Armed Self Defense for the Trans Community

die ideally UM and occasionally how to thrive. And to that end, I have a guest today who has been kind of working with the working lately on the how not to die in the face of things getting increasingly violent and aggressive out there. I want to welcome Jessica Keckler to the program. Jessica, how are you doing today?

Doing great? So, Jessica. Um. You know, we are, as listeners to the show and observers of just basic reality in the outside, are aware we're kind of going under a or living through a period of like panic and concerted aggressive attack on the rights and ability to exist of transgender people. That's um hasn't like, has never not been a problem as long as there's been you know, Western civilization, but has increasingly been a problem the last

year or so. Yeah, it's it's really um it's really wild because, um, when you take estrogen, you're When I start taking estrogen, it took like ten years off of my face as far as age goes. But then in this past year, I think it's put back on it now. UM yeah, I mean that makes sense, Like it's it's it's stressful as hell out there. Um. There has been a surge in violence. UM, not just against trands people

obviously we've talked about in other episodes. UM, there's been a surgeon violence against Asian Americans, UM, against LGBT Americans, but transgender people are much more likely than almost any other group in the United States to be attacked. Uh. And that has been increasingly reality for a lot of people. And you are one of a number of folks in that position who have been increasingly talking or who have found yourself thinking about the necessity and value of being

armed in order to defend yourself from that. And I want to talk a little bit about your background there and kind of what, um, how you kind of came to deciding that that was something that you wanted to not just do personally, but advocate for other people to do. Yeah. I went through well, calling libertarian spaces, it was. It was many years, but you know, and I collected a bunch of guns, and you know, I was like, oh,

that's you know cool. But then, UM, after I sort of worked through my childhood trauma and stuff, I you know, I sort of feel a lot less threatened about about things, and I just sort of, you know, it just sort of laws interest in them for a while. But then, UM, a friend of mine, Kendall Stevens, was telling me about a time when she was attacked in her home by a group of transfer of and just beaten almost to death. And that next morning, I, um, I I have reapplied

for my Harry permit. Yeah, and this is I mean, this is a story I was not aware of. I was aware. Broadly speaking, there have been a number of attacks, including a number of fatal attacks, in the last couple of years, on particularly trans women. There was um the murder of West Philadelphia woman Alicia Simmons um in November of um Chante Tucker in Hunting Park in the fall of two thousand eighteen, UH and May two thousand nineteen, Michelle Tamika Washington was shot to death in North Philly.

And this is all like local to you, um, and also Dominique Remay Fells was was murder in June if I think, um, and yeah, if people want to look this up, there's a couple of different articles. I'm looking at one on Billy Pin with the title after surviving a brutal attack, Kendall Stevens wants to help trans people citywide And yeah, it's a it's a fucking harrowing story, you know, after surviving a number of different attacks from from like people just kind of targeting her because she's trained.

She was attacked in her home by six of her neighbors while her god daughter, who was twelve years old. Watch it's a fucking horrifying story. So you like, did you find out about what had happened, like directly from her? Like how does this kind of information? I was, I was at UM there's a local trans group where we just you know, get on zoom and talk and ye.

It was one of my first meetings, and actually I think it was the very first, and she just told this whole story and I was just you know, it's like I always had the feeling of safety, but then it's just I realized, like, oh, that's you know, like being white, I'm a little safer. But it's just like it's we're all you know, it's really yeah, it's it's a it's a matter of like a small number of degrees. It's not. Um. So you're you're you're trying to deal

with this and you're you're communicating. You've got this group where you're all sort of like chatting about I'm guessing just kind of like safety stuff, like hey, here, you know, we we should all be kind of keeping each other informed and trying to talk about what's going on for Philly. Right Yeah, I mean we mostly just shoot the ship and just you know, talk things over and stuff like that. But she was, um, yeah, something had come up, and she recounted this whole story and it was just it

just really made me go like, oh my god. Yeah, So you kind of are in this position where you own firearms, you're you're comfortable with them, you've been using them for a while, and number one, you get your permit, right,

