A little more than a week ago a gunman entered Club Q- an LGBTQ  nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He opened fire, killing five people and injuring almost two dozen others. The shock, grief, and horror from this violence extended far beyond the city. Across the nation, local communities organized vigils of remembrance for the lives taken too soon. Hundreds gathered in distant Palm Springs to say the names of those murdered in Club Q.

For so many, the attack on Club Q recalls the brutal mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 others. More than 6 years later, the shock, the confusion and loss is still almost unfathomable.

In this country, LGBTQ people are nearly four times more likely to experience violence than non-LGBTQ people. And 2021 was the deadliest year for transgender and gender nonconforming people since the Human Rights Campaign began keeping count in 2013. And then there is the legislative violence. An NPR analysis shows that over the past two years, “state lawmakers introduced at least 306 bills targeting trans people –  more than in any previous period.” 

But for all the grief and vulnerability, there is something else: a discernible shift in openness and a public landscape that looks and feels different in ways that are tangible.  

In 1973, when an arsonist set a deadly fire set to the staircase of the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans, 32 people who were trapped inside were killed. At the time It was the largest massacre of queer people in U.S. history. Media did not respond with outrage. The community did not respond with public vigils. No one was ever charged in the attack. Churches refused to bury the victims’ bodies. And some victim’s bodies went unclaimed by families who were too ashamed to be associated with their gay loved ones.

This time, when a gunman stormed into ClubQ, he was ultimately taken down by patrons in the club, including cis-gender male veteran Richard Fierro. Richard was enjoying a drag show with his wife, his daughter and friends. He and others put themselves in harm's way to protect those in Club Q. For decades Colorado Springs has been the unofficial seat of Christian conservatives in America; home to the influential Focus on the Family, major megachurches, and a center for evangelical Christians. These are some of the groups that have targeted the LGBTQ community with policies of exclusion.  Now as the yet another queer community faces violence, it is not faced alone, as many stand in open embrace, solidarity and willingly shared vulnerability.

For more on this we spoke with Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, a Colorado-based LGBTQ advocacy organization.