May 10, 2023 • 46 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Mia Rose, the anti-fascist tactical trans e-girl from Eugene, Oregon. We discuss the importance of arming trans women and other marginalized groups, as well as the challenges they face when learning how to operate firearms. Mia shares her personal experiences with being a gun dealer as a trans woman, and her place in advancing the understanding of firearms in the liberal landscape. She also talks about navigating the aftermath of the recent school shooting in Nashville, TN, after which, her images were published by the Daily Mail in an attempt to fog up the story while simultaneously harming the very cause she is working toward. We also delve into the hypocrisy of right-wing rhetoric when it comes to the Second Amendment, and the importance of responsible gun ownership and training. Join us as we gain insight into the life and perspectives of Mia Rose.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm trying to push the culture of the left more
towards guns. And it's not gun culture that's bad. It's
toxic masculinity in gun culture that's bad. You know. If
we look at the gun culture in America, it's you know,
racist white men, and they're bad without guns. So that's
why I always say, like, anyone out there that has
(00:21):
guns and you have friends that are talking about it, like,
take your friends out, go shooting, you know, and get on.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Beauty Translated, a
podcast which celebrates the lives and culture of the trans
community across the United States. Lately, I have been feeling
more political than usual, as it's tough times to be
trans in America. The current political climate that is leading
to more anti trans legislation manifests in real world violence
(00:54):
for trans people, especially trans women. I take special interest
in trans people who are thriving in places you wouldn't
often expect to find a trans person, and today's guest
fits right into the heart a Beauty Translated. Sometimes the
unknown can be scary. We often unconsciously even seek to
(01:17):
avoid the things that make us uncomfortable. It is my
hope that through conversations like these, we can all become
more enlightened about the things that are foreign to us,
so that we can reach new levels of understanding about
ourselves and each other.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I would call myself a beyond average gun owner. You know,
I'm a gun dealer, so like it's like, why do
you have so many guns? Like, well, I'm actually a licensee,
so like that's kind of why.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's Mia Rose a trans woman from Oregon Eugene to
be exact, and like she said, she is a gun enthusiast,
a gun dealer, and someone who teaches self defense and
instructs tactical training exercises. Our customer base is made up
of other LGBTQ plus individuals in the Pacific Northwest, many
(02:06):
of them falling somewhere under the trans umbrella. As I
begin our conversation, I realized that me and I have
a lot in common, even going all the way back
to the kind of upbringing we had, being that we
both grew up in a militarized household and like my
dad wasn't wearing like camo in the house or anything
like that, but he ran the house like it was
(02:29):
boot camp or something.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I have always had guns I grew up in a
military home, so guns were normalized in that sense, you know,
the whole socialization. My sibling went to the military. I
almost went, but I know I grew up, you know,
wanting to owne a gun and thought it was cool.
I really liked the video games that had guns in them,
so I've always been interested in them. And I also
(02:53):
have like a fascination with the mechanical properties of a gun,
just like the engineering of how they work have always
been I'm fascinating, and I like the physics of a gun,
the idea that I can stand somewhere and I can
shoot a bullet three hundred yards and hit something. Before
(03:15):
I got into that community fence and my own mission
now and arming other trans people, I was a hobbyist.
I shot at an indoor range. I shot after work
for fun. That's all I did, Like, I don't even hunt.
I got into the sport when I was twenty two.
I was living by myself. Ammo was a third of
the price it is now, so I could buy Ammo
(03:38):
for like eight dollars and I'd be good all night. Nowadays,
eight dollars ain't even buying me half a box at AMMO,
and after work, I'd just go home, grab my gun,
go with gun range, shoot, get a burger, and go home.
It was just kind of a relaxing thing for me
to do. Around twenty sixteen, though I was identifying as queer,
but I wasn't presenting any different. I wasn't on any
kind of medication, no HRT. But I started around that
(04:00):
time reading the news and seeing what was going on,
and started getting a little bit older in my political
understanding of the world, and I started seeing people like
the left and community members arming themselves. We started seeing
a national movement of minorities arming themselves, things like the
Pink Pistol Club or like John Brown gun clubs or
(04:22):
starting to form around that time, and it was like, Hey,
I have guns, I can start training people. So from there,
me and my sibling and my other friends, we started
advocating for people to learn how to use firearms and
training and community defense. And from just working with certain
minority groups and certain communities and just being around more
(04:43):
queer people, I was like, Oh, I suddenly feel more
at home with these people than I ever did in
my biggest life. I think just being surrounded by my
own community, being in those spaces and helping these people
without even knowing it helped me transition to realize who
I am. And then now that I have transitioned, I
(05:05):
feel like this role I can serve is just so
much more important because I know that even when I
was presenting as you know, the other gender, I still
wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable going into gun stores. But I
feel like when I had my store, you know, I
would be trans, A transperson would come in. They would
see a trans flag on my gun save you know,
(05:28):
have the pink hair. They talk to me like, oh,
this is not some guy with a Trump flag at
his house. So I felt like a lot of people
are thinking about getting armed, but because there is this
community feeling around it, being so centered on the right,
so much racism and just hate in that community, and
then there's like a lot of trauma in it, and
then people not willing to, you know, walk someone through
(05:51):
trauma with their firearm.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I thought it was interesting when Mia starts talking about trauma.
Not everyone. No one is going to be inherently comfortable
wielding your gun. And the more marginalized intersections you find
yourself in, the more trauma you might have around handling guns,
or the less likely you are to explore that as
an option for arming yourself. I see this as her
(06:16):
talking about breaking down those mental barriers, like for myself,
those would be that guns are either perceived as too
masculine or might make someone think I align myself with
right wing politics when I do not.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
When people in the community see me, they see a
pink care trans woman who's obviously not this cis heat
white guy in the right wing. And I find that
what keeps a lot of people out of firearms training
is not only that they don't feel welcomed in those spaces,
but that a lot of people in my community specifically.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Have trauma related around.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Firearms, whether that just be news that you hear about
tragic events happening at firearms, or people in their life
having been negatively affected, perhaps even and you know they
aren't here anymore because of firearm use. So I find
that someone that has this type of trauma, even if
they do try to go into these right wing places,
(07:11):
more often than not, these instructors are not going to
be patient or compassionate to these feelings. So if someone
with trauma, maybe every time they see a gun, some
of their PTSC kicks back. So if they're in a
firearms class and like, let's say you're the only minority
in this class, the instructor is going to treat you differently.
(07:32):
So when I instruct my own people, I ask them
everyone like.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Hey, what's your comfortability with this?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And because of my transidentity and my own experience with firearms,
I'm able to give people more of a one on
one approach that is definitely more trauma informed. After every shot,
I ask them, Hey, how did that feel? What's going
on with you right now? So I realize that we're
not just shooting a gun. For some people out there,
we really are unpacking years and years of bad information
(08:01):
around guns as well as personal trauma that they may
have encountered in their lives.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And with that approach, Mia set out to find a
way to increase her community's awareness and comfortability with firearms.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I feel like there was just a need, and I guess,
being kind of who I am, always wanting to help
in that sense, I kind of just filled that role.
The first thing I did was start instructing. I'm like, hey, guys,
I have a pistol and I have a pump action shotgun.
Does anyone want to learn how to use these? And
of course everyone's like, yeah, I've never even shot. So
just me taking friends out a couple out of time,
(08:36):
just teaching them, and they bought their own. And now
I have a community of people here in my own
town that I've helped bring up over the years. So yeah,
I do consider myself a little more into the gun thing,
but it's also on brand for me at this point.
I'm kind of the gun girl.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Many trans people, including myself, felt vulnerable and unsafe to
be visibly trans due to the rise in trans scapegoating
and anti trans rhetoric coming from the right. This led
to an increase in politically left leaning gun clubs all
over the country, particularly in conservative areas such as Oregon
and Georgia that cater to marginalized groups, people of color
(09:21):
and LGBTQ plus folks being some of those groups. Here's Miya.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
John Brown gun club was named after John Brown, who
was an abolitionist in like the applationan area. I'm not
kind of fuzzy on the history. They made a TV
show about it. Actually it's kind of good, but is
an abolitionist and it's free enslaves, so a lot of
people will kind of got down with that message. The
John Brown Gun Club, though, is a leftist gun club
(09:50):
organization that really focuses on mutual aid as well as
range days, so I often see them out doing things
like food drives or like winter clothing distribution, and as
of lately they have been offering community watching for like
BLM marches, as well as queer events like drag story
(10:11):
Time and just drag shows.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
In general, there is a growing trend in conservative pockets
of the country among right wing demonstrators to show up
to drag events, whether they be aimed at children or not,
and try to intimidate or threaten the performers and the fans.
