The Pulse of Pride
It is pride month. People are celebrating by going to pride parades to connect with other members of the LGBT community. On social media, my whole feed is filled with rainbow flags and many social media influencers are showing their support and participation in the pride festivities. The LGBT community has gone through a lot to be where they are, to openly celebrate who they are, but our community was badly shaken two years ago. In the early morning of June 12, 2016, a gunman approached the very popular gay club Pulse in Orlando, Florida and began to open fire at club patrons. This horrific event and many everyday acts has wounded the LGBT community, but the community has always regained their stance of remaining true to themselves.
On June 11, 2016, it was “Latin Night” at the Pulse Nightclub. This was one of Orlando’s best known gay clubs so it was packed with many people of all ages, gay and straight dancing to salsa and bachata. At 2:02 in the morning, Orlando police received reports of multiple shots being fired at the nightclub. Omar Mir Seddique Mateen laid siege onto the club, with an assault-style rifle and handgun in hand. Mateen made several calls to 911 in the club where he admitted to being the cause of the shootings and identifying as “an Islamic soldier.” He threatened to detonate explosives, including a car bomb and a suicide vest, but investigators searched inside and outside the club and failed to turn up these items. He killed a total of 49 people and injuring 53 others. At 5:02 am, a SWAT team and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Hazardous Device Team began to breach the walls of the club to finally come face to face with Mateen. He came out of the club himself and he and the police began firing at each other. At 5:15 am police reported the shooter was down.
Patience Carter was hiding in the bathroom with her friends when the gunman entered and engaged in a standoff with the police that lasted for a total of three hours. She was shot in the legs and she said, “I was begging God to take the soul out of my body because I didn’t want to feel anymore pain, I didn’t want anymore shots.” She says “the guilt of feeling lucky to be alive is heavy” because she saw her friend Akyra Murray being killed right in front of her.
Officer Omar Delgado is haunted by his visions from the club. He was one of the first people to enter the club. He bursted through the doors ready to rescue yelling “Hey, come on, get up! Let’s go! We have cover for you. Police! We’re here!” Nobody moved as he saw dozens of people lying motionless on the bloody dance floor. He thought people were playing dead so they would not get hit until he used his flashlight and scanned the room to see if anyone was alive.
Many people were affected and lost through the hand of this horrific incident. Lives that were lost include a salon manager, an army reserve captain, a student, and an entrepreneur. The youngest being eighteen and three were over forty. Most were young, latino, and identified as queer (an umbrella term for those who are not heterosexual or cisgendered). There were some straight men and women who, like everyone else who showed up at the club, just wanted to have fun and dance that night. The Orlando Regional Medical Center had patients flooding into their emergency rooms shortly after the shootings started at 2 am. The wounded were brought in by the “truckloads and ambulance loads.” So much blood was lost that they exhausted the hospital’s entire medical supply and more had to be brought in from nearby hospitals. Operating rooms were moving in swift cycles of being used and cleaned over and over again.
Eleven days after the attack, Pulse owner Barbara Poma hosted “Latin Night” in a restaurant parking lot with blaring music and a dance floor. A thousand people showed up including friends, patrons, and friends. Barbara Poma said the event’s purpose was to show that Pulse is still alive as a community. A patron who survived after hiding in the bathroom said, “It’s not a party really, but I feel happy to see everyone. We needed this.”
The Pulse shooting was labeled the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history right under the 2017 Las Vegas shooting with 58 dead and a total of 851 people injured with 422 out them with gunshot wounds, but there are many everyday acts that go on that hurt members of the LGBT community. Everyday, kids are being bullied at school for being different and others are being disowned by their families for being gay. Recently in Colorado, a baker refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. Another event that shook the community were the Stonewall Riots of 1969. At the time, it was illegal to be homosexual or to present any “gay” aspects out in public. Members of the LGBT community would create clubs to act as a safe haven but they would often be shut down by the police. Instead of being a terrorist, the police were the ones who led raids on these clubs where they would beat up anyone who seemed “gay” and would often discriminate against transgender women. At the time, the police were the oppressors of the LGBT community even though their job is to protect their people by maintaining public safety. Discriminating people is not protecting them.
I believe everyone should be who they want to be regardless of what society tells them. Instead of following gender norms, I believe people should be encouraged to break them. I myself am not out to my family but I am still not afraid to be myself in front of them through the clothes I wear, the music I listen to, and watching Rupaul’s Drag Race. I am fortunate to grow up with not a harsh family and in an environment that was safe for queer people. I know that not everyone is blessed with the same amenities. Even though they may not be out, their families may suspect them of being LGBT and their parents think of excuses of why they turned out “wrong.” They begin to live two separate lives when being with their family and being with their friends. As gay people, we have to choose our families because sometimes the families we are born into are not there for us. We build them with each other and through close friends. We encourage each other to be themselves and to thrive the attributes we have that may not be socially acceptable
The “Latin Night” and the pride parades are similar in regards to showing that the community is still alive with all the struggles we have been through. Marriage equality was passed in 2015 but we still have a long way to go from seeing a world where everyone is accepted for who they are. I hope to see a world where I can comfortably hold my partners hand in public without hesitance. We need to be loud and public to show people that we are valid. We deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as the heterosexual and cisgendered people next to us. We need to remind them that we still have the same pulse and heartbeat as the person next to us.
