The Colorado shooting comes in a year rife with anti-LGBTQ sentiment, advocates say

Flowers lay at a makeshift memorial near a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022 where a shooting occurred late Saturday night. (AP Photo/Geneva Heffernan)

The tragic shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado, is the latest event to transpire in a year marked with a jump in anti-LGBTQ legislation and sentiment, according to LGBTQ advocates.

The shooting, the deadliest attack on LGBTQ people in the U.S. since the Pulse shooting in 2016, occurred on the eve of this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. Just days earlier, the National Center for Transgender Equality released a report finding that at least 47 transgender people were killed in the past year.

And research is painting a bleak picture when it comes to the lives of LGBTQ Americans: The rate of suicidal thoughts among LGBTQ youth is also on the rise, and is particularly affecting both queer people of color and trans youth.