After the Colorado Springs attack, LGBTQ people are furious at the rhetoric targeting them
Colorado Springs locals and national activists said rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric made the shooting at Club Q feel horribly predictable.
Elizabeth Pixie is angry.
She’s angry that her friend Daniel Aston died in a shooting at Club Q. She’s angry that she had to move to Colorado from Texas because she felt unsafe as a trans woman there. And she’s angry with people who have spread anti-LGBTQ rhetoric online — some for years — leading up to the shooting.
Elizabeth Pixie remembers her friend Daniel Aston, who died in the shooting, as an "absolute sweetheart."Courtesy Elizabeth Pixie / Snapchat“They can call it religion, they can call it politics, they can call it saving people,” Pixie, who lives in Colorado Springs, said. “Whatever fluff or s--- they want to sprinkle on it, they can do that, but at the end of the day, these people are murderers.”
Late Saturday, a suspected shooter entered the LGBTQ club and opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle, killing Aston and four other people and injuring at least 19 others. The suspect was apprehended by police after being injured in the attack and is in the hospital. While authorities have not shared a motive, the suspect is facing five counts of first-degree murder and bias-motivated or hate crimes.
Pixie isn’t alone in her fury. While contending with heartbreak, other Colorado Springs locals and national activists also described being angry, and they attribute that rage to the wave of anti-LGBTQ bills proposed by conservative representatives in dozens of states, a rise in anti-trans violence and a failure by some of the media to accurately report on it all.
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