One year ago today, Omar Mateen opened fire in Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida. Over the past year, this incident has come to have a greater impact on me than it did when it actually happened. Perhaps it's because I experienced the loss of Griffin in a horrendous tragedy, so the notion of premature, unfair death became more tangible to me. But perhaps it's also because of how much more I have leaned into my identity and my community within the past year.
Last year, the phrase "hate crime" floated around when describing the incident. At the time, I didn't really think of Pulse as a hate crime; just as another shooting (which I've become desensitized to, as fucked up as that is). But I was wrong--it was a hate crime. Omar Mateen could have gone to any other bar or night club; but he chose Pulse, a flagrant symbol of the Orlando LGBTQ+ community. And he chose Latin night at Pulse, specifically targeting queer people of color.
Why does it matter that it was a gay bar and not some straight bar? Because gay clubs and bars are the closest thing that we have to truly safe spaces. They are basically the only spaces in society where LGBTQ+ people are the dominant group* (just as mainstream society is built around the heterosexual, cisgender, white male), so we are free not to have to hide.
The notion of gay bars as safe spaces has been one of the most important things that I've learned and experienced over the past year. It's not just by chance that I know virtually no non-gay bars in San Francisco. I feel uncomfortable in those spaces, whereas I feel safe in The Mix, or Toad Hall, or Hi Tops, or Lookout. Opening fire on a gay bar was an unpleasant reminder that no gay bar is truly a safe space, just as the Stonewall Inn police raid of 1969 did. For several months after Pulse, QBar (and probably other gay bars worldwide) required all entering patrons to undergo a metal detector screening. It was heartbreaking to be reminded that by merely entering a gay bar, your life could be in jeopardy.
Pulse happened during Pride season. I don't know if that was intentional as an attempt to set us back, but it didn't work. Because "Pride" is not about hubris, as many straight people think. It is about showing solidarity for one another as we navigate the straight world, a world which is not conducive to our existence.** So even though our safe spaces were violated, that will not stop us. We will hug each other just a little bit tighter and just a little bit longer. And we will proclaim our identities even louder.
* That is why it is so offensive when straight women come to gay bars, usually for their bachelorette parties, and try to take over the bar. They already own straight bars where they can gain admission for free (not that there isn't a horrendous issue and power imbalance there), but they feel the need to also take what rightfully belongs to us: the only place where we get to dictate how things are run.
** And that is why we do not need to have "straight pride". "Straight pride" happens every day. Or, in San Francisco, "straight pride" is called Bay to Breakers.
