State Department cuts ties with Armed Queers-affiliated NGO

The FBI has been investigating whether trans-activist groups and other radicals had foreknowledge of the Charlie Kirk assassination plot. A law enforcement source confirmed to the New York Post that one of the radical leftist groups that investigators have been looking at is Armed Queers Salt Lake City.

This scrutiny of Armed Queers has evidently rattled some cages, prompting the State Department to take decisive action.

The radical group

Armed Queers SLC is a radical socialist outfit that stated in its now-deleted Instagram group that it was a “revolutionary LGBTQ organization dedicated to the defense, and success” of supposedly oppressed peoples.

‘We are taking aggressive action.’

A membership form for the socialist group identifies six principles, including “the armed and militant protection of queer and trans communities” and “trans liberation from the gender binary and biological essentialism.”

The group told Voyage Utah in a July 2024 interview, “We have organized, educated, and agitated within LGBTQ, anti-imperialist, and labor movements towards a socialist future.”

In addition to referring to training sessions in Cuba for its members “as a part of a yearly May Day Brigade,” the group has shared various radical sentiments and quotations on social media in recent weeks.

RELATED: Explosive alleged text messages between suspected Kirk killer and his transgender roommate obliterate liberal narrative

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

For example, in a post titled “Black August,” the group shared a quote from George L. Jackson, a Marxist thug who was convicted of armed robbery and accused of murdering a prison guard, that read, “Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

Following Kirk’s assassination, allegedly by a leftist with a trans-identifying boyfriend, Armed Queers began scrubbing and deleting its social media profiles.

The radical

Ermiya Fanaeian is a male pretending to be a female who as of last year indicated that he was an “active organizer” of Armed Queers and a student at the University of Utah. Where Armed Queers is concerned, Fanaeian is, however, apparently far more than just an organizer.

The LGBT gun rights group Pink Pistols confirmed on Monday that Fanaeian — who was among the LGBT activists who supported Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign in 2019 and at one point allegedly appeared on stage with the senator — was a University of Utah student who ran the Salt Lake City Pink Pistols chapter from 2020 to 2021.

“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,” Pink Pistols said in a statement. “In 2021, her group and Pink Pistols parted ways, and she renamed her organization Armed Queers of Salt Lake City.”

It turns out that Pink Pistols is not the only organization that has distanced itself from Fanaeian.

Blaze News has reached out to Sen. Warren’s office for comment.

The NGO

Utah Global Diplomacy is an NGO that has hosted international exchange programs of the State Department to welcome foreign nationals to Utah for short-term professional and cultural experiences. The outfit is supposedly guided by the idea that citizens have a responsibility to “help shape U.S. foreign relations ‘one hand-shake at a time.'”

The famous analyst DataRepublican highlighted on Monday that Fanaeian, who indicated in a now-deleted 2019 student profile that he was “originally from Iran,” was recognized by the nonprofit organization Utah Global Diplomacy in September 2022 with its 7 for 17 award.

RELATED: Rubio puts visa holders who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death on high alert

Photo by Franklin Jacome/Agencia Press South/Getty Images

Although Utah Global Diplomacy scrubbed the relevant award page and as of Wednesday had password-protected its entire site, an archived UGD page still refers to the radical’s receipt of the award, as does an Aug. 25, 2022, post on Instagram.

The award “recognizes young Utahns working to achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while exemplifying Utah Global Diplomacy’s core values of respect, social responsibility, and open dialogue,” says an archived page. “Each 7 for 17 award winner must demonstrate a commitment to meeting one (or multiple) of the 17 United National Sustainable Development Goals through novel, innovative, or unique means.”

The radical’s bio on the archived award page states:

Ermiya Fanaeian is a Trans liberation and Feminist political organizer whose work has included organizing around the abortion struggle, working with the ACLU to secure the rights of Trans youth in the education system, organizing to criminalize conversion therapy in the state of Utah, working on electoral campaigns, and creating research studying the conditions of gender oppressed people at the hands of state institutions.

DataRepublican noted, “SLC Armed Queers is not ‘adjacent’ to the honor that Ermiya Fanaeian got from Utah Global Diplomacy. Utah Global Diplomacy specifically awarded her for her work with trans people, of which SLC Armed Queers is key. This may be why they scrubbed their pages.”

Blaze News has reached out to Utah Global Diplomacy for comment.

The breakup

A State Department source confirmed to Blaze News that any ties to Utah Global Diplomacy, “which existed indirectly via an external implementor, are being completely severed and dismantled.”

This could prove greatly consequential for the NGO, as the bulk of its funding takes the form of government grants.

“We are taking aggressive action to ensure that any implementor that has any relationship whatsoever with this radical organization is completely cut off from any State Department engagement,” said the source.

Secretary Marco Rubio revealed this week that the State Department has also been revoking visas of individuals who have celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

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