I woke up on the morning of June 13, 2016 to the news of the Orlando shooting. I laid in bed and spent the next hour crying. How am I spending another morning scrolling through pictures of grieving family members? Oh god. Oh my fucking god. Fifty people? How does this keep happening?
The following hours were a blur. I drifted through a morning routine with my head space still logged-in to my newsfeed. By the afternoon, having consumed the Facebook status’, the images of crying faces, the political thought-pieces, I went to take a shower and broke into a hysterical episode of grief. In my head, I revisited recordings of the gunshot sounds, photo streams of identified victims, and, most vividly, the faces of grieving friends and family.
I want to say that I will never know what it was like to lose someone to this tragedy, and I don't pretend to know either; their trauma is not mine to claim. Instead, my grief comes from inability to digest everything around me. I want to throw up and cry at the same time.
I don’t understand.
What if, in the past, all the times I leaned in to kiss my partner, a bullet stopped me before I reached their lips? Oh god, I am so scared.
I feel helpless; I feel afraid. But I also a feel crippling shame. Part of me cannot lay all the blame on Omar Mateen, because haven’t I been complicit? How many times have I heard homophobic language and done nothing? How many times have I perpetuated and been complicit in transphobia? How many times have I been at the receiving end of homophobia and, instead of defending myself, absorbed it?
I grew up in Southeast Asia, and this summer, I am back in Thailand. Most of the people I grew up with still use f-g as a snub and make trans people the butt of their jokes. After America legalized gay marriage, while my friends in the West decorated their profile pictures with rainbows, I went through a spree of unfriending those who reacted with disgust.
In Thailand, ironically the most proclaimed LGBT-friendly country in Asia, there are no visible queer networks to turn to, to openly grieve with. In part, this is because violence against LGBT people here are committed daily. The way Thai transgender people are sensationalized and turned into an international joke lends way to greater violence inflicted upon the community. My community has become desensitized and complicit.
When I was 17, I wrote an article for my local magazine titled “Is Thailand Really LGBT friendly?” At the end of the piece I claimed, wait, there is hope! The resurgence of new LGBT clubs and bars in my hometown reflected a positive turn, I argued; these enclaves of queer spaces were going to be spaces for visibility, for acceptance and, most importantly, for communities and support networks to grow. Instead, I just witnessed the same type of queer space, that I deem “safe,” become the target of a massacre.
I am looking for a community to grieve with because on top of the shame that holds myself accountable, I also need an entire community to hold itself accountable.
It was Latin night at Pulse, headlined with trans talent, which means most of the victims that night were Latinx and Black queer folk. How many queer people of color have to die before we start recognizing their humanity? When do we start recognizing how our actions, no matter how minute, support the homophobia, transphobia and racism that target queers of colour? I am pissed off. I am sick. And, honestly, at this point I can no longer differentiate amongst my own hysteria, grief, and anger.
Regardless, I would rather feel everything than feel nothing. I refuse to be desensitized to these tragedies, but I sure as hell refuse to hold these sensitivities for those who won’t. I need people to grow up, and start exercising empathy towards those deserving of basic respect. Stop projecting your hate and disgust onto others, because your language is violent, your actions are violent, and your mindset is violent. It is the culmination of all this hate and violence that motivated an individual to specifically target and murder members of the gay community.
My community needs to hold itself accountable, particularly for the lives of QTPOC. I cannot start healing until we start recognizing the systems that oppress QTPOC, murder Brown and Black trans women, whitewash the narratives of queer suffering, and put the lives of queer folk at risk, simply for existing.
To my fellow queers of color: I am mourning with you. I want to hold all of you in my heart, and I do not want to lose sight of my love and the healing it guides. I swear, if I could hold the suffering of just one other person then I wouldn’t feel as destitute and lost.
To the friends and family members who are grieving loved ones: I express my deepest condolences. No words can do your sufferings justice.
To those we lost that night: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we didn't protect you.
*** To the Wesleyan community: I am interested, along with several other queer students, in hosting a vigil once we get back to campus. Look out for more information and/or if you are interested in helping out send me a message.
