In the Wake of Orlando

Yesterday morning, after waking up next to my partner and dog, I checked Facebook. It’s a bad habit. One I’m trying to break, but everyone was still asleep, so I hit the blue app open. I scrolled through photos of D.C. Pride – all my friends were smiling, adorned in their gayest/queerest/cutest outfits, bright colors, and of course, glitter.

Dressed for a celebration. I felt happy, and maybe a little homesick.

I scrolled some more until one status stood out. A friend posted an update asking her closest friends to pause for a moment. To not read the news quite yet. To know that we are all loved. “Moments like this are meant to tell us we don't matter,” she wrote. “Every LGBT person has withstood some degree of threat of death and harm, and ... today is not helping. But you do matter. So much.”

I wanted it to be a joke, though she’s not the joking type. And I scrolled some more, a small knot of worry forming somewhere in my gut, until I saw the headlines about Orlando. During the wee hours of Sunday morning, a gunman stormed into the city’s Pulse nightclub – frequented by the Latinx queer community – and committed a massacre. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It’s also the most extreme hate crime we’ve faced, with 49 people dead and another 50 or so injured (the numbers keep changing).

It’s been just over 24 hours since I read the news, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened. I’ve cried – only once in the few moments of solitude I had yesterday – but I’ve mostly been battling this strange numbness. We’re supposed to be past this, aren’t we?

Of course not. As of May 15, 12 trans people (that we know of) have been murdered in the U.S. this year alone. I don’t know a single queer person who hasn’t had a scary moment where something could have gone horribly bad, or horribly worse. I have friends who’ve been jumped and beaten for being trans, for being gay. I’ve had men threaten my partners or my personal safety with leering intimidation. But all in all I feel “safe” most days. Then again, as a white, cis, femme queer, I’m privileged.

Queer people of color face double the attacks, double the oppression, and so much more hate. Don’t get me wrong, Orlando is a terrifying tragedy for the entire queer community, but we can’t overlook race and culture here. Especially when so many media outlets are quick to use these 49 deaths as an excuse to stoke Islamophobia. As another Facebook friend put it: “The media did not give a flying f&*k about black and brown queer bodies before and it still won't after Orlando.”

As all of us mourn and gather and rebuild our spaces, we must hold each other closer. As queers, we’re asking for our allies to listen to us – to not vote for someone who supports anti-LGBT laws, to not turn a blind eye to the 100+ hate bills that have been created since January alone. But as white queers, we also have to be allies to our QPOC communities. We have to listen, we have to create and respect spaces for brown bodies to talk, to gather, to mourn. We have to speak up, yet not talk over.

In the last month, I’ve spent a lot of time talking, researching, and writing about the need for queer space – if there’s even still a real need. Today, I am more sure than ever that the answer to that question is yes, we do.

How many friendships and relationships have been made or strengthened at Cheer Up Charlies? On Fourth Street? At the departed Chances or Cockpit Club or Kiss & Fly? I, for one, will never forget San Francisco’s Lexington Club, or D.C.’s Phase 1, both of which are gone today.

We are at a crucial turning point in the LGBTQ rights movement. President Obama has become an outspoken ally, as has Attorney General Loretta Lynch. We have queer characters on TV. We’re starting to address trans rights. It’s almost a year to the day that marriage equality became law.

The truth is, that scares some people. And scared, bigoted people do cruel things. But they can’t win. They won’t defeat us. These are our spaces, our people, and we need them. We need each other. Today, hold your loved ones close. Take time to mourn (in whatever way that looks like for you), and remember – you are not alone. Strength in numbers is real, and, when united, we have real numbers.

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See all of Jana Birchum's images from the vigil in our photo gallery.