Anderson Lee Aldrich, the suspect believed to have shot and killed five people and wounded more than 18 others over the weekend in an LGBTQ nightclub located in Colorado, identifies as non-binary and employs “they/them” pronouns, according to a court document filed on Tuesday evening.
Aldrich, 22, has been charged with multiple murders and hate crimes arising from the shooting that took place last weekend.
However, Aldrich’s public defenders stated that Aldrich was “nonbinary” and uses “they/them pronouns,” the New York Times reported. In addition to these pronouns, Aldrich is also referred to as “Mx. Aldrich” in court filings.
“Anderson Aldrich is nonbinary,” one footnote in the filing says. “They employ the pronouns they/them and for any formal filings, they will be identified as Mx. Aldrich.”
The report about the gender identity of Aldrich was announced shortly after Democrats and the mainstream media politicized the shootings, trying to accuse Republicans of being responsible for the incident.
For instance, NBC's Ben Collins claimed that “Republican politicians” as well as the “internet's far-right machine” targeted LGBTQ+ people in the weeks prior to the shootings at the nightclub.
“But I think we have to have a come-to-Jesus moment here as reporters,” Collins told MSNBC. “Are we more afraid of being on Breitbart for saying that trans people deserve to be alive, or are we more afraid of the dead people? Because I’m more afraid of the dead people.”
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has slammed Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert as a “bigot” who motivated the shooter just after Boebert released an apology for the violence that occurred in her state. “@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”
Further: “Dehumanizing rhetoric leads to dehumanizing actions, which quickly translates to violence, shootings, assaults, and worse,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on an Instagram post regarding Boebert.
Aldrich’s Wednesday court appearance was made virtually from jail.
