U.S. citizens are generally entitled to all the rights outlined in the Constitution, but there are some that resonate with us particularly as individuals.

Americans who view the Second Amendment as our most essential freedom are often on the

conservative side of the political spectrum, but some are not comfortable with the idea that

transgender people also have the same right to bear arms as cisgender people.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

Although transgender people are four times more

likely to be victims of violent crime, there is no evidence that trans people commit acts of

violence at higher rates than anybody else. But after some recent high-profile shootings have

been allegedly carried out by trans people or their allies, my guest reports the debate over

who should be allowed to access firearms has taken on some

interesting new dimensions that transcend the typical left-right breakdown in how we talk

about this issue.

Grace Byron is a writer and critic and author of the book Herculine.

Her piece for the New Yorker is titled The Complexity of Transgun Ownership. Grace, welcome to

think. Thank you so much for having me. You write that the Department of Justice recently started

looking into how it might possibly deny Second Amendment rights to some or all transgender Americans.

What was the catalyst for even looking into that?

Yeah.

So there's been a few high, as you mentioned, a few high profile cases of either specifically

trans people or alleged trans allies committing acts of violence using guns.

And oftentimes there has been this sort of argument over whether or not

those people are espousing trans ideology or sometimes even engraving trans iconography into bullets.

...