Dear Orlando Shooter,

You don't know me. You will never know me. You will never know of the impact that your violent hate crime has had on not only myself but the entire LGBTQ+ community. Let me tell you anyway, though, because it is important to face the reality that is left behind after tragedy strikes.

Thanks to you, I am afraid. Being an almost 19-year-old transgender man currently enrolled in a university in Vermont, l am able to live a fairly safe life without fear of physical harm on campus or in my community. Or so I thought. What you did has made me fear for my safety whenever I tell someone who I am meeting for the first time that I am transgender. I fear for my friends who are in homosexual relationships and are holding hands when they walk down the street. I fear for every single one of my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters who are people of color and already had to fear that they would be attacked because of their race.

You see, because of your actions I had friends calling me telling me through their sobs that they had family at Pulse at Latin night when you chose to open fire upon them dancing and living their lives. I had to try and find a way to makes sense of things, to calm fear-filled hearts, and later broken hearts as friends learned that they lost family because of your hate.

You are dead and gone, but you have had an impact that will continue to outlive you. Your choices have given motivation to those who are homophobic, transphobic, and racist. Your choices are causing people to say things such as, "It's a shame that more of them didn't get killed." However, your choices have also given strength to a community.

Your choices have brought together thousands of people in the LGBTQ+ community to not only mourn those we lost, but to start making plans on how we can combat this in the future. Your choices are what cause us to fight harder, to speak louder, to do every thing we can to make sure that there are generations of LGBTQ+ people who never have to know this kind of hate and violence in their life.

You tried to knock us down, but you have only made us stronger. In the words of Tony Award winner, Lin Manuel Miranda: "Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.”