Right Wing lawmakers are simultaneously fueling this trend by drawing
(10:33):
up bills that would outright ban anyone perceived as a
female or male impersonator that is in the vicinity of children.
This threatens the livelihood of drag performers' careers in those areas,
but also leads to the policing of trans women and men,
because the laws are so vague that they can easily
be used to encourage anti trans discrimination enforced by the police.
(10:57):
Stating that we are public predators.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah. Yeah, so the right will find one and they'll
share it on their social networks, and then people will
drive like out of state to go protest these events,
and the local letists, you know, they show up. John
Brown Gun Club has adopted blacklock as their kind of
thing when they go out armed to protect their own
identity because they are being targeted just for defending queer
(11:23):
community spaces. So I give a lot of props to
them for standing out there and you know, doing that work.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's fantastic. I think it's really cool how you were
able to both find a niche there and also kind
of find yourself at the same time. Yeah, I can't imagine,
Like I mean, you know, I grew up in a
conservative household. I grew up in a military household. My
dad was in the Marine Corps. My dad was a
police officer for thirty years, and I always grew up
(11:50):
with the idea that guns were associated with the right
and with more conservative people, and a lot of times
I associated it with toxic masculinity things like that. So
it was around the same time for me, around twenty
sixteen and especially in twenty twenty one, January sixth, twenty
twenty one, where we see, you know, the capital being
(12:13):
stormed for example, where I'm starting to think, like very seriously,
like what would I do in a situation where there's
a group of hateful people that wanted to harm me?
And so I have thought about arming myself. And I
know many of my trans friends have armed themselves and
have learned how to do so properly thanks to this
(12:33):
new kind of And it's newer, of course, because these
weren't necessarily available before, like you said, but these newer
people who are providing lessons for minority groups.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, you know, it's like we say, you know, like
we protect us community text itself. So I think people
all around this nation are seeing it. And then there's
people that have the ability to help others and they aren't,
And it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Really.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
What do you see with your customers and like your clients,
what do they tell you about the want to arm themselves?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Every time I sell someone a gun, I say, how
does it feel to be a new gun owner now?
Because like, for first and foremost, the decision to buy
a gun is a very very individual and personal choice.
While I am an advocate for owning a gun. I
also understand that there's just some people that aren't going
to want one, and that's fine, they don't have to.
(13:29):
I always say that if you have an interest and
want to get one, do get one. But the people
that come into my shop are usually like that, you know,
they've always maybe had an interest in it, and they
see the news, they see the writing on the wall,
per se, and they feel like it's time to take
the next step. Usually at that point I let them know, like, hey,
I know you're buying this gun, and that's great, but
(13:51):
that's just step one, like you need to train with it.
And I also offer firearm training classes, you know, locally
in my area. So most people they buy a gun
and I say, I tell you what you buy some AMMO,
and we'll go out and I'll show you how to
use that now. And then I set them up with
a target stand and then they're able to take themselves
out and do their own self led training. So my
(14:12):
customers lately have been an uptick in women number one,
and then women in color, and then trans people of
all kinds having coming in. I don't get a lot
of white Cis men coming into my store. If they do,
they're like the allies you know that know me from before.
But my store is pretty much like eighty percent of
(14:33):
my sales are women, like half them are women of
color and the other half are trans. So that's kind
of what I've been focusing on.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That's awesome. In December of twenty twenty two, Mio was
interviewed and photographed by MPR to talk about Measure one fourteen,
(15:01):
a new bill Oregon was proposing that would make local
law enforcement the police chief or county sheriff responsible for
determining who can and cannot own a gun in the
state of Oregon. Mia spoke in the article about how
this bill could affect lots of different marginalized groups. Tell
(15:22):
us a little bit about what that experience was like.
After the article was published.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That article was very exciting to be a part of.
It was like my first time someone's interviewed me. So, yeah,
the guy wanted someone to be U, the poster trans girl,
and I always say that I didn't dye my hair
pink and make an Instagram to not be seen, so
you know, okay, let's go. Yeah. It was about the
(15:50):
LGBT community worrying about Measure one fourteen targeting them. Measure
one fourteen as it is now in Oregon looks like
it's gonna be stopped completely, but it's still up in
the air. It looks like it will. But technically it
did get voted for, but technically the courts ruled against it.
So it's probably going to go to Oregon Supreme Court
(16:12):
and then we'll see there. But the fear is that
the police are going to have free reign on who
gets to have a gun or not. The police get
to decide who is good for the community or reasonable.
And you know the history of police violence towards the
queer community, stonewall and everything. And I've got to get
too much into it. But again, twenty sixteen, twenty twenty,
(16:34):
all these protests, one of my worries was that people
that were identified as protesters and not even the ones
that you know, did property. Damn. It's just like attending
these things, are they going to be like, well, we
saw you attending a protest and you were yelling out
abolished of police or a police are terrorists or something
about you know, and the police, And then you think
(16:57):
the police aren't going to be like, well, you don't
even like us, why you'd be allowed to have a gun?
So that was the issue I wanted to bring up
in that article. It was nice because another friend of
mine was interviewed in it and they're a lot more
well spoken than me and kind of said the same
thing but better. But yeah. So the article was about
one fourteen, but being that I was the only pictures presented,
(17:20):
the article quickly became my article, which again was fun.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Were great pictures, by the way, well with yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Thank you, thank you. Unfortunately though, with that the headline
being LGBT afraid of getting guns taken away and then
a picture of me, the article became sensationalized on just
the very physical image of me alone with a gun,
and it quickly became about me as a transperson armed
(17:49):
in Oregon. And I guess I knew that was going
to happen, but it was definitely interesting to see it
all unfold.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
As it quickly unfolded, Mia found herself in the middle
of a back from all sides, people on the right
and the left.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So I woke up that morning is what happened. My
friend messaged me like, Nia, you're on the nude. I'm like,
oh yeah, I didn't even tell anyone about that yet.
So that's how I woke up to my friends telling
me it. So I'm like a glutton for self punishment.
I went to NPR and I got the article headline right,
and I just type that into Google and I got
every single hit possible, and I just read every comment
(18:26):
for like the first two weeks. And I went to
read it and like there's like so many Reddit posts
with like forty thousand abuse and like hundreds of comments.
So yeah, I read them. I wanted to see what
was said. And like that's how I can say with
a lot of confidence that people didn't read the article
(18:47):
because they were just talking about like, oh, LGBT pink
hair must be a liberal, Like you probably just got
armed last month and you voted for Hillary or something
like that. Like people are like, you voted for these
gun laws. Why are you complaining. It's like I didn't
vote for these gun laws, like or like someone's like
(19:07):
this is what you get for voting for Democrats, And
it's like this was a ballot measure which has nothing
to do with politicians. Like a bunch of people got
together and signed a petition and then they all voted
on it. Like anyone can technically do that if you have,
you know, the funding, like you have to go canvas
and stuff. But yeah, and then people on the left
(19:30):
were being a certain way about it too, saying that
I was being too much, like I think someone I
went to liberal gun owners, like some of them are like,
I think this is too much. She doesn't need a
sixty round drum and a silencer. And it's like, you know, ideally, yeah,
ideally I wouldn't need to have all these guns. Ideally
(19:53):
I wouldn't need to be able to arm myself and
defend myself. But you know, that's not the world we
live in.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and I know that climate, and I mean I've
never been to Oregon, but I know the climate in
Oregon can be outside of Portland very conservative. Yeah, and
I'm sure it can feel unsafe.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Most definitely, Like a lot of people think of Portland
as Oregon, and like they had a bunch of like
the Federal Courthouse was protesting for like one hundred days
straight here in Portland in like twenty twenty. So in
there there's definitely a radical and like a very liberal
and then in that like a radical pocket and in
the other major cities it's like that too, like Salem
(20:32):
and Eugene. But yeah, once you leave those towns, it's
actually very conservative here, and all of that kind of
liberalness just goes away.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
If you take a look through the lens of gun culture,
who do we typically see represented as the right gun owner?
People of color, LGBTQ plus individuals and women at the
intersection of any of these identities are typically left out
of gun culture. You could even say that this is
by design that we have a society that seems to
(21:09):
inherently value a white man strapped with a gun versus
a person of a marginalized group. And it sure sucks
that anyone has to arm themselves with guns, But why
should the groups most vulnerable to hate and violence be
the only ones not armed? Do you think there's a
fear on the right of minorities and people on the
(21:32):
left arming themselves.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I definitely think there's a fear. One of the tactics
on the right used against me was trigger warning like
transphobia coming up, like the statistics about us. Someone said like,
if you really care about trans lives, you would not
arm yourself and you would advocate for no one to
arm yourself. Because of blah blah blah percentage. I was like,
(21:55):
you know, come on, Like I feel like when people
attack me on that statistic or when people like some
people said my gun was fake, and some people said, oh,
I have like Chinese stuff on my gun and nothing
not there's nothing wrong or Chinese stuff, but like I
have like an expensive gun, so it's all like it's
(22:15):
like American made parts here. But like the reason that
people were doing that is because they were trying to
tear me down. Right, Like if you can if you
see something and you can discredit it, it's no longer
a threat because when they see me, you know, they
see a human being, no matter what gender, they see
a human being of a rifle. If they can tell
(22:36):
themselves I'm not trained of it. If they can tell
themselves it's a bad gun. If they can tell themselves
it's fake, you know, all these things, then all of
a sudden, I'm not a threat. And I think what
that does is allows them to not have to be better.
