River T. & the Women’s Commission of the American Party of Labor–
A Wyoming felony case could sentence Ríhanna Kelver, a transgender woman, to 15 years in prison for drawing a gun on a man who attacked her, in what was a clear, reasonable act of self defense. In the “justice” system of our patriarchal society, women are more frequently denied Stand Your Ground defenses than men, and are charged and sentenced as violent criminals when they have every justification to fear for – and defend – their lives.
Around 10 p.m. on Sep. 13, 2025, Kelver was verbally accosted by a group of men, one of whom physically assaulted her, outside her place of employment, an inclusive Laramie bar called the Crowbar & Grill. The attacker, initially reported as “S.D.” or “Durham,” shoved Kelver to the ground outside the bar after shouting slurs at her. Kelver then drew a legally-owned handgun and racked its slide, at which point the attacker backed off without Kelver ever firing her weapon. According to her, the safety was on and her finger was not on the trigger. Despite the fact she was not the instigator and did not fire her gun, it is now Kelver, not her attacker, who is being threatened with prison.
When speaking to the Red Phoenix, Kelver corroborated a report identifying the attacker as Scott Wayne Durham, a Patriot Front member from Aurora, CO. First unmasked as Patryck “Scott” Durham, he has posted fascist, white supremacist, and Patriot Front propaganda since high school, operating under the online handles “Kevin – CO,” “Fedposter,” “WallaceCarden,” and numerous others. Durham was barred from his high school graduation after being unmasked in 2022, and in 2023 left enrollment at the University of Colorado Boulder after a flyering campaign alerted students to his history. On June 10, 2025 he changed his name (p. 26) to Scott Wayne Durham and is now listed as an honor roll student at the University of Wyoming, located in Laramie.
Kelver’s case should be an open-and-shut self-defense case: she was outnumbered, physically assaulted, and her gun—a teal SCCY .380 subcompact pistol—is entirely legal in the state of Wyoming, a state that doesn’t require a permit to carry or purchase handguns. Kelver, born in Littleton, CO, has lived around guns her whole life, and even has marksman and sharpshooter qualifications from the National Rifle Association. She does not usually carry, and was only armed the day of the incident as a precaution after a stalking incident which led to a man being thrown out of the Crowbar. Not only did she not fire, she was the only one injured. Even if she had fired, self defense is protected in the state of Wyoming. Yet, she has not only been charged with aggravated assault, but also “possession of a deadly weapon with unlawful intent,” under the very law that should protect her.
Though at this time there is no proof that Laramie Police or the prosecution are aware of Durham’s fascist affiliations, ignorance does not change the facts: During a period of extreme violence against trans women, a transgender Native American woman defended herself against bigoted aggression, and the state chose to prosecute her rather than the assailant.
The attack came in the middle of the media firestorm surrounding the Aug. 27 Annunciation Church shooting and the Sep. 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk, which reactionary media outlets leapt to blame on the transgender community. The framing of transgender people as a threat to public safety has fueled brigading of online queer spaces and multiple real-life attacks against transgender women. Days before Kirk’s death, the Department of Justice even floated the idea of banning transgender gun ownership entirely. This idea has resurfaced recently with the ATF threatening to require gun purchases to register with sex assigned at birth, forcing future transgender gun buyers to out themselves or face criminal penalties.
The original firestorm has long since died down, but transgender workers are under threat once again. Since the striking down of conversion therapy bans on Transgender Day of Visibility there have been thirteen reported murders of transgender people (primarily women) in the US, as well as a disappearance that still remains inconclusive. This is already more in two months than occurred in the preceding four, and it is likely an incomplete list. Even the extremely high-profile femicide of Juniper Blessing is still not being treated as a hate crime. In the midst of this climate, Ríhanna Kelver is charged with two felonies for fending off a fascist.
“Despite the high prevalence of female murder victimization in the United States, the U.S. lags behind other nations in defining and documenting gender-related female homicides,” according to the NIH, and homicide is the sixth-leading cause of death for Indigenous women under the age of 44. Taken in tandem with the aforementioned “post-Kirk” anti-trans firestorm, it’s no wonder Kelver felt that her life was in immediate danger.
She has not even been afforded the ability to raise funds for her legal defense. Kelver told the Red Phoenix that she’s been removed from crowdfunding platforms for “fundraising for violent crimes.” Queer people in general and transgender people in particular have been increasingly affected by destruction of financial lifelines. This puts an already vulnerable woman in an even more precarious position.
It might be easy from here to spin some grand conspiracy, but the fact is that there doesn’t need to be one.
Capitalism requires continual reproduction of the workforce in order for the ruling class to sustain its parasitic relation to the exploited majority. Whether it’s for propagation of new workers or domestic labor to support existing ones, it is directly within the interests of the capitalist class to promote and propagate misogynistic rhetoric that maintains the subservience of women to the interests of capital. It is therefore an inevitability of the capitalist system to produce cultures of bigotry and hatred towards any movement or concept that threatens that relation, sowing discord among the working class and impeding the revolutionary liberation of all women.
With our reactionary ruling class embracing the turn to fascism, such violence against women serves their ends. So long as the workers are turned against each other, the capitalists don’t need to lift a finger. The brownshirts will handle it on their own.
As the American economy continues its disintegration, attacks against the working class will only continue to intensify, and those attacks are not only coming from Republicans. Democrats are abandoning transgender rights, with eight House Democrats voting with Republicans on a bill that would force teachers nationwide to out trans students. Violence against transgender people benefits them just as it benefits the Republicans. By allowing transphobic violence and rhetoric to go unchecked, they hope to turn workers against each other so that we cannot stand united against our exploiters.
The working masses of the United States are overwhelmingly in favor of trans rights, but passive support does not translate into concrete action. With the capitalist state and its media apparatus attacking the very right of transgender people to self defense, all working-class people must stand strong for our trans comrades. We must unmask fascists like Scott Durham and demand accountability for state actors who protect them. We must continue to put pressure on the courts to uphold Kelver’s innocence in standing her ground. We cannot let the state put her into even greater danger in a men’s prison where she will be vulnerable to sexual assault and other forms of violence by inmates and corrections officers alike.
Class-conscious workers everywhere must be ready, willing, and able to intervene against fascist violence should the need arise. Through iron and undivided solidarity, we must resist oppression, for an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us!
Justice for Ríhanna Kelver!
(Kelver has requested anyone wishing to donate find her here)