Trans people in Kentucky are on edge. Some are arming up.https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/11/trans-people-in-kentucky-are-on-edge-some-are-arming-up/ 🔗Spencer Jenkins (6 Nov 2025)
Every month, Xian Brooks heads to Range USA in Louisville to practice his shot.
"We can talk about 'community' and 'showing up for each other' all day, but when it matters most, you only have yourself, and you need to be able to count on that [to defend yourself]," Brooks, a 42-year-old who was born and raised in Kentucky, told Queer Kentucky and Uncloseted Media.
Homicides of trans people in the U.S. nearly doubled between 2017 and 2023 with a total of 263 victims, according to Everytown for Gun Safety's Transgender Homicide Tracker.
When Trump took office last year, Alex, a 32-year-old trans man in Louisville, Kentucky, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns, says he purchased a second gun because he saw his community becoming the "scapegoat to all of America's problems."
"Now, I have taken a self-defense course, conceal carry my firearm, keep those kitty ear knuckle things on my keychain, and have a knife," he told Queer Kentucky and Uncloseted Media. "I always know at least two or three ways to exit any situation I am in."
Unlike Brooks, Alex chooses to carry in situations that he deems are more dangerous, like when he travels rural Kentucky with his trans wife.
According to a 2021 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, transgender people are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault and aggravated or simple assault.