I think they don't want to believe I'm a threat
(22:59):
because they don't want to up their game. They want
to believe that we are harmless and that we are
victims the majority of them are just mocking me. If
they were to truly understand, I don't think they'd be
discrediting me. You know, like if all those people, that's
the people that said my gun was fake, clicked on
(23:19):
my Instagram and watched my videos, they wouldn't think it
was fake anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
What I found most interesting about this is the same
thing is said about a trans woman's womanhood, that it's
fake or a cheap imitation. But anyway, this is the
perfect example of toxic masculinity and gun culture, the equivalent
to a dick measuring contest. My gun is more real
(23:48):
than yours. However, if you were to click on MEA's
Instagram and look through her content, it's a mix of
tactical training and shooting range videos, egirl ascetic selfies, and
leftists and anti fascist memes. Not your typical gun influence
or content, but not too far from it either, just
(24:10):
with a much garlier aesthetic and without any conservatism.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm not saying that everyone gets an Air fifteen and
night vision like me becomes you know, we I'm not
like raising an army or anything, but I do want
to shift the culture. I want to push the culture
of the left overall more towards guns. If I can
arm people and then they tell their friends, and then
now there's just people talking about guns now in spaces
(24:37):
where maybe they ever had guns and now they're talking
about them. That's huge. Like the right, they have cultures
and generations of doing this, like they will go hunt
and they'll go camping with their family and guns are
hanging on their walls like everyone does it. And then
you know, you have families and generations on the left
that never even touched your gun ever, So saying normalize
(25:01):
them in your household because you know, see them as
the tools they are. So that's one of the biggest
parts of my mission right now is just moving the
culture towards guns. Like I don't expect everyone to buy
an AR fifteen and train every weekend, but if they
want to buy like a handgun and train to make
themselves feel safer in their home, I definitely advocate for that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
We're going to take another quick break here. Beauty is
more from Mia when we come back, and we're back,
(25:47):
I asked Ana to tell me more about what it's
like to be a woman in this industry.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I got into this industry. I present it differently just
as a queer person. So one of the things that
kind of made me nervous or anxious about going in
was like coming out in my transition. It's like there
are other career people that I've trained and that were
in like my direct friends circle, But as a trans person,
I still had that like, oh, I'm gonna come out,
(26:14):
hope people accept me feeling, even in you know, a
leftist organization, and like, one of the things that kind
of got me was I think my physical appearance gave
a sense of authority and of like knowing what I
was doing with a gun, they looked at me and
as like, oh, you look like someone that knows how
to shoot, Like I'm gonna respect your authority based off
(26:35):
patriarchal preconceptions. So I was like, Okay, if I transition
and I started putting on makeup, I died my hair pink,
are people gonna take me seriously or are they just gonna,
you know, judge me as like this trans girl. So
that was kind of a big thing for me. Luckily,
those are just like insecurities, and I did have a
(26:55):
very supportive community, so at least all the people in
my community accept me. Very very well. Now I cannot
say the same for the other side, for the right,
I already never felt comfortable really in those spaces, just
being a person of color walking into gun shops or
(27:18):
gun stores or gun shows. Even now as a trans woman,
I don't even I try not to even go into
those places. I'll go into a gun store if I
don't want to order something and they have it right there,
and when I do, it's like the music stops when
I walk in there, and everyone like looks at me.
You know. Yeah, I always tell myself, Oh, they just
(27:40):
think that I probably got armed yesterday or something. But yeah,
I mean the LAFT has been accepting of it because
I was respected before. I think that really helped me.
And it's like you were good of guns. Then being
trans doesn't change that. So you're still I'm still seen
as like someone would have something to say in this community.
But in the right, you know, it's just it's just
(28:01):
the more uh more identity to oppress me by essentially.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Here, I asked Mia to speak about the Second Amendment
and the notion that guns are violent and because of that,
violent people may be the ones most drawn to gun ownership.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
That that's That's definitely a touchy one, right, the way
I see it is twofold one. There's like the stance
of like a hardcore gun advocate. So it's like, as
much as I don't like quoting the United States Bill Rights,
the Second Amendment says says we can have So I'm
always like, well, the law of the land is the
(28:44):
law of the land. I can't change that. And it
says we have the rights of bare arms. So I
don't think like banking this. Like the legal legal argument
is that we shouldn't be judged or perceived the guilty
or innocent based off just exercising an American right. Having
(29:06):
a gun doesn't change your status of being victimized or
the oppressor. Right, it's the person taking away guns are
still going to be violence.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Now we're going to get into some recent news the
Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where three children and three
staff members were murdered. This one hit particularly close to home,
as some news outlets chose to fill the top of
their websites with coverage of the shooter that was very
misleading and intentionally aimed at stoking the public sphere of
(29:40):
trans people, obscuring the real story with smoke and mirrors.
Media outlets initially reported the shooter as a trans woman,
which was false. In reality, the shooter was a trans
man who had only recently begun transitioning. By misreporting and
using incorrect language to describe the shooter, this created it's
(30:00):
further trans misogyny, further hate specifically towards trans women, and
does nothing to help our society heal from events like
these and much less solve the problem of gun violence
in our society. The identity of the shooter doesn't matter,
So why is the media spending so much time talking
about and misreporting that. How many more of these events
(30:23):
do we have to witness, specifically in the United States.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It was actually really kind of wild.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I was actually doing another interview about being an armed
trans woman in the middle, like like we took a
break and then we checked the news and we saw
that shooting, and it was just like, oh my gosh,
you know, I'm already seen headlines of like trans shooter.
And I think one of the things that the trans
community saw and just a lot of people in general,
(30:53):
was how the media, specifically the right wing media, was
just framing this whole thing like trans shooter, revenge Christians
and danger all stuff like this, And you know, we
just look at shootings historically with cisgendered people or workplace shooters, and.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
They're never never like described that way.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
They always, you know, their identity isn't important in fact,
sometimes to try to humanize the shooter. But I feel
like with this trans shooter, because of the whole narrative
against trans people right now, it was kind of like
the golden ticket for all the transphobes to just spread hate.
I actually got tied in with that some troll, like
(31:36):
some transphobic troll on Twitter, that would be funny to
get my picture along with other trans women in the
community and just type essentially just lies underneath our photos,
and this spread along Twitter. And you know, when it
was just on Twitter, I wasn't really too concerned because
(31:57):
it was just Twitter profiles, and I'm sure or there's
right wing discords and stuff that I don't even know
about that or talking about me, and I'm sure that
my image has been used in other ways like that,
you know. But when I saw my picture on the
Daily Mail, it was a little bit more concerning. I
don't really want to call it Daily Mail a news site,
(32:19):
but according to Wikipedia, they are the most read news
in the whole of UK, so they do have publication
power and the fact that they weren't just a Twitter personality,
they were a named industry in business, so I felt
that I could actually take more of an action to
get that removed.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Luckily, I have.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
An amazing lawyer in town that I trust, and with
their advice, I was able to draft up a cease
and assist letter and got that photo in all references
to me removed immediately. So that was nice that it
got taken down, but there's still that like, Okay, well
that story still ran, you know, and like my picture
has related to that, So I guess like I'm upset
(33:04):
about it because I don't want my image to be
linked to that in any way and to be used
to fuel hate. And at the same time, it's like
they're already doing these things my imagery anyway. But at
least this was one of the times where I didn't
have to just sit down and take it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Even if the article was ultimately taken down, people still
read the headline. They saw the story and the images
of Mia within the body of the article and associated
her with this horrible event. Daily Mail used MIA's image
against her home cause, perpetuating the opposite reaction in people
of what Mia stands for, and their publication reaches a
(33:43):
lot of readers. It's not an accident or lazy journalism.
It's not even journalism at all. It's creating a mythology
for people to latch onto.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It's definitely starting to feel like there's more awareness and
public attention on me. Before it was like, oh, armed
in their trands, I was just playing with my gun.
