When I sat down this week to write about Pride, I intended to write about how important Pride Month is and all the steps that the community has made to ensure that more information and more support is available today than ever before.
I was also going to mention (despite the progress we have made) how much more is needed until the LGBTQIA+ community is truly safe and equal. This takes on a life of its own, however. In light of recent events, it has become all too painfully clear that we are not safe.
In the one month that celebrates a time where people in the community can be safe, proud, and live their lives, we now stop and mourn those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the mass hate crime this past weekend.
At 2 a.m. a man entered a club in Orlando, Florida, that has been a center for the LGBTQIA+ community of the city to be safe and have a good time for many years. This man then proceeded to open fire with two guns that he legally acquired and took hostages.
With 50 deaths and 53 injured people, this is the single most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history and the largest mass killing since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. But this is more than just a terrible tragedy, this was a deliberate hate crime against the people in that club and the people of the community.
For the past few months, since the federal government allowed same-sex marriage in all 50 states, a lot of people have asked, “What more could you people possibly want?” Then came the debate about transgender rights in which restroom can be used by whom, and now it’s pretty clear what further can be done.
The LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be safe. That is what we want. It’s a pretty basic human right to feel safe, and yet so few people have that privilege. Whether it's women who are systematically told by society that it isn’t safe to walk alone, people of color who are told that they do not belong, or the LGBTQIA+ people who are told that they are not natural, none of them feel safe on a consistent daily basis.
Sexism did not end when suffrage was granted, racism did not end with Black Lives Matter, homophobia did not end when same-sex marriage became legal, transphobia will not end when everyone is able to use the restroom that suits their identity, and systematic discrimination will not stop until we as a society learn and grow to be better.
We need to change because if it’s more acceptable for a man to have a gun in his hand than the hand of another man, that’s a problem.
This is the only place in the world that regularly deals with mass shootings and yet we pretend there is no way to stop it. Canada has had eight mass shootings in the past 20 years, the United States has had seven since Monday.
You can talk about your rights and personal freedoms all you want, but what about the right to live and the personal freedom to have a safe space to be yourself during Pride Month of all times?
What about the rights and personal freedoms of the 50 murdered and 53 more who were injured? Where are their rights?
No identity should supersede a person's right to life.
