Armed Queers Salt Lake City (SLC)

Background

Armed Queers Salt Lake City is a radical-left political group based in Utah. A self-described “socialist queer organization,” the outfit reportedly formed in the summer of 2020 when, in its words, “a new consciousness had drawn masses of people into the streets,” and when “we also witnessed a rise in violence and vigilantism against trans people, particularly black and brown trans women, and recognized the need to protect our community.” ^{1  2}

Activities

Armed Queers Salt Lake City primarily serves as an armed security group, claiming to have “provided defense to community members” against alleged right-wing and state violence in the years following its formation, and to have participated in LGBT, anti-war, and pro-labor activist efforts. It has called for “armed and militant protection of queer and trans communities, and all oppressed people.” ^{1  3}

In September 2023, Armed Queers SLC held an event on the campus of the University of Utah. That September, a promotional flyer for a speaking event featuring Armed Queers’ leadership appeared on campus. On the flyer, the “Q” in “Queers” was stylized as a communist hammer-and-sickle symbol, and it featured a photo of an individual with his finger on the trigger of an AK-47 rifle. The flyer read: “agitate, educate, [and] organize.” Mecha, a left-wing Hispanic identity student group that calls for “the termination of oppressive systems” and “land ownership,” hosted the event. According to the promotional material, Mecha was formed as an “anti-fascist organizing” group to combat the school’s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter. ^{4  5}

According to a 2024 interview, Armed Queers SLC pursued “political education” efforts, propagating left-wing views on Israel, criticizing “Utah pride’s corporate sellout,” and teaching “radical queer history.” ¹

Following the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025 at Utah Valley University, the group came under public scrutiny. ⁶ Armed Queers maintained an Instagram page and a Linktree profile, but after Kirk’s murder and subsequent law enforcement inquiries into Utah-based left-wing groups, Armed Queers scrubbed its social-media presence. ^{7  8  6  9 10}

Several posts on the group’s social media were made by activist Ermiya Fanaeian, whose Instagram bio read “Revolution + Trans liberation in our lifetime!” and who often promoted violent means toward pro-LGBT ends, citing the Stonewall Riots as an example in a TV interview. “Sometimes violence, protest, and really riots and those kinds of loud rebellions must take place for tangible change,” she reportedly said. ²

On February 2026, a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) showed AQ SLC founder Ermiya Fanaeian speaking about activists traveling to Cuba in order to “level up” in becoming a “brigadista” while becoming “stronger, more disciplined, and more committed” in radical organizing. She further claimed traveling to Cuba, with trips “organized by the National Network on Cuba and ICAP,” is “political education” and “internationalism in practice, while further claiming that before going to Cuba she and far-left activists “didn’t truly know what it meant to be a part of an international movement.” ¹¹

Leadership

Utah resident Ermiya Fanaeian, a “transgender woman of color” and child of Iranian immigrants, is the founder of Armed Queers Salt Lake City. The New York Post reported that Fanaeian has been described as a “Trans liberation and Feminist political organizer” who has worked on transgender youth issues including organizing for the criminalization of conversion therapy in Utah and supporting research into the alleged oppression of transgender people at the hands of the state. The Post report also identified Fanaeian as working with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on a transgender youth in education campaign. ^{12  2}

Fanaeian received a the “7 for 17” award from Utah Global Diplomacy (UGD), a nonprofit organization that collaborated with the U.S. State Department to “promote citizen diplomacy and international exchange in Utah,” in 2022. Following the murder of Kirk and revelations about UGD’s award to Fanaeian, the State Department announced it “completely severed and dismantled” its ties with UGD. ^{2  3}

Fanaeian was brought on stage with then-presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) at a Salt Lake City campaign event in April 2019. That same year, she opened a chapter of David Hogg’s March For Our Lives gun-control group. In 2020, Fanaeian founded the Salt Lake City chapter of the national Pink Pistols activist group which aims to “arm LGBTQ people.” ²

Pink Pistols’ distanced itself from Fanaeian, stating that she split away from the group a year after she formed the Salt Lake City chapter. “While initially welcomed, she began using the Pink Pistols name to promote broader political issues, violating our rule that we are a single-issue organization devoted solely to the safe, legal, and responsible use of firearms by the queer community,” the group wrote in a statement on the murder of Charlie Kirk. It noted that Fanaeian renamed her chapter, “Armed Queers Salt Lake City,” and that Armed Queers was a standalone organization. ^{2  13}

In 2022, acting as a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Fanaeian co-founded a student reading group at the University of Utah to study left-wing revolutionary philosophy and the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. “The overall goal of this group is to study together and learn about revolutionary measures of the past, but also [how to] prevent attacks on our communities at the school,” group co-founder Cameron Haskins said. ^{2  14}