We’ve made it to Launch Day.
Hundreds of hours of research, writing, verifying, coding, creating art, and lost nights scanning endless tabs of state legislature websites have led to this moment.
Arm the Dolls is finally, officially, live.
Our project to help the transgender community navigate complicated firearms laws is ready.
If you’ve found our website, there’s a good chance you already know why a project like this matters. Let’s talk about it anyways, because we think it’s important to be clear, especially with a project of this nature, about what we’re trying to do here and what we’re not.
Why we started this project.
The spark for this project came from a simple pair of questions with complicated answers: “How does a person buy a gun in this state?” and “How does one get a concealed carry permit here?” That soon expanded: “How can we help our community navigate this complicated process?”
The answers were always scattered, sometimes contradictory, and often required wading through resources that were, if not openly, implicitly suspect of the very community we seek to help. Meanwhile, official state resources are written in the kind of bureaucratic language that makes your eyes glaze over (ask us how we know), and they certainly don’t have the best interests of the trans community in mind.
We strongly believe that access to self-defense is fundamental right that belongs to everybody.
We’re not here to convince anyone that gun ownership is right for them. It’s not the correct path for everyone, and that’s completely valid. But for those of us who are considering it as part of our safety planning, this information should be accessible. It shouldn’t require a law degree or hours of digging through either raw statute or the websites of hostile groups to figure out the basics.
If our core value is community self-protection, then we need community self-education too.
What we’ve got, and what we don’t.
Today, we’re launching with comprehensive guides for eight states: Washington, California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
We estimate this covers roughly one third of America’s population of trans adults.
These guides cover the legal requirements for purchasing firearms, the concealed carry permit process, and practical considerations that are particularly relevant for trans folks.
Each guide is based on current state statutes, uses only official government resources, and utilizes input from community members in those states as to its particularities. We’ve done our best to write them in actual human language while still being thorough about the legal requirements. Every guide we publish goes through a rigorous scouring by editors to ensure not only our own confidence, but that of our community.
Here’s the part where we need to be really clear about limitations.
We’re not lawyers. Nothing on this site is legal advice.
We’ve done our best to be accurate and we will do our best to stay up to date, however, laws change, our understanding might be incomplete, and your specific situation may have nuances we haven’t covered. When you’re actually making decisions about firearms and the law, talk to a qualified attorney in your state.
It also needs to be noted that these guides can’t cover every single local ordinance or edge case. Gun laws are complicated, they vary not just by state but sometimes quite often by county or city (we’re looking at you New York), and they change. Major developments will be reflected in updated guides with timestamps (future plans also include changelogs), but there will almost inevitably be some lag between when laws change and when we can update.
Where the guides go from here
Eight states is a start, and a significant one at that, but still just a start. The goal is to eventually have guides for all fifty states.
We have prioritized states based on where the trans community is largest and where potential risk to our community is high.
This is an ongoing project, one that takes a significant time investment from multiple people. We will do our best to expand the states with guides as quickly, and responsibly as possible. This limitation of time is also why we are not launching with New York. While a huge portion of our community lives in the state, the intricacies of how New York State complicates firearm laws is without parallel.
Laws will change as this project continues. Our contributors will grow in number and expand their knowledge base. The guides will get better and evolve as community input helps us recognize potential blind spots and priorities.
We are committed to treating this website as a living resource that will evolve and improve over time.
We are actively working on expanding our existing guides to provide detailed information on how mental health impacts firearm eligibility at the state and federal level. We are also working on adding guides from community leaders on more personal topics related to firearm ownership, outside the purview of state guides and their navigation of statutes.
Importantly, we are constantly keeping track of new developments at both the state and federal level.
Significant developments in this regard will be addressed in blog posts, and guides will be updated as necessary. If you see something we may have missed, let us know.
How you can help
Found something wrong? Let us know. We need these guides to be accurate, and we would much rather fix an error than have someone get bad information. We’ve taken extensive steps to make this as unlikely as possible, but as our team is small some mistakes may fall through the cracks. We are also, as one might guess, not from every state, so certain important intricacies may be missed. We want your help to make sure we’ve got it right.
Have expertise in your state? If you’re familiar with your state’s gun laws, especially if you’re a lawyer, dealer, gunsmith, or firearms instructor, and you want to help make sure we get your state right, or have a proposal for a blog post you’d like to write? Get in touch. Your input is extremely valuable to us.
Want to spread the word? Share this with people who might find it useful. That’s genuinely the most helpful thing right now. In order for a community resource like this to be valuable, that community has to know of its existence. For this project to succeed, we need your help getting the word out.
Want to contribute? As we’ve mentioned earlier, this website represents a significant and continual time investment from a team of people. Contributions are very much appreciated but not expected. Please check out our support section for fun merch and other ways to help out financially.
Final thoughts
We know gun ownership is controversial, including within the trans community. Some people believe strongly in armed self-defense. Others are personally opposed to guns for valid reasons. Firearm ownership isn’t for everybody, and we recognize that’s particularly true within the trans community.
We’re not here to insist one path is the only path. You know the best way to keep yourself safe.
This project comes from a place of harm reduction and information access. If you’re considering firearm ownership, you deserve to have clear information. We feel strongly that the manner in which certain states have made navigating these laws difficult poses a risk to our community. This project is about providing answers where states fail, often purposefully, to provide clarity.
Community access to this information is an ethical imperative.
We’re living through a time when trans people rightly feel unsafe. Our states and our federal government are taking steps to marginalize our community and push us out of society. Everyone’s going to respond to that harsh reality differently, but we also believe that everyone should at least have some sort of personal plan. This is one resource for one particular option, made with care for our community’s safety and autonomy.
Thanks for being here. We’ve got work to do. Let’s keep each other safe.
Acknowledgements:
- Big thanks to D and the Pirates for providing so much of the impetus to get this project started and keep it moving with a sense of urgency. Your help navigating the complications of a stubborn website template was invaluable.
- Also thanks to T, who stepped up and spent so many hours not only making sure that we reached this point, with an end product that we could trust.