This One Resonated With Me

As a community we have faced hostility and violence and that shapes our reaction to Orlando. For non-trans people they can’t really understand what we are feeling. I found an article on the website Global Comment that listed seven thing non LGBT cannot understand how we feel about Orlando and the one that resonated with me was number four. Many Republican legislators are having a hard time saying that one of the motives of the shooter internalize homophobia.

4. This really, really was a hate crime and it really, really was political
Earlier this year, the UK’s Foreign Office warned LGBT Brits against travelling to certain parts of America due to discriminatory laws. Right-wing Americans pledged to carry guns into restrooms in case a trans person was presented and needed, Lord help us, to wee. When the Pope made a public statement about the Orlando attacks, he managed to do so without mentioning once that the victims were LGBT.

In this social and political climate, is it really so surprising that an American-born man was so riled up by his own homophobia and transphobia that, allegedly enraged by seeing two men kissing, he went on a rampage and shot 102 people?

Edward Sissons wrote in the Independent, “Queerphobia is no relic of a bygone era: it exists from the vigilante attacker on the street through to the hallowed institutions of the Congress and the Senate. What drives these attacks is the same hate that drives Republican governors to pass bills removing LGBTQ non-discrimination rights in North Carolina, the same prejudice that makes our blood unviable. Orlando is only an exception in magnitude, not an incident entirely without parallel and precedent.”

The choice of Pulse was not a random one: “You can’t keep us out of fucking bathrooms one week and then claim you care if we live or die the next. You don’t get to claim this for your war on terror.” (Latisha Nichole McDaniel)

When politician stir up hate it spills over in to many areas and one of the areas is bullying and harassment of LGBT people.

In West Hartford a man took his homophobia out on a Home Depot clerk according to NBC Connecticut,

A customer at the Home Depot in West Hartford allegedly called the cashier a derogatory slur and referenced the Orlando shooting that killed 49 people at a gay club in Florida, police said.
[…]
The cashier told police the suspect called him a slur and referenced the deadly Orlando incident where a gunman opened fire at an LGBT nightclub on Sunday, according to police. The customer's comments were overheard by another employee.

Hate knows no boundaries, once you light it’s fire you do not know where it will spread.