One month after Orlando. What have we done?

I woke up this morning thinking about Orlando.

It was a month ago today — a beautiful Sunday morning in Hershey, PA, where I was visiting with family and friends — that my phone rang. It was GLAAD’s President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. She wanted to know if I had seen the news, and sadly I had. A gunman had opened fire during Latin Night at an LGBTQ club in Orlando, and reports indicated that there were already at least 20 confirmed dead. That number, shockingly, would soon grow to 49, making it the deadliest mass shooting on record.

How could this happen? What could we do? What should we do? We weren’t sure, but we knew the first thing we needed to do was get to Orlando as quickly as possible to support our friends who were in pain and whose lives had just been forever changed.

We dialed in GLAAD’s Vice President of Communications Seth Adam to make a plan. As usual, he was already on top of things and very quickly, we organized ourselves to convene in Orlando that evening. We didn’t know the full breadth and depth of all the ways we might be able to help just yet, but we knew that it was going to be critically important that the media not erase the LGBTQ identities of these victims and survivors and turn this into a story singularly about gun violence.

The narrative evolved quickly. This wasn’t just any random act of gun violence. It was a targeted attack against LGBTQ Americans — by a fellow American citizen — at Pulse Nightclub. Yes, this was a story about guns. But it was also a story about race, about sexual orientation, about gender identity. And about hate.

For the next three days, Sarah Kate and Seth camped out at a Subway restaurant that served as a makeshift media hub and community meeting place not far from the site of the violence. Hour upon hour, they worked the media alongside the team at Equality Florida to ensure that journalists and news organizations had the perspective of the LGBT community in their coverage. And in between interviews on camera and by phone with media outlets around the world, they supported me as I began to make a plan to support the victims, survivors, and families whose identities and stories were just beginning to emerge.

We knew from other tragedies like this one that the media has a very short attention span. As soon as the next story broke, they would dismantle their cameras, tents, and satellite trucks and send their top talent on to the next story. But these families, this community, those who were on the ground helping — they would never recover.

On the way to Orlando that Sunday, GLAAD board member Danny Rose — a television producer in Los Angeles — had texted Sarah Kate and me to introduce us to his friend Justin Tranter. I had first heard of Justin when his previous band, Semi Precious Weapons, opened up for Lady Gaga on her Monster Ball tour. Now he was a successful songwriter and producer and was in Miami recording with Selena Gomez when the news broke about Orlando. He was planning to fly to Orlando to see how he could help.

By the time I arrived in Orlando Sunday night, Justin had already visited the GLBT Center of Central Florida, where the community was gathering to organize its support — including a vigil in the center of downtown Orlando. Over the next couple of days, Justin would work alongside volunteers at the Center doing everything from loading bottle water on to trucks, organizing donations, and offering condolences to folks as they came through the front doors.

But that Sunday night as we met for the first time — and then the next day with Sarah Kate and Seth — we put together a plan to record a single that would benefit the victims, families and survivors, as well as the LGBT organizations supporting them. Between Justin’s vast contacts in pop music and GLAAD’s relationships in the industry, we felt we could do something meaningful that would make a difference.

But we didn’t have much time. At first, we thought we might record a cover — something familiar to listeners that could be given new relevance around this tragedy in Orlando. But it became clear very quickly that song clearances would take way too long. It just so happened, though, that Justin had written a song with his longtime co-writer Julia Michaels that had been shelved and never finished. He sent a demo to me via text that evening, and I immediately knew we had to record this song. It was called “Hands.” It was perfect.

So Justin and Julia very quickly finished writing the lyrics, as well as working with Katie Vinten and their publishing team at Warner Chappell, to recruit the talent we would need to make this a hit. As the team began to reach out to artists, the yeses poured in — first Selena Gomez, then Britney Spears. Gwen Stefani. Adam Lambert. Mary J Blige. Prince Royce. Halsey. Jennifer Lopez. Imagine Dragons. Nate Ruess. Juanes. Before we knew it we were up to two dozen artists — with Mark Ronson and BloodPop co-producing — and word had made it to the Vice Chairman of Interscope Records, Steve Berman, about what we were doing. He called to offer everything at Interscope’s disposal to ensure our success.

The song was released a week ago tonight, a joint release of Interscope and GLAAD. Already, it has gone to number one on the iTunes charts in Brazil and Argentina and has charted in 37 other countries. Today, we released a moving and motivational lyric video to accompany the song.

As I rode the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan this morning, my mind remained on Orlando — as well as the hate-fueled violence we have seen around this country in the 30 days since. I looked around at others, wondering how many of them were thinking about the 49 lives lost a month ago today — or if like so many tragedies before, this one was already forgotten by far too many, overshadowed by the tragedies that have ensued since and by the reality that life simply goes on. I hoped that the release of today’s lyric video for “Hands” would remind them for another moment that our work is far from over.

It’s been a month. Thirty days. Forty-nine lives lost. Countless others forever changed. But what have we done? There have been no new gun laws. None of the churches who spew hate from the pulpit or nurture it quietly beneath a surface of code words and gestures have acknowledged their complicit role in all of this. No politicians — save Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah — have come forth to disavow their hateful or divisive campaign rhetoric. Indeed, not much has happened at all.

So it’s on us to never let this tragedy — this homegrown terror attack — be forgotten. Music, art, and media go a long way toward that goal. But action is the only thing that will ever really make the ultimate difference #forthe49.

To get involved in accelerating acceptance and ending hate, visit www.glaad.org/accept.