Colorado's first transgender lawmaker demanded controversial GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert stop smearing the LGBTQ+ community after the fatal shooting at Club Q that left five dead and 25 wounded.
After bartender Michael Anderson gave a harrowing first-hand account of surviving the massacre to NBC reporter Steve Patterson, anchor Alicia Menendez interviewed state Rep. Brianna Titone.
"What is going through your mind?" Menendez asked. "How are you thinking about this both personally and from your perch as a legislator?"
"I woke up this morning pretty shocked and my phone didn't stop buzzing from the minute that I woke up until just recently," Titone replied.
"This is something that we've been on edge about for a long time. the rhetoric that has been coming out of a lot of places — especially from the Colorado Springs area — has been really damaging and dangerous," she explained. "A lot of people have been afraid that this is going to happen and now it is upon us, it's happening."
Menendez noted, "a motive has not yet been identified by investigators, but this comes at a time when this type of hate is rampant online. It is also echoed by people who have big platforms, some of them are elected officials themselves. What is your message to those folks at this moment?"
"We have a legislator here in Colorado who has been spewing out things for years," Titone replied.
"And I have called her out on it, Rep. Boebert, in particular, and many others. We really just want them to stop, we want them to stop with these tropes, with these dangerous things that they are saying that are perpetrating these misinformations and we just want to be left alone in peace" she explained.
"Anytime that these myths and tropes are spread around about us, it drives people to say hateful things," Titone said. "Hateful things being said turns into bullying and then it turns into worse and that is what we're trying to stop. And if we can just get people to stop saying these things, stop demonizing LGBT people, especially trans youth, we can really start to feel acknowledged for who we are and not be treated as pariahs in the community."
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