The horror wasn’t a “one time thing”. Just the first time the world seems to be paying attention.
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By Julian Klein
Death is always painful, but when it comes from extreme violence and the death toll so high, it is especially awful. We have suffered a huge tragedy in Orlando, and no one will question that.
However, it highlighted issues the LGBTQ community faces every damn day.
As much as I hate to say it, this was not an isolated incident, but an escalated one. Here are four ways the LGBTQ community experiences this type of hate and discrimination every single day that most people don’t even notice:
1. Violence and harassment against the community.
There is almost never a day that goes by without there being a transwoman, gay man, or other LGBTQ person berated on the subway, kicked out of a taxi, beaten to a pulp, or killed in the street. Unless you’re in the community and follow LGBTQ news sources, you never even hear about them.
Why?
Because not everyone agrees these are hate crimes, or that queer people deserve protection, or that the LGBTQ community is made up of real people just like everyone else.
If you are seen as inherently inferior because of who you are and who you love, people will not mourn your death as much, and won’t care enough to prevent it from happening again.
2. Gay/bisexual men can’t donate blood.
After it was discovered in the 1980’s that HIV could spread through blood, the FDA put a ban on men giving blood if they had sex with another man.
Even though STD prevention and screening has dramatically improved, the ban still exists. It now specifies that you may not donate if you had sex men in the past year, but only if you are also a man. Thus perpetuating the stigma that same-sex intercourse is somehow more risky than straight relationships.
Some diseases may be more common is some communities, but these are always screened for in blood donations anyway, so blocking people from directly helping others is horrifying.
In Orlando, men couldn’t give blood to their loved ones, simply because of who they sleep with and love.
3. Finding sanctuary in bars, and having that sense of security destroyed.
As early as the 1940’s, LGBTQ people have congregated in bars as a way to find each other and fight the loneliness that comes with being someone different, and to feel safe.
And since the beginning, outsiders have forced their way in, tore everything apart, and left people hurt and bleeding behind. It was the riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 that told the world that these transgressions would no longer be accepted without resistance, and it has been that way ever since.
In the current day, anyone is welcome in a gay bar, provided they behave and understand it is not their space. It’s impossible count to how many straight people I’ve seen at the gay bar trying to avoid the pressures of other bars. But they sometimes say and do awful things when someone of the same sex hits on them, and even those seemingly minor offenses are a violation of the safe space.
The violence in Orlando is an example of the invasion of safe space, but on a much larger scale.
4. LGBTQ issues being erased by “bigger” fears.
Over and over, we are hearing about the fact the Orlando shooter was Muslim, or that gun control laws need to be stricter. Outside the community, racism and fear of terrorism have completely taken over, and it happens all the goddamned time. There are killings happening to LGBTQ people all over the world, but they always get grouped with other political movements.
Russian gay men are being publicly killed and beaten, but instead of the US condemning it, they ignore it in favor of other issues.
The Orlando shooter was Muslim, and yes, ISIS is claiming responsibility. However, his family never heard him say radical things about Islam or infidels. But they did hear plenty of hate speech directed at the LGBTQ community.
His guns were legal, and his target was very specific. Yes, there needs to be a significant amount of gun reform.
But shouting it without addressing that violence against the gay community is higher than ever negates the tragedy of their deaths. Islamophobia and fear of guns should not be valued more than the deaths of these innocent people.
June is National Pride Month. Not only are we proud, we are ALIVE. We have always existed, and will continue to do so until the end of time. We are human and have the right to exist, to love, and to thrive, and June is our time to declare it, despite everything working against us.
Stand beside us to mourn this tragedy, but never forget that it belongs to us, and do not silence us.
This article originally appeared on Your Tango. For more like this from Your Tango, try:
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Photo credit: Getty Images