I don't really know what I'm doing. But now that
there has been shootings, armed Transnis is being vilified. So
now before where it was just like, oh, it's just
a silly, pink haired liberal, she'd know what she's doing,
(34:16):
now I'm being linked to a mass murderer and it's like, oh,
trans people with guns, terrorist group, scary. So since then,
I've taken down my flag actually that was in that article,
just to try to lower my image. And yeah, like
I don't openly walk around town saying I'm who I am,
(34:36):
but definitely on my profile still who I am. But
even though my profile is public on Instagram, it's not
like me walking around of a gun shirt you know
or something, so I don't broadcast it too much just
for my own safety, like I don't want strangers on
the street her asking me and stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
But yeah, I have noticed that the last.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Kind of big event has definitely changed more in narrative
being armed in trans and what that means.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
As the debate over gun control rages on, one thing
has become clear. The right wings interpretation of the Second
Amendment is selective. On the one hand, they argue that
the government has no right to regulate firearms, that any
attempt to do so is an infringement on our constitutional rights.
On the other hand, they have no problem with restricting
(35:25):
certain groups of people from owning guns. Effectively, the Second
Amendment doesn't mean the same thing when it comes to
marginalized people. For example, despite the clear need for self defense,
trans women and other marginalized groups who choose to arm
themselves for protection are often met with fear mongering and demonization.
(35:46):
The behavior of the Daily Mail we talked about earlier
is but one prime example of this method. To put
a bow on it, the same people who champion the
Second Amendment as an absolute right become much less enthusiastic
when it's applied to groups they don't like. It is
a fairly transparent attempt to preserve the status quo and
keep power in the hands of those who already have it.
(36:09):
The Second Amendment should apply to everyone, not just those
deemed worthy by the right wing. By acknowledging this hypocrisy
and working to dismantle it, we can move towards a
more equitable and just society for all. Everyone just needs
to be able to see it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
First. They stay that they support the two A and
they support guns for everyone. But I've seen so many articles,
if you will, about how minority specifical they shouldn't have guns,
So there's definitely a disconnect and what they say and
then what they believe.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
An informed public is crucial for a functioning democracy, and
the media plays a significant role in shaping public knowledge
as well as public opinion. But all too often, instead
of providing accurate and logical information, the media caters to
societies darkest and most divisive corners in a never ending
quest for an audience and influence. Media outlets perpetuate decades
(37:06):
old stereotypes and prejudices that are harmful to marginalize groups.
Issues that should have been dealt with years ago, and
in many cases were dealt with years ago, keep getting
churned back up. We should be beyond this by now.
We need to move beyond sensationalism and into nuanced conversations
(37:27):
that help us truly understand each other. When the media
fails to live up to its responsibility, it harms communities
and undermines the fabric of our society. Let's work to
create a media landscape that uplifts, rather than tears down
the marginalized. It's time we started to care about the
issues that face our society today, not the ones that
faced us decades ago.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I think that, you know, they essentially don't care the
people that are making these statements. So I think, you know,
so in confusion is a great way to lead to hate.
You know, I don't understand you. I'm just gonna hate you.
And I think that is what's going on, you know,
And like just like how they viilify in general, Like
(38:11):
for this last shooting, I read an article saying like
how they were a star athlete and they had concussions,
as if to imply that because they had concussions, that
was what you know, that that led to what happened,
And you know, you don't see anything like that for
the trans shooter. You know, it's like, oh, the trans
is why they shot again. I believe that spreading this
(38:35):
misinformation causing this confusion, it's easier to dehumanize when this happens,
and then once you have the humanization, that leads to hatred,
and then that leads to violence.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Ultimately, we all want to live in a safer society,
one with less violence, one with less hateful neighbors. The
majority of Americans recognize that our strength lies in our diversity,
and that includes responsible gun ownership and training for all.
As we move forward, we must continue to have thoughtful
conversations about issues that affect us today. That means acknowledging
(39:09):
the ways in which marginalized groups have been historically excluded
from this conversation. Here's mia for closing thoughts on arming
marginalized communities with firearms.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
If you have a gun, it's not going to make
you less a victim. It's going to make you better
able potentially to defend yourself. You know, like me having
a gun and living in a dangerous community, does it
make me safer from attack? It makes me more prepared
from an attack, you know, and ideally I don't even
get attacked, but if I'm getting attacked with an item
(39:46):
that could help me, you know, potentially save my life
or not have that item, that's kind of more how
I see it. But yeah, definitely people tend to say
that it's like, well, you have a gun, and you
know guns are violent, like only violent people have guns.
But I think that just to like education and having
these conversations, it can dispel some of this.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
The question is what do those conversations look like, what
are the barriers and the misconceptions on the left.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I think a lot of the misconceptions on the left
are this idea, Well, there's a part of the left
that really wants to trust the police and reform them,
and I think there's another part that's just like abolish police.
And when we're talking about law, they're going to be
enforced by the police one way or another. So when
(40:38):
it comes to like gun law, I think that's where
this conversation is split. We have some people that are
more radical and they're like no gun law, and other
people are saying sensible gun law. And it's a very
nuanced topic, you know, like obviously no one wants people
to just get guns and just shoot everyone you know,
and like cause some ASKM but like the answer is
(41:01):
not banning guns from everyone either, especially like the advent
of three D printing, gun bands are gonna be pointless.
I follow people on Instagram that are three D printing barrels,
three D printing the receivers, three D printing AMMO absolutely untraceable,
so like you can ban them, you can make them
completely unsellable, and humans know how to engineer and they will.
(41:25):
For me, it's always coming, Like the mental health care question.
You know, when people use guns painously and murders, there's
usually other signs, and I think if we had a
healthcare system that addressed that, then we would see less
of those violent actions and not just taking the gun away,
because yeah, like people will find ways to act out
violently on people. So I think that's where the split
(41:48):
is between the left, like how do we address this properly?
And America being the country that has a Second Amendment,
some people really strongly about that. It's like, well, it's
our right to have guns. But then the other arguments
like well, we don't want kids to get shot in schools,
and it's like, no one's going to disagree of that,
(42:08):
like everyone wants kids to be alive in schools, Like
I have a kid, ooh, I want them to be
in school and safe. So we can take these parts
from the gun culture, like me being you know, kind
of playful with them, I guess, or advocating for them,
you know, having cool guns and say like hey, you know,
we can do this on the left. And like just
(42:29):
because I'm doing these things, like again like I'm not
like building an army. I'm just it's our second Amendment,
Like it's our right to do this. We have the
ability to do this, and I advocate that you should
if you want to.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Of course, Mia is going to give us her closing
thoughts here in a moment, but before that, I asked
her what her goal with all of this is. After all,
her passion is leading to a lack of understanding from
virtually every angle.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
One of my big goals is to demystify by arm ownership.
A lot of information and preconceived notions that people have
are from media, and unfortunately a lot of it's Hollywood,
and then the news people aren't given the facts accurately
and they're being misrepresented to what I believe is to
disarm our populace, to make us not able to defend ourselves.
(43:15):
So I advocate for anyone that is interested, anyone that
is thinking about it, to do your own research. Talk
to your friends that have guns and go out with them.
If you're the one friend that has a gun, talk
to your other friends that are interested in it and
take them out, because then you're going to have two
friends that have a gun, and then eventually you're going
to have a community of people that you trust and
you know, that are all armed and are all willing
(43:37):
to take care of each other. I truly believe that
if you feel that you aren't able to do it,
and you get behind a gun and you pull that trigger,
all of these preconceived notions, all these anxieties are going
to start to go away, and you could become someone
who is comfortable with firearms. And at that point, then
that's another person in the culture to spread the message
(43:57):
of firearms.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Regardless if you walk away from today's conversation feeling as
if the concept of gun ownership has been demystified to
you or not, I hope that this conversation was at
least thought provoking and eye opening. I don't like to
imagine a scenario where I need to take up arms
as a trans woman against a fascist uprising. But for
many of us living in these contentious parts of the country,
(44:23):
we're not only thinking about our get out plan, but
our plans to defend our own should we see anything
like another January sixth, Mia, why don't you tell our
listeners where they can find you engage with you? Follow you.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
You can follow me on Instagram at miss dot Miya
dot Rose. That's ms dot Miya dot Rose. That's my
main Instagram. I post there almost daily, definitely every week,
so everything's there if you want to check me out.
She's an e girl.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
She's going to be posting daily.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Okay, love that well.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Thank you, Mia, it was wonderful having you on.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
All right, y'all, that's it for today's episode of Beauty Translated.
We'll be back on Monday with another minisode, and I'll
see you next week for another full length episode of
Beauty Translated. If you haven't already, don't forget to follow
the pod wherever you are listening and let me know
your thoughts on today's episode over on insta at Beauty Translated.
