Normally, we here at Queerty are all about self-determining identity and respecting the fluidity of queerness. In this specific case, however, you’ll have to forgive us for extending a bit less grace and a more critical eye to the “coming out” moment of a mass murderer who shot dozens of innocent LGBTQ people and allies–especially before some of the bodies are even in the ground.
The queer community suffered a tremendous loss this weekend as mass shooter Anderson Aldrich opened fire on Club Q in Colorado Springs, killing five and wounding at least another 25. The shooting is, unshockingly, being looked into “through the lens” of a hate crime, according to police.
To presumably try to get out of the hate crime designation, Aldrich’s defense has now put forth that the accused mass murderer identifies as nonbinary and will be referred to with they/them pronouns and the title “Mx.” for the rest of the court proceedings.
As a trans/nonbinary person myself, respectfully, f*ck that. And him. And his lawyers. And their defense.
How about we take this to the next level?
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In addition to possibly evading the hate crime charge, his new admission serves to erroneously turn the focus away from conservative anti-LGBTQ rhetoric fueling violence and into a “the call is coming from inside the house” logic spiral. It’s vaguely akin to the right stealing that trans woman’s pictures and trying to pass her off as the Uvalde shooter back in March, but even more calculated.
Earlier this week, a former friend told The Daily Beast that Aldrich frequently used anti-gay slurs.
“He said things sometimes that probably should have been alarming to me,” Xavier Kraus said. “He used the term ‘f*ggot’ a lot. Most of the time it came from a place of anger.”
In addition to seemingly historied homophobia, Aldrich was a disturbingly violent person.
Just last year, he was arrested threatening his own mother’s life with “a homemade bomb, multiple weapons, and ammunition.” He was caught on video in tactical gear roaming his mother’s house saying things like “Today I die” and “I’ma f*ckin’ blow it to holy hell.” Police let him off with no charges.
We’ve established that Aldrich’s grandfather, Randy Voepel, is an alt-right MAGA insurrectionist politician. We’ve established that the people in his life were afraid of his violent nature and noted his queerphobia. Above all, we’ve established that he wanted queer people to die and putting his desires into action.
Is it really too far a bridge to think that this person just might lie about their identity to dodge a charge and sow even more discord for the community?
Related: The Heroes of Club Q, Remembered
Many folks on social media aren’t buying this bit of news, either:
This is a false claim to remove the hate crime charges that were dropped on this kid.
It’s also terrible reporting it should say ‘the shooter’s defense lawyers claim that Anderson Aldrich is nonbinary.’
This is a post from his mother the night of the murders, says son/he/him. https://t.co/kDmBPfQk9A pic.twitter.com/8kWskK0gt1
— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) November 23, 2022
So what? They just released a press release or something saying he was NB and you just believed it? Blaming a community for their own persecution much?
— Philly Cats 🐀 (@potnoodlez) November 23, 2022
“Since fascists involved in perpetrating genocide against minority groups never lie, we have no issue repeating their statements to as large an audience as possile”
— Forbidden Cutie 🔞 (@ForbiddenQT) November 23, 2022
I personally can’t think of any source more reliable than the lawyers of a guy who killed several people a couple days ago
— CEO of twodder 🐀🍥 (@cryptidocto) November 23, 2022
the case is sealed but the defense attorneys announce the shooter is nonbinary huh?
i don’t fucking buy it for a second. not that it changes things if it’s true, but that is pure cynical calculus on the defense attorney’s part.
— 🖖 youtube.com / GayFesh 🖖🐀 (@GayestFesh) November 23, 2022
Huh. Wonder if this attorney claim is to get around hate crime charges… or they are really Non- Binary – either way none of my business… this does not change the murders.
— IamDallasLyn🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ (@IamDallasLyn) November 23, 2022
Yeah
I don’t believe hin pic.twitter.com/JUqkD9bKPU
— pitchforks ❁ (@BrandiLynn4Ever) November 23, 2022
Do not feel bad about not respecting this new admission. He didn’t respect the identities of the people he murdered in cold blood. And he and his lawyers certainly aren’t respecting them now.
Sometimes being queer isn’t just about love and peace and acceptance. Sometimes it’s about righteous fury at queerphobes with blood on their hands. To quote Dwyane Wade in his recent defense of his trans daughter Zaya, “The high road has run out of real estate.”
