The Trump administration has made no secret of their desire to ban transgender people from owning guns, most recently announcing a workaround attempt to do so by changing requirements around sex / gender in registration.

Gun clubs across the US have noticed the impact of these threats on LGBTQ+ populations. According to NPR, the Liberal Gun Club membership has almost doubled since 2024, the Socialist Rifle Association saw membership grow by approximately 40% across its chapters, and groups like Pink Pistols have reported unprecedented interest levels.

The demographics of gun ownership are changing. Given the prevalence of firearms deaths in the United States, particularly by suicide, and paired with the increased vulnerability that LGBTQ+ people have both to interpersonal violence and suicidality, the question of gun ownership and safety is an important one for health and wellness professionals interacting with queer trans people.

But no one wants their life flattened to overlapping circles of risk. Clinicians and care providers have a difficult terrain to navigate in order to meet clients or patients halfway and to have empowering, collaborative conversations about mental health safety planning.

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Christopher Fernandez, owner of Orlando-based Equality in Arms Defensive Training, knows this terrain intimately. A Latino, queer firearms instructor and certified mental health advocate, Fernandez founded his training company specifically to create space for people the gun industry typically leaves behind. After experiencing armed robbery twice in New York City and watching hate crime statistics climb year after year, he became a firearm owner in early 2020. “Pulse was a major turning point for me. In the facade of safety and security that we had all become so accustomed to just kind of came crumbling down,” he tells me.

But finding community proved harder than finding a gun. "I had to deal with a lot of very uncomfortable situations, from my concealed carry class to time on the range, to the dog whistles that I heard in training and classes from other firearms instructors," Fernandez says. When he joined the Orlando Pride Chamber of Commerce, he expected to feel like an outsider as a firearms instructor among LGBTQ+ community. Instead, he discovered something unexpected: a room full of queer or trans gun owners.

For many LGBTQ+ gun owners, firearms represent more than self-defense tools. "Firearms can be a source of enjoyment, happiness, sport, community," Fernandez explains. He found camaraderie and connection with other firearms owners "who were actively engaged in work in the community—Narcan distribution for overdose prevention, back-to-school drives for children in need, Stop the Bleed courses for communities heavily affected by violence."

He describes the impact of seeing diverse shooters training together: "Seeing Black and brown and Hispanic and queer and trans people on the range together and active in the community together, this is a source for positive community." When students find accepting firearms communities for the first time, the response is powerful. "I've had people break down in tears on the range because of how overwhelmed they are by the fact that they can fit into an environment like this."

This community aspect can serve as a protective factor in members’ lives that risk-focused clinical approaches might overlook. Healthcare providers do need to understand the risks that access to firearms in a home can pose. The Trevor Project's 2024 National Survey found that 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and nearly 90% of firearm suicide attempts result in death. But leading with statistics focused only on vulnerabilities can easily backfire.

Fernandez has known “gun owners who were seeing therapists and wanted so badly to talk about episodes of darkness that they were experiencing, but their clinician knew that they were a firearm owner. And they were so afraid to tell their clinician that they were experiencing this temporary depression because they were afraid of how that clinician would act.” Safety planning with firearms is incredibly important, but people need to feel safe enough to have the conversation in the first place.

"I strongly support the right of firearms ownership for everyone," Fernandez says, "and I believe that the way that mental health is thrown around by typical right wing conservative coded gun owners is used as a weapon against our community." When clinicians unconsciously echo this framing—even with protective intentions—trust breaks down. And without trust, patients can't access help during crisis, precisely when firearms become most dangerous.

So how do you have empowering conversations with your patients or clients about gun ownership that don’t flatten individuals down to statistics of tragedy and loss?

Cort M. Dorn-Medeiros, an Associate Professor and Licensed Professional Counselor at Lewis & Clark College who specializes in working with queer and trans populations, emphasizes that clinicians need to enter these conversations with the right framework. "Queer and trans people demonstrate a higher suicide risk than cisgender, heterosexual people but it is not about their identity," Dorn-Medeiros says. "QT people are not at higher risk because they are QT; rather, it is due to system exposure to harm and what we call minority stress—additional chronic stress due to systemic oppression and regular exposure to discrimination, family rejection, barriers to affirming care, and other forms of structural violence."

This distinction matters for how providers approach safety planning. "Safety planning is not risk management of QT people as it is sometimes presented, especially within larger systems of care," Dorn-Medeiros explains. "It's intended to be collaborative. A form of care to develop a plan of protection with them, not for them. A safety plan imposed on someone can be oppressive and surveillance-like. It also likely won't be particularly effective. A plan done with someone and built collaboratively is more effective and can be stabilizing, validating, and respectful."

Anita Webster, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and founder of Inner Life Therapy, advocates for what she calls "dignity-centered" conversations rather than risk-focused ones. "Instead of leading with statistics or worst-case scenarios, clinicians can ask open questions like, 'What helps you feel safe when things get hard?' or 'Who or what has supported you through tough moments before?'" Webster says. "This frames the person as someone with existing strengths and coping strategies, not as a problem to be managed."

Dorn-Medeiros recommends specific shifts in language and approach: "Refrain from using clinical jargon, statistics, or 'risk' language. Rather, acknowledge that QT people face real stressors in the world. It makes sense that the pressure of the outside world may show up in therapy." Safety planning should be normalized and framed as a resource rather than punishment—a tool to have ready when you need it, just like a bike helmet or seatbelt.

Or a gun.

Common safety plans for gun owners include identifying a friend, family, or community member who could safely store a firearm (or a necessary part of one) for you during a time when it might not be safest to have it at home. “And then when you're ready and you feel right, you can take it back,” says Fernandez. “That simple disconnect can create enough distance between you and the tool to get you through that moment."

Loved ones can also play an important role in helping someone determine if they need to implement a safety plan, which is why identifying safe people is such an important part of planning. “Your partner can be a huge resource for you in those times as well,” Fernandez says, speaking about his own agreements with his wife, “because nobody knows you better than your partner. Have these discussions in advance. ‘What signs do you need to see in me that would make you worried enough to say, hey, we should separate you from your firearms?’"

Walk the Talk America offers some incredible resources for clinicians, including a firearms cultural competency class for clinicians, a thorough guide to safe firearm storage, and a full mental health safety plan template for gun owners.

“Empowering conversations begin with curiosity rather than fear,” says Webster. And while I think encroaching fascism and the anti-LGBTQ+ actions of those upholding it certainly do warrant a healthy amount of fear for the lives and wellbeing of queer trans people, that fear doesn’t need to lead clinical conversations.