Like that's kind of the first thing you do. And then I'm guessing you start to think like, well, there's not a lot of other people that are in this kind of group I'm in that have this experience that kind of like where the yeah right, because um, you know, because when I would talk to people before that, they would just to sort of say like, yeah, I can see where you're coming with that. And but once the attack started, I'm I heard a lot I've heard a lot more people going like, yes, I need to do

that too, you know. Yeah, So I kind of want to know because I mean, what we're kind of building to is you've been you've been putting together a class for trans folks in Philly to go to to learn about how firearms function, the legality and legal concerns about being armed, and like the steps they might need to go to if they decide to do that themselves. Um, how does that idea kind of come together for you

to actually like put this this class together? Okay? Well, um, I remember of the U s R. Right, the Socialist Rifle Association, and they have classes they call Gundamentals And it's just sort of an uproad a review. Um, just sort of sort of every if you've never picked up a gun before, it's it will tell you, um, you know, it'll give you just information on you know, everything you

need to to before you use it. And UM, I thought it would be a good idea to just have a trans just a class with just my trans friends and they of course open tail and it went really well, and I planted more in the future. Yeah, um, so you kind of you're going through both sort of the basics of here's and this is kind of a thing I think about a lot. I recently carried out a class for I don't want to be too specific, but

at risk individuals in my local area. That was a mix of and I was not the one doing to stop the bleed portion. Primarily we have people who were medical professionals. But it was a mix of a stop the bleed class and like a firearms familiarization class. And it was not from the perspective of like, hey, people need to be strapping up, so here's how to get

a gun. But it was from the perspective of, hey, there's four million firearms in the United States, whether regardless of what you think about the legality, should have a basic understanding of how they function and how to since you're all adults, render a weapon safe, right, So we did. We have these fake bullets snap caps, so I would explain how an a are and a handgunna works, and then we would have everyone take turns, kind of like

we had with the stop the bleed portion. You know, you teach people to use a tourniquet, would everyone take turns arriving to the weapon, putting the weapon in their hands without like flagging everybody or putting their finger on the trigger and then dropping the magazine and clearing it.

And a lot of folks the thing they expressed was like as people who didn't necessarily want to be armed themselves felt like I was, I had never got I never knew how to like asked to have this experience because normally, when you're in the room with a firearm, it's because like maybe you're gonna go shooting with somebody

or something. So if you're not seeking out that experience to actually go to a range, it's kind of hard to sit with a gun and just understand the basics of how this thing functions and how to render it safe. And so there were a lot of folks who particularly were like it seemed to be grateful for just that experience to kind of like reduce the mystery around it and gain kind of a functional understanding of just the mechanics. Yeah,

it was. Yeah, the class was really good. I hadn't taken it before, but it's, um, you know, it shows like they went through like the anatomy of a ball, at the anatomy of a gun, how it works, how to, how to do it safely, how to you know, like the four rules of gun safety, um, legal things, and it was just it was really good course. Now, so you take this course, you know, you're you're in communication with these friends, you're dealing with like this constant drumbeat

of attacks. Um, you decide it's time to put together a course for people. How do you kind of work out what the syllabus is going to be for this? Um? Well, if they're all they have the whole class set up already. I just sort of yeah, I had just had a version just for my transfriends. Yeah, so what what in terms like what did you kind of add to that or alter to that in order to like prepare it for this Oh? Um, not much. I just it was just I just thought they would be more comfortable in

a class with just us. Yeah, I mean that makes sense. And it also do you think it helped that like this isn't because you know the Socialist Rifle Association, you're attending that class you're kind of like attending a class put on by an organization that has being both armed and political kind of in its name, which it maybe infers a little bit more commitment to something than the class kind of you put together on like a political level. Yeah, it's it's not as hardcore as as you might think

from the name. It's just it's mostly sure. They have the gundamental class. They have stoppable courses kind of you know, those kind of things, and I think they there's theiry discussions too. I haven't done selling them. Yeah, and and so you've you put this thing together. And the thing that you mentioned earlier when we were talking about this is kind of a discussion on like, um, like the the particularly legal concerns that trans people seeking to arm

themselves might have in your area. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that because obviously, when we talk about gun legalities, it varies wildly from state to state. UM, So nothing that either of us say and this should be construed as legal advice for what you should do in your own area. You're gonna have to check that out yourself. But yeah, I'm interested in what you saw is kind of worth putting in

that UM. Well, the I mean, the big addition to bring up is that if you're not UM, if you if you don't present as your assigned gender at birth, they could the person who's running the check could say that, Hey, this person is coming to me in a disguise you know, UM, and you could UM in future if you try to get a gun in the future, that could be on

