Attacked Club Had Planned Transgender Day of Remembrance Event for Sunday

Hours before it was hit by a deadly mass shooting Saturday night, Club Q in Colorado Springs posted on Facebook about a planned “all ages drag brunch” on Sunday morning. The event was described by the club as a celebration of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of transgender people who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence.

The motive behind the attack at Club Q was still unknown on Sunday morning. As the investigation continued, observers around the world lamented that the deadly shooting at the club came just before an event for victims of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. hate crimes.

Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day of mourning and coming together for the transgender community, was begun in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a writer and activist, to celebrate the life and honor the memory of Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman who was killed the year before.

Ms. Hester was stabbed to death in her apartment on Nov. 28, 1998. Her murder is still unsolved.

“Violence or discrimination of any type against a person because of who they are is wrong and inhumane,” Xavier Becerra, President Biden’s health secretary, wrote in a statement on Friday about this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. “I call on my fellow Americans to stand up against hate.”

In recent years, the killings of dozens of transgender people in America, many of them transgender women of color, have sparked fears of an “epidemic” of such violence.