And Now We Harvest
Trans people were killed in a shooting the night before the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Everyone saw it coming.
I do not want to begin the week of Thanksgiving by talking about the mass murder of queer people. The timing wasn’t up to me. This Saturday, at a drag event at Club Q in Colorado Springs, an armed man walked in and began shooting. 25 people were injured, and 5 were killed, before clubgoers jumped the killer and pistol-whipped him with his own gun.
This did not just happen near a holiday, it happened on a holiday: Saturday was the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the day on which we memorialize all the trans people who have been killed in hate crimes in the past year. Club Q had planned a TDoR event for the following morning. At least some of the people gathered at Club Q last Saturday were there for TDoR, and of the five people killed, at least two — a bartender named Daniel Aston and a patron named Kelly Loving — were trans.
They were murdered on the night before the Transgender Day of Remembrance. They were trans people killed in a hate crime at the event intended to memorialize trans people killed in hate crimes. Aston’s death made the news first. You can find photos of him floating around social media. He’s bearded, scruffy, blue-eyed; he has a big, easy…