(45:26):
Pod and please leave us a rating and review on
Apple podcasts. Stay Beautiful, y'all. Beauty Translated is hosted by
me Carmen Laurent and produced by Kurt Garon and Jessica Crinchitch,
with production assistance from Jennifer Bassett. Special thanks to Ali
Perry and Ali Canter for their support. Our theme song
(45:48):
is composed by Aaron Kaufman. Beauty Translated is proud to
be part of the outspoken network from iHeart Podcasts. For
more iHeart podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm trying to push the culture of the left more
towards guns. And it's not gun culture that's bad. It's
toxic masculinity in gun culture that's bad. You know. If
we look at the gun culture in America, it's you know,
racist white men, and they're bad without guns. So that's
why I always say, like, anyone out there that has
(00:21):
guns and you have friends that are talking about it, like,
take your friends out, go shooting, you know, and get on.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Beauty Translated, a
podcast which celebrates the lives and culture of the trans
community across the United States. Lately, I have been feeling
more political than usual, as it's tough times to be
trans in America. The current political climate that is leading
to more anti trans legislation manifests in real world violence
(00:54):
for trans people, especially trans women. I take special interest
in trans people who are thriving in places you wouldn't
often expect to find a trans person, and today's guest
fits right into the heart a Beauty Translated. Sometimes the
unknown can be scary. We often unconsciously even seek to
(01:17):
avoid the things that make us uncomfortable. It is my
hope that through conversations like these, we can all become
more enlightened about the things that are foreign to us,
so that we can reach new levels of understanding about
ourselves and each other.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I would call myself a beyond average gun owner. You know,
I'm a gun dealer, so like it's like, why do
you have so many guns? Like, well, I'm actually a licensee,
so like that's kind of why.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
That's Mia Rose a trans woman from Oregon Eugene to
be exact, and like she said, she is a gun enthusiast,
a gun dealer, and someone who teaches self defense and
instructs tactical training exercises. Our customer base is made up
of other LGBTQ plus individuals in the Pacific Northwest, many
(02:06):
of them falling somewhere under the trans umbrella. As I
begin our conversation, I realized that me and I have
a lot in common, even going all the way back
to the kind of upbringing we had, being that we
both grew up in a militarized household and like my
dad wasn't wearing like camo in the house or anything
like that, but he ran the house like it was
(02:29):
boot camp or something.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I have always had guns I grew up in a
military home, so guns were normalized in that sense, you know,
the whole socialization. My sibling went to the military. I
almost went, but I know I grew up, you know,
wanting to owne a gun and thought it was cool.
I really liked the video games that had guns in them,
so I've always been interested in them. And I also
(02:53):
have like a fascination with the mechanical properties of a gun,
just like the engineering of how they work have always
been I'm fascinating, and I like the physics of a gun,
the idea that I can stand somewhere and I can
shoot a bullet three hundred yards and hit something. Before
(03:15):
I got into that community fence and my own mission
now and arming other trans people, I was a hobbyist.
I shot at an indoor range. I shot after work
for fun. That's all I did, Like, I don't even hunt.
I got into the sport when I was twenty two.
I was living by myself. Ammo was a third of
the price it is now, so I could buy Ammo
(03:38):
for like eight dollars and I'd be good all night. Nowadays,
eight dollars ain't even buying me half a box at AMMO,
and after work, I'd just go home, grab my gun,
go with gun range, shoot, get a burger, and go home.
It was just kind of a relaxing thing for me
to do. Around twenty sixteen, though I was identifying as queer,
but I wasn't presenting any different. I wasn't on any
kind of medication, no HRT. But I started around that
(04:00):
time reading the news and seeing what was going on,
and started getting a little bit older in my political
understanding of the world, and I started seeing people like
the left and community members arming themselves. We started seeing
a national movement of minorities arming themselves, things like the
Pink Pistol Club or like John Brown gun clubs or
(04:22):
starting to form around that time, and it was like, Hey,
I have guns, I can start training people. So from there,
me and my sibling and my other friends, we started
advocating for people to learn how to use firearms and
training and community defense. And from just working with certain
minority groups and certain communities and just being around more
(04:43):
queer people, I was like, Oh, I suddenly feel more
at home with these people than I ever did in
my biggest life. I think just being surrounded by my
own community, being in those spaces and helping these people
without even knowing it helped me transition to realize who
I am. And then now that I have transitioned, I
(05:05):
feel like this role I can serve is just so
much more important because I know that even when I
was presenting as you know, the other gender, I still
wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable going into gun stores. But I
feel like when I had my store, you know, I
would be trans, A transperson would come in. They would
see a trans flag on my gun save you know,
(05:28):
have the pink hair. They talk to me like, oh,
this is not some guy with a Trump flag at
his house. So I felt like a lot of people
are thinking about getting armed, but because there is this
community feeling around it, being so centered on the right,
so much racism and just hate in that community, and
then there's like a lot of trauma in it, and
then people not willing to, you know, walk someone through
(05:51):
trauma with their firearm.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I thought it was interesting when Mia starts talking about trauma.
Not everyone. No one is going to be inherently comfortable
wielding your gun. And the more marginalized intersections you find
yourself in, the more trauma you might have around handling guns,
or the less likely you are to explore that as
an option for arming yourself. I see this as her
(06:16):
talking about breaking down those mental barriers, like for myself,
those would be that guns are either perceived as too
masculine or might make someone think I align myself with
right wing politics when I do not.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
When people in the community see me, they see a
pink care trans woman who's obviously not this cis heat
white guy in the right wing. And I find that
what keeps a lot of people out of firearms training
is not only that they don't feel welcomed in those spaces,
but that a lot of people in my community specifically.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Have trauma related around.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Firearms, whether that just be news that you hear about
tragic events happening at firearms, or people in their life
having been negatively affected, perhaps even and you know they
aren't here anymore because of firearm use. So I find
that someone that has this type of trauma, even if
they do try to go into these right wing places,
(07:11):
more often than not, these instructors are not going to
be patient or compassionate to these feelings. So if someone
with trauma, maybe every time they see a gun, some
of their PTSC kicks back. So if they're in a
firearms class and like, let's say you're the only minority
in this class, the instructor is going to treat you differently.
(07:32):
So when I instruct my own people, I ask them
everyone like.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Hey, what's your comfortability with this?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And because of my transidentity and my own experience with firearms,
I'm able to give people more of a one on
one approach that is definitely more trauma informed. After every shot,
I ask them, Hey, how did that feel? What's going
on with you right now? So I realize that we're
not just shooting a gun. For some people out there,
we really are unpacking years and years of bad information
(08:01):
around guns as well as personal trauma that they may
have encountered in their lives.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And with that approach, Mia set out to find a
way to increase her community's awareness and comfortability with firearms.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I feel like there was just a need, and I guess,
being kind of who I am, always wanting to help
in that sense, I kind of just filled that role.
The first thing I did was start instructing. I'm like, hey, guys,
I have a pistol and I have a pump action shotgun.
Does anyone want to learn how to use these? And
of course everyone's like, yeah, I've never even shot. So
just me taking friends out a couple out of time,
(08:36):
just teaching them, and they bought their own. And now
I have a community of people here in my own
town that I've helped bring up over the years. So yeah,
I do consider myself a little more into the gun thing,
but it's also on brand for me at this point.
I'm kind of the gun girl.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Many trans people, including myself, felt vulnerable and unsafe to
be visibly trans due to the rise in trans scapegoating
and anti trans rhetoric coming from the right. This led
to an increase in politically left leaning gun clubs all
over the country, particularly in conservative areas such as Oregon
and Georgia that cater to marginalized groups, people of color
(09:21):
and LGBTQ plus folks being some of those groups. Here's Miya.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
John Brown gun club was named after John Brown, who
was an abolitionist in like the applationan area. I'm not
kind of fuzzy on the history. They made a TV
show about it. Actually it's kind of good, but is
an abolitionist and it's free enslaves, so a lot of
people will kind of got down with that message. The
John Brown Gun Club, though, is a leftist gun club
(09:50):
organization that really focuses on mutual aid as well as
range days, so I often see them out doing things
like food drives or like winter clothing distribution, and as
of lately they have been offering community watching for like
BLM marches, as well as queer events like drag story
(10:11):
Time and just drag shows.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
In general, there is a growing trend in conservative pockets
of the country among right wing demonstrators to show up
to drag events, whether they be aimed at children or not,
and try to intimidate or threaten the performers and the fans.
Right Wing lawmakers are simultaneously fueling this trend by drawing
(10:33):
up bills that would outright ban anyone perceived as a
female or male impersonator that is in the vicinity of children.
This threatens the livelihood of drag performers' careers in those areas,
but also leads to the policing of trans women and men,
because the laws are so vague that they can easily
be used to encourage anti trans discrimination enforced by the police.
