Mass shooting at LGBT+ club follows wave of threats to drag performers and venues

A gunman brought violence into a nightclub known as a safe haven to the LGBT+ community in Colorado Springs. The violence follows an increase in attacks, harassment and legislation aimed at drag events, Alex Woodward reports

Mourners Ren Kurgis and Jessie Pacheco visit a memorial for victims of the Club Q attack on 20 November (AFP via Getty)

Moments after he entered, a 22-year-old gunman allegedly fired into a LGBT+ club in Colorado Springs, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others.

The attack inside the drag venue and club, which has served as safe haven for the city’s LGBT+ community for more than two decades, follows a wave of politicised harassment aimed at drag performers and the venues that host them.

Law enforcement officials have not yet discussed or revealed a motive in the attack at Club Q, in which the suspected gunman fired multiple rounds from an AR-15-style rifle immediately upon entering on 19 November.

LGBT+ advocates and public officials condemned the mass shooting as an act of hate-driven violence, born from “America’s toxic mix of bigotry and absurdly easy access to firearms,” according to a statement from Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings.

The proliferation of mis- and disinformation about LGBT+ people has fuelled the rise in hate both online and offline. Advocates have repeatedly warned that online hate will pave the way for offline violence.

In June, law enforcement arrested 31 members of the white nationalist Patriot Front group near a Pride event in Idaho. That same month, members of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys gang stormed into a drag queen story hour in California while yelling homophobic and transphobic remarks. The attack is being investigated as a hate crime.

Later that month, a man carrying a rifle outside a drag story-telling event in Nevada forced families to seek cover. And the same day, a group of men protesting a drag event in Maryland were escorted out of the building by library security. Other drag events across the US have been cancelled due to fear of harassment or worse.

The protests and attacks come as right-wing activists and GOP lawmakers, including members of Congress, turn their focus to drag events and LGBT+ people in a crusade against allegations of “grooming” used to falsely smear LGBT+ people and advocates as paedophiles.

Republican lawmakers in several states have introduced legislation to bar minors from drag shows, falsely linking them to sex acts and suggesting that child services should intervene.

Meanwhile, far-right activist groups and organisations like the Proud Boys, motivated by transphobia, homophobia and misogyny, have interrupted popular drag queen story hours at libraries, falsely accusing performers of “grooming” young children.

Right-wing personalities with influential social media channels, such as Libs of Tik Tok, have repeatedly targeted LGBT+ people and communities, including drag events, by advertising their performances to followers who then harass the participants.

The account, which has more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter alone, posted about Colorado drag performers within hours after Saturday night’s shooting. On 15 November, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, interacted positively with the channel.

In Florida, a Republican state lawmaker is proposing legislation that would make bringing a child to a drag show a felony that could “terminate” parental rights.

Mourners placed Pride flags and flowers at a makeshift memorial (AFP via Getty)

Earlier this week, officials in Texas introduced several bills targeting transgender people and drag performances, including a bill that would classify any business that hosts drag shows as a “sexually- oriented businesses” and defining a performer as anyone whose gender identity is different than the one assigned to them at birth.

Critics have warned that the bill essentially criminalises transgender people for existing in public.

Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic and a former staff attorney at the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, said that the bill would define drag as “essentially any trans person performing at all.”

“A trans actor in a musical singing would suddenly make it ‘drag’ and thus result in the play venue being labelled a ‘sexually-oriented business,’” she wrote earlier this week.

Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who offered her prayers to victims and families targeted in the Club Q attack, has also approvingly shared posts from Libs of Tik Tok, mocked LGBT+ teachers and taken aim at drag events in her social media posts.

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused her of playing a “major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common-sense gun safety laws.”

“You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this,” she added. “Look inward and change.”

Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, said that “there are no words that will undo the horror that continues to devastate our communities”.

“Our safe spaces continue to become places of grief, trauma, and sorrow due to gun violence, mass shootings and the general disrespect for our human condition,” she said in a statement. “It is imperative to protect every single person in our communities – especially our most vulnerable, on which gun violence has taken an enormous toll.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), said “you can draw a straight line from the false and vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists and amplified across social media to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to the dozens of attacks on our community.”

“That this mass shooting took place on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we honour the memory of the trans people killed the prior year, deepens the trauma and tragedy for all in the LGBTQ community,” she said in a statement on Sunday morning.

At least 300 transgender and gender non-conforming people in the US were killed within the last decade, according to a recent report from the Human Rights Campaign. Those deaths include 32 so far this year alone.

Nearly one out of five of any type of hate crime is motivated by anti-LGBT+ discrimination, according to the report.

“Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQI+ communities across our nation, and threats of violence are increasing,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Sunday. “We must drive out the inequities that contribute to violence against LGBTQI+ people. We cannot and must not tolerate hate.”

In a separate statement recognising Transgender Day of Remembrance, the president said he is urging state leaders “to combat the disturbing wave of discriminatory state laws targeting young transgender Americans – legislation that hurts young people who aren’t hurting anyone.”

This year, state lawmakers introduced at least 344 measures that target LGBT+ people, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Twenty-five passed.

Most of the legislation proposes criminalising gender-affirming care, banning transgender children from participating in youth sports or prohibiting transgender students and school staff from using bathrooms consistent with their gender.

That record-breaking legislative campaign – fuelled by influential conservative Christian groups and a “parental rights” agenda that dominated Republicans’ 2022 campaigns – also joins a sweeping legislative effort to restrict classroom speech, school curriculums and library materials involving issues related to gender, sexuality and race and racism.

Tyler Johnston, right, comforts his friend Joshua Thurman at a memorial (AP)

Hoax bomb threats to children’s hospitals that provide gender-affirming care have also followed scrutiny from Republican officials, far-right influencers and anti-trans activists.

Despite attempts from federal law enforcement and hospitals to debunk statements and articles shared by far-right influencers, false claims about gender-affirming care and how hospitals and health providers treat young people have persisted across social media.

Alabama and Arkansas have sought to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors, but those measures have been blocked in court as legal challenges play out.

Florida health officials have barred Medicaid recipients from accessing gender-affirming healthcare, joining at least 10 other states where medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy are denied coverage under the federal health programme for low-income patients.

The state also has moved to block transgender youth from accessing that care – including social transitioning, like changing clothes or asking to use different pronouns – by implementing guidelines that fly against those from leading medical groups and mainstream health organisations.

On 20 November, Club Q was scheduled to host an all-ages drag brunch to recognise Transgender Day of Remembrance “with a variety of gender identities and performance styles.”

Instead, the club’s owners are mourning with the community.

Nic Grzecka said that the club’s community came together to mourn after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the deadliest attack against LGBT+ people in US history.

“We had this vigil, standing in our parking lot,” he told The New York Times, “never thinking this was going to happen in our community.”