James Slaugh barely lifted his right arm when he swore to tell the truth Wednesday morning. He’d been shot in the Club Q attack in Colorado, and his left hand helped prop up his right as he prepared to testify about the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that had proliferated before the shooting.
“Club Q was a second home and safe space. Not just for me, but for all us,” Slaugh, who wore a rainbow tie and Club Q button, told a largely empty congressional committee room in Washington, D.C. “Outside of these spaces, we are continually being dehumanized, marginalized and targeted.”
He recounted how his mother had learned to accept his sexuality, how the shooting was his worst nightmare and how he believed that growing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric had fueled it. He was joined by Michael Anderson, a Club Q bartender who described praying as he waited to die that night, and the club’s co-owner, Matthew Haynes, who reiterated his pledge to rebuild. The group told the House’s Committee on Oversight and Reform that they had hope and determination but that the shooting — which left five dead and 18 injured — didn’t happen in a vacuum.