your record and people could use that it's not you. Really, I know, I had never heard about that, So that's like an actual I mean obviously, like when you file the form four four seven to three. One of the problems I know from just talking differends that you encounter is that, like if you're if your your gender does not match like what's on your legal documents and stuff, you have to write what's on your legal documents on

the form because it's a government form. UM. Although the four four seven three, which is the background check form, does now allow you to put in non binary if that is, like, but you still have to have it on your legal documents. UM. And we're we're mostly used to that for everything else. But it's just the fact

that they could specifically target you. Yeah, I was actually unaware of that as a specific problem, like that you could be accused of like showing up in disguise to do what's called a straw purchase, you know, which is when you illegally buy a gun for somebody else. I didn't realize that was a Yeah, so we're there kind of other things to like keep in mind there, like because I'm particularly I'm sure we have a lot of folks listening who are in this same headspace right now. Um,

because again, things aren't getting a lot less scary out there. Um. I mean, I can say just within the last couple of years, probably around half of the people that I shoot with on a regular basis are trans just because like it's the the you're the folks who are being kind of most directly targeted and have the least institutional

support obviously. Yeah, and we have like people in Congress openly calling for our executions, and it's just, yes, that's a feeling, you know, It's like, yeah, that's something I've ever experienced before. But it's like, yeah, you have like naturally famous politicians just saying like, yes, we need to kill every one of them, and it's like, good lord. Yeah,

And that's the thing. Like, you know, I think we talk a lot on the show when we do talk about being armed, and I've just talked a lot my personal life about like sort of where what the left should be doing in terms of like a gun culture and like the kind of pitfalls that need to be avoided, because obviously the solution to like the discrepancy of arms in the left and the right in this country is not to recreate what the right wing has, because what

the right wing has is like vicious and insane. Yeah,

it's it's bad. We don't we you don't want that. Um, but uh and and and so obviously, like one of the things that I tend to think of as as silly is like the the folks who are and I don't think this is a particularly large jump, but you do get people who are kind of look at being armed from like and then we're you know, um, this is so that we can you know, be a new red army insurgent type thing, which I think is a less realistic use case of firearms on the left than

the police are not going to protect our community. Um, there are a shipload of people with guns who hate us, and you know, honestly, like one of the when I think about, like, what are the threats that are realistic and what are the threats when we talk obviously this show that we're on the way, they're the wather, they're doing the you know, you have um like Tucker Carlson saying like, oh another week in buy mar and you know, making all these things, and they they're sort of like

all these trans people. It's like someone should do something wink wink, Yeah exactly. And that's the what we're on a show right now that started out as me talking about, Hey, I think people who are I think the threat of massive civil conflict in the United States is higher than people guess, and that broadly speaking is mainstream. Now there is a strong mainstream understand like standing that some sort

of civil conflict this possible. It's still when people talk about it primarily in the terms of like this big civil war type thing, which I think is broadly speaking, probably pretty silly. What's not silly is the breakdown of expectations of social mores and things like you can't show up in a big armed group and start killing people that you have on a list, who are are folks that you have decided because their trans because whatever are

are your enemy. And like, one of the things that I'm kind of concerned we're going to see at some point in the future is a fucking mob gets spun up and go and take out some people on their list. And I'm not sure what that list is going to be, but you know, there's a couple of people who pay attention, there's a couple of broad possibilities as to who would

be targeted. And then local law enforcements say, we're not going to choose to do anything about this, We're not going to invent and again this hat I'm not coming up with this because this is like a bleak. I know you are well aware of this, but like, we had an abortion clinic burn down earlier this year and

I think it was Kentucky. Uh, and the police refused to investigate it, right, Like this kind of ship already happens, you know, Um, yeah, it was for a while I was like, Okay, well they're not really going to thing, and then it's like then they started coming after our kids and just like I almost didn't survive my adolescents, so I know just how much pain those kids are in. And yeah, and then it's like Okay, then they got rid of rivers and way and it's like, okay, they're

not They're not just posturing anymore. No, they're stochastic. Final it's like, you know, hey, someone should do something, was bad enough, But then it's like, okay, they're really they're

on a tear hand. So you're you're put together this class for folks who I'm going to guess most of them had not number one, didn't have much experience with weapons firearms prior to this, and probably also had not prior to you know, the last year or two, I thought that they would ever be some one considering purchasing armaments. I mean some of them said that, you know, they grew up, you know, in rural places and grew up