Mack
Idea is BS and probably something cooked up by the grandfather and attorneys.
bachy
I should think you’d want to be a decent neighbor – or at least not a murderer(?) – if you want people to comply with your request to be respectfully addressed via peculiar pronouns.
inbama
And yet we’re not allowed to question convicted rapists, pedophiles and murderers when they declare they are transwomen and demand to be transferred to a woman’s prison.
But this one time, doubting someone’s self-ID is not “transphobic?”
Den
Let’s see your list of rapists, murders and pedophiles who claim to be transwomen who have undergone the counseling, and hormone treatments in pursuit of said transfer.
You cannot simply lie in support of a homophobic murder and out of your obvious hatred of trans people and expect to get away with it Nimrod!
You right wingers make me sick to my stomach!
Go live in Hungary where your self hatred will be valued.
dbmcvey
We’re not doubting someone’s self ID. We’re doubting what his lawyers say is their self ID. From what we’ve heard already from neighbors and people who knew them, they were addicted to QANON and had a lot of extreme right wing beliefs.
inbama
@Den
Don’t you dare accuse me of not being on the side of my gay brothers, you lying lowlife.
Just last week San Jose transgender activist and former teacher Dana Rivers was found guilty of the murders of lesbian couple Patricia Wright and Charlotte Read and their 19 year old son Toto Diambu. Up until now, Rivers has been held in a woman’s prison.
83 year old transwoman serial killer Harvey Marcelin after having murdered and beheaded a third woman is being housed in a woman’s facility while awaiting trial.
Now I’m not going to do homework for you, but there’s plenty more on the internet.
Are they fake trans? Real trans? Well, nobody knows, because “you are what you say you are” and the courts go along and treat them as “real women.”
Eternal.Cowboy
So your repose to violence against the LGBTQ+ community is double down on your anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric? Have you considered hating yourself less?
inbama
@Eternal.Cowboy
You anti-gay queers just can’t stop lying and name calling for a second, can you.
linedrive
@inbama: You can question whatever you want to question. Also, calling someone a “lying lowlife” and then immediately complaining about name-calling is pretty rich. Stay awesome, though.
LeBlevsez
@inbama
Down to just ‘G’, I see. After years of grousing about ‘T’ it seems it’s taken just a few months to jettison ‘B’ and now ‘L’. Quite efficient.
Dana Rivers was a member of a motorcycle club. And we all know that ALL motorcycle clubs are really just murderous gangs. Time to shun motorcycle club members. She also worked as a police lab ballistics tech. We all know that ALL ballistic techs are really just murderous gun nuts who couldn’t pass police exams and training. Time to fire the lot without references. (Nice touch including ‘transgender’, ‘teacher’ and ‘guilty’ all in the same sentence. Stacking the deck, as it were.)
Marcelin(e)’s murders started 60 years ago, so if they were placed in ‘gen pop’ in the women’s section of Rikers Island, blame the staff at the ignominious Rikers.
You know what else there’s plenty of on the internet? Claims that most people that live @in ‘bama reside in filthy trailers. So go take a bath, put on your cleanest wife-beater, and say “I’m sorry for being a transphobe.”
dbmcvey
@Inbama
You are not “on the side of your gay brothers.” You’re trying to create rifts in the community through silly culture wars. Shame on you and your bringing up anecdotal incidents (many of them false right wing talking points) trying to divide us against trans people.
Spare us your false umbrage.
abfab
The great unwashed and the white trash of america need to stop giving birth for a while.
GaysForTrump
The WalMart shooter was black, and the St Francis Hospital mass shooter was also black,
So about the white trash? What about the low life blacks?
Kangol2
@GaysforDRumpf, why don’t you go spin on a stake, you racist piece of filth! As wrong as Abfab’s comment about “White trash” was (and abfab is White, I believe), just deal with it directly. Instead, you just showed exactly what you are: a racist troglodyte, just like your master Don the Treasonous Con!
dbmcvey
@GaysForTrump
I realize, judging by your support of Trump that you’re easily fooled, but what you say doesn’t matter.
aaronarnwine
Not a single shred of evidence has been presented about their motives. But we are 72 hours deep into wish casting that this is something we can blame on political opponents, so no facts will ever matter. Narrative uber alles. It’s pathological.
