WASHINGTON, DC — The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, remembers the lives of the five people killed in the deadly attack on Club Q, a nightclub serving the local LGBTQ+ community, in Colorado Springs one year ago. Twenty-five others were injured in the horrific shooting. The commemoration comes amidst an ongoing state of emergency for LGBTQ+ communities across the country, escalating hate-based violence against LGBTQ+ and allied people, and one day before the release of the organization’s annual Fatal Violence Report, which shines a light on transgender and gender non-conforming people killed by violent means over the past year.

“Our hearts still ache from the horrific act of violence carried out against the Club Q community a year ago,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “Hate is dangerous, armed hate is deadly, and militarized hate is a public health crisis. We are living in a state of emergency, and as dehumanizing rhetoric and deadly violence escalate against LGBTQ+ people across the country , we are called on to disarm and defeat hate. Too many of those we love have been stolen from us by unbridled hatred and easy access to guns in America. Our hearts are with all those affected by the deadly shooting at Club Q last year, and we commit to honoring those stolen with action – with a fight for a world free of the threat of violence simply for being who we are.”

The remembrance also comes at the close of Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance of transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been murdered because of hate. Since 2013, at least 334 transgender and gender non-conforming people have been killed in acts of fatal violence. Of those, nearly 70% were killed with a gun and that number rises to over 75% for Black transgender women.

In 2021, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the education arm of the nation’s largest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, partnered with Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund, Giffords Law Center, and Equality Florida Institute to produce the Remembering and Honoring Pulse Report, a resource that highlights the intersections between gun violence and the LGBTQ+ community. Its findings show that due to the community’s elevated risk of bias-motivated violence, intimate partner violence, and suicide, gun violence has a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ+ people in America.

The Human Rights Campaign has joined partners and advocates in the gun safety movement in calling for common sense gun violence prevention measures, including expanded, universal background checks, limiting the ability for those with a history of domestic abuse to access firearms, appropriate funding for the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health to conduct research on gun violence, and a ban on assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and “bump stocks,” which are attachments for semi-automatic weapons that increase firing speed, effectively simulating the abilities of a fully automatic weapon or machine gun.

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The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ+ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.