(10:57):
Stating that we are public predators.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah. Yeah, so the right will find one and they'll
share it on their social networks, and then people will
drive like out of state to go protest these events,
and the local letists, you know, they show up. John
Brown Gun Club has adopted blacklock as their kind of
thing when they go out armed to protect their own
identity because they are being targeted just for defending queer
(11:23):
community spaces. So I give a lot of props to
them for standing out there and you know, doing that work.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
That's fantastic. I think it's really cool how you were
able to both find a niche there and also kind
of find yourself at the same time. Yeah, I can't imagine,
Like I mean, you know, I grew up in a
conservative household. I grew up in a military household. My
dad was in the Marine Corps. My dad was a
police officer for thirty years, and I always grew up
(11:50):
with the idea that guns were associated with the right
and with more conservative people, and a lot of times
I associated it with toxic masculinity things like that. So
it was around the same time for me, around twenty
sixteen and especially in twenty twenty one, January sixth, twenty
twenty one, where we see, you know, the capital being
(12:13):
stormed for example, where I'm starting to think, like very seriously,
like what would I do in a situation where there's
a group of hateful people that wanted to harm me?
And so I have thought about arming myself. And I
know many of my trans friends have armed themselves and
have learned how to do so properly thanks to this
(12:33):
new kind of And it's newer, of course, because these
weren't necessarily available before, like you said, but these newer
people who are providing lessons for minority groups.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, you know, it's like we say, you know, like
we protect us community text itself. So I think people
all around this nation are seeing it. And then there's
people that have the ability to help others and they aren't,
And it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Really.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
What do you see with your customers and like your clients,
what do they tell you about the want to arm themselves?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Every time I sell someone a gun, I say, how
does it feel to be a new gun owner now?
Because like, for first and foremost, the decision to buy
a gun is a very very individual and personal choice.
While I am an advocate for owning a gun. I
also understand that there's just some people that aren't going
to want one, and that's fine, they don't have to.
(13:29):
I always say that if you have an interest and
want to get one, do get one. But the people
that come into my shop are usually like that, you know,
they've always maybe had an interest in it, and they
see the news, they see the writing on the wall,
per se, and they feel like it's time to take
the next step. Usually at that point I let them know, like, hey,
I know you're buying this gun, and that's great, but
(13:51):
that's just step one, like you need to train with it.
And I also offer firearm training classes, you know, locally
in my area. So most people they buy a gun
and I say, I tell you what you buy some AMMO,
and we'll go out and I'll show you how to
use that now. And then I set them up with
a target stand and then they're able to take themselves
out and do their own self led training. So my
(14:12):
customers lately have been an uptick in women number one,
and then women in color, and then trans people of
all kinds having coming in. I don't get a lot
of white Cis men coming into my store. If they do,
they're like the allies you know that know me from before.
But my store is pretty much like eighty percent of
(14:33):
my sales are women, like half them are women of
color and the other half are trans. So that's kind
of what I've been focusing on.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That's awesome. In December of twenty twenty two, Mio was
interviewed and photographed by MPR to talk about Measure one fourteen,
(15:01):
a new bill Oregon was proposing that would make local
law enforcement the police chief or county sheriff responsible for
determining who can and cannot own a gun in the
state of Oregon. Mia spoke in the article about how
this bill could affect lots of different marginalized groups. Tell
(15:22):
us a little bit about what that experience was like.
After the article was published.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That article was very exciting to be a part of.
It was like my first time someone's interviewed me. So, yeah,
the guy wanted someone to be U, the poster trans girl,
and I always say that I didn't dye my hair
pink and make an Instagram to not be seen, so
you know, okay, let's go. Yeah. It was about the
(15:50):
LGBT community worrying about Measure one fourteen targeting them. Measure
one fourteen as it is now in Oregon looks like
it's gonna be stopped completely, but it's still up in
the air. It looks like it will. But technically it
did get voted for, but technically the courts ruled against it.
So it's probably going to go to Oregon Supreme Court
(16:12):
and then we'll see there. But the fear is that
the police are going to have free reign on who
gets to have a gun or not. The police get
to decide who is good for the community or reasonable.
And you know the history of police violence towards the
queer community, stonewall and everything. And I've got to get
too much into it. But again, twenty sixteen, twenty twenty,
(16:34):
all these protests, one of my worries was that people
that were identified as protesters and not even the ones
that you know, did property. Damn. It's just like attending
these things, are they going to be like, well, we
saw you attending a protest and you were yelling out
abolished of police or a police are terrorists or something
about you know, and the police, And then you think
(16:57):
the police aren't going to be like, well, you don't
even like us, why you'd be allowed to have a gun?
So that was the issue I wanted to bring up
in that article. It was nice because another friend of
mine was interviewed in it and they're a lot more
well spoken than me and kind of said the same
thing but better. But yeah. So the article was about
one fourteen, but being that I was the only pictures presented,
(17:20):
the article quickly became my article, which again was fun.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Were great pictures, by the way, well with yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Thank you, thank you. Unfortunately though, with that the headline
being LGBT afraid of getting guns taken away and then
a picture of me, the article became sensationalized on just
the very physical image of me alone with a gun,
and it quickly became about me as a transperson armed
(17:49):
in Oregon. And I guess I knew that was going
to happen, but it was definitely interesting to see it
all unfold.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
As it quickly unfolded, Mia found herself in the middle
of a back from all sides, people on the right
and the left.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So I woke up that morning is what happened. My
friend messaged me like, Nia, you're on the nude. I'm like,
oh yeah, I didn't even tell anyone about that yet.
So that's how I woke up to my friends telling
me it. So I'm like a glutton for self punishment.
I went to NPR and I got the article headline right,
and I just type that into Google and I got
every single hit possible, and I just read every comment
(18:26):
for like the first two weeks. And I went to
read it and like there's like so many Reddit posts
with like forty thousand abuse and like hundreds of comments.
So yeah, I read them. I wanted to see what
was said. And like that's how I can say with
a lot of confidence that people didn't read the article
(18:47):
because they were just talking about like, oh, LGBT pink
hair must be a liberal, Like you probably just got
armed last month and you voted for Hillary or something
like that. Like people are like, you voted for these
gun laws. Why are you complaining. It's like I didn't
vote for these gun laws, like or like someone's like
(19:07):
this is what you get for voting for Democrats, And
it's like this was a ballot measure which has nothing
to do with politicians. Like a bunch of people got
together and signed a petition and then they all voted
on it. Like anyone can technically do that if you have,
you know, the funding, like you have to go canvas
and stuff. But yeah, and then people on the left
(19:30):
were being a certain way about it too, saying that
I was being too much, like I think someone I
went to liberal gun owners, like some of them are like,
I think this is too much. She doesn't need a
sixty round drum and a silencer. And it's like, you know, ideally, yeah,
ideally I wouldn't need to have all these guns. Ideally
(19:53):
I wouldn't need to be able to arm myself and
defend myself. But you know, that's not the world we
live in.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, and I know that climate, and I mean I've
never been to Oregon, but I know the climate in
Oregon can be outside of Portland very conservative. Yeah, and
I'm sure it can feel unsafe.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Most definitely, Like a lot of people think of Portland
as Oregon, and like they had a bunch of like
the Federal Courthouse was protesting for like one hundred days
straight here in Portland in like twenty twenty. So in
there there's definitely a radical and like a very liberal
and then in that like a radical pocket and in
the other major cities it's like that too, like Salem
(20:32):
and Eugene. But yeah, once you leave those towns, it's
actually very conservative here, and all of that kind of
liberalness just goes away.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
If you take a look through the lens of gun culture,
who do we typically see represented as the right gun owner?
People of color, LGBTQ plus individuals and women at the
intersection of any of these identities are typically left out
of gun culture. You could even say that this is
by design that we have a society that seems to
(21:09):
inherently value a white man strapped with a gun versus
a person of a marginalized group. And it sure sucks
that anyone has to arm themselves with guns, But why
should the groups most vulnerable to hate and violence be
the only ones not armed? Do you think there's a
fear on the right of minorities and people on the
(21:32):
left arming themselves.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
I definitely think there's a fear. One of the tactics
on the right used against me was trigger warning like
transphobia coming up, like the statistics about us. Someone said like,
if you really care about trans lives, you would not
arm yourself and you would advocate for no one to
arm yourself. Because of blah blah blah percentage. I was like,
(21:55):
you know, come on, Like I feel like when people
attack me on that statistic or when people like some
people said my gun was fake, and some people said, oh,
I have like Chinese stuff on my gun and nothing
not there's nothing wrong or Chinese stuff, but like I
have like an expensive gun, so it's all like it's
(22:15):
like American made parts here. But like the reason that
people were doing that is because they were trying to
tear me down. Right, Like if you can if you
see something and you can discredit it, it's no longer
a threat because when they see me, you know, they
see a human being, no matter what gender, they see
a human being of a rifle. If they can tell
(22:36):
themselves I'm not trained of it. If they can tell
themselves it's a bad gun. If they can tell themselves
it's fake, you know, all these things, then all of
a sudden, I'm not a threat. And I think what
that does is allows them to not have to be better.