Den
His contemporaries have mentioned his frequent use of “the F word” and general distaste for LGBT people. His mother’s landlord has mentioned his stereotypical macho behavior when he was threatening to blow up his mom’s rental. His pretty typical right wing family has been described. And yet you are defending him and eagerly embracing the developing narrative that he is simply an unbalanced queer (as the right would like to paint most of us)!
We have little use for regressive heterosexual trolls here friend, so stuff it!
Jack Meoff
What a load of cooked up BS by his legal team.
Den
And yet look at the expected hetero and hetero-apologist trolls here supporting the developing right wing narrative. Expect that in three or four days FOX, OAN, NewsMax, and so on will be screaming about how he is simply the worst among an army of liberal queer nutcases, and that no red blooded MAGA MAN would ever do such a thing!!
They tried to do the same thing with the Pelosi assault, and libertarian fabulists like Musk just lapped it right up.
Crayonap
The comments are definitely calling bullshit on this, but how many times in this same forum have I seen multiple posts from members of our community who put individual assaults on Gay men to Gay-on-Gay violence? This is a trope that our community has accepted as well, that it is repressed LGBTQ individuals who cause the violence to our communities. It is one of Hollywood’s and the media’s favorite gaslighting techniques.
dbmcvey
However they identify (and yes, I find it dubious) doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have got a gun. We know from some of the weirder posters on this site that there are LGBTQ+ people who get taken in by conservative conspiracy theories and we’ve already heard this guy was a Q follower and they were MAGA. Their grandfather is full on scary, and even if they really do identify as gender fluid, that doesn’t mean they weren’t motivated by anti-LGBTQ animus.
Neoprene
Too funny that the defendant has indicated that he is non-binary. Oops, “they” are non-binary. I’m not buying it, of course. But then again, I don’t buy it when anyone says they are non-binary. It’s the epitome of contrived diversity.
dbmcvey
The defendant didn’t, the lawyers did.
GaysForTrump
It’s unreal how fast everyone so quick to accuse him of being Far-Right wing, and his family a MAGA supporter.
What do you know about the WalMart shooters family? Or the St Francis Hospital mass shooters family? Both of the shooters were black.
Any you hear crickets from the media about their family members.
KiraNerysRules
Look over there!!!
Joshua333
Probably cause they’re maga supporters too.
Den
We are not talking about that you fool. this is an article about a specific event. Why are the simplest things too difficult for you right wing idiots to ever understand? And why do breeders like you feel the need to pass yourself off as one of the gay men you clearly hate so much?
And for the record: you, “gay scumbag for trump” are one of the stupidest right wingers to show your face here. Did you even make it through middle school, because you seem to think on a rather primitive level?
GreekKeys
So amusing when gender ideologists describe lopping off your primary and secondary sex organs and injecting synthetic hormones for life “a simple thing.”
Kangol2
Because we know who this murderous terrorist’s family ARE. That’s why, GaysforTreasonousDump! His granddaddy is a right-wing fanatic in California. His father is a brutal ex porn actor who basically said he was glad his child committed violence! Since you decided to mention the race of two other murderers have nothing to do with this attack on Club Q, shall we list all the White mass murderers and their families? Do you really want to go down that road?
dbmcvey
The defendant was a MAGA supporter and a follower of QANON.
I don’t believe the lawyers, but someone who identifies as nonbinary can still be a crazy right winger.
DannyParks
The left-extremists are losing their shit over this. I thought the term was “self identify”? – surely if “they” claim themselves identify as non binary then the left have to accept that, not doubt it and practice what they preach. Sexuality and Self ID is not a club for exclusive members only.
And I feel I need to make this clear before people reply or put words in my mouth. This was a horrible crime committed by a horrible person. This was an act of hate which should not be condoned. No one is exempt from the hate they receive whether they be male, female or anything else when taking another life / lives.
rand503
IT’s okay to self identify. It’s not okay to lie about it to avoid the consequences of your actions.
Even a child can understand the difference, and so should you.
