Mia Inez Adams, 66, poses for a portrait in front of the “Release the Fear” melted-weapons sculpture Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Phoenix. The statue, created by Robert John Miley, is made of confiscated weapons intended to raise awareness of gun violence. (Photo by Lorenzo Gomez/Cronkite News)
PHOENIX – Word spread fast of a shooting threat made toward Cruisin’ 7th, a gay bar located just outside the Melrose District — an area with a high concentration of LGBTQ+ businesses. Mia Inez Adams, 66, was one of the first to receive the news the afternoon of Sept. 17 after a friend shared a statement from Phoenix PD. Without hesitation, the long-time performer and resident of Phoenix leaped into action to inform her community.
The suspect, Treven Michael Gokey, 49, was upset by political events and wanted to “send a message to the far left,” police said.
“Radical left violence breeds a far-right response,” Gokey told police, specifically citing incidents such as Charlie Kirk’s assassination and a recent shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, according to court documents. “Transgenderism should be eradicated from public society.”
The threat did not come as a surprise in Phoenix’s LGBTQ+ community. Since Kirk’s assassination, the community has felt beleaguered in the face of increased rhetoric online and from political leaders around the country who many believe have used the killing to engender hostility against them, and the trans community in particular. Some have even hired private security at their businesses.
Some of Gokey’s comments to police echoed language used by some conservative pundits and Republican leaders since Kirk’s killing. Gokey told officers that he wasn’t happy to harm people but that he felt it was necessary.
“Charlie Kirk was a martyr,” he told police according to court documents, adding that he wanted to be a martyr for Kirk.
Just two days later at a memorial for Kirk, President Donald Trump praised the slain activist as a “great American hero” and “our greatest evangelist for American liberty.”
“He’s a martyr now for American freedom,” he added.
Adams, who is a transgender woman, says she is not surprised by the threats.
“We’re the low-hanging fruit,” she said. “We’re an easy target.”
The sentiments rouse old feelings for Adams, who lived through a time when police raids on LGBTQ+ bars were common and targeted violence was to be expected.
The entrance to the Melrose District, an area with a high concentration of LGBTQ+ businesses, is shown Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Phoenix. The one-mile stretch is also known as “the curve” for its unique bend in an otherwise grid-style city. (Photo by Lorenzo Gomez/Cronkite News)
“I experienced things that I thought I would never experience again, but I can see the potential of it happening. I can see things ramping up,” she said. “From the moment Charlie Kirk was shot, the immediate response was retaliation.”
The threat rattled the typically vibrant community where, nearby just days later, tens of thousands of people from around the country – including the president and some of the biggest names in conservative media – gathered for Kirk’s memorial to mourn the conservative activist and media personality’s death. Early reports following his assassination from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives suggested that ammunition used to kill Kirk was engraved with “transgender and anti-fascist ideology.”
Authorities later found that Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect charged in Kirk’s death, planned the attack out of anger for Kirk’s anti-trans stances. Robinson had a transgender partner to whom he sent incriminating messages, officials said
“I’ve had enough of this hatred,” he wrote, according to officials. “Some hate can’t be negotiated.”
Since Kirk’s death last week, many prominent conservative figures have made comments condemning transgender people. A video of South Carolina representative Nancy Mace showed her attacking the trans community.
“They are the most egregious most vile, violent people on earth,” she said during a press availability.
Texas congressman and former White House physician Ronny Jackson said transgender people are a “group of domestic terrorists,” in a TV interview with NewsMax. He said gender dysphoria, a psychiatric diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, should require inpatient mental health treatment.
“We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can’t let them communicate with each other,” he said. “I’m all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that’s spreading across this country.
The Department of Justice is exploring legal paths to restrict gun access for transgender individuals. The decision to do so came after a shooting last month at a Catholic school in Minneapolis that killed two children and injured 21 others, where the perpetrator, 23-year-old Robin Westman, was allegedly transgender. After reviewing the suspect’s journal entries, however, authorities said the attack may have stemmed from Westman’s struggles with mental health, which ended in a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound.
According to data collected by PolitiFact, there is no evidence that transgender people are more prone to carrying out gun violence. A 2023 FBI report showed that only one of 49 active shooter incidents was carried out by a transgender individual.
An analysis from the Williams Institute at UCLA suggests that transgender people are more likely to be victims of gun violence.
Moments before Kirk’s assassination, the conservative activist was fielding a question about transgender Americans culpability in mass shootings over the last decade.
“Too many,” he said.
But, the discourse about who is responsible for perpetuating the violence causes more harm than good, said 19-year-old ASU student Parker Powley. Powley, a trans woman and the facilitator of operations for Rainbow Coalition at ASU, said the frustration extends past just one issue.
“I think this rhetoric really just shifts the anger and frustration people feel from the struggles of their day-to-day life to a group that already suffers,” she said.
A pride flag is displayed outside of a coffee shop in the Melrose District on Wednesday, Sept 24, 2025, in Phoenix. (Photo by Lorenzo Gomez/Cronkite News)
Powley said she has been harassed, seen her friends threatened and even worried for their lives. Violence hurts everyone, she said, and believes LGBTQ+ people are usually the ones who bear the brunt of that pain.
“No one should face that violence, but really, the people that violence always affects most are the most marginalized,” Powley said.
Adams believes the increased anti-transgender attitudes are about garnering support and creating unity on the right.
“If I can make you hate the same people I hate, then it’s easier for me to sway you in other decisions as well,” she said. “So if we all have a commonality or a common enemy, then it makes it appear as if you’re on my side.”
For Powley, she hopes that the rhetoric, although demoralizing, is temporary.
“We will be able to emerge more publicly and more visibly,” she said. “And show people that we are here and we belong here just as much as they do.”
After Wednesday’s threats against Cruisin’ 7th, Adams is urging people in her community to remain vigilant and aware of their surroundings. She noted that she has refused to drink during her shows over the last couple of weeks.
“I don’t want something to occur that I’m not aware of is happening, and then it’s too late,” she said.
Although she said fear is ruminating among the Phoenix LGBTQ+ community, she hopes it can be used to their benefit.
“I think fear is an emotion that is taught, or is given to us, to be aware,” she said. “Utilize that fear. Let that fear turn into your strength.”
Ryan Myers contributed to this story.