Last weekend, our country saw our deadliest mass shooting yet. Immediately afterward, the Internet, coffee shop lines and table conversations blew up with discussions of gun control reform, ISIS and LGBTQIA+ rights and realities. For straight liberals, this event was a terrifying reminder of how out of control the United States’ relationship with firearms has become. For straight conservatives, it was a terrifying addition to the growing support of the liberal agenda to take away innocent citizens’ right to bear arms. But for queer people in America, it was so much more than a question of politics and hot button issues like gun control. For queer Americans, what happened in Orlando served to underscore just how dangerous it still is to live as our authentic selves. How the country responded to the tragedy at Pulse served to hammer into us, over and over and over with each news broadcast and interview and Facebook post, how our very identities are still being debated, questioned and erased every day of our lives in this country.
To be a queer person in the United States today, unless you are living in some magical rainbow queer hole, means having to encounter people who don’t “buy into” your identity somehow. Whether it’s witnessing the continuing scientific search for a “gay gene,” because the greater populace needs proof before accepting who you are, or encountering one of the millions of religious people who still aren’t convinced of the morality or existence of your personhood, to be gay is to endure an uphill battle just to live authentically and peacefully. For a lot of us, there are blissful moments of privilege: Pride parades and events where heteronormativity is thrown to the wolves, LGBTQIA+ safe spaces, accepting families, chosen families and more. At these times, it can be easy to forget for a bit that our existence is still an act of courageous rebellion. At these times, it can be easy to forget the mere fact that we are forgetting marks immense privilege — because for many other queer Americans, there come no moments of blissful moments of forgetting.
When 49 people, primarily gay men of color, were gunned down last weekend, all of us were jerked out of our forgetting. When a man was caught with firearms intended for LA Pride that same weekend, we were forced back into the real world. When news agencies and citizens began erasing the homophobic motives of the terrorist who committed the act at Pulse, we were reminded of our ongoing struggle. This was an act of terrorism, to be sure. It was an attempt to spread fear in the entire nation. It was an attack on us all. But it was specifically an attack on LGBTQIA+ individuals. The shooter did it because he had a problem with gay people. We cannot ignore or erase that. To do so would be to perpetuate the injustices done to queer people every day, and ultimately contribute to the homophobia and othering of queer people that led to the attack in the first place.
We do need to talk about gun control. We do need to talk about Islamic extremism (and the accompanying unacceptable Islamophobia). But we cannot use the tragedy in Orlando to contribute to homophobia by ignoring the root motivation of the attack and focusing solely on those other issues. This week, I encourage each and every one of you, gay, straight, pan, bi or exploring, to speak out in solidarity with the queer community — not just of Orlando, but also of the entire nation. Speak out against homophobia: whether you encounter it in the form of something blatant like the Westboro Baptist Church, or whether it’s more subtle, like a friend refusing to call what happened at Pulse a hate crime. Remember that homophobia is so terrifying and prevalent in our country right now because it comes in all shapes and sizes: from picket lines to offhand remarks made by those closest to you. None of it is acceptable, and all of it contributes to the culture of fear, judgment, and hate that allows atrocities like what happened in Orlando to happen again and again. Remember also that while Orlando was the deadliest thing to happen in our country against queer citizens, smaller but nevertheless incredibly damaging and tragic things happen every day. Trans women of color are beaten to death and never avenged by the law established to protect them. Queer children are kicked out of their homes by the parents who brought them into this world. Girls in love are afraid to hold hands in their family homes and streets.
Until trans women of color can survive statistically more often than they have their lives snuffed out, until queer children don’t have to worry about coming out to their families, until girls in love can hold hands wherever and whenever, we must fight and we must speak out. We must call hate crimes as we see them and as they happen. We must challenge outdated and actively harmful doctrines and laws. Most of all, we must embody love, so that the world might see that all we truly want is to live and to love without fear. Keep up the fight, my queer brethren. For my straight allies, give voice to your queer brothers and sisters, open spaces that were previously closed to them, acknowledge their unique struggle, listen. We can make this world a better place, no matter how dark things might seem right now. But we are going to need to actively fight to make it happen. The first step is admitting that there is still a problem. The Pulse attack was a hate crime representative of the lingering sentiment of homophobia that still pervades our country. Don’t erase that reality. Work to fight for a better future.
