This year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance – a day set aside to honor the memory of trans victims of anti-trans violence – was marred by yet another mass shooting in the United States, this one targeting an LGBTQ space, Club Q, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
It is not yet clear whether the shooter intended to target trans people specifically, but among the five people slaughtered in the attack were bartenders Daniel Aston, a trans man, Derrick Rump, a gay man, and customer Kerry Loving, a trans woman. The names of the other two murder victims are Raymond Green Vance and Ashley Paugh.
That the shooter intended to target trans people seems likely, however, given the anti-trans frenzy the American Right has whipped up over the last few years and the fact that Club Q had plans to honor Transgender Day of Remembrance with a drag brunch and an evening show “with a variety of gender identities and performance styles”, according to reporting by Reuters.
