San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bigotry fuels Colorado shooting
It’s a particularly scary moment in history to be queer in America. And that is saying something.
The LGBTQ community is no stranger to violence. In the 1960s, sanctuaries like Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin or the Stonewall in New York were frequently the site of attacks as police beat, bullied, and arrested gay and transgender people.
But in those days, the weapons wielded by attackers were mostly batons and fists. Today, it’s automatic rifles.
Saturday’s attack at Club Q in Colorado Springs was the latest in a spate of shootings going back to the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla., that killed 49 people and wounded 53 in 2016.
Five people were killed and 18 wounded in Colorado Springs, numbers that almost certainly would have been much higher if not for the brave club attendees who used their bodies and high heels to subdue the attacker.
The Bay Area joined much of the rest of the country in mourning this horrific act. But the violence feels especially personal in San Francisco.
This city has long been a refuge for the LGBTQ community. With its abundance of gay nightclubs, queer residents know all too well what community is formed in those spaces. They’re a sanctuary, and they offer asylum from the outside world, which is increasingly becoming more abusive in its bigotry.
In the past year alone, 151 bills that targeted trans people were drafted across the country. Subsequently, in some states trans kids have lost their ability to play sports, to receive lifesaving medical care, to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity and to even be raised by their own parents. More bills are coming.
At the same, vitriol born of prejudice is rising, with recently re-elected politicians like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., openly bashing queer people, guiding their followers down a path of hatred. The Colorado Springs shooting suspect’s grandfather is also an elected official; California Assembly
Vitriol born of prejudice is rising, with recently re-elected politicians such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., openly bashing queer people.
Member Randy Voepel, R-Santee (San Diego County), aligns himself with former President Donald Trump, has a history of objecting to pro-LGBTQ policies and likened the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to the American revolution.
The narratives pushed by these elected officials — and others who share their bigoted enmity — spread through social media echo chambers. There, they are consumed by troubled individuals, like the suspect in the Buffalo, N.Y., shooting that killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in May. Investigators said he told them that the radicalization that led to his attack happened online, citing Discord, 4chan and Reddit.
But troubled individuals aren’t the only ones moved by this ecosystem to act. Hate is organized, too.
In June, a group of alleged Proud Boys violently crashed a Drag Queen Story Hour at a library in San Leandro, as they have done throughout the country. The following day, members of a white nationalist group Patriot Front were almost successful in targeting a pride parade in Idaho. And now, Colorado Springs’ queer community has lost several of its beloved members on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors trans people killed in hate crimes.
While the country may have suppressed the broader menace of an authoritarian-minded red wave in the recent election, all it takes is one violent person with a gun to set back progress.
Installing metal detectors outside queer bars and spaces could perhaps help stop the next act of violence. Longstalled policy changes at the federal level to increase gun background checks and make it harder to access high-ammunition weapons would be much more effective.
Challenging the spread of hateful rhetoric, however, is even trickier.
No matter how far we come, it is likely that there will always be hate speech hurled at marginalized communities. Where there is widespread hatred, violence inevitably seems to follow.
But the war for justice has evolved over the decades. Today, there are people like Richard Fierro, the military veteran who took his wife, daughter and friends to see a drag show on a Saturday night in Colorado
Springs. When gunshots broke out, Fierro tackled the gunman, pinned him to the ground and prevented him from killing more people. As has happened so many times before, there was a trans woman using her high heel against an attacker to protect those she loved. But this time, she had company.
It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come from Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall. At this moment in history, when queer people face new, increasingly awful battles against their medical care, their identities, their freedom, their safety and their lives, they’re not alone. There are more allies fighting on the front lines than ever before.
The Chronicle stands with them.