Op-Ed: One Year Later, We Are Still Not Okay
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
Of Jean Carlos Nieves RodrÃguez, 27 years old. Xavier Emmanuel Serrano-Rosado, 35 years old. Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24 years old. Yilmary RodrÃguez 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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Image via YouTube
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The Trump administration is facing a lawsuit accusing it of breaking federal law by taking down the LGBTQ+ Pride flag at New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.
The U.S. Department of the Interior and Secretary Doug Burgum, as well as the National Park Service and Acting Director Jessica Bowron, are named in the lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Gilbert Baker Foundation and others. Gilbert Baker is the artist who created the rainbow Pride flag.
“In the lawsuit,” The New York Times reported, “the Gilbert Baker Foundation argued that the original Pride flag fell under one of the allowed exceptions: to provide historical context at national monuments. This is the exception that allows Confederate flags to be flown at properties managed by the Park Service, including Gettysburg National Military Park.”
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“This was no careless mistake,” the lawsuit reads, according to a screenshot posted by New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman. “The government has not removed other historical flags at other national monuments, most notably Confederate flags.”
The suit alleges that the “assault on Stonewall is the latest example in a long line of efforts by the Trump Administration to target the LGBTQ+ community for discrimination and opprobrium.”
“In February 2025, for instance, the administration removed the word ‘transgender’ from prominent sections of the Stonewall monument’s website, as part of its wider campaign to demean and erase the transgender community,” it states.
“The Trump Administration has deleted numerous NPS websites discussing LGBTQ+ history,” it continues, “fired at least one federal employee for displaying a pride flag in his office; banned the use of pronouns in email signatures; renamed a John Lewis-class replenishment oiler named after Harvey Milk, a pioneering gay rights leader who served as a Navy officer and one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States.”
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It also cites what it calls “a particularly absurd example,” in which images of the B-29 aircraft Enola Gay — the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb — were flagged for deletion, apparently because the images included the word “Gay.”
The lawsuit alleges a “pattern of systemic targeting of the LGBTQ+ community—combined with the starkly disparate treatment of the Pride flag,” which it claims “demonstrates that the decision to alter the Stonewall monument was not just a mistake. It was based on an impermissible animus.”
Numerous New York elected leaders at all levels, including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, denounced the administration’s removal of the flag.
The removal became a national flashpoint, drawing hundreds of locals to protest and prompting elected leaders to vow to raise it again.
Activists and officials gathered for multiple demonstrations at the Stonewall National Monument, where they raised a new Pride flag — an act that the Trump administration condemned as a “political stunt.”
READ MORE: Massie Warns of Growing GOP ‘Defections’
Image via Reuters
A prominent House Republican who successfully advanced bipartisan legislation to release the Epstein files is predicting there will be more GOP “defections” once the primaries are over.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Politico that because Speaker Mike Johnson’s majority is so thin, “on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done” that goes against the Trump administration’s agenda.
He said that “what’s happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.”
Massie added that “quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me.”
In a surprising revelation, Massie said that House Republicans “are being told every week to stand down, bite their tongue, sit on their hands, do what they’re told, be part of the team and put their brain in neutral.”
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Massie also offered several other pointed remarks.
He noted that after President Trump called him a “moron” at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, pastors were “not impressed and I don’t think anybody was impressed by his performance at the prayer breakfast. It was completely political.”
The Kentucky Republican further directed strong criticism toward Attorney General Pam Bondi after being the only member of his party to, as Politico reported, “spar” with her at last week’s contentious congressional hearing.
“When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet,” he said.
Massie described Bondi as looking “weak and frustrated” at the hearing “when she started talking about the Dow Jones, which has literally nothing to do with her job.”
“I thought that looked bad,” he said. He also pointed to her “stack of insults that were pre-prepared — in politics you might call it oppo research — and you could see her shuffling through them to try and find which one matched the person who was trying to ask her a question at the time. She found my card like right at the end, as you can see she was looking for it.”
