On the evening of November 19, America experienced the most recent in a seemingly endless string of mass-shootings. What set this atrocity apart from the many other shootings in the past year was its location: Club Q, an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs. After opening fire on the club of partygoers, U.S. army veteran Richard M. Fierro tackled the shooter and, with the help of an unnamed transgender woman, was able to incapacitate the shooter until the authorities arrived. The shooting left five dead and nineteen injured.
With the initial 911 call to authorities at 11:56 pm, this targeted attack on LGBTQ+ individuals took place moments before Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20)—a day that remembers the trans individuals who have lost their lives to acts of violence and phobia—and the beginning of Transgender Awareness Week. This act of violence at Club Q points toward an on-going trend within the United States where both everyday individuals and lawmakers attack the rights and lives of LGBTQ+ individuals. According to an ACLED factsheet released during June of this year, the database “recorded 33 anti-LGBT+ events this year—putting 2022 on track to be a worse year for anti-LGBT+ mobilization than 2021.” Placing these terrifying statistics in conversation with legislature like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the other 162 bills (as of July 2022) that explicitly target LGBTQ+, and particularly transgender, individuals. These bills range from attempting to limit trans children from participating in athletics, barring LGBTQ+ history and stories to be shared within school curriculum, and restriction of queer indivual’s access to healthcare. Altogether, this shooting and trends within American politics represent a sustained attack on the wellbeing and autonomy of LGBTQ+ individual’s access to basic human rights.
However, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is equally prolific within social media and entertainment. The first of two recent examples involved influencer Nikita Dragun. After being arrested in early November, Dragun was misgendered and placed in a men’s prison despite identifying as a trans woman. Doing so not only belittled Dragun’s gender identity, but placed her in a space that is openly life-threatening for trans individuals. Also in the opening days of November, actor Kit Connor, best known from his role in Netflix’s Heartstopper, came out as bisexual on Twitter. In a 28-word Tweet from his now deleted account, Connor stated that he wanted to do so on his own timeline, but felt that ongoing discussions of his identity and queerbaiting (a term generally associated with when media entities mechanize queerness in an attempt to boost revenue and audience engagement) forced him to come out. Giving voice to his betrayal, he said, “I'm bi[sexual]. Congrats for forcing an 18 year old to out himself.” This heart wrenching moment speaks to dangerous moves within the entertainment industry and media that force celebrities into coming out to avoid blackmail or queerbaiting scandals on social media. As these instances show, bigotry and queerphobia manifests itself in ways that put LGBTQ+ individuals in direct harm and deny them the potential to live the unscrutinized lives that their cisgender, heterosexual colleagues are able to.
Days after the shooting in Colorado Springs, Andrews University’s VP for Diversity and Inclusion Michael Nixon issued a statement that was emailed to both students and faculty on November 22. In it, VP Nixon states that, “As people of faith, let us resolve to say or do nothing that would demean another person. Differences and disagreements need not result in disrespectful or hurtful words or behavior. Our highest calling as a Seventh-day Adventist campus is to love one another and demonstrate that tangibly. We are to model ‘a more excellent way’ (Romans 12:31). Later in the statement, VP Nixon called us “. . .to love one another and demonstrate that tangibly” by providing resources for LGBTQ+ individuals on campus in need of support. He took these commitments a step further when, in a conversation on Twitter with Associate Director of Communication for the Adventist Church, Sam Neves, he affirmed, “100% of LGBTQIA+ humans are image bearers [of God]. Full stop. That point is inarguble. Nothing about their gender identity or who they decide to love can or will ever change that reality.” While I could take this article in a variety of ways when speaking on Seventh-day Adventism and the LGBTQ+ community, I want to affirm the small ways in which members of this AU community embrace the ethical responsibility to care for and love the marginalized and oppressed that God provided us in the Bible (Psalm 82:3, Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, James 1:27 and more).
However, while acknowledging the positive steps towards enacting God’s “calling. . .to love one another and demonstrate that tangibly,” that are being taken at AU, there is inarguably room for growth. As of the writing of this article, Andrews University and the SDA church continue to participate in and perpetuate ideologies that threaten LGBTQ+ individuals within their campuses and on their church pews. My goal in writing this article is not only to educate on these atrocities (such as the shooting at Club Q and the dehumanization of queer individuals), but also to emphasize how important it is for us as good humans to do what we can to help those who are marginalized and ostracized by society—especially when they are denied their most basic rights to bodily autonomy and privacy.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.