with guns and stuff. But to them, since they were kids, so right, you were there any kind of like specific questions that you got that you you found were interesting or kind of like surprising, Like I'm kind of interested in sort of what sort of things people had to ask, Not in particular, I think everyone was just sort of just trying to learn everything and just like that, Yeah, where there is there kind of a has there been sort of like um, any further discussions about like, well

what comes next, right like, after the sort of basic class of people decided to start purchasing like firearms, step two is like train in order to use them like functionally, right, Like, it's not a kind of thing you can just have. Yeah, the next step, the next step from the group of friends that I have, Um, I'm planning to you know, go to a range with them, and I mean we have to sort of find what ranges are most friendly. But yeah, so we're probably gonna do that and just

see how it goes with everyone. I mean, I know that where I am. One thing that people will do is you know, you'll you'll have folks who will kind of go out and be uh kind of a little guinea pigs for like, is this gun's store a friendly place? Like? Right, like, is this a place we can go and buy weapons and not and and have people like respond, well, is

this range of friendly place? And then kind of will spread that to the rest of the community that like, hey, this is a safe place to shoot too, this is a safe place to buy Do you have you guys been kind of like setting stuff up like that or what No, not yet, but that's that has the next step to figure it out. Yeah, and when it when it comes to like just organizing for the increasing hostility

that that people are facing. Um. Has it has it kind of pushed you to do anything more formal with like the communications groups you have in terms of like, you know, I need I might need I'm going on a walk at night, I need somebody to be able

to like call or something like that. I'm worried I'm being followed, Like is there Has this been the kind of thing that you've been like setting up more in the way of precautions around so much because most of us just live in the city and we're we're usually pretty okay with that. Um or we'll have you know, friends nearby, you know, well nothing so um formal? Yeah, UM, I mean which is yeah, I think how most people kind of do it? Um. What do you sort of

like watching out right now? Um? What is kind of I don't know the thing you're you like, like, do you have anything sort of on the horizon that you're sort of looking at as you know, if this happens, then I'm going to expect this to happen, And like, you know, maybe we need to do this time for some kind of more formal plans. It's hard to say. I'm I've just been sort of just watching all of

this horrible stuff unfold. Everything happens so fast. I mean, you know, like I said, I didn't think they're going to get rid of Rows, so it was just I just I don't know what's coming next. Um, I'm just

realizing it's like it's so serious. It's actually getting to the point where I'm just sort of seeing myself just trying to make amends with people in my past, and it's like you just look, you just take a step back and look at yourself, like, oh wow, it really is getting bad that it's just subconsciously I'm just thinking I should make peace with some of these people. That's

pretty bleak. Um. I I'm struggling for like something more positive to say, um, which I'm not sure is the is the kind of the right impulse, but it is sort of like we're all kind of like grappling for because one of the problems is that the scale of the threat I think is or the reality of the threat is very clear to people, right, whether you're kind of a centrist dim and you just see like oh ship, there's actually like a lot of like militia type folks

with guns talking about a civil war and they almost took over Congress. This is a real threat. Or whether you're you know, a transperson or um, you know, an indigenous person or a migrant or something somebody who's you know, here in the country in a less than legal fashion and you're stay seeing like, oh, they're specific threats against groups people like me, and they're being more organized and

more at actually being carried out. Um, the reality of the threat is I think clear in differing degrees to everybody. What's not clear is the the scope in the shape of it. Right, So we know there's a lot of like armed right wing assholes talking about violent ship. We don't know is are they ever going to get their ship together right, like enough to do something like unto what extent and in what areas right on that is?

I think that you know, it's like the enemy is strong and weak at the same time, of course, but I think with us, they're really they really don't expect any resistance. And I think that if you know, if they start meeting resistance or seeing us with that like, hey, we have same rightful to you do you know? Yeah, Well, and I think that my you know, hold them off

a little bit at least. I think that's generally like a if you're kind of like, I don't know, uh, thinking about it from that, from the perspective of like and kind of a soulless, like, uh, top down view of this is just a strategic thing, like what are the what are the best ways to oppose this kind

of like right wing and surgeent force. Well, like, obviously one of them is not to like hand them ground, right, like don't don't don't don't do the thing that you see a lot of people in the left doing, which is, oh,

they're coming for you know, trans people. Well that's not you know, you there's been a lot of like very ugly talk on certain chunks of liberals and left of like well, you know, if we defend these people, that's going to be bad for us in an electoral sense, you know, and like this is something that gets you votes in small exact exactly, Hillary Clinton just fucking came out and said this, right, and it's um, I I finel like I think historically as a bad strategy, you know,

if you're just looking at what happened in history, obviously, I think it's immoral. Um. And I also yeah, I think that you are right in that the only reason that they're this scary right now is because for the better part of twenty years a little less than that, but this really started to accelerate after Obama got elected.