DannyParks
@rand503 – I agree that it is not OK to lie to avoid consequences of criminal offences. My point is that alot of male criminals / prisoners (sex offenders, rapists etc.) do exactly this. They at any stage can claim to identify as another sex to either avoid being imprisoned with other dangerous men or so that they can instead be imprisoned with more potential victims. My question is how do you tell genuine cases apart from people taking advantage? How can you be certain that this case is BS compared to thousands others that are generally accepted?
Den
It is so obvious that you are a disingenuous heterosexual scumbag who is happy to see the murder of people at an LGBT run venue. You may say otherwise, but the lie is obvious. There is no need in the USA for scum like you and the sooner your kind are gone the better. You would be so much happier in Hungary or Russia, more congruent with your anti-moral mindset. Please go.
Den
‘My question is how do you tell genuine cases apart from people taking advantage? How can you be certain that this case is BS compared to thousands others that are generally accepted?”
Oh please! You have already demonstrated how disingenuous you are. We know you were happy to hear about the murder of not only trans people but heterosexuals who supported our community! Did you cum a little in your pants when you heard about the shooting? I bet you did. And I bet you have subsequently jacked off over it. Laughably you cast doubt on who the shsooter obviously is, even though you lie about “not condoning it”. You wish you had what you believe are the v=balls to be the one holding the gun.
DannyParks
@Den. I can’t see my original reply to you so apologies if you’ve already read the jist of this.
Firstly, I am not straight. I am a gay man.
Secondly, I have no need or desire to move to Russia. Just because I queried a far left ideal does not make me far right.
Thirdly, I do not condone crime or murder to anyone regardless of sex, sexual orientation, race etc. You spent most of your time in your replies putting words in my mouth and then arguing with them (so basically arguing with yourself).
Finally, even at the end of your vile rants you failed to give an answer the question I originally asked. You had the opportunity to educate me or other people with the same question but instead got angry & replied with irrelevance.
Calm down and try better next time you sad, angry little troll!
Man About Town
Well, attorneys defending mass killers do need to grasp at straws, so this misguided nonsense comes as no surprise.
dscode
Isn’t this easy for the media to prove or disprove? Was anyone using “they” pronouns to describe him before the shooting?
inbama
True or not doesn’t matter. That’s why promoting ideas that aren’t true (like “Self-ID” can always be trusted) come back and bite you.
From the New York Times:
“Stan Garnett, the former district attorney in Boulder County, Colo., said he did not know of any legal rules that required Colorado prosecutors or a judge to honor a defendant’s pronouns or use ‘Mx.’ but said ‘it would be very bad form to ignore a suspect’s self-identification.'”
GreekKeys
It’s impossible for even the most devoted adherents of genderism to prove or disprove, how will the media do it? What would your “easy” criteria be? A charge card for Lane Bryant? Isn’t demanding when someone ELSE comes to terms with their delusion of girl mode against the rule book?
dbmcvey
It seems like it would have come up. They’ve talked to his neighbors and none of them said anything. They did say he was a follower of Q and MAGA.
Ken A.
You should see his father’s interview. Upon hearing that his son shot up a Gay club. His father said, Thank God he isn’t gay. His father BTW is an ex porn star, meth head. He also admitted he’s Mormon.
Kangol2
Yep and that he was glad his child was violent. That he raised the child/them to be violent. The mother even wanted boxing lessons for the teenager, who threatened to blow her to smithereens. “Family values”!
Jimthy
I don’t believe this Disgusting excuse for a human is NB. No doubt a lie the defense team has cooked up.. Hope this sicko gets what he deserves. So glad they beat the shi* out of him!
Dwayne420
This is why you kill someone like that then and there! Our legal system is a joke and some lawyers are the lowest form of whore there could be.
GreekKeys
The joke is sexually traumatized men claiming to be women or non-binary… whatever that means. Beuller? Anyone? Shh! It’s a secret! Don’t tell anyone, but Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were actually the lowest form of whore there could be. The $5 BJ kind. If Laverne Cox’s claim of being a woman didn’t “make your eyes roll out the back of your head”, this shouldn’t either. Go ahead Queerty, spin this one! Spin, gurl, spin! Spin like your ideology depends on it. Spin. For. Your. LIFE!!!
Agility
I don’t believe this for a second, but it will be fun to watch the trial when the lawyers refer to Aldrich/them as a member of the LGBT population. If Aldrich is homophobic, they will go crazy at the repeated references to being NB. If truly NB, then no issues, right?