Statement on Club Q Shooting
CNC extends our support and love to the LGBTQ community and stands in solidarity with you. The horrific attack on the LGBTQ community at Club Q in Colorado Springs the night before Transgender day of Remembrance is heartbreaking and angering.The combinatory effects of gun culture, cis-heteropatriarchy, racism and late stage capitalism perpetuate a cycle of violence towards oppressed groups as a means of maintaining racial, economic, speciesist, gender, ableist, religious, and sexual hierarchy of power. LGBTQ people deserve to live and thrive in peace, safety, joy and dignity, as well as indigenous, blacks, women, immigrants, differently abled, and every other demographic and species. As Audre Lorde notes in their book Sister Outsider, “the capitalist structure is a many-headed monster. [To this end,] This continued blindness between [groups] can only serve the oppressive system within which we live. And true, unless one lives and loves in the trenches [of oppressed groups] it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.” Audre Lorde states in their piece There is no Hierarchy of Oppression “I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sexes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression. I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.” In this country, the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and fear mongering perpetrated by political parties, right-wing media, and prominent political officials are upheld through historic and existing systems of white supremacy and cis-heteropatriarchy. This year alone there are more than 300 bills in state legislatures targeting LGBTQIA+ people for simply existing. Unfortunately the LGBTQ community is not alone in being targeted by these two systems. This pattern of rhetoric and fear mongering continues to be used and implemented to fuel anti-blackness, anti-indigeneity, anti-immigrant, anti-union, anti-women’s health, anti-asian, anti-species, and every other attack against minority demographics. At CNC, our role in the greater movement is to build pathways for equitable access to the outdoors, support the development of youth leadership, and work with all communities to ensure accessibility to nature. CNC seeks to align our role and ways of being with local movement builders and understand how we can be better allies to those organizations whose own work parallels our efforts around the fight for equity and a just transition in Los Angeles. Moving forward, an organizational goal of ours is to embrace our role in the solidarity movement for a just and equitable future. The liberation of our bodies, homes, and environment is directly tied to racial, gender, and socio-economic justice. As CNC starts along this arc, we will provide connections and resources to sister organization’s work on social, environmental, and economic issues. As such, please check-out these resource links and groups, and consider supporting them. Black Trans Advocacy Coalition | Black Trans Rights Are Human Rights Translatin@ Coalition TransLatin@ Coalition (translatinacoalition.org) Queerquechua– https://instagram.com/queerquechua?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Qween Jean– https://instagram.com/qween_jean?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= The Transgender District | San Francisco (transgenderdistrictsf.com) Los Angeles LGBT Center (lalgbtcenter.org) The Trevor Project | For Young LGBTQ Lives Trans Lifeline 877-565-8860 Support for the Club Q Families and Survivors - gofund.me/ecc85ae3
