mental illness. Any gun ban for trans people via a mental health exception relies on a lie that has already been dismissed by the psychiatric profession. It would serve a repressive and fascistic cultural function rather than upholding public safety.
In 1930s Germany, the Nazi Party introduced gun regulations unevenly. Scapegoated groups, such as Jews, were banned from gun ownership. Nazi Party members had much looser regulations on gun ownership, creating a stark dynamic of who was allowed the power of lethal force. Before the United States was established, the 1751 French Black Code required colonizers in Louisiana to stop and even attack “any Black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane.” If the targeted person refused to stop and was on horseback, the colonizer was authorized and encouraged to shoot and kill them.
Later, during Jim Crow, Black people were regularly denied licenses to own guns, a problem not shared with their white neighbors. The intent of such policies is clear: oppression against scapegoated groups is to be maintained and perpetuated through the dynamic of an armed oppressor and the unarmed oppressed. This is a dynamic of predator and prey, with oppressed groups at the mercy of a predatory majority population. This is what the Trump administration wants to bring to bear against transgender people.
However, disarming them is only part of a bigger strategy. As a matter of practicality, a ban on transgender gun ownership would require a national registry of transgender people similar to the one the Centers for Disease Control wanted regarding HIV+ patients in the 1980s, once it was clear the infection was spreading to heterosexuals. Gun shops would need a database to reference in order to ensure compliance with the law. We’ve already seen overtures from the right that point to testing the waters in order to achieve this goal.
The Department of Justice has issued more than 20 subpoenas to hospitals providing gender affirming care to minors. This not only includes information about medical practitioners, but also confidential information about patients, including names, home addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers. There is also precedent for such actions in recent history.
In recent years, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attempted to weaponize the state’s driver’s licensing and legal ID process via the Texas Department of Public Safety. He demanded information about people who had changed their gender marker on identification documents. He asked for the numbers of those who do so with the stipulation that he may request names and other identification data later. The same year, a member of Florida’s medical board proposed a registry of all trans youth. The same proposal happened in Ohio. This is a push that has been gaining traction.
Expecting the Trump administration to be a voice of moderation is utter folly. A presidential administration known for accelerating into full-throttle fascistic excess whenever possible can be expected to keep demanding more. To take a potential step further, if they establish the notion that transgender people inherently possess a dangerous mental defect, this would enable them to enact involuntary commitment of trans folk to an institutional setting. Again, this is similar to the goal proposed by many for HIV+ people in the ‘80s. We have already seen this strategy invoked in the executive order targeting unhoused people.
Executive Order 14321, titled “Ending Crime And Disorder On America’s Streets”, says that nearly two-thirds of unhoused people suffer from substance abuse issues, and a similar number suffer from undefined mental health conditions. Having made these claims, the order goes on to state its intentions to “[Shift] homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings…. through the appropriate use of civil commitment.”
The congressional website congress.gov has this to say about involuntary civil commitment: “Involuntary civil commitment, or the forced hospitalization of persons with serious mental illness (SMI),1 is a type of mental health treatment that presents tension between an individual’s liberty interests and the state’s interests in protecting citizens from danger.”
All of this boils down to forcibly separating and isolating people from the general population and into a locked facility. Executive Order 14321 deals specifically with unhoused people in Washington, D.C. The statement from the DoJ regarding the trans gun ban describes them as “individuals with specific mental health challenges and substance abuse disorders.” This is the same justification used against unhoused people. To similarly label transgender people as possessing violent mental illnesses will allow the administration to forcibly move trans people into such a facility should this policy against unhoused people remain unchecked.
Extrapolating further, any scapegoated group could be likewise smeared and locked away. This administration’s enthusiasm for using concentration camps, such as the so-called ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ against oppressed people shows that this potential threat must be taken seriously. Population removal and concentration camps are as “American” as apple pie, and are particularly consistent with this administration’s stated goals and history.
In Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, Marx and Engels wrote, “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” They understood the predator/prey dynamic and knew that a disarmed proletariat is at the mercy of predatory capital. They clearly stated that the working class can never prevail unarmed. It stands to reason that our class should not be allowed to be disarmed in a piecemeal way, parts at a time.
Huey Newton, co-founder of the revolutionary Black Panther Party, said in a 1970 speech about queer and women’s liberation struggles, “There is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. … Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.”
Oppressed nations and specially oppressed peoples are more likely to embrace revolutionary solutions. The revolutionary potential of the transgender proletariat is great. No loss of rights, including the right to bear arms, can be allowed. All working peoples need to embrace solidarity with those who are specially oppressed. Cisgender revolutionaries must act with trans comrades to frustrate this offensive in the interest of our victory in the class war. We have a world to win, and we can only win it together, as a class, undivided.
Victory to the transgender struggle!
Victory to poor, working, and oppressed peoples!
Source: Fighting Words
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