Patrons of gay club subdue gunman after he opens fire
Suspect is in custody after 5 are killed and 25 injured at Club Q in Colorado Springs.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A gunman who opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado — killing five and injuring 25 — was subdued by “heroic” patrons who hit him with his own gun, authorities said.
The attacker’s motive wasn’t immediately clear, but the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
The gunman, who was identified by police as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, opened fire at Club Q in Colorado Springs just before midnight Saturday, police said.
He was quickly taken into custody when police arrived a few minutes after receiving a call, authorities said.
The suspect used an AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon in the shooting, the Associated Press reported. A handgun and ammunition magazines were also recovered at the scene, authorities said.
A man with the same name and age as Aldrich was involved in June 2021 in a standoff with El Paso County Sheriff’s deputies who responded to reports of a bomb threat at a home in suburban Colorado Springs. Authorities found no explosives, and the Gazette in Colorado Springs reported that prosecutors did not pursue any charges. Authorities have not confirmed that the two men are the same.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Persistent efforts by North Carolina’s Legislature to restrict transgender lives cast a shadow over Callum Bradford as he grew up in Chapel Hill, following him through his journey of self-discovery, coming out and obtaining the gender-affirming healthcare the 16-year-old credits as lifesaving.
After Republicans swept most state-level elections this month, Callum and other trans and gender-nonconforming residents are bracing for the possibility of new or reintroduced legislation targeting LGBTQ people, and especially trans people, that could survive Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto if Republicans wrangle enough supporters.
“Before I came out, I was thinking about those laws, and I was like, I know I’m male, but do I really want to deal with this?” Callum said. “Can’t I just go back to when I was innocent and untouched by hate?”
Statehouse victories for Republicans around the country in this month’s midterm elections resonated for trans people as they marked Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international observance honoring victims of anti-transgender violence and raising awareness of the threats trans people face.
The reverberations are particularly intense in North Carolina, which provided the blueprint for the present wave of nationwide antitrans legislation when, in 2016, legislators passed a bill to restrict transgender access to public restrooms and prevent municipalities from enacting new anti-discrimination ordinances.
The resulting backlash hit North Carolina’s economy as sports tournaments, businesses and conventions cut ties, costing the state hundreds of millions in revenue before the policy was rolled back in 2017 and settled in federal court in 2019.
For Callum, who had not yet come out, it was the first of many bills that eroded his confidence and exposed him to the harsh reality for transgender youths, who have been primary political targets this year as the United States saw a record number of anti-trans bills — more than 145 introduced across 34 states, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Republicans gained a supermajority in the North Carolina Senate and fell one seat short of a supermajority in the House. The outcome narrowly preserves Cooper’s veto power if Democrats approach override votes as a united front.
But GOP House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters Nov. 9 that he views House Republicans as having “a governing supermajority” because some moderate Democrats have voted with them in the past.
Although Moore said the party hasn’t solidified its priorities for the long session beginning in January, Senate leader Phil Berger is reconsidering a “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which passed the Senate this year but didn’t get a vote in the House before the session ended.
Touted by GOP senators as a toolkit to help parents oversee their children’s education and healthcare, the bill included provisions to bar instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in K-3 curricula and require schools to alert parents before any change in the name or pronoun used for their child. Cooper condemned the measure and likened it to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
“As far as a Parental Bill of Rights, parents have made it clear that they are not happy with some of the things that are going on in our public schools,” Berger said.
Bethany Corrigan, executive director of Transcend Charlotte, a service provider for gender-diverse adults in Mecklenburg County, said the mandated reporting aspect of such bills constitutes “forced outing,” which can put LGBTQ youths at greater risk for housing instability, mental health crises and violence.
Corrigan said it’s not just explicit anti-LGBTQ bills that might affect trans rights in North Carolina. They said further abortion restrictions, which GOP leaders have expressed interest in imposing next year, could limit access to genderaffirming healthcare.
“Bodily autonomy being threatened for folks in terms of reproductive healthcare — where does it end?” Corrigan said, noting that abortion policy affects trans and cisgender people alike.
Callum, who has been taking testosterone for a year and a half, said he worries his treatment access could be limited. His father began researching apartments in Virginia before the midterms to give his son a backup plan. The teen is now weighing whether North Carolina will be a safe place to attend college.
Among the motions lawmakers introduced last session but didn’t pass was a bill limiting medical treatments for transgender people younger than 21, and another restricting the ability of transgender women and girls to compete in school sports. Mitchell County Republican Sen. Ralph Hise, sponsor of the former, did not respond to messages inquiring whether he plans to reintroduce the bill.
Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead said the governor will continue advocating for transgender North Carolinians, who too often “face inexcusable and unacceptable violence.”
In neighboring Tennessee, the GOP-controlled Legislature announced after election day that its first priority will be to ban medical providers from altering a child’s hormones or performing surgeries that enable them to present as a gender different from their biological sex.
Guidance from the World Professional Assn. for Transgender Health says youths experiencing gender dysphoria can start taking hormones — estrogen or testosterone — at age 14. As of this year, it lowered the recommended minimum age for some surgeries, including breast removal for trans boys, to age 15, and genital surgeries such as womb or testicle removal to age 17.
Katherine Turk, a historian of women, gender and sexuality at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the recent surge in anti-trans legislation follows a historical pattern of pushback after marginalized groups gain visibility and political momentum.
“Increased visibility often brings increased vulnerability,” Corrigan said. “Several states that have introduced these harmful bills have also seen elevated rates of fatal violence against trans folks, especially Black trans women.”
According to a new Human Rights Campaign report, at least 32 trans and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year.
Events for the Transgender Day of Remembrance were planned throughout the world Sunday against the backdrop of a fatal mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado the night before.
Kori Hennessey, education and programs director at the LGBT Center of Raleigh, had already organized a Sunday evening vigil outside the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh.
“With every attack on our community, physical attacks but also legislative, our supporters become more outspoken,” said Hennessey, who is nonbinary. “We’re hopeful it’ll happen again. In the meantime, we’ll be at the governor’s doorstep reminding him that we’re here, and we’re worth fighting for.”