This article spotlights one perspective of a writer who wishes to remain anonymous relating to the recent Orlando attack at the Pulse and how it has impacted their own life.
I feel like everyone has written about the tragedy in Orlando, Florida at the Pulse. Knowing that, it still feels difficult and just downright wrong for me to lay claim to the pain that LGBT+ people are currently feeling. I haven’t been able to accept myself in the more than four years that I’ve known about myself, but after this shooting and hearing about victims being outed only after their deaths, I feel like I need to stand up and stand out. I’m tired of lying to my family and the friends who don’t already know.
Ever since I figured out this part of me, I’ve been determined not to talk about it. I’ve seen too many people persecuted because of their sexuality and was determined to not let it happen to me. It got to the point that I put up a sort of mental wall between myself and the LGBT community that I could have sought advice from. I realized it was a bad choice even as I did it, but proceeded anyways, just wishing and hoping the way I felt would go away. Nevertheless, I eventually accepted it because I feel like I shouldn’t have to stop being myself because of others.
Most of my fear stemmed from thinking that I might disappoint those I love, which is one of my biggest fears. I work hard to be a good person, to be a person that people can hopefully look up to, and I would never want to taint that view. Writing this is difficult for me because I know that things can and will likely be difficult for me because I like both men and women. I’ve accepted that and I hope my family can too.
I just can’t stop thinking about how I wanted to go to a pride parade this weekend and how people can be so offended that there is love in this world that they feel the need to snuff it out. I don’t understand why two men or two women holding hands can make someone that angry. Why wouldn’t they be happy that there is love left in a cold world where black people get shot for existing and white people get their sentence for rape cut down so far that it’s practically nothing? I don’t understand and I don’t think I ever will.
Since I saw the news about the shooting, I’ve begun calling the victims my brothers and sisters in my head and in my heart. It’s an odd feeling to have so many after starting my life with one, then ending my freshman year with 70+, then realizing that I have so, so many more. These people I never got to meet are, in a confusing and in a not-yet-understood-by-me way, family.
Family, to me, is an important word. As I write, my 13 year-old cousin is asleep in the bed beside me. Calling fifty people I have never and will never meet by the name family is a wholly unheard of thing. They are, though. Each of them was like me once upon a time. They were living, breathing, loving…and now they’re gone.
I guess that’s why I wanted to write this. I heard that some of the shooting victims were only outed after their deaths and I guess that, in some way, I didn’t want that to ever be me. I don’t ever want to die with parts of me- important, life-changing parts of me, hidden forever from my family. I want to be proud of who I am.
I hope this article has helped someone else, because honestly writing this makes me feel unsteady, in a good way. I want to be proud of who I am and I hope this article helps anyone who reads it discover and accept who they are as well.
