Ríhanna Kelver drew a pistol, kept the safety on, and never fired. She was alone, outnumbered, and had just been shoved to the ground by a man shouting transphobic slurs. She now faces up to 15 years in prison. The man who assaulted her has not been charged. Wyoming's stand-your-ground law applies to everyone, it seems, except the people who need it most.

What happened outside the Crowbar & Grill

Last September, Ríhanna Kelver arrived for her bartending shift at the Crowbar & Grill in Laramie, Wyoming. Before she even made it through the door, a man across the street began shouting in her direction. Homophobic slurs, then transphobic ones. Then he walked towards her and shoved her hard enough to injure her tailbone. She was on the ground. He was not alone.

She drew a pistol from her bag, chambered a round, and pointed it at the man who had pushed her. She kept the safety on. She never fired. He and his companions retreated.

Ríhanna is 28. She had been carrying the pistol because she had previously experienced threats from a patron at her workplace. She is, by any reasonable account, a responsible gun owner who responded to a physical assault without discharging her weapon. The surveillance footage confirms everything. She was alone, outnumbered, already hurt, and facing multiple aggressors.

The man who shoved her, referred to only as S. Durham in court records, has not been charged with anything.

The law that was supposed to protect her

Wyoming's stand-your-ground statute says that people who are lawfully present do not have to retreat before using force to protect themselves from imminent death or serious bodily harm. The aggravated assault charge she now faces explicitly exempts situations where displaying a firearm is "reasonably necessary" for self-defence. Ríhanna's attorney argues, entirely credibly, that she falls squarely within both provisions.

Albany County Circuit Court Judge Robert Sanford disagreed. He agreed with the prosecutor that there was probable cause to charge her, and so the case goes to a full jury trial, where Ríhanna must convince twelve people that her fear was reasonable. If she cannot, she faces up to 15 years.

Wyoming adopted its stand-your-ground law in 2018. It extended permitless carry in 2021. The state has been enthusiastic about expanding the right to armed self-defence as a matter of individual liberty. Ríhanna Kelver exercised that right, without pulling the trigger, and is now looking at a felony conviction.

This is not the first time the pattern has played out

The Slate piece draws a comparison that I think belongs right next to Ríhanna's story. In Florida in 2018, Michael Drejka, a white man, initiated a confrontation over a parking space, was shoved to the ground by Markeis McGlockton, who was defending his family, and then shot McGlockton dead. Drejka was not initially charged at all because of Florida's stand-your-ground law. He was eventually prosecuted and convicted of manslaughter after video showed McGlockton already backing away when Drejka fired.

Drejka discharged his weapon and killed a man. He received the initial benefit of the doubt. Ríhanna discharged nothing and is charged with two felonies.

And the pattern goes further back than that. In 2011, CeCe McDonald, a Black trans woman in Minnesota, defended herself with a pair of scissors during a racist and transphobic attack. One of her assailants died. Despite evidence that she had been attacked first, she accepted a plea deal and served 19 months in a men's prison. That same year, Ky Peterson, a young Black trans man in Georgia, shot and killed the man who was raping him. Peterson was sentenced to 20 years and served nine. Two people who survived violence. Two prosecutions. The people who attacked them did not live to face the same scrutiny, or in Durham's case, have not faced any scrutiny at all.

Rights that only work for some people are not rights

I keep returning to one sentence from the Slate article, because it names something I have seen play out in healthcare, in law, in family courts, and in social services over many years: once we decide that some citizens must clear a higher bar before they are permitted to protect themselves, rights stop functioning as rights. They become permissions, granted or withheld by whoever is doing the interpreting.

Gun rights advocates have long argued that firearms are the great equaliser: that a smaller, more vulnerable person can survive a dangerous encounter because of access to a weapon. If that argument means anything at all, it means Ríhanna Kelver. She was physically smaller, alone, already on the ground, and she chose not to fire. She did, by the logic of the pro-gun movement's own rhetoric, exactly what a responsible armed citizen is supposed to do. And she is the one facing prison.

The man who crossed the street to assault her is not.

What this tells us is not really about firearms. It is about who the law imagines when it pictures a person deserving of protection. Trans women are not that person, not automatically, not in Laramie, not in the building where Judge Sanford presides. The law extends its protection provisionally and then withdraws it when the person asking for it makes some people uncomfortable. That is not equal protection. It is equal protection presented as such, with a very specific guest list.

What I hope for Ríhanna

I hope the jury sees the footage, hears the facts, and returns her to her life. I hope her attorney's argument prevails, because it should. I hope the man who shoved her is asked, at some point, to account for what he did.

And I hope that Ríhanna Kelver, who has already been through far more than anyone should have to endure for the act of showing up to work, knows that people are watching, that her story is being told, and that what happened to her is not ordinary or acceptable, however many times the system treats it as though it is.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and advocate for trans rights and gender diversity.