One Year After Pulse
Photo by AP News/ John Raoux
A year ago today my heart was carved out of my chest. Today marks the one year anniversary of the worst mass shooting in American history, the massacre of 49 patrons at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL, frequented by LGBTQ persons.
A year ago today the lives of 49 people were violently ended in a haven for one of the most persecuted communities on Earth. In the wake of the shooting, the nationwide threat of violence against the LGBTQ community was seemingly imminent. Can you imagine seeing police in full tactical gear strapped with M16s guarding the bars you frequent? Can you imagine people hating you so much they’d rather see you dead than dancing? A radicalized American man drove 2 hours to slaughter everyone he could out of both fear and hatred. A year later I dance my heart out as a means of catharsis and defiance.
A year ago today the cacophony of cellphones echoed on the dance floor from the pockets of murdered patrons whose loved ones did not know they were dead. All because of people simply being who they are. It was then that I understood being true to ourselves does not only insinuate authenticity, but resistance.
A year ago today I could not process this massacre. Today I still fail to. A year ago today I could not donate blood to save my own community. The pain of being barred from ensuring more of us wouldn’t bleed to death in the wake of this catastrophe stung worse than the tears in my eyes. As if our blood is so tainted no test could deem it fit for transfusions. America has grown to love us more, but many of us remain stigmatized and isolated, even in death.
A year ago today the president used the bodies of slain LGBTQ people to propagate his own politics. Our lives disgust most of this administration, our deaths are ignored by this administration, but our violent deaths by terrorists who claim Islam are highly valued as a potent source of propaganda used to demonize 1.8 billion people.
A Secretary of Education indifferent towards discrimination against us in our schools means nothing. Multiple murders of Black trans women in New Orleans earlier this year mean nothing. The dozens of conversion therapy camps across the country designed to spiritually break LGBTQ teens mean nothing.
The HIV epidemic caused by the vice president in his home state of Indiana by diverting funds for hiv prevention to conversion therapy initiatives mean nothing. Seldom if ever are we valued as people by this administration, occasionally as tokens and donors, but we are practically gold if we are violently murdered by people with Islamic ideologies, that way our corpses can be used to further a political agenda before they’re even cold.
A year ago today I realized I have survivor’s guilt. Not because I was there, not because I had friends at the nightclub, and not because I’ve been in a similar circumstance. I hold guilt in my heart because I and many of the patrons killed on that horrific night love the same way, yet I am alive and they are not.
A year ago today I understood that Pride is not enough. Tolerance is not enough. Marriage is not enough. We cant have pride until we’re all proud. We can’t celebrate until we’re all free. To honor the legacies of those slain we must uplift the most vulnerable disenfranchised portions of our community.
We cannot do this by cozying up to corporate sponsors whose policies and business practices result in further subjugation and oppression of LGBTQ folks here and around the world. Our community runs the gamut of demographics, we are everyone and we are everywhere. Racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, war, health care, and immigration are LGBTQ issues because they affect us directly and arguably worse in some instances than our cis heterosexual counterparts.
We cannot uplift those who are more vulnerable by adorning cop cars with pride flag decals and placing them in the parade. If anything that tells nearly every undocumented queer person they are not welcome. If anything it spits on our history. The Stonewall Riots from June 28th to July 1st 1969 in which mainly gender nonconforming queer individuals of color violently resisted the police are the reason we celebrate Pride today. While it is important to establish a healthy, communicative rapport with the police, it is even more vital to remember our heritage.
The focus must divert from financially comfortable cis White gay men, we need to support our working class LGBTQ people of color, they are the ones most at risk and constitute for many of those killed at Pulse.
A year ago today the news of 49 people slaughtered in a queer friendly nightclub brought me to my knees. Regardless of how close you were, this tragedy was collectively painful for the whole community. It is a virulent reminder that some would rather see us dead than see us as we are. The realization is like glass breaking in your head, most of the shards dull over time, but splinters remain embedded in your psyche. It is a pain you cannot forget.
Today I shed tears in remembrance. I honor those murdered by working towards the betterment of my community and advocating for social justice and equity. I relinquish my survivor’s guilt because I understand that every living LGBTQ person is a survivor of their society. But also today, I love my community out of necessity, I try to love my enemies as a Christian, and I love myself as a means of sustainable, fruitful resistance.
