I was planning to write something light and fun for this week’s column – perhaps my thoughts about peanut butter, or the dangers of waving thank you to bus drivers as you disembark (I fell off a bus).
But a couple of days ago, I woke up to the news that there had been a mass shooting at Club Q, a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs. All shootings are obviously shocking and sickening, but similar to when it happened at Pulse nightclub in 2016, I felt this one deep in my big gay bones. Defense attorneys have since told the court that the alleged shooter was non-binary, and the motive of the shooting is yet to be determined. It doesn’t change how I feel, or change how conservatives, transphobes and “gender critical” forces have created a climate of scrutiny and fear around transgender and queer people.
