The misogyny and anti-trans rhetoric that were hallmarks of the 2024 election campaign have seemingly ramped up since Donald Trump’s win, prompting some women, queer and trans people to respond by buying guns – and learning how to defend themselves from potential attackers.
The Guardian spoke to various Americans from marginalized groups taking firearms classes, arming themselves with stun guns and pepper spray and taking their friends shooting in an effort to protect themselves from bigots they fear will be emboldened by the president-elect’s return to power. A few left-leaning gun clubs say their numbers are increasing dramatically.
“I am thinking about carrying every day,” said Ashley Parten, 38, a Douglasville, Georgia, resident who purchased stun guns for herself, her daughter and three nieces after the election. Parten, who is Black and bisexual, is also eyeing a maroon handgun that she plans on buying after taking a firearms class.
“We all feel the need to make sure that we’re aware of our surroundings and protect ourselves in general, but even more so now,” she said.
Earlier this week, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, in effect targeted Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person elected to Congress, by stating single-sex bathrooms in the Capitol “are reserved for individuals of that biological sex”. Trump, whose campaign released a firehose of anti-trans attack ads, has promised to ban gender-affirming care for minors and “keep men out of women’s sports”.
The president-elect and several of his cabinet picks are also facing sexual misconduct allegations; he and his allies have bragged about the overturning of Roe v Wade and denigrated childfree women.
“Our identities are politicized every single day,” said Parten.
A few days after Trump’s first presidential win in November 2016, Parten said she was filling up with gas in Charleston, South Carolina, when a white man in a red Maga hat shoved her against the pump. She says she elbowed the man and then drove off.
“He told me that my N-word president couldn’t protect me any more, because it was Trump country,” she recalled.
Some firearms sellers and trainers who serve marginalized groups said they had seen an explosion of interest following the election.
“It’s been massively overwhelming,” said Tom Nguyen, founder of LA Progressive Shooters, a gun club that caters to Bipoc and LGBTQ+ people.
His beginner pistol course is sold out until June 2025 and he says he’s been “getting more bookings on a daily basis, every single day since the election than I ever have in the past four years that I’ve been doing this work”.
The nationwide Liberal Gun Club said it had fielded thousands of new membership requests since the election, about half of which have come from women, with queer and trans people also accounting for a bulk of newcomers. One Wisconsin-based instructor has already trained 100 new members, according to the club spokesperson, Lara Smith. The Pink Pistols, a national gun group catering to LGBTQ+ people, said it had opened six new chapters since the election.
Politically motivated gun sales aren’t new, nor are they unique to progressive voters.
Barack Obama’s 2008 election resulted in a sustained surge in gun sales throughout his tenure.
Just a few days before the election, Michael Cargill, who owns Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, said he saw a spike in sales from conservatives stocking up on firearms and ammo because they believed Kamala Harris winning would result in a second amendment crackdown. (The US vice-president has said she owns a Glock.) Cargill, a Black, gay Republican, said his firearms classes have doubled in size since Trump’s win and are now at capacity. The influx is primarily coming from women and LGBTQ+ people worried about their rights and potential “civil unrest”, he said.
The manosphere, an anti-feminist online ecosystem, has embraced Trump’s win with posts celebrating male dominance and the loss of bodily autonomy for women and LGBTQ+ people.
After the election, the white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes wrote on X: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” Smith, the Liberal Gun Club spokesperson, said many new members said the post motivated them to join.
“If there’s men out there that really think like that, I want at least a fighting chance if I ever encounter one,” said Kylee Ortega, a 24-year-old Texan who bought a pink stun gun featuring a cartoon Grim Reaper and a strawberry keychain that can be used to stab people.
Trans gun enthusiasts and content creators are also hearing from their previously gun-shy friends who want to learn defensive shooting.
Jessie McGrath, 63, a lifelong Republican who is trans, grew up around guns on farms in Colorado and Nebraska. She decided to vote for Harris when Republicans started attacking gender-affirming care and “wanting to basically outlaw my ability to exist”. She ended up being a delegate at the Democratic national convention.
“Government getting involved in making healthcare decisions is something that I never thought I would see the Republican party doing,” she said.
McGrath, a veteran and prosecutor, now splits her time between Los Angeles and Omaha, and said she plans on taking a group of friends shooting when she’s back in Nebraska next month.
“I’ve seen a huge uptick in women who don’t like guns who are thinking about at least getting trained on it,” she said. “It is a real, valid feeling that these people have, because the attacks have gotten larger. They’ve gotten more vitriolic.”
While many women and LGBTQ+ folks cite protection as a reason for owning a gun, and may feel comforted having one, Harvard University research shows that it’s relatively rare to use a gun in self-defense. A meta-analysis by the University of California, San Francisco found that women with access to firearms are three times more likely to be killed than women who don’t have access.
Tacticool Girlfriend, a trans woman and gun YouTuber with more than 62,000 subscribers, said she was concerned that people were panic-buying guns because of Trump’s win.
“Guns are not going to answer most of people’s problems, even in the realm of self-defense. Training to use and carry pepper spray and studying martial arts will always be far more practical and useful in everyday self-defense scenarios,” she said, noting that gun ownership is costly in both time and money.
“If you can’t dry-fire at least once a week and go out to the range once a month on average, you’re likely to become more of a liability to yourself and everyone around you in the event that you ever needed a gun.”