I think they don't want to believe I'm a threat
(22:59):
because they don't want to up their game. They want
to believe that we are harmless and that we are
victims the majority of them are just mocking me. If
they were to truly understand, I don't think they'd be
discrediting me. You know, like if all those people, that's
the people that said my gun was fake, clicked on
(23:19):
my Instagram and watched my videos, they wouldn't think it
was fake anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
What I found most interesting about this is the same
thing is said about a trans woman's womanhood, that it's
fake or a cheap imitation. But anyway, this is the
perfect example of toxic masculinity and gun culture, the equivalent
to a dick measuring contest. My gun is more real
(23:48):
than yours. However, if you were to click on MEA's
Instagram and look through her content, it's a mix of
tactical training and shooting range videos, egirl ascetic selfies, and
leftists and anti fascist memes. Not your typical gun influence
or content, but not too far from it either, just
(24:10):
with a much garlier aesthetic and without any conservatism.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm not saying that everyone gets an Air fifteen and
night vision like me becomes you know, we I'm not
like raising an army or anything, but I do want
to shift the culture. I want to push the culture
of the left overall more towards guns. If I can
arm people and then they tell their friends, and then
now there's just people talking about guns now in spaces
(24:37):
where maybe they ever had guns and now they're talking
about them. That's huge. Like the right, they have cultures
and generations of doing this, like they will go hunt
and they'll go camping with their family and guns are
hanging on their walls like everyone does it. And then
you know, you have families and generations on the left
that never even touched your gun ever, So saying normalize
(25:01):
them in your household because you know, see them as
the tools they are. So that's one of the biggest
parts of my mission right now is just moving the
culture towards guns. Like I don't expect everyone to buy
an AR fifteen and train every weekend, but if they
want to buy like a handgun and train to make
themselves feel safer in their home, I definitely advocate for that.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
We're going to take another quick break here. Beauty is
more from Mia when we come back, and we're back,
(25:47):
I asked Ana to tell me more about what it's
like to be a woman in this industry.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I got into this industry. I present it differently just
as a queer person. So one of the things that
kind of made me nervous or anxious about going in
was like coming out in my transition. It's like there
are other career people that I've trained and that were
in like my direct friends circle, But as a trans person,
I still had that like, oh, I'm gonna come out,
(26:14):
hope people accept me feeling, even in you know, a
leftist organization, and like, one of the things that kind
of got me was I think my physical appearance gave
a sense of authority and of like knowing what I
was doing with a gun, they looked at me and
as like, oh, you look like someone that knows how
to shoot, Like I'm gonna respect your authority based off
(26:35):
patriarchal preconceptions. So I was like, Okay, if I transition
and I started putting on makeup, I died my hair pink,
are people gonna take me seriously or are they just gonna,
you know, judge me as like this trans girl. So
that was kind of a big thing for me. Luckily,
those are just like insecurities, and I did have a
(26:55):
very supportive community, so at least all the people in
my community accept me. Very very well. Now I cannot
say the same for the other side, for the right,
I already never felt comfortable really in those spaces, just
being a person of color walking into gun shops or
(27:18):
gun stores or gun shows. Even now as a trans woman,
I don't even I try not to even go into
those places. I'll go into a gun store if I
don't want to order something and they have it right there,
and when I do, it's like the music stops when
I walk in there, and everyone like looks at me.
You know. Yeah, I always tell myself, Oh, they just
(27:40):
think that I probably got armed yesterday or something. But yeah,
I mean the LAFT has been accepting of it because
I was respected before. I think that really helped me.
And it's like you were good of guns. Then being
trans doesn't change that. So you're still I'm still seen
as like someone would have something to say in this community.
But in the right, you know, it's just it's just
(28:01):
the more uh more identity to oppress me by essentially.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Here, I asked Mia to speak about the Second Amendment
and the notion that guns are violent and because of that,
violent people may be the ones most drawn to gun ownership.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
That that's That's definitely a touchy one, right, the way
I see it is twofold one. There's like the stance
of like a hardcore gun advocate. So it's like, as
much as I don't like quoting the United States Bill Rights,
the Second Amendment says says we can have So I'm
always like, well, the law of the land is the
(28:44):
law of the land. I can't change that. And it
says we have the rights of bare arms. So I
don't think like banking this. Like the legal legal argument
is that we shouldn't be judged or perceived the guilty
or innocent based off just exercising an American right. Having
(29:06):
a gun doesn't change your status of being victimized or
the oppressor. Right, it's the person taking away guns are
still going to be violence.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Now we're going to get into some recent news the
Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where three children and three
staff members were murdered. This one hit particularly close to home,
as some news outlets chose to fill the top of
their websites with coverage of the shooter that was very
misleading and intentionally aimed at stoking the public sphere of
(29:40):
trans people, obscuring the real story with smoke and mirrors.
Media outlets initially reported the shooter as a trans woman,
which was false. In reality, the shooter was a trans
man who had only recently begun transitioning. By misreporting and
using incorrect language to describe the shooter, this created it's
(30:00):
further trans misogyny, further hate specifically towards trans women, and
does nothing to help our society heal from events like
these and much less solve the problem of gun violence
in our society. The identity of the shooter doesn't matter,
So why is the media spending so much time talking
about and misreporting that. How many more of these events
(30:23):
do we have to witness, specifically in the United States.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It was actually really kind of wild.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I was actually doing another interview about being an armed
trans woman in the middle, like like we took a
break and then we checked the news and we saw
that shooting, and it was just like, oh my gosh,
you know, I'm already seen headlines of like trans shooter.
And I think one of the things that the trans
community saw and just a lot of people in general,
(30:53):
was how the media, specifically the right wing media, was
just framing this whole thing like trans shooter, revenge Christians
and danger all stuff like this, And you know, we
just look at shootings historically with cisgendered people or workplace shooters, and.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
They're never never like described that way.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
They always, you know, their identity isn't important in fact,
sometimes to try to humanize the shooter. But I feel
like with this trans shooter, because of the whole narrative
against trans people right now, it was kind of like
the golden ticket for all the transphobes to just spread hate.
I actually got tied in with that some troll, like
(31:36):
some transphobic troll on Twitter, that would be funny to
get my picture along with other trans women in the
community and just type essentially just lies underneath our photos,
and this spread along Twitter. And you know, when it
was just on Twitter, I wasn't really too concerned because
(31:57):
it was just Twitter profiles, and I'm sure or there's
right wing discords and stuff that I don't even know
about that or talking about me, and I'm sure that
my image has been used in other ways like that,
you know. But when I saw my picture on the
Daily Mail, it was a little bit more concerning. I
don't really want to call it Daily Mail a news site,
(32:19):
but according to Wikipedia, they are the most read news
in the whole of UK, so they do have publication
power and the fact that they weren't just a Twitter personality,
they were a named industry in business, so I felt
that I could actually take more of an action to
get that removed.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Luckily, I have.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
An amazing lawyer in town that I trust, and with
their advice, I was able to draft up a cease
and assist letter and got that photo in all references
to me removed immediately. So that was nice that it
got taken down, but there's still that like, Okay, well
that story still ran, you know, and like my picture
has related to that, So I guess like I'm upset
(33:04):
about it because I don't want my image to be
linked to that in any way and to be used
to fuel hate. And at the same time, it's like
they're already doing these things my imagery anyway. But at
least this was one of the times where I didn't
have to just sit down and take it.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Even if the article was ultimately taken down, people still
read the headline. They saw the story and the images
of Mia within the body of the article and associated
her with this horrible event. Daily Mail used MIA's image
against her home cause, perpetuating the opposite reaction in people
of what Mia stands for, and their publication reaches a
(33:43):
lot of readers. It's not an accident or lazy journalism.
It's not even journalism at all. It's creating a mythology
for people to latch onto.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It's definitely starting to feel like there's more awareness and
public attention on me. Before it was like, oh, armed
in their trands, I was just playing with my gun.
I don't really know what I'm doing. But now that
there has been shootings, armed Transnis is being vilified. So
now before where it was just like, oh, it's just
a silly, pink haired liberal, she'd know what she's doing,
(34:16):
now I'm being linked to a mass murderer and it's like, oh,
trans people with guns, terrorist group, scary. So since then,
I've taken down my flag actually that was in that article,
just to try to lower my image. And yeah, like
I don't openly walk around town saying I'm who I am,
(34:36):
but definitely on my profile still who I am. But
even though my profile is public on Instagram, it's not
like me walking around of a gun shirt you know
or something, so I don't broadcast it too much just
for my own safety, like I don't want strangers on
the street her asking me and stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
But yeah, I have noticed that the last.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Kind of big event has definitely changed more in narrative
being armed in trans and what that means.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
As the debate over gun control rages on, one thing
has become clear. The right wings interpretation of the Second
Amendment is selective. On the one hand, they argue that
the government has no right to regulate firearms, that any
attempt to do so is an infringement on our constitutional rights.
