The founder of Armed Queers of Salt Lake City (AQSLC), which is currently under FBI scrutiny as part of its investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk, is a biological man who now identifies as a transgender woman who immigrated to the United States from Iran as a child.
AQSLC, a socialist group of pro-gun activists, was founded in 2021 by the former March for Our Lives activist, Ermiya Fanaeian, who that year parted ways with a nationwide group advocating self-defense for LGBT people known as Pink Pistols.
Fanaeian was identified by the press as a “trans woman” as early as September 2020, when Fox 13 Now profiled the activist shortly after the relaunch of the Salt Lake City chapter of Pink Pistols, which is now defunct.
“There’s been a continuous cycle of trans women experiencing murders every year,” Fanaeian said in 2020. “If politicians and the police aren’t protecting us, we have to do that ourselves.”
Two months later, Fanaeian made similar remarks for an article published by the National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate in Utah.
Described by the outlet as a “transgender woman of color,” Fanaeian told KUER that gun ownership helped him overcome “anxiety” over safety while while in public.
“I didn’t know who was going to do what, and there were incidents where I almost got into those [threatening] situations,” he told the outlet. “And we’ve seen trans women get into even worse situations. So it was incredibly hard to kind of access public life on a day-to-day basis.”
In an interview published in June 2021, apparently not long before parting ways with Pink Pistols, Fanaeian additionally identified himself as a member of “the trans community especially.”
Speaking of his hopes for Salt Lake City Pink Pistols, he said later in the interview, “We’re trying to move away from this world where police are roaming our communities and the only way we can protect ourselves is by calling these cops who largely are harming us.”
Though it is not clear when Fanaeian began identifying as a transgender woman, he was using his current first name during a 2019 profile published by the University of Utah, where he previously attended, suggesting he might have transitioned while in high school.
It was in this first-person account where the activist revealed he is an immigrant to the United States.
“I’m originally from Iran, a country where LGBT people are facing severe persecution. They don’t have legal protections and they can’t obtain educational degrees, so to be at the U is incredibly liberating,” said Fanaeian in the profile.
Notably, Fanaeian’s status as a college student in 2019 would indicate that he was born long after the Iranian Revolution saw the end of friendly relations between the United States and Iran.
Fanaeian also discussed his interest in politics during the profile.
“From a young age, I’ve been involved in politics. I worked on numerous campaigns, including Congressman Ben McAdams 2018 congressional campaign,” he said in 2019. “I’m a political organizer by nature and before I graduated from high school, I co-founded a non-profit organization called March for Our Lives Utah—working with young people across the country focusing on gun violence prevention.”
Fanaeian was associated with March for Our Lives, the organization founded by former DNC vice chair David Hogg in 2018, prior to his association with Pink Pistols and AQSLC.
A spokesman for the nonprofit associated with Pink Pistols first told The Tennessee Star about their split with Fanaeian earlier this week, and on Monday sent a press release further clarifying Fanaeian’s history with the group.
The spokesman used feminine pronouns for Fanaeian, who is a biological male.
“While initially welcomed, she began using the Pink Pistols name to promote broader political issues, violating our rule that we are a single-issue organization devoted solely to the safe, legal, and responsible use of firearms by the queer community,” the organization stated. “In 2021, her group and Pink Pistols parted ways, and she renamed her organization Armed Queers of Salt Lake City.”
The nonprofit also stated that it, “condemns both Mr. Kirk’s murder and the celebrations surrounding it in the strongest possible terms.” It added, “The murderer, and those who cheer him, do not represent us, our ethics, or our mission. Our hearts go out to Mr. Kirk’s family for their tragic loss.”
Additional reporting indicates that Fanaeian was one of more than 50 LGBT individuals who in 2019 endorsed U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in her unsuccessful bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
A user who posted a photograph to the social media platform X claimed it depicts Fanaeian on stage at the April 17, 2019 rally held by Warren in Utah. The photograph appears to match the backdrop of the rally and the clothing Warren wore on that day, but The Star could not confirm whether Fanaeian had a role in the rally.
After The Star first reported last Wednesday that AQSLC, a socialist group of pro-gun activists, in 2023 lectured students at a university located only about 45 miles away from the Utah Valley University campus where Kirk was fatally shot, the New York Post reported the FBI is now probing the group.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Ermiya Fanaeian” by Ermiya Fanaeian.