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Image via Reuters
Far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes — who brands himself “America First” — once again is putting President Donald Trump and the GOP on notice, saying that Republicans are “gonna get destroyed” in the 2026 midterms and by 2028 it will be “Democrats on steroids.”
“We are headed for an utter and total defeat in the midterms,” Fuentes predicted on his Rumble streaming show on Monday, urging his supporters to not vote in November. Fuentes has 1.2 million followers on the X social media platform.
He said that “the Democrats will take the House, and then it is impeachment City. We are taking a trip to impeachment City.”
Democrats, Fuentes declared, will win the House and the Senate, and “then it’s impeachments, subpoenas, depositions, investigations. Trump might even be removed from office.”
“When all is said and done, he might even be pulled by his own people. That — there is a non-zero chance. As a matter of fact, there’s a good chance that’s gonna happen.”
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“Trump is getting impeached,” Fuentes continued. “Vance is getting impeached. Hegseth is — they’re all getting impeached. They’re all being subpoenaed. They’re all being deposed.”
“I warned you,” Fuentes said. “I told you, this is what was gonna happen.”
“My message in ’26, you could take it or leave it. Don’t vote. Don’t vote, do not vote in the midterms. The Republicans have to lose. They have to lose. They have to crash and burn. A cleansing fire is the only thing that will save us. It cannot be fixed.”
“F — — Trump, f — — MAGA, f — — all this stuff. It can’t be fixed. If it could have been fixed, it would have been fixed in 2025, but it wasn’t.”
“They made every mistake. Liberation Day: disaster. DOGE: disaster. Big, beautiful bill: disaster. Epstein files: disaster. Iran: disaster.
“The personnel — Mike Waltz: disaster. Ratcliffe: disaster, Rubio: disaster. Pam Bondi: disaster — all self-inflicted. Trump personnel, Trump policy, Trump strategy, Trump playbook — we tried it your way, it didn’t work.”
“Now we don’t vote. That’s the message. Seriously. Can’t blame anybody else. Bad advice, bad advisors, Biden’s economy. Enough already. It didn’t work. We’re not voting. I’m staying home, and you know what? I hope the Democrats impeach him. I hope the Democrats impeach all of them. I hope they indict everybody. I hope they depose and compel the release of documents, and I hope they find all the criminal behavior, and I hope it destroys the GOP. I hope it creates a crisis for the GOP so severe that they never recover.”
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Fuentes predicted that “in two years, this is gonna be the most unpopular administration in history. It’s gonna be a repeat of 2020. That’s what we’re looking at here.”
“Think about where Trump is — lowest approval rating of any modern president. Trump’s approval is lower at this point in his presidency, lower than Biden at this point, lower than Trump was at this point. Lowest that it’s been in the second term.”
He also lamented the lack of results he and his “America First” followers wanted.
“He’s completely underwater with the under 40 crowd, and it’s only gonna get worse, especially because Trump is not delivering on these things. No mass deportations, economy’s not getting better. Housing prices have literally never been more unaffordable. The wars are escalating, actually, as opposed to getting better. And now, we seriously have to contend with the possibility that in 2028, we get Democrats on steroids. We get Democrats with a vengeance.”
Fuentes has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “white nationalist,” an “admirer of fascists,” and someone who “frequently relies on antisemitic tropes.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, “Fuentes has used his platforms to make numerous antisemitic, racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments,” and spreads “white supremacist propaganda.”
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Image via Reuters
How Trump Used Jesse Jackson’s Death to Argue He’s Not a Racist
‘Republicans Have to Lose’: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice
Massie Warns of Growing GOP ‘Defections’
Trump Administration Hit With Lawsuit for Removing Pride Flag
Trump Administration Hit With Lawsuit for Removing Pride Flag
Massie Warns of Growing GOP ‘Defections’
‘Republicans Have to Lose’: Far Right Extremist Leader Puts Trump on Notice
How Trump Used Jesse Jackson’s Death to Argue He’s Not a Racist
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