Every time the far right has like pushed for something and like made a stink or started making threats, people have backed off right and even outside of you know, threats specific communities, they were ship like the Mayac report, which is in like the mid of Obama's term, the Homeland Security put out a report warning about the growth of the domestic militia movement, and they like made a big they flipped out about it, and we're like, look, they're saying that if you have a Gadsden flag, you're

a domestic terrorist and all this stuff, and the Obama backed off and fired all of the people in in the federal government who were like watching this ship Um. Which we can talk about the degree to which it's ever reasonable to hope that the Feds are going to do anything about this, but it's it's an example of this. You get scared that opposing these people is going to

be bad for you. Politically, and so you make a craven political decision to seed ground to them and then they get more dangerous, right the Democrats have just been

doing lately, I mean least several decades. Really, it's such like a mine field to talk about being armed and being responsibly in the context of twenty one century United States, because there's so much to juggle, including the fact that we have basically nearly weekly massacres and stuff being committed by people who go and pick up a gun from you know, a sporting good store or whatever. Um. But fascists, yeah, and are almost all fascists with the history of violence

towards women. Um but it it It is like I think when we are talking about what it is, the actual importance on both an individual level of being the importance on an individual level of people who are in threatened communities being armed is that they cannot trust the police or the state to take any actions to protect them. And we see that because they get thrown under the fucking bus every time somebody comes after her attack that

the place just sort of dismissed her. They just sort of like, oh, you know, it was just you know, they like the stonder to her just like just complete you know, dis interest, and yeah, and obviously like this is this is the thing you don't have to There's

a bunch of numerous other stories of that. Um. And then on the other end of things, you have, like most of these people, one of the things we have in our corner is like scary as the urgent, right is as most of them are fucking cowards, and when they get opposed, when somebody shows up and throws down usually they fucking It's one thing if it's like a street fight, right, because people don't tend to get killed in street fights, and you can make a lot of

money filming videos of it. When fucking when when people start pulling straps, you know, like it gets really different, really fucking quickly. Um. And in general, we've seen in Portland there have been a couple of these folks shot in defensive shootings and it's part of why that's kind of stuff doesn't happen as much as it was in two thou eighteen. Um, you saw that ship happen in Denver and it had an effect on the intensity of

of rallies there. When these people are it would be irresponsible to say that it's like good when this happens, but when they suffer consequences for trying to hurt people, it scares some of them classically. Yeah, if you stand up to them, they'll really Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I this is just kind of turned into us sort of talking about the ethics of community self defense. But I think it's something I think it's important to talk about.

And I think it's also important to kind of reclaim from this kind of masturbatory fantasy of becoming a minuteman or whatever. And also this masturbatory fantasy of like this is something this is a thing I do as like part of my identity um as opposed to like this is a thing that I do in order to defend my ability to continue to be who I am. Right, I'm not. I'm not a radical. I just want to be alive, you know, And if i'm not, if I have to de transition, I will not want to be alive.

And that's that. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, Well, did you have anything else you wanted to get into where we're talking to digestic of all? Right, Well, do you have anything you wanted to plug any place you wanted to kind of direct people rum because uh, if someone wanted to at home, wanted to uh to do their own thing, the s R would probably be very receptive. I'm sure there's other organizations. Um yeah, there's John Brown, gun clubs

and stuff and other organizations that don't have names. And on a personal level, I well, I I make bondage collars and paddles. It's called bondage robot. It's any store. It's a bondage hype and robot dot com. Excellent do do Yeah, um so bondage robot dot com. Um check that out. You're also on Twitter. Do you want to direct people? It's that's where I Yeah, Jessica Lashnikoff just figured out you'll say it all right. That is gonna

be our episode for the day. Everybody, Uh, stay safe and um, you know, think about the ethics of community self defense. It's important, Okay for Offen years production of school Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone Media dot com. Slash sources. Thanks for listening,