Transgender Colorado lawmaker: Nightclub shooting the result of repeated ‘tropes, insults, and misinformation’

Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone (D) on Monday said the deadly shooting that left five people dead and 25 wounded at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., was the result of “tropes, insults, and misinformation” about the community. 

“The LGBTQ+ community woke up this morning to yet another horrific event of murder. When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LTBGQ community, this is a result. I’m angry & my heart breaks for those who lost their lives,” Titone, who is transgender, wrote on Twitter.

“There’s no surprise that the repeated villianization of the LGBTQ+ community has led to violence,” she said, sharing an article from the Denver Post featuring advocates’ arguments on how anti-LGBTQ rhetoric contributes to violence against the group.

Titone is Colorado’s first out transgender lawmaker, according to the Denver Post.

Though the shooting suspect’s motive is still unknown, the attack at Club Q notably fell on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors transgender Americans who have been murdered.

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers (R) said Monday that the shooting “has all the trappings” of a hate crime. 

President Biden on Sunday drew parallels between the Club Q shooting to the Pulse LGBTQ nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla. in 2016, when 49 people were killed in what Biden called “the deadliest attack affecting the LGBTQI+ community in American history.” 

“We continue to see it in the epidemic of violence and murder against transgender women – especially transgender women of color. And tragically, we saw it last night in this devastating attack by a gunman wielding a long rifle at an LGBTQI+ nightclub in Colorado Springs,” Biden said.