Massacre at LGBT+ club follows wave of threats

Colorado shooting comes after US drag venues targeted s

- ALEX WOODWARD

Moments after he entered, a 22-year-old gunman named Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly fired into an 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 Mr Aldrich 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 storytelling 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.