We Owe it to Those in Orlando to Become the Voices They Lost

My husband and I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, where it’s not uncommon to take an “Orlando weekend.” We’re about an hour and a half away from the site of the Pulse Massacre.

We haven’t gone.

Not because we don’t want to pay our respects, and not because we haven’t been to Orlando. Not because my husband knew one of the victims or that you can’t really go anywhere in the Florida “gay scene” without talking to someone who knew someone that was at Pulse on June 12, 2016.

Not even because my husband and our friends had celebrated a friend’s birthday at Pulse just months before the massacre, only reaffirming that it could’ve been us or any one of our friends that had been there that night.

We haven’t been because the Pulse Massacre, the anti-gay hate crime which one year ago today claimed the lives of 49 people, injured 68 more, and remains the worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11 and the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, is still just too fresh.

We’re no longer numb, but even now, a year later, we’re still not okay.

Those men and women, mostly people of color, were targeted because of how they looked, who they loved, how they loved, or whose love they supported. On June 12, 2016, the LGBT community found itself at the center of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and even today, that’s a fact that can’t be stressed enough.

Sons, daughters, brother, sisters, cousins, best friends, music lovers, pet owners and activists were all taken from us that night, robbed from their families, their friends and their futures.

But as I noted then, the LGBT community is strong. We’re strong because we’ve always had to be. Because in 1969, when our only way to find acceptance was at a seedy bar, and when even our right to do that was threatened, the patrons of Stonewall showed us what strength was.

It’s a strength we carry with us, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Those men and women, and those that fought after them, gave us their strength: if only in the fact that perhaps for one moment, we didn’t second-guess ourselves before showing even the most minuscule display of public affection toward someone we love.

We now carry the strength of the Pulse Massacre victims with us, too.

A lot’s happened in a year.  For me personally, I got married. For America, Donald Trump won the Electoral College and became the 45th President of the United States. And for the world, Britney Spears released her ninth studio album. (Kidding. I mean, she did… but I digress.)

I don’t pretend to speak for the entire LGBT community. But I can tell you that for many of us, we weren’t okay a year ago, we haven’t been okay since, and if we seem “off” today, it’s because:

We are still not okay.

We’re not okay that in 2017 alone, Republicans have introduced over 100 anti-LGBT bills in 20 states. Or that following their “thoughts and prayers” last year, they’ve done nothing to change the laws that allowed a madman who’d previously been questioned by the FBI to so readily, so easily, so legally, obtain an AR-15-style semi-automatic assault rifle.

We’re not okay when the Muslim community is demonized because of the actions of one evil man or group. Many of us are Muslim, and we’ve all “been” the Muslim community: hated, feared, misunderstood. Questioned, berated, threatened, afraid to show our faces. Detained. When you try to ban one of us, you try to ban us all. 

We’re not okay that the Secretary of Education admitted that she wouldn’t work to prohibit LGBT discrimination for students. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24, a rate that’s four times greater for queer youth. The Human Rights Campaign found that since the election, almost 50% of LGBT youth said they’d taken steps to hide their orientation, with 70% saying they’d witnessed bullying, hate messages or harassment.

We’re not okay that a man who favored conversion therapy to “needy” HIV treatment, who said that LGBT service members weakened the military and cost the Indiana economy $60 million for his “license to discriminate” against us now calls himself the Vice President of the United States.

And we’re not okay when the president himself completely ignored LGBT Pride, opting instead to declare June as, among other things, “National Home Ownership Month.” The silence is telling, even dangerous, especially after Pulse. One need only look at the ongoing decimation of Transgender people in modern America, particularly transgender women of color, to see the danger in it.

So we’re certainly not okay when that president offers his hollow thoughts on the massacre’s anniversary, complete with no mention of the LGBT community. A president that, one year ago today as a candidate, was quick to politicize the tragedy and even claim that he “called it,” attempting to use the 49 deaths “he’ll never forget” to justify his unconstitutional Muslim ban. (The madman responsible was born in New York.)

And that’s to say nothing of his subsequent lies and pandering for the LGBT vote, nor the speech he gave ten minutes from the site, without visiting it, to anti-LGBT leaders two months later. As I said, my husband and I still haven’t gone: there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a place of healing for many, reclaimed after tragedy—but for us, it’s still too soon.

Donald Trump just didn’t care to go. And the fact that he pushed for his pro-gun agenda just eight days after the recent terror attacks in London only speaks to that fact.

On the anniversary of this heartbreaking, mind-numbing tragedy, if we’re truly “One Pulse,” truly “One Orlando,” it’s important that we recognize that we still aren’t okay – but more importantly, act upon it. 

Speak out. Be heard. Be seen. Vote in 2018. Vote in 2020.

Silence is acceptance, and we owe it to those in Orlando to use their strength and become the voices that they lost.

In loving memory of Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old. Amanda L. Alvear, 25 years old. Oscar A. Aracena Montero, 26 years old. Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, 33 years old. Antonio Davon Brown, 29 years old. Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old. Angel Candelario-Padro, 28 years old.

Of Juan Chavez Martinez, 25 years old. Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old. Cory James Connell, 21 years old. Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old. Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old. Simón Adrian Carrillo Fernández, 31 years old. Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old.

Of Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old. Peter Ommy Gonzalez Cruz, 22 years old. Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old. Paul Terrell Henry, 41 years old. Frank Hernandez, 27 years old. Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old. Javier Jorge Reyes, 40 years old.

Of Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old. Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old. Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25 years old. Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32 years old. Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old. Brenda Marquez McCool, 49 years old. Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, 25 years old.

Of Kimberly Jean Morris, 37 years old. Akyra Monet Murray, 18 years old. Luis Omar Ocasio Capo, 20 years old. Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, 25 years old. Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old. Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old. Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old. Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old. 

Of Jean Carlos Nieves Rodríguez, 27 years old. Xavier Emmanuel Serrano-Rosado, 35 years old. Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24 years old. Yilmary Rodríguez Solivan, 24 years old. Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old. Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old. Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old.

Of Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24 years old. Juan Pablo Rivera Velázquez, 37 years old. Luis Sergio Vielma, 22 years old. Franky Jimmy DeJesus Velázquez, 50 years old. Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old, and Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old.

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