A simple way to honor the five killed at Club Q
In the wake of the Club Q shooting, there have been makeshift shrines to the people who died, candlelight vigils, relief funds set up, and lots of expressions of thoughts and prayers.
Such a show of support is comforting and welcomed by people closely affected by the unspeakable horror of a mass shooting. We saw it after Columbine, Aurora, Boulder, and now twice for Colorado Springs.
However, this time, let’s take our support beyond the realm of the usual responses to the continuing tragedy of gun violence in our state.
The Department of Homeland Security has put out an alert that warns of heightened domestic terror threats to the LGBTQ+ community by people who are motivated by violent ideologies and thus pose a persistent, lethal danger. Danger is also coming from rightwing politicians who want to put transgender people back in the closet with incredibly insensitive and regressive antitrans laws.
If something good can come out of the Club Q killings, let it be open- hearted Coloradans actively becoming allies of genderqueer Americans.
Civil rights and trans rights attorney Mia Yamamoto says every community that is oppressed must have allies in order to succeed in obtaining justice.
“Allies who may have to be convinced of the justness of the cause,” she noted.
One thing to do to kickstart becoming an ally is to learn transgender and gender- diverse terminology.
Consciously working to know how gender- expansive people identify themselves is a quick and easy way for everyone who espouses diversity and inclusion to broaden their horizons.
Think of your effort as honoring the five people who were killed and the 22 who were injured in the senseless attack.
Undoubtedly, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez surprised many Coloradans when he made a point to use the correct pronouns of each deceased victim.
“We respect all of our community members, including our LGBTQ community,” he said. “Therefore, we will be identifying the victims by how they identified themselves and how their families have loved and identified them.”
Sable Schultz, manager of transgender services at The Center on Colfax in Denver, says sharing your pronouns and checking with others about what pronouns they use help to build welcoming spaces for transgender and gender- expansive people.
Schultz says using the right pronouns takes practice. You don’t have to be perfect. Even she has slipped up.
“I’ve had friends and loved ones come out to me as trans, and I have made mistakes about their pronouns and their names soon after they’ve come out,” said Schultz.
Another step towards fostering understanding is becoming acquainted with the array of terms for gender expression and gender identification.
It’s probably safe to say that most folks have heard the identifiers transgender man, transgender woman, and non- binary.
But since the terminology is constantly growing and evolving, third gender, genderqueer, intersex, pangender, and twospirit may be among the lesserknown expressions.
The advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, has a glossary that’s updated regularly on its website, hrc. org.
So does PFLAG, a group founded in 1973 that advocates for LGBTQ+ people and their families at pflag. org.
The National Center for Transgender Equality is another resource at transequality. org. If it feels like a daunting task to learn the myriad of terms, just remember, there will not be a test.
The goal is to remind ourselves that every human being has value and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- something that an angry, hate- filled person deprived five innocent people of at Club Q in a vicious act of violence.