On the other hand, they have no problem with restricting
(35:25):
certain groups of people from owning guns. Effectively, the Second
Amendment doesn't mean the same thing when it comes to
marginalized people. For example, despite the clear need for self defense,
trans women and other marginalized groups who choose to arm
themselves for protection are often met with fear mongering and demonization.
(35:46):
The behavior of the Daily Mail we talked about earlier
is but one prime example of this method. To put
a bow on it, the same people who champion the
Second Amendment as an absolute right become much less enthusiastic
when it's applied to groups they don't like. It is
a fairly transparent attempt to preserve the status quo and
keep power in the hands of those who already have it.
(36:09):
The Second Amendment should apply to everyone, not just those
deemed worthy by the right wing. By acknowledging this hypocrisy
and working to dismantle it, we can move towards a
more equitable and just society for all. Everyone just needs
to be able to see it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
First. They stay that they support the two A and
they support guns for everyone. But I've seen so many articles,
if you will, about how minority specifical they shouldn't have guns,
So there's definitely a disconnect and what they say and
then what they believe.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
An informed public is crucial for a functioning democracy, and
the media plays a significant role in shaping public knowledge
as well as public opinion. But all too often, instead
of providing accurate and logical information, the media caters to
societies darkest and most divisive corners in a never ending
quest for an audience and influence. Media outlets perpetuate decades
(37:06):
old stereotypes and prejudices that are harmful to marginalize groups.
Issues that should have been dealt with years ago, and
in many cases were dealt with years ago, keep getting
churned back up. We should be beyond this by now.
We need to move beyond sensationalism and into nuanced conversations
(37:27):
that help us truly understand each other. When the media
fails to live up to its responsibility, it harms communities
and undermines the fabric of our society. Let's work to
create a media landscape that uplifts, rather than tears down
the marginalized. It's time we started to care about the
issues that face our society today, not the ones that
faced us decades ago.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I think that, you know, they essentially don't care the
people that are making these statements. So I think, you know,
so in confusion is a great way to lead to hate.
You know, I don't understand you. I'm just gonna hate you.
And I think that is what's going on, you know,
And like just like how they viilify in general, Like
(38:11):
for this last shooting, I read an article saying like
how they were a star athlete and they had concussions,
as if to imply that because they had concussions, that
was what you know, that that led to what happened,
And you know, you don't see anything like that for
the trans shooter. You know, it's like, oh, the trans
is why they shot again. I believe that spreading this
(38:35):
misinformation causing this confusion, it's easier to dehumanize when this happens,
and then once you have the humanization, that leads to hatred,
and then that leads to violence.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Ultimately, we all want to live in a safer society,
one with less violence, one with less hateful neighbors. The
majority of Americans recognize that our strength lies in our diversity,
and that includes responsible gun ownership and training for all.
As we move forward, we must continue to have thoughtful
conversations about issues that affect us today. That means acknowledging
(39:09):
the ways in which marginalized groups have been historically excluded
from this conversation. Here's mia for closing thoughts on arming
marginalized communities with firearms.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
If you have a gun, it's not going to make
you less a victim. It's going to make you better
able potentially to defend yourself. You know, like me having
a gun and living in a dangerous community, does it
make me safer from attack? It makes me more prepared
from an attack, you know, and ideally I don't even
get attacked, but if I'm getting attacked with an item
(39:46):
that could help me, you know, potentially save my life
or not have that item, that's kind of more how
I see it. But yeah, definitely people tend to say
that it's like, well, you have a gun, and you
know guns are violent, like only violent people have guns.
But I think that just to like education and having
these conversations, it can dispel some of this.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
The question is what do those conversations look like, what
are the barriers and the misconceptions on the left.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I think a lot of the misconceptions on the left
are this idea, Well, there's a part of the left
that really wants to trust the police and reform them,
and I think there's another part that's just like abolish police.
And when we're talking about law, they're going to be
enforced by the police one way or another. So when
(40:38):
it comes to like gun law, I think that's where
this conversation is split. We have some people that are
more radical and they're like no gun law, and other
people are saying sensible gun law. And it's a very
nuanced topic, you know, like obviously no one wants people
to just get guns and just shoot everyone you know,
and like cause some ASKM but like the answer is
(41:01):
not banning guns from everyone either, especially like the advent
of three D printing, gun bands are gonna be pointless.
I follow people on Instagram that are three D printing barrels,
three D printing the receivers, three D printing AMMO absolutely untraceable,
so like you can ban them, you can make them
completely unsellable, and humans know how to engineer and they will.
(41:25):
For me, it's always coming, Like the mental health care question.
You know, when people use guns painously and murders, there's
usually other signs, and I think if we had a
healthcare system that addressed that, then we would see less
of those violent actions and not just taking the gun away,
because yeah, like people will find ways to act out
violently on people. So I think that's where the split
(41:48):
is between the left, like how do we address this properly?
And America being the country that has a Second Amendment,
some people really strongly about that. It's like, well, it's
our right to have guns. But then the other arguments
like well, we don't want kids to get shot in schools,
and it's like, no one's going to disagree of that,
(42:08):
like everyone wants kids to be alive in schools, Like
I have a kid, ooh, I want them to be
in school and safe. So we can take these parts
from the gun culture, like me being you know, kind
of playful with them, I guess, or advocating for them,
you know, having cool guns and say like hey, you know,
we can do this on the left. And like just
(42:29):
because I'm doing these things, like again like I'm not
like building an army. I'm just it's our second Amendment,
Like it's our right to do this. We have the
ability to do this, and I advocate that you should
if you want to.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Of course, Mia is going to give us her closing
thoughts here in a moment, but before that, I asked
her what her goal with all of this is. After all,
her passion is leading to a lack of understanding from
virtually every angle.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
One of my big goals is to demystify by arm ownership.
A lot of information and preconceived notions that people have
are from media, and unfortunately a lot of it's Hollywood,
and then the news people aren't given the facts accurately
and they're being misrepresented to what I believe is to
disarm our populace, to make us not able to defend ourselves.
(43:15):
So I advocate for anyone that is interested, anyone that
is thinking about it, to do your own research. Talk
to your friends that have guns and go out with them.
If you're the one friend that has a gun, talk
to your other friends that are interested in it and
take them out, because then you're going to have two
friends that have a gun, and then eventually you're going
to have a community of people that you trust and
you know, that are all armed and are all willing
(43:37):
to take care of each other. I truly believe that
if you feel that you aren't able to do it,
and you get behind a gun and you pull that trigger,
all of these preconceived notions, all these anxieties are going
to start to go away, and you could become someone
who is comfortable with firearms. And at that point, then
that's another person in the culture to spread the message
(43:57):
of firearms.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Regardless if you walk away from today's conversation feeling as
if the concept of gun ownership has been demystified to
you or not, I hope that this conversation was at
least thought provoking and eye opening. I don't like to
imagine a scenario where I need to take up arms
as a trans woman against a fascist uprising. But for
many of us living in these contentious parts of the country,
(44:23):
we're not only thinking about our get out plan, but
our plans to defend our own should we see anything
like another January sixth, Mia, why don't you tell our
listeners where they can find you engage with you? Follow you.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
You can follow me on Instagram at miss dot Miya
dot Rose. That's ms dot Miya dot Rose. That's my
main Instagram. I post there almost daily, definitely every week,
so everything's there if you want to check me out.
She's an e girl.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
She's going to be posting daily.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Okay, love that well.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Thank you, Mia, it was wonderful having you on.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
All right, y'all, that's it for today's episode of Beauty Translated.
We'll be back on Monday with another minisode, and I'll
see you next week for another full length episode of
Beauty Translated. If you haven't already, don't forget to follow
the pod wherever you are listening and let me know
your thoughts on today's episode over on insta at Beauty Translated.
(45:26):
Pod and please leave us a rating and review on
Apple podcasts. Stay Beautiful, y'all. Beauty Translated is hosted by
me Carmen Laurent and produced by Kurt Garon and Jessica Crinchitch,
with production assistance from Jennifer Bassett. Special thanks to Ali
Perry and Ali Canter for their support. Our theme song
(45:48):
is composed by Aaron Kaufman. Beauty Translated is proud to
be part of the outspoken network from iHeart Podcasts. For
